WEBVTT - Part One: The Rush Limbaugh Episodes with Paul F. Tompkins 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:08.120 Welcome to Behind the Bastards, the podcast that I continually 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:13.760 failed to introduce like a professional, which is particularly shameful 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:18.720 this week because our guest is a very professional voice artist, 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:24.360 Mr Paul F. Tom Good. Thank you for having me. 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:27.760 Thank you for being here. Paul Um. You are the 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.360 voice of a lot of characters that that that a 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.479 lot of people enjoy. Uh. I think most famously to 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.839 me at least, UH is Mr Peanut butter Um to 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:39.360 the voice of a lot of characters that people hate. 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:43.720 That's true. That's true because if you're really achieving as 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:45.840 an artist, a lot of people are going to hate 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:50.120 anything that you do. That's the you're doing it right exactly. 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:54.680 And today we're talking about a truly historical success of 0:00:54.720 --> 0:01:00.120 a creative mind. A man hated py tens of millions 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.320 of people and who should be hated by billions, a 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:05.759 man who has done, I would say, in calculable harm 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:07.880 to the future of human life and all life on 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:13.320 this planet. Mr rush Limbaugh. Yeah, Paul, what do you 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:15.160 have any kind of history with Rush Limbaugh, like in 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:16.840 terms of your upbringing and stuff. I don't know much 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:18.560 about how you grew up. Yeah, do you know what 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:22.240 I forgot. Uh that I forgot. First of all, I 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.880 forgot how long he's been around. And I remember watching 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:30.680 him in his earliest days on TV UM and watching 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:32.600 that show like as a goof the way, I would watch, 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.080 you know, the Morton Downey Junior Show or a little 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.320 Wally George or whatever, and just like, who is this clown? 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.440 And he's like doing this this sort of you know 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.679 what seemed like a character you know at the time, 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.040 because he I think he fancied himself an entertainer and 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.080 had a show that had little skits in it and 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:54.480 stuff like that, and I I thought he was just ridiculous, 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:59.880 and so uh, I watched him ironically and um, and 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.720 then things just got worse. Like I I sort of 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:05.840 got tired of it. I remember getting tired of it 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:07.840 and like, Okay, this is just like the same thing 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.680 over and over again, and it's not, um, it's not 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:17.000 pushing that uh that button in my ironic pleasure center anymore. 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:21.519 So I just stopped watching. But he, um, despite despite 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.360 my my jumping ship and you to do what he 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:29.280 was doing. He lost the Paul left Topkins demographic, but 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.120 he kept the my parents and everyone that raised me demographics. 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:38.519 So what was your upbringing particularly political? Would you say not, 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.520 you know what, not super political. I was raised, Uh. 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:47.160 My family was a um uh lower middle class, uh, 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:54.000 big Catholic family, UM in Philadelphia, in in a sort 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.160 of suburb called mount Airy, and we were both of 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:02.600 my My family was like lifelong Democrats, you know, Philadelphia Democrats. 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:05.120 And so that was kind of it, Like we were 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:09.400 just sort of um you know, uh like a conservative 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:15.320 liberal family. Uh and um, yeah, I I we we 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:20.480 didn't talk a lot about politics in the house growing up. Um, 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:22.880 and that was kind of it. But I knew that 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.519 we were. We were liberal Democrats, you know, who were 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:31.160 weirdly enough, guided by guided by I'm not even gonna 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.239 say faith. I think we were guided by my parents, 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:39.560 um sort of morals where they were greatest generation Depression babies. Um. 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:46.680 And uh they voted straight Democrat um. But they were 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.119 not like even though we were Catholic, it was like 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:54.320 we were not single issue voters, you know. Um, but 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:58.040 they but my family was my parents were brought up 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:02.680 with the same sort of um prejudices that people of 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.360 their generation were brought up with, you know. But but yeah, 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.040 politics did not figure in it. What it was like 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:09.640 when I got when I got uh, you know, a 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:11.880 little older and out of the house and everything, that's 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.800 when I started, um, you know, investigating my own politics. 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.160 And it was like a long a journey. You know. 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.000 That is very exciting to me. Um, just because you're 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:25.320 you're you, you came from kind of more of a 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.520 you know, a liberally background, and your introduction to Russia 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:32.440 Limbaugh was kind of watching it as a character, right. Yeah. Yeah, 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.680 I grew up very conservative. Um My parents were also 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:38.000 lower middle class, verging on poor. And when I was 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.200 like kind of little, a lot of economic anxiety, but 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:44.960 extremely conservative. I would say like our family religion was conservatism, 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.640 and so Russia Limbaugh was caught. Whenever I was driving 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:49.520 with my mom or my dad, Rush was on. We would, 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.480 we would, we listened to him. My parents talked about him. 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.039 So my upbringing with him was that this guy is 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.520 like the profit of of what's what's right, you know, 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.760 both in the political sense and in a moral sense. Um. 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:03.640 So I'm very excited about this, and I'm excited that 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:05.479 you know who Morton Downey Jr. Is because we're gonna 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:09.480 be talking about him a bit too. So yeah, Um, 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.480 Rush Limbaugh is it's hard to oversell this guy's influence 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:15.040 on our current state of Like, I think it would 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.039 be fair to say we're kind of like verging on 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:19.520 civil conflict right now between the right and left in 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:24.680 the United States. Yeah, for sure. Um so yeah, And 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:26.880 I think Rush Limbaugh has a huge might be the 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:31.400 man most responsible for that. I totally agree that his 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:37.839 influence cannot be Uh is it overestimated, like cannotated? It's 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:45.680 like I the day he died, I tweeted, I tweeted, Uh, 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.919 if I had to say something positive, I guess if 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.159 I had to say something positive, I'm glad Rush Limbaugh 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:55.080 lived long enough to get cancer and die. Um. And 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.080 then that got that got picked up by uh fox 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.720 news dot com. They did a round up of you know, 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:07.279 uh liberals celebrated Rush Limbaugh's death, which really was just like, Hey, 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.080 if you want to harass some people, here's here's pseudo rass. 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:12.680 And I had people, I had people in my mentions 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:19.240 on Twitter like saying things like, uh, you better pray 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:25.160 you never meet me, like like people implying violence because 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.440 I said I'm glad Rush Limbaugh is dead. I had 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:33.000 somebody call my call my house and say Rush Limbaugh 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:36.520 contributed far more good to society than you ever will 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:42.800 find for Rush Limbaugh. This guy, but I mean, this 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.240 guy had a show. He had a show. He wasn't 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.640 a legislator. He wasn't he wasn't like some some sort 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.560 of freedom fighter. This guy just had a show where 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.599 he said mean things, where where he repeatedly celebrated the 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.320 deaths of his enemies and made half a billion dollars 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:04.039 doing it. Okay, let's let's get into Russia's life. So 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:06.440 the first thing I learned about him when I started 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.400 digging him into him, that might be the thing I 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:10.760 learned about him that surprised me the most. Russia is 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.640 not short for anything. Russia is a full a full 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:17.280 first name, and in fact, Rush Limbaugh is the third 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.440 Rush Limbaugh in his family line. They are very proud 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:24.760 of that name. His grandpa, Rush Senior was born and 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.760 raised in Bollinger County, Missouri, so he and I are 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.200 both Missouri babies. He grew up into a world that 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.240 was changing rapidly. Rush Senior saw an electric light for 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:34.960 the first time when he was twelve. He took his 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:40.960 first railroad trip in nineteen o four. He always thought 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:42.640 that was one of those things. It was like, I 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.960 choose that. That is the most shocking thing about him. 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.480 He rushed Limba is not only his full name, it 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.000 is the only name his family seems to give their 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:57.600 firstborn sons. If he broke uh So Russia Rush Senior 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.200 became a lawyer. He opened an office in Cape are 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.680 do Um, Missouri, and he basically never left the town again. 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.000 He retired in nineteen ninety four at the age of 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:09.480 a hundred and two, which I mentioned because it suggests 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.600 that all those cigars rush us are Rush Limbaugh smoked 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.080 saved us about thirty two years more of his show. 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:19.520 I'm sorry, did you say he retired auto in nineteen 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.200 ninety four? Yeah? And then how long did he live 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.240 after that? I think he died. I think he died 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.080 immediately from what YE like. He's one of those guys 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.840 who worked until he died. Basically, some people are like that. 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:38.839 You know, his grandson was like that. Uh So Rush 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.840 Senior was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives when 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:44.760 he was forty. His main political issue was fighting FDR 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.679 and the New Deal, which shouldn't be surprising to anybody, right, 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.440 This is deeply deeply embedded in the Rush limball line. 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.640 In nineteen thirty six, Rush Limbas Sr. Was a Republican 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.920 delicate at the Republican National Convention, where he helped nominate 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.560 Alf Landon for the noble job of losing to Franklin 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.439 del Roosevelt in an election. You don't nobody, nobody was 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.400 better at campaigning than FDR. It was never a successful 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:10.599 thing to run against that. I know, somebody had to 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:16.439 be his Washington generals, Yeah, Outland and the Washington generals 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.080 of Republican politics. Uh So, my main source for the 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.600 early life and family history of Rush Limbaugh is a 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:26.160 fairly comprehensive, if I would say, kind of fawning biography 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:29.599 of Limbaugh by Zev chaffits uh and Zev it's a 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:34.400 weird first named ze apostrophe e v. Chaff It's uh. 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.080 He notes that over the course of decades of lawyering, 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:42.120 Rush Senior quote quietly but inevitably became well to do um, 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:43.960 which is an interesting way of phrasing it. Just like 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.360 there was no stopping and he just got it. Was 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:47.880 kind of a way of making it seem like he 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.120 just he didn't really want to become rich. He just 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:56.920 became rich. You know, that is the most suspicious sounding phrase. Inevitably, 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:04.120 quietly and inevitably got rich. Sinister, God, it is very sinister. Um. 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.560 So Rush Junior, who is our Rush Limball's father, was 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.360 born at some point Quick Google obviously he had been born. 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:13.880 Quick Googling didn't return a date. He's the only Rush 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.800 Limball without a Wikipedia page, which I guess kind of 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.360 a kind of a shot to him. Um. I could 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.320 have probably found it out if I'd really dug into it. 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:23.400 But it doesn't really matter that much for our purposes. Yeah, 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:24.959 he did what he had to do. He gave us Rush. 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:30.560 He gave us our rush. Y O U R Rush. 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.560 So Rush Junior is only important for the impact that 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:35.839 he had on our rush. He was a World War 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.960 two combat pilot, which is undeniably rad. You gotta give 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.520 him that, um, and his biography notes that he maintained 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.360 a military crew cut for his entire life. He was 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.400 heavy set and top data out at about three hundred pounds, 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:55.120 which earned him the nickname Big Rush, Big Rush, one 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:59.480 of those names. And you you cannot combat like your 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:03.120 Big Rush, sorry, Big Rush us. You can ask politely, 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:07.840 it's not gonna happen. Why are you in a big rush? Uh? 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:12.760 So Big Rush became an attorney because I'm always rushing around. 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:17.040 I'm always rushing around. So Big Rush became an attorney 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:19.400 like his dad and his brother, who eventually went on 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.360 to become a federal judge. Big Rush was a powerful 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.360 orator and often gave speeches in the town of Cape Girardo, 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.760 doing during holidays. His very conservative politics influenced these speeches, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.880 and his most famous one was a tearful hagiographic speech 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.120 about our nations saintly founding fathers. Again, you can see 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:37.920 he clearly had kind of the same gift of gab 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.439 that our Rush has. And I you have to admit, 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.360 if you know anything about our Rush Limbaugh, he was 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.920 an undeniably talented broadcaster. He was very good at what 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.560 he did. That's why he had the impact that absolutely Yeah, now, 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:54.600 our Rush Limbaugh A Rush Hudson Limbaugh, the third to 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:58.079 give his full name, was born in Cape Girardo, Mississippi, 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:02.040 on January or Missouri sorry, January twelfth, nineteen fifty one. 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.200 By all accounts, he had a financially comfortable upbringing with 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.839 a brother and the parents who loved him. Baby Rush 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.200 spent his childhood and bubing a steady diet of his 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:14.120 dad's rants about scummy liberals and evil, conniving communists. One 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.920 of our Russia's childhood friends recalls of Big Rush of 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.800 his dad quote, We'd go over to his house sometimes 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:21.960 just to watch him watch the six o'clock news. He'd 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:24.199 sit in front of the television, drinking black cherry pop, 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.080 eating popcorn, and just railing at the anchorman and the reporters. 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.880 He'd yell at Dan Rather, they're all typical liberals, and 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.199 Rather's the worst one of the bunch. And we'd try 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.080 to keep him going. You know, Mr Rush, what do 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:35.600 you think about this? Mr? Rush? What do you think 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.959 about that? Sometimes he'd say Kender, that was this friend's name. 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.120 You're gonna be the first Dutchman on the moon. I 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.000 don't know exactly what he meant by that, but he 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:44.960 was trying to be friendly. I liked him, but he 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:49.400 was a harsh taskmaster with his sons. An odd comment. 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.160 So Rush has a has a brother or Russia and 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:57.480 a brother. He has a brother, David Um who was 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.760 his younger brother. No, no, no, I think it's the oldest, 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.360 the oldest son as the Rush gets the Rush name. 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.199 They didn't do a George for David becomes like a lawyer, 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.560 doesn't really leave Cape Gerardo and is like, um, you know, 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.080 he's he's he unlike his brother has a family, has 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.440 like a wife that he's you know, stays with and 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.079 all that stuff. Did he quietly but inevitably become wealthy. 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:21.920 I think yeah, I think he was bored wealthy. He 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.800 and his brother were both born rich as hell. Um 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.600 so and and our Russia's brother David provided an even 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:29.960 more telling glimpse of kind of what their childhood was 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.360 like under Big Rush. My dad stood out. Sometimes he 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.040 provoked people who didn't agree with him to violence. Once, 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.439 for example, he was in a bar slamming FDR and 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:40.160 a couple of guys jumped him and beat him up. 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.160 I never did ask him the details of that one, 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.000 but it was a couple of guys, not a fair fight. 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.800 I know that much. I have to assume he deserved 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.240 to get the ship kicked out of I'm gonna guess 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:53.120 he was saying something like, the people who got screwed 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:55.120 over in the Great Depression deserve to starve to death. 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.120 We shouldn't be helping that that's gonna be my guest. 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:58.760 And he got the ship kicked out of him by 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.880 some w p A guys something like that. If your 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:04.440 name is if your name is Big Rush and two 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:06.480 guys go after you, I think that's a fair fight. 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:08.839 That's a fair fight. You're big, you know. Yeah, he's 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:10.960 a little Rush, he's three hundred pounds. They're probably each 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.400 about a buck fifty. You know, their fight exactly, they're 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:20.880 fight by mass being poor. Yeah, that's so. Our Rush 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.960 was born into the Eisenhower Years, which will probably always 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.640 be remembered as like the high point of both capitalism 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:30.480 and the United States. This period of peak American exceptionalism 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.200 imprinted itself deeply on Russia's growing brain. His father was 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:38.040 made a special ambassador to India's legal system, Their family 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:42.960 got their first television. Um, yeah, yeah, he was. I 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.320 think it means you know, India's was newly independent in 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.080 the Eisenhower years, right, they had just the UK had 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:53.000 just left, they had just partitioned with Pakistan. They're developing 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.880 their own independent legal system, and they're a democracy that 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.520 was heavily based at least initially on the US. So 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.480 the president like kicked guys who were established lawyers like 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.760 Big Rush and also established Republicans to be a kind 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:10.560 of help set up the Indian legal system. Um, that's 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:12.680 kind of what happened. So yeah, his his father's a 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:16.320 big man in Republican politics. Rush grows up seeing in 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.640 the period where America is undeniably like like literally is 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.640 half of the global economy. Right, that's a very significant 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.400 thing for him. Um. So the family in the fifties 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.320 gets their first TV, but radio is still the dominant 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.640 method of entertainment in those days, and Russia's childhood and 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:35.000 earlier adolescence coincided with the birth of rock and roll 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:39.320 and the absolute peak of cultural relevance for DJs. Um 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.120 My dad grew up at a pretty similar period of time. 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.920 He's like seven or eight years younger than Rush. Um, 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:46.720 and he he grew up the only thing my dad 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:48.720 ever wanted to be was a DJ, and he wasn't 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:50.800 a radio DJ for like twenty thirty years. You know, 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.600 that was like the coolest thing that you could do, right. 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.880 You didn't have Spotify, you didn't have the Internet. People 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.560 learned about new music from DJs who were kind of 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:01.640 like pick what they were going to play on the radio. 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:04.640 It was the like the absolute rattus thing you could be, 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.560 and that's what Rush like. He he idolizes these big 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:10.400 DJs of the time, and that's all he wants to be. 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:14.280 For Basically, his entire young life is a DJ. Now, 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.960 when Rush was three Brown versus the Board of Education 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:18.880 was ruled on by the Supreme Court, which led to 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:22.280 the integration of U S schools now Zeve Chaffittz doesn't 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.360 write anything specific in the biography about how Rush Senior 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.640 talked about race to his son. I have not We 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.720 don't get any of that information. And I'm not necessarily 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.200 blaming Chappits for that because I think the Rush family 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.720 is very pr savvy. They don't talk about it. You know. 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.480 I don't know who he would have gotten that info from, um, 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:43.800 but our Rush would have definitely picked up on the 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.960 great deal of conflict in Cape Gerardo over racial matters. Uh. 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.160 Missouri is an odd state and that it is both 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.360 Midwestern and Southern. During the Civil War, it was split 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.280 between Yankee and Confederate sympathizers, and the town that Rush 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.040 grew up in had monuments to the dead of both sides. 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.080 There was tremendous resistance to the idea of integration of 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.680 schools in Missouri and in Cape Gerardo, and Zeve Chappitts, 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.960 to his credit, writes about this quote. In nineteen fifty two, 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:12.840 Kate built its white students a new school, Central High. 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:15.800 Blacks continued to attend Cobb High School, but the supreme 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:19.520 court and basketball changed that. Cape Gerardou took its high 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:23.200 school basketball very seriously and sometimes contended for the state title. 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.119 The nineteen fifty three team was expected to be a powerhouse, 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.080 but word got around that the kids from Cobb were 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.119 even better. An informal game was arranged between Central and 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.680 Cob High, says historian Frank Nichol cob one. Shortly thereafter, 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.440 Cob mysteriously burned down. Black students went to school and 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.200 churches and private homes that year. But a more permanent 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.080 solution was, yeah, they that's the kind of town. He 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.359 grows up and the black kids win at basketball and 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:51.000 they burned their school down. Wow. Yeah, Cape Gerardo is 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:54.600 a very racist town. Um and kind of more to 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.560 the point, like, we don't know exactly what what Russia's 0:17:57.640 --> 0:17:59.680 dad would have said about any of this. We don't 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:01.680 know that he would have supported the burning down of 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.560 the black school. We don't know that he wouldn't though, 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:09.680 that's right. Um, and you know, the the conservatives were 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.440 definitely more on the don't integrate side of things, right. Uh. Now, 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.640 a compromise, a compromise was eventually reached in Cape Girardo, 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:18.919 and the compromise was that black kids would be allowed 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.119 to attend Central High but they would be put in 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.359 special classes that were taught by former teachers of Cobb, 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.480 the school that had been burned down. Um. This was 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.400 kind of integrating by not integrating. So there were black 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:31.919 and white kids in the same school, but not in 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.560 the same classes. And this is the way things were 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:39.120 in Cape Girardo when Russia Limballs started school. Um. So yeah, 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.560 that's you can infer from that what you will based 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:44.560 on some of the things Rush Limbaugh says and does 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.640 later in life. I think we're missing some important information 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.280 about what his dad thought about black people. Um. I 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:55.720 don't remember, if ever being concerned as to the investigation 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:59.320 of that fire. I don't think he would burn high school. 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.959 He might have done it like that is rampant an 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:09.400 irresponsible speculation on my part, but also uh, the only 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:11.080 reason I think he wouldn't have is that he wouldn't 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:13.160 have been able to run away from it. In mind, 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:16.520 from what I can tell, um, he didn't do well 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:18.760 in that fight, is all I'm saying. So Russia had 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:21.399 an upbringing that would have been fairly standard for a 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.480 rich kid of his era. He played basketball, he did shores, 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:26.359 He had plenty of friends. He was not an overly 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.280 active kid. He did not like sports. He hated his 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:31.560 one year in the cub Scouts. Russia the ball hates 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:40.600 the outdoors his entire life. Um, he did not like school, 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.560 but he was popular, largely because his family was rich 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:45.439 and had a huge basement with a pool table and 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.120 a bunch of other luxuries. The kids rush hung out 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.240 with during this time give us some of our best 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.720 hints about the darker elements of his childhood. One of 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:57.840 them told Zeve Chaffits quote, Russia's dad didn't suffer fools lightly. 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.679 He was always very disapproving of Russia his ambitions to 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.080 have a career in radio. Russia's mom was a kind, 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:05.480 gentle person, but his dad could be pretty rough. He 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.920 was not above calling down Russian David in front of 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:09.560 their friends, and when he did it, there was a 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:12.920 string of expletives attached. I saw that happen many times. 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:17.040 So kind of abusive, not I don't think, by the 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:18.960 standards of the time, and I haven't heard any of 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:21.240 that he was like leading his kids or anything, but 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:25.239 kind of mentally abusive. Again, probably more or less in 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.720 line with what most most men of his social class 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:30.000 would have been like to their kids. You know, I 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.240 don't think this was abnormal. I mean, how many how 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:37.760 many of these guys were born out of the the 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:42.199 the sort of ritual humiliation by their fathers in front 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.439 of an audience. Yeah, I think most of them. You know. 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.560 It's it's such a it's such a common thing that 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:50.639 I'm I guess I'm just glad my dad was a 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:54.200 guy who didn't say anything. Ever, Yeah, it's better than 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.120 humiliating you in front of your friends when you say 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:01.760 something he disagrees with. So every one of Russia's early 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.639 friends that I've seen interviewed is very consistent about the 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:06.760 fact that he was not political. From an early age. 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.439 He rarely, if ever talked politics, and he did not 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.560 express strong beliefs. One of his friends even remembers him 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.520 as a particularly good debater in school because quote. He 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:18.760 could argue either side of a proposition without missing a beat. 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.959 When he did express political opinions, they were generally conservative. 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:25.480 One friend noted that the only time he saw child 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:28.479 Rush express a strong political sentiment was after the nineteen 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:32.440 sixty presidential election when Rush was nine. Quote Rush wrote 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.520 wrote on a drywall, Kennedy one darn Nixon lost. Shucks. 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:42.639 So grows up conservative because his dad is conservative. But 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.119 it's clearly politics is not a big part of his 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.280 life from an early age. He's not like been Shapiro right, 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:50.760 where from the get go he's being sort of um 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:53.720 like focused into becoming a political commentator. That does not 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.000 happen with Rush Limbaugh. He's more from the darn shucks 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:01.399 school of the darn shucks school political commentary. Yeah. So 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:04.040 Rush got his first gig at age thirteen, working at 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.399 a downtown barber shop. He later told his biographer that 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:09.200