Speaker 1: Cold Zone Media. Hey, it's Shamie here, just quickly saying
Speaker 1: if you live in the Los Angeles area, I'm starting
Speaker 1: to workshop my first one person show in a couple
Speaker 1: of years. It's called The Tiny Man Is Going to
Speaker 1: Kill Me. Don't ask, just show up. It's super silly.
Speaker 1: I'll be doing it at the Lyric Hyperion in workshop
Speaker 1: form on November one and November twentieth, and tickets are
Speaker 1: on sale now. I'll be doing a taping later and
Speaker 1: I'll let you know when tickets are on sale to that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if you're in the LA area, come on out.
Speaker 1: The Tiny Man Is Going to Kill Me. And with that,
Speaker 1: here's our Ken Bone Part two episode Bye. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to sixteenth Minute, the show where we talk to the
Speaker 1: Internet's characters of the day and see how their moment
Speaker 1: affected them and what it says about the Internet and us.
Speaker 1: My name is Jamie Loftus and this week is part
Speaker 1: two of two of our Ken Bone series. If you
Speaker 1: haven't listened to part one, scroll down. King You've got this.
Speaker 1: But if you're only here because you want to hear
Speaker 1: the dulcent tones of Ken himself, you're in the right place.
Speaker 1: It's now been eight years since Ken became an overnight sensation,
Speaker 1: creating what many thought was an irrational amount of media
Speaker 1: attention after asking a question at a presidential town hall
Speaker 1: debate in twenty sixteen, a particularly awkward and creepy event
Speaker 1: between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. You can hear all
Speaker 1: about the context of why Ken was so popular and
Speaker 1: what the history of these American debates are in Part one.
Speaker 1: But this week I'm going to let Ken take the mic.
Speaker 1: Here is our interview. Okay, Ken vone, Hello.
Speaker 2: Ry, how are you today?
Speaker 1: How are things in your world right now? I'm realizing
Speaker 1: that I've known who you are for the better part
Speaker 1: of a decade now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're coming up on the a anniversary of me
Speaker 2: becoming a meme, which is weird. It has changed a
Speaker 2: lot since then, but not necessarily because of meme stuff,
Speaker 2: just because I'm older now, I have more grey hair,
Speaker 2: and my son is a grown adult now as graduated
Speaker 2: high school. On just a lot, you know, life moving on.
Speaker 1: Are you still living in the same place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I live in the same house I lived in
Speaker 2: when it all happened. I've been here in this house
Speaker 2: for I think this is eleven years this month since
Speaker 2: we had it built. You know, still largely the same.
Speaker 2: I work at the same job. I have a different
Speaker 2: title and different responsibilities now, but I've been working at
Speaker 2: the same place for fifteen years now and still the
Speaker 2: same family situation and everything. I've been married for twenty
Speaker 2: years now and just our son's a little older.
Speaker 1: And this is now your third presidential election as a
Speaker 1: historic figure.
Speaker 2: The last three or four months, since the elections started
Speaker 2: heating up, it's been a little bit more.
Speaker 1: It is well that you havecome synonymous with the concept
Speaker 1: of a debate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could. I mean, they don't really do debates
Speaker 2: the same way they did. My debate was the town
Speaker 2: hall format run by the Commission on Presidential Debates. I mean,
Speaker 2: we've seen what it's been the last couple of months,
Speaker 2: a tremendous mess of No, you have to come on
Speaker 2: my channel. No, you have to come on my channel.
Speaker 2: You have to come where people will be sympathetic to me. Oh, no,
Speaker 2: you have to come. It's disgusting. It's our political climate
Speaker 2: is a national disgrace. It's the only way I can
Speaker 2: really think to put it.
Speaker 1: I am in agreement with you there, and I want
Speaker 1: to get there because what a election cycle to become
Speaker 1: a major part of and I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: the trust in cable news has severely declined since, and
Speaker 1: not that it was great in twenty sixteen, but a
Speaker 1: great sort of stress test for everything about it that
Speaker 1: doesn't work. I wanted to just start by getting to
Speaker 1: know you a little better. I think it's interesting and
Speaker 1: kind of funny that, like, part of all you're famous
Speaker 1: is because you are a normal person, something that really
Speaker 1: drew people to you aritually. So I will love to
Speaker 1: know a little bit more about you, where you grew up,
Speaker 1: what was life like?
Speaker 2: Sure, I'm you know. My real name is Ken Boone.
Speaker 2: Some people thought that that was like a fake name
Speaker 2: or like a moniker or something. I went by Jarland. Yeah,
Speaker 2: my name is Kenneth. My last name really is Bone.
Speaker 2: I was named after my grandfather, who was also Kenneth Bone.
Speaker 2: We both went by Ken, but when I came along,
Speaker 2: he started going by his middle name Sherman. Most people
Speaker 2: call him Sherman. But yeah, I've been Ken Bone or
Speaker 2: Kenny Bone my whole life. I'm going to be forty
Speaker 2: two here really soon, just like a middle aged guy
Speaker 2: from a working class town called Granite City, it's really
Speaker 2: close to Saint Louis. We tell out of towners that
Speaker 2: were from Saint Louis. You can almost see the gateway
Speaker 2: arch from my house, like if you get up on
Speaker 2: top of a building, but it's actually across the Mississippi
Speaker 2: River on the Illinois side. So the whole town was
Speaker 2: built around a steel mill that is sort of in
Speaker 2: operation these days. Steel prices have kind of driven production
Speaker 2: way down, but it's like a typical middle class or
Speaker 2: working class town where there's one giant employer. Everybody works
Speaker 2: either for it, or for its suppliers, or for something
Speaker 2: that only exists because it is there. My grandfather worked
Speaker 2: for the steel mill. My grandmother worked for the hospital
Speaker 2: that was only there because the steel mill drew in
Speaker 2: enough population where they needed a hospital. My mom also
Speaker 2: worked at that hospital, and then my dad worked at
Speaker 2: various like vendors and suppliers that mostly dealt with the
Speaker 2: steel mill. Over the years, so I've lived with my
Speaker 2: mom and dad. They lived with dad's mom and dad.
Speaker 2: So I grew up in a house with my parents
Speaker 2: and my grandparents and my little brother and sister, pretty crowded.
Speaker 2: His new generation would come along and then there'd be
Speaker 2: more people living in the house. When my son was born,
Speaker 2: I didn't have my own place yet, so he lived
Speaker 2: in the basement with me until he was about six
Speaker 2: months old.
Speaker 1: We were on free a fourth generation, and why not.
Speaker 2: My wife and I were on waiting lists to get
Speaker 2: an apartment, so we had four generations living in the
Speaker 2: house by the time we were able to move out.
Speaker 2: So it was a great way to grow up. It
Speaker 2: was always crowded. You were never alone, so the family's
Speaker 2: very close knit. I graduated high school in the year
Speaker 2: two thousand, so we were like the millennial class that
Speaker 2: made a big deal out of it when we started kindergarten,
Speaker 2: and none of the kindergarteners knew why why there was
Speaker 2: this big party. We're like, man in school, maybe it'll
Speaker 2: actually be kind of cool because that's party for us.
Speaker 2: Then we realized real quick that no, they don't do
Speaker 2: that every day. I'm an old millennial now with yeah,
Speaker 2: with gray hair, and my parents were stereotypical gen xers,
Speaker 2: and you know, of course they had to work for
Speaker 2: a living, and my grandparents were still working when I
Speaker 2: was younger, so Sesame Street kind of raised me. I
Speaker 2: was the oldest of the kids, so I kind of
Speaker 2: helped look after the kids a little bit, and we
Speaker 2: were until grandma and Grandpa were retired. We were kind
Speaker 2: of last key kids. Like a lot of people my age.
Speaker 1: Well, were you interested in when you're a kid.
Speaker 2: Oh, I was a big time nerd, Like I enjoy sports,
Speaker 2: but I was never any good at sports. I'm like
Speaker 2: the stereotypical broadcaster or analyst who like loves everything about
Speaker 2: sports but can barely throw a baseball from third base
Speaker 2: all the way to home plate. You get more into
Speaker 2: the statistics and stuff. Well, I loved all the stereotypical
Speaker 2: nerd things. When Dragon ball Z first came to the
Speaker 2: United States on Toonami, I was in high school and
Speaker 2: so that was huge for my friend group, Like, oh,
Speaker 2: this anime thing. I wonder if this will ever catch on,
Speaker 2: And of course it didn't, and so that was huge.
Speaker 2: I've always loved, like science fiction, stereotypical nerd stuff, things
Speaker 2: that are like it's okay to like now but made
Speaker 2: you sort of sort of weird. When we were younger,
Speaker 2: the high school in Granite City was kind of a
Speaker 2: big school, so there was enough kids there to form
Speaker 2: a group of friends no matter what your interests were.
Speaker 1: I'm also into a pretty big high school, and it
Speaker 1: was kind of I feel like I ended up avoiding
Speaker 1: a lot of bullying I probably would have gotten at
Speaker 1: a smaller high school. But there was like enough weird
Speaker 1: kids and just enough kids that you're you know, you're
Speaker 1: a moving target, you know, like no one can really
Speaker 1: get yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never did much of a problem with bullying.
Speaker 2: I was fortunate there because like of all the nerdy kids,
Speaker 2: I was by far the largest. So even when I
Speaker 2: was when I was younger, I wasn't super athletic, but
Speaker 2: I wasn't I wasn't small. I was big even before
Speaker 2: I was overweight. I was about five ten and had
Speaker 2: a pretty large frame. So the bullies were like, well,
Speaker 2: there are smaller s, growndier kids to pick on.
Speaker 1: Hey, and bullies are famously cowards, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't want to pick on the kid who
Speaker 2: is as big and strong as they are. They want
Speaker 2: to pick on the small, weaker kids. So yeah, like
Speaker 2: my immediate group of friends, when we'd be together, everybody
Speaker 2: was safe because we were all together and I was
Speaker 2: a little bit larger. But then, of course a lot
Speaker 2: of people will get bullied individually, or in smaller groups.
Speaker 2: So you hate to see that sort of thing, But
Speaker 2: I personally didn't have to suffer much of it, so
Speaker 2: I was kind of fortunate there.
Speaker 1: I also have seen that you were interested in music.
Speaker 1: I've seen you play the drums. Where did that come from?
Speaker 1: When did that come into your life?
Speaker 2: There was a church right around the corner from my
Speaker 2: house where I grew up, and my grandmother started going
Speaker 2: there when I was a little kid, and she always
Speaker 2: wanted me to go, so I after like my mother
Speaker 2: would take me to Catholic church when I was really little,
Speaker 2: but then, like most good Saint Louis's, she quit being
Speaker 2: Catholic after all. She became like a lapsed Catholic who
Speaker 2: didn't go to Mass and didn't make her kids go.
Speaker 2: But then my grandmother started taking me to her church
Speaker 2: when I was twelve or thirteen, and they needed someone
Speaker 2: to play the drums, so I learned to play the
Speaker 2: drums then and after I had learned to play the drums,
Speaker 2: so I wanted to learn to play other instruments. And
Speaker 2: I play the drums and the bass and the piano
Speaker 2: and a few other things, and not amazing at any
Speaker 2: of them. But I'm pretty good. I can have fun
Speaker 2: and play with any group that I feel like. That's
Speaker 2: actually my activity for this weekend is to restring my
Speaker 2: bass guitar. But yeah, I still play whenever I can.
Speaker 2: My father plays guitar, and that's one of our things
Speaker 2: that we do together. Like a lot of young guys,
Speaker 2: especially in working class backgrounds, I didn't have a great
Speaker 2: relationship with my dad when I was young. Once you
Speaker 2: grow up and you have kids on your own, if
Speaker 2: you're in a situation like mine, you realize that your
Speaker 2: dad tried hard and he did the best he could.
Speaker 2: So we're you know, we're friends now. We love to
Speaker 2: hang out and that's one of the things we get
Speaker 2: to do together is play guitars. It's kind of weird.
Speaker 2: Like my wife and I we had our We got
Speaker 2: together when she was still in high school. I was
Speaker 2: a freshman in college and she was senior in high
Speaker 2: school and we met at the bowling alley where we
Speaker 2: were both working.
Speaker 1: That's so wholesome.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was wonderful. And she's the best person
Speaker 2: I've ever met. You should be interviewing her instead. She's
Speaker 2: more interesting and better looking and a better person than
Speaker 2: I am. She's a surrogate mom who had twins for strangers.
Speaker 2: Because she's such a wonderful and giving human being. I
Speaker 2: could go on and on about her. She's the best
Speaker 2: person I know. Yeah, we got together there, and when
Speaker 2: she got pregnant, we were already planning on getting married,
Speaker 2: but we hadn't told anybody. So then we started making
Speaker 2: plans to get married, and we didn't want to just
Speaker 2: rush and have the wedding before the baby came along.
Speaker 2: So we've got this great picture from our wedding with
Speaker 2: five generations of the family. My great grandparents, a few
Speaker 2: of them were still living. My whole family still lives
Speaker 2: around here, especially since my grandfather passed away about nine
Speaker 2: years ago. We make it more of a point to
Speaker 2: get together while we're all still able to.
Speaker 1: I also love it. It's like you're a hobby's guy experience.
Speaker 2: A lot of my hobby stuff is behind me. I've
Speaker 2: got the guitars here, We've got the whiffle ball I
Speaker 2: was doing last weekend up on my top shelf. Back
Speaker 2: there are some model kids. That's part of my nerd stuff.
Speaker 2: My favorite anime in high school was mobile Suit Gundam wing,
Speaker 2: so I started building gun plow Building, Gundam Models.
Speaker 1: What are your favorite animes right now? Because I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about, but I know that a
Speaker 1: lot of my listeners do.
Speaker 2: Right now, I'm in the middle of Mobile Suit, Gundam,
Speaker 2: Iron Blooded Orphans. That's more of a well known one.
Speaker 2: My favorite niche anime that's probably not as popular is
Speaker 2: Kenetzchee The Mightiest Disciple. I love the main character. He
Speaker 2: always reminded me of me as a younger person, where
Speaker 2: the whole gag of the show is that he tries
Speaker 2: to become a martial artist but he has no natural talent,
Speaker 2: but he works super super hard, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: that's me when I try to do sports or try
Speaker 2: to do anything. I don't necessarily have a lot of
Speaker 2: natural talent, but I can hang out with the other
Speaker 2: kids because I worked at it really really hard.
Speaker 1: Getting into the big viral moment for you in October
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, what does your life look like? And how
Speaker 1: does the possibility of even you know, attending this debate,
Speaker 1: how does that come up?
Speaker 2: Well, life largely was the same, except I was eight
Speaker 2: years younger and not that much on the in a
Speaker 2: big picture where it's change other than normal, like growing up.
Speaker 2: Sort of think my back hurts a little bit more
Speaker 2: in how than it used to. And my son is
Speaker 2: a grown up, so we no longer have to like
Speaker 2: take him to activities or anything. Now we're helping him
Speaker 2: with his job search. You know, we had a job
Speaker 2: interview earlier. Today. The big picture thing is, like a
Speaker 2: lot of people in their early thirties at the time,
Speaker 2: we had a place to live. We were fortunate enough
Speaker 2: that we were able to buy a house at like
Speaker 2: the bottom of the market. Housing was still pretty cheap
Speaker 2: after the two thousand and eight crash. It's not like
Speaker 2: it is today, where it's such a horrible struggle for
Speaker 2: people who are in the exact situation I was in
Speaker 2: then would not be able to get a house now.
Speaker 2: So I feel super bad that those opportunities aren't there
Speaker 2: for them. Yeah, so we were fortunate and we're able
Speaker 2: to do that. You know, we still would have our
Speaker 2: occasional financial struggles, but I had a decent career that
Speaker 2: I was building and we were doing all right, and
Speaker 2: then I just got a random call on a Sunday
Speaker 2: afternoon on my day off. I thought it was like
Speaker 2: the old collector or something, so it's behind on my
Speaker 2: car payment. I'm not very good at handling money, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, god, geez, I better answer the phone, and
Speaker 2: you know, either give them some money or make up
Speaker 2: some excuse. And it was the Gallup poll. They wanted
Speaker 2: to do a survey. I'm like, okay, I'm just sitting
Speaker 2: here watching Futurama. Sure, So I do their survey and
Speaker 2: then at the end of it they said, well, based
Speaker 2: on the survey results, you would be a good fit
Speaker 2: to attend this debate. I'm like, oh, okay. Sure.
Speaker 1: Was the takeaway from the survey just essentially like determining
Speaker 1: that you were a then undecided voter? Was there anything outside?
Speaker 2: Was it really a survey so much as it was
Speaker 2: a screening process? And yeah, there's a lot of questions
Speaker 2: like who are you going to vote for? How sure
Speaker 2: are you that you want to vote for that person
Speaker 2: on a scale of one to ten, How likely are
Speaker 2: you to change your mind? To most people, this is
Speaker 2: where like a lot of the controversy would then people
Speaker 2: are like, how could you be undecided between Donald Trump
Speaker 2: and Hillary Clinton? One is so much obviously better than
Speaker 2: the other, Like, well, it's not so much that I
Speaker 2: couldn't decide which one I liked more. It was that
Speaker 2: I didn't like either of them. I had a very
Speaker 2: unfavorable opinion of both candidates. And that's more how they
Speaker 2: defined undecided, Like, yeah, you seem to have kind of
Speaker 2: decided who you're going to vote for, but anything could
Speaker 2: come out and change your mind. And a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff did come out and change a lot of the
Speaker 2: people's minds that were on the platform with me. When
Speaker 2: we went through that screening process. It was before the
Speaker 2: Access Hollywood tape came out, the grabbed the woman grabbing tape.
Speaker 2: People were really asking like, how could you possibly even
Speaker 2: consider voting for that guy? Like, well, a lot of
Speaker 2: the people up here that had not happened yet. People
Speaker 2: did not know about that yet. So there was a
Speaker 2: bunch of people up there who had absolutely written Trump
Speaker 2: off at that point, but they had already been selected
Speaker 2: and gone through the Secret Service and everything. It's not
Speaker 2: like they can just pick people off the street that morning.
Speaker 1: How far ahead did you know you're going to attend
Speaker 1: before it actually happened.
Speaker 2: About two weeks and the Access Hollywood tape only came
Speaker 2: out about three days before the debate. It was the
Speaker 2: hot thing.
Speaker 1: Lord, it's interesting the qualifications it took for you to
Speaker 1: be characterized as undecided, because what you're describing now, I
Speaker 1: feel like, is a way more at least commonly discussed
Speaker 1: feeling well, I don't like either of the candidates for
Speaker 1: different reasons to different degrees, but there's no candidate running
Speaker 1: that I feel like I can vote for with my
Speaker 1: whole heart because of all of these things, and I
Speaker 1: feel like that's just part of being a well informed voter.
Speaker 1: It seems like, at least in the gallop pole sense,
Speaker 1: that undecided is this kind of weird, nebulous term that
Speaker 1: is almost making it sound like you feel a way
Speaker 1: that isn't exactly accurate. It's making it seem like it's
Speaker 1: a fifty to fifty chance. Who knows what I'm going
Speaker 1: to do?
Speaker 2: You know, No, I think folks like in your generation
Speaker 2: and younger understand a lot better than people my age
Speaker 2: and older this concept where you slap a label on
Speaker 2: something and that defines them, like people who don't know them,
Speaker 2: they think that label is now their definition. So one
Speaker 2: of the various labels that got slapped on me is undecided,
Speaker 2: and like, well, that's that's just a word you know,
Speaker 2: and what could that mean? And what does that mean
Speaker 2: to many different people? I think the word that the
Speaker 2: Commission on Debates would rather have used, and the one
Speaker 2: they did use, and all their official stuff was uncommitted, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: they kind of feel like they want to vote for
Speaker 2: this person over this person, but they could change their
Speaker 2: mind if something happened. Trump's famous mind was always like
Speaker 2: he could shoot a guy on Fifth Avenue and people
Speaker 2: would still vote for me. Well, that wasn't the folks
Speaker 2: up on the stage. If you had somebody on Fifth Avenue,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't have voted for him anymore.
Speaker 1: And we'll be right back with ken Bone. You get
Speaker 1: the call, you're offered the opportunity to go. Did you
Speaker 1: have any anxiety but participating? How are you feeling going
Speaker 1: into the day. What was it supposed to look like?
Speaker 1: I have no idea how these events are run.
Speaker 2: Well, the only thing that made me nervous was that
Speaker 2: I was running late, because I'm constantly late to everything.
Speaker 2: But I don't get nervous about being on camera or
Speaker 2: being in front of people. I don't care. I'll walk
Speaker 2: out onto a stage and if you want me to
Speaker 2: fill ten minutes, I'll do it. It's whatever in front
Speaker 2: of ten thousand people. I don't care, not because of
Speaker 2: anything special about me. It's just I don't happen to
Speaker 2: be afraid of that. Like I really labored over what
Speaker 2: question I wanted to ask. Because you write your own questions, okay,
Speaker 2: nobody gets to know what they are. I always assume
Speaker 2: that it was just some dog and pony show where
Speaker 2: they picked a bunch of like struggling actors and put
Speaker 2: them up on the stage, and it was unless this
Speaker 2: is an elaborate prank played on me, it was totally legit.
Speaker 2: We were all randomly selected and we wrote our own questions,
Speaker 2: and the candidates did not get to see the questions
Speaker 2: ahead of time. Even the moderators did not get to
Speaker 2: see the questions until that day. Every person that was
Speaker 2: up there, there were forty of us, wrote our questions
Speaker 2: and we each were supposed to write too and give
Speaker 2: them both of the moderators, and the moderators would then
Speaker 2: like look through them, and a couple hours later they
Speaker 2: came back and said, Okay, if we have time to
Speaker 2: call on you, we want you to ask this one,
Speaker 2: not this one. My brick up question was about student
Speaker 2: loans because I at the time was still trying to
Speaker 2: pay off my student loans and looking at a son
Speaker 2: who was going into high school who I would never
Speaker 2: be able to help go to school because I was
Speaker 2: still paying for me to go to school fifteen years before.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask about that, and that wasn't
Speaker 2: really one of the hot issues of the time, and
Speaker 2: they didn't have time for So yeah, I wrote my
Speaker 2: question about energy policy because I work at a power plant.
Speaker 2: I work at a coal fired power plant, and I
Speaker 2: know how much work goes in behind the scenes to
Speaker 2: try to be environmentally friendly with this fuel that is
Speaker 2: not like if you just light coal on fire, it's
Speaker 2: disgusting and dirty. A lot of work goes into cleaning
Speaker 2: up the emissions that come from this coal. And if
Speaker 2: I didn't think that we could do it responsibly, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't work there. But I wanted to know, like as
Speaker 2: we transition to clean energy, like if we could run
Speaker 2: one hundred percent solar, somebody invents a better battery and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, we can just do that. That's great, then,
Speaker 2: but what happens to me, and what happens to all
Speaker 2: my friends, and what happens to our families. That was
Speaker 2: where I came up with that question. So I get
Speaker 2: to the debate venue, which was Washington University in Saint Louis.
Speaker 2: The debate was at seven pm. We had to be
Speaker 2: there by eight am. There's lots of orientation and instructions
Speaker 2: and makeup. So I was supposed to be working that day,
Speaker 2: but I had taken the time. I took the day off,
Speaker 2: and then I was supposed to have the next day
Speaker 2: off and I did, and then the next two night
Speaker 2: shifts after that, I ended up calling in sick because
Speaker 2: I was too busy doing media. We went through all
Speaker 2: the orientation. They showed us where we were going to
Speaker 2: be sitting. You know, there's folks who had never seen
Speaker 2: or touched the microphone before, or who might be uncomfortable
Speaker 2: on camera or something, so a lot of it was
Speaker 2: about getting you comfortable with where you're going to be looking,
Speaker 2: seeing all the cameras and stuff ahead of time so
Speaker 2: he wouldn't be nervous. We met the moderators so like
Speaker 2: Anderson Cooper came in. He's the nicest guy in the world.
Speaker 2: By the way, when you're born, you can say other
Speaker 2: people to be mean for you. He's an heir to
Speaker 2: the Vanderbilt fortune. He doesn't have to be mean by himself.
Speaker 2: He's got people for that. He came in We met
Speaker 2: him the first time at about ten in the morning, gorgeous,
Speaker 2: perfect suit, so put together, not a hair out of place.
Speaker 2: And Martha Raddits, the other moderator, a wonderful journalist, was
Speaker 2: there also. She just looked like a normal human being.
Speaker 2: But Anderson Cooper looked like a caricature of a supermodel.
Speaker 2: He's just incredibly and so. And then they said we've
Speaker 2: got to go to hair and makeup and wardrobe, and
Speaker 2: Martha Raddits. You know, she looked fine, but not ready
Speaker 2: to be on camera, like you know, nobody would be.
Speaker 2: Anderson Cooper looked like he could have just walked out
Speaker 2: and done the news, like I think he wakes up
Speaker 2: like that. It's bizarre. After that night, I did his show,
Speaker 2: I think on Tuesday, after the segment was over. Normally,
Speaker 2: in between segments, a producer will be talking in your ear,
Speaker 2: telling you whether you know whether you can go or
Speaker 2: they want you to stay on for another segment or whatever.
Speaker 2: He was talking to himself. It's very unusual for the
Speaker 2: on camera talent to be like talking to you themselves
Speaker 2: while they're trying to prep for the next segment. He
Speaker 2: happened to be coming through Saint Louis doing a live
Speaker 2: show and Andy Cohen do a show they call ac Score.
Speaker 2: They tell stories and stuff because they're very good friends,
Speaker 2: and he invited me to the show and like sent
Speaker 2: me tickets and everything. He was a joy. It was
Speaker 2: a lot of fun. That show was one of the
Speaker 2: most fun things we did. Sorry, I get on tangents
Speaker 2: all the time, but back to that day. We meet
Speaker 2: the moderators. We give them our two questions, and then
Speaker 2: they say, okay, if we call on you ask this one.
Speaker 2: And then they just kind of take all those questions
Speaker 2: and they put them on in order. They're like, all right,
Speaker 2: these six people asked about foreign pow, and these few
Speaker 2: people asked about taxes and whatever, and they'll kind of
Speaker 2: group them so they can guide the discussion by topics.
Speaker 2: And I was the only person who had asked about energy. Okay,
Speaker 2: So that's one of the reasons why they called on me.
Speaker 2: Nobody else asked about energy or environmental policy at all.
Speaker 2: I figured I'd asked about because it has a lot
Speaker 2: of personal impact for me and also a lot of
Speaker 2: impact for the regular voter. And then we get to
Speaker 2: time for the debate and they march us out on
Speaker 2: the stage and it is so cold out there. They
Speaker 2: keep the whole area like sixty degrees. It's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons I wore the sweater, like I wore the
Speaker 2: sweater because the suit I was going to wear, I
Speaker 2: tore the seat out of the pants because I got
Speaker 2: too fat for it. But I switched quickly to the sweater,
Speaker 2: knowing that they had told us how cold it was
Speaker 2: going to be, and they keep it so cold because
Speaker 2: President Nixon basically sweated through his suit when he was
Speaker 2: debating John F. Kennedy. I thought they weren't going to
Speaker 2: call on me. I ended up being the second to
Speaker 2: last person they called.
Speaker 1: So you didn't know when the debate starts if you'll
Speaker 1: be called on or not. It's in the moment.
Speaker 2: Okay, there's forty of us who had all turned in questions.
Speaker 2: They only had time to get to I think eight
Speaker 2: or nine of them. And you don't know what order
Speaker 2: they've put them in. You don't know if they're going
Speaker 2: to call on you or not. They just said be ready.
Speaker 2: They call on me. I read the question. I mispronounced
Speaker 2: one of the words in my question. Hillary Clinton got
Speaker 2: to answer first, and she said blah blah something about
Speaker 2: Donald Trump buys steal from China, and then Donald Trump
Speaker 2: something about how isis is bad. I'm like, okay, I
Speaker 2: know isis is bad, but that's not going to make
Speaker 2: or break my job at the power plant. So they
Speaker 2: did their politician non answers and then the debate was over.
Speaker 2: After it was over, Hillary Clinton walked by real quick.
Speaker 2: She had to get to the like you know, war
Speaker 2: room or whatever to start doing the after shows and
Speaker 2: strategizing and whatever. She stopped and shook my hand and
Speaker 2: talked to us for a few seconds and walked out.
Speaker 2: I didn't go over and talk to Donald Trump because
Speaker 2: I didn't want to. And then I heard from across
Speaker 2: the stage somebody yelling to me, and it was President
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton. Wanted to talk to me. I talked to
Speaker 2: him for like fun. He remembered my name at first
Speaker 2: when he was yelling to me. He was like, hey,
Speaker 2: the energy guy, come here. You had the question. And
Speaker 2: I walk over to him and he's like, your name's Ken, right,
Speaker 2: and he had, you know, wanted to talk more in
Speaker 2: detail about the Clinton energy policy as they saw it.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, so I was happy to talk
Speaker 2: to him about it. And then his his security guy
Speaker 2: was like tugging on his jacket, like, mister President, we
Speaker 2: got to go. So he leaves and then I look
Speaker 2: around and there's not really anybody left on stage. So
Speaker 2: I kind of took a few more pictures with the
Speaker 2: disposable camera that they gave us. I didn't take that
Speaker 2: with me. By the way, people associate me with the
Speaker 2: disposable camera. We all had one. The Commission gave them
Speaker 2: to us because we weren't allowed to have cameras or
Speaker 2: cell phones or anything. I'm going to take pictures of
Speaker 2: the camera equipment because I'm a nerd about av stuff.
Speaker 2: And I was like, Wow, that's a really big boom
Speaker 2: crane for this camera, and well there's a big soundboard
Speaker 2: over there before.
Speaker 1: We get into like whenever you're allowed to check your
Speaker 1: phone after this event, I am curious what was your
Speaker 1: relationship with the internet, Like prior to this, I.
Speaker 2: Was mostly a lurker, Like I had a Twitter account.
Speaker 2: I had like two followers. One of them was my
Speaker 2: grandma and I think the other one was also my
Speaker 2: grandma who might have forgot her password and then made
Speaker 2: a new can get on Reddit. And I was mostly
Speaker 2: just a lurker. I had an account, and I only
Speaker 2: made you know, sporadic comments, some of them really stupid
Speaker 2: and you know, regretful. But I didn't spend a whole
Speaker 2: lot of time online. But I was aware of the
Speaker 2: whole internet thing. I wasn't like a terminally online person.
Speaker 1: Here's the rest of my interview with Ken Bone. The
Speaker 1: debate is over, you check your phone. Walk me through
Speaker 1: that moment of checking your phone after Well.
Speaker 2: They told us before the debate, They're like, don't be
Speaker 2: surprised if there's reporters out there wanting to talk to
Speaker 2: you or take your picture. Don't be surprised if you're
Speaker 2: like caricatured on Saturday Night Live or something. It's just
Speaker 2: it could happen. And I'm like, well, I'd kind of
Speaker 2: like to talk to a reporter, and then maybe my
Speaker 2: grandma could have something for her scrap book if I
Speaker 2: get my picture in the paper. I didn't really think
Speaker 2: much of it. And then as I'm walking back to
Speaker 2: my car, there's no reporters, there's no photographers or anything,
Speaker 2: and I was almost a little disappointed. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: I get back to the car and open the glove
Speaker 2: compartment where I had my phone locked up and power
Speaker 2: it back on. And my voicemail box was full and
Speaker 2: I had like a couple hundred text messages and my
Speaker 2: phone was already ringing as soon as it powered on.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what the heck's going on here? And the
Speaker 2: first call I answered was from a woman who I
Speaker 2: had gone to high school with, who now lives down
Speaker 2: in Dallas. She's was a producer for like a local
Speaker 2: morning show on there. I think it was the NBC affiliate,
Speaker 2: like their morning news show. And she's like, hey, Ken,
Speaker 2: I remember me from high school. I'm like that kind
Speaker 2: of I guess, do you want to do a phone
Speaker 2: interview for our show tomorrow. I'm like, oh, sure, okay.
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure how she got my number. I
Speaker 2: didn't even have a cell phone in high school because
Speaker 2: I'm old, but I was like, yeah, sure, Katie, had
Speaker 2: no problem. And then as soon as I hung up,
Speaker 2: it was ringing again, and it was Fox Sports and
Speaker 2: they were like, yeah, you want to be on our
Speaker 2: morning show tomorrow. And then my friend Ryan is calling me.
Speaker 2: He's like dude, you're on every channel. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I was on the debate. I told you I was
Speaker 2: going to be there, Like no, man, not just like
Speaker 2: in the background, they're talking about you. And I was like, why,
Speaker 2: why are they talking about me? It's weird. And he's like, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know, because you're wearing bright red and you
Speaker 2: got a stupid name. I'm like, well, I already knew
Speaker 2: I had a stupid name. I thought he was messing
Speaker 2: with me. Even with all the messages and stuff, it
Speaker 2: takes me forty five minutes to get home, and sure
Speaker 2: enough on TV is me just like a close up
Speaker 2: with my face on like CNN or something. I'm like,
Speaker 2: what the hell is this? And my wife says, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's been like this since the debate was over.
Speaker 1: What is your wife and son's reaction to all of this.
Speaker 2: It's weird for them because obviously they know me better
Speaker 2: than anybody else, and they're seeing all these people on
Speaker 2: TV speculate about who I am and where I came from,
Speaker 2: and they're like, well, that's wrong, and that's wrong, and
Speaker 2: that's wrong, and it was just sort of disbelief, and
Speaker 2: the whole time we all just sort of thought like, well,
Speaker 2: they'll find something else to pay attention to in a
Speaker 2: day or two. You know, it actually took several weeks
Speaker 2: before they were ready to pay attention to something else.
Speaker 1: Your existence was politicized for moment one because it was
Speaker 1: in the context of politics. And what was it like
Speaker 1: seeing yourself presented in this very like political way.
Speaker 2: I didn't see any coverage of myself for like days
Speaker 2: and days after except what people were directly like texting
Speaker 2: me about, like my friends, because it was too busy
Speaker 2: doing interviews and stuff. It was really surreal. Like I
Speaker 2: did an interview with the New York Times. They published
Speaker 2: the interview online like a half an hour later. Five
Speaker 2: minutes after that, I'm getting requests for comment on that
Speaker 2: interview from other media outlets and also from like my
Speaker 2: brother in law, and he's like, have you seen this?
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, I don't I have time to read
Speaker 2: any of that. In fact, I'm hanging up on you
Speaker 2: now because I'm supposed to be on this radio show
Speaker 2: in Fort Worth, right, I gotta go.
Speaker 1: Was there any moment of hesitation of like do I
Speaker 1: want to do this? Was there any like calculus I'll
Speaker 1: talk to I'll do this I don't know how I
Speaker 1: feel about this. It just sounds like it was happening
Speaker 1: so fast. How did you know what to say yes
Speaker 1: or no to.
Speaker 2: I didn't say no to almost anybody. The only people
Speaker 2: I said no to were ones where literally like I
Speaker 2: have something booked at that same time already. Sorry. I
Speaker 2: was enough at the time to know that, like, this
Speaker 2: is going to go on for a few days, and
Speaker 2: it's I'm not actually a big deal. People just want
Speaker 2: to pay attention to me for right now. So I
Speaker 2: never got like an inflated sense of like, oh man,
Speaker 2: I must be so smart and so great and everybody
Speaker 2: loves me. So I think I was fortunate enough that
Speaker 2: I had that online exposure before, so I didn't buy
Speaker 2: into my own myth or whatever. Didn't let it change
Speaker 2: me as a person, at least I hope I didn't.
Speaker 2: I guess somebody could go through that kind of experience
Speaker 2: without being a little bit changed. But I don't feel
Speaker 2: like I have came too self absorbed or anything because
Speaker 2: of it. It was just bizarre. I had stuff booked
Speaker 2: in fifteen minute increments about four am until two am
Speaker 2: every day for three days until then I finally had
Speaker 2: to start telling people no so I could sleep.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to talk to you about just like how
Speaker 1: that degree of sudden attention and expectation and this projection
Speaker 1: of responsibility, like all of which did not exist twenty
Speaker 1: four hours ago. What does that do to your sense
Speaker 1: of mental well being?
Speaker 2: Well, I've did a lot of therapy over the last
Speaker 2: couple of years, because once you go back to like
Speaker 2: when you've had a stadium full of twenty thousand people
Speaker 2: chanting your name and lining up for two hours just
Speaker 2: to take a picture with you humans as social animals,
Speaker 2: you get like endorphin rush from that. You know, sure
Speaker 2: you feel that's addictive. It gave me a good insight
Speaker 2: into why some people who got like reality show fame
Speaker 2: or whatever, will sell their soul for a little bit
Speaker 2: more attention. From the outside. You look at it and
Speaker 2: you're like, how could you do that? That's disgusting? Why
Speaker 2: are these people debasing themselves? Like because it's addictive. I
Speaker 2: feel like I was very lucky that I didn't get
Speaker 2: so hooked on it that I couldn't let it go,
Speaker 2: because it eventually is no matter who you are, it's
Speaker 2: going away. But I think I recognized from early on
Speaker 2: that It wasn't because of any innate talent or anything.
Speaker 2: It was just like a perfect storm of like I
Speaker 2: had a funny name, i was wearing a weird outfit,
Speaker 2: I'm not afraid to be on camera. I ended up
Speaker 2: being kind of good at the sort of banter. So
Speaker 2: I felt like that all came together. But it wasn't
Speaker 2: because I'm like an amazing media analyst or something like that.
Speaker 2: It was just a lot of factors that came together
Speaker 2: that made it so. I was I don't know, I
Speaker 2: was almost purpose built to be the Internet meme or something.
Speaker 2: But I was okay with it going away again. I
Speaker 2: wrote it out for a while because it was fun once.
Speaker 2: It wasn't as fun anymore, but I started answering the
Speaker 2: phone lesson less, especially since it's not really that lucrative.
Speaker 2: I did make some money on I did a few
Speaker 2: commercials and there were a few bigger things. I sold
Speaker 2: T shirts. That's what I made the most money on.
Speaker 2: But I did as much as I could to give back. Also,
Speaker 2: I gave ten percent of all the money I got
Speaker 2: to charity. And every place I would sign a contract with,
Speaker 2: I would make that company, I'd make them give money
Speaker 2: to charity also, so we raised tens of thousands of
Speaker 2: dollars for local charities and things. Yeah, I'd like to
Speaker 2: think that most people are just doing the best they can.
Speaker 2: Like the hawk Tua girl is the hot thing of
Speaker 2: the moment as we're recording this, and she's done a
Speaker 2: lot for like pet shelters and other charities and stuff,
Speaker 2: so I'm really happy for her. I haven't got a
Speaker 2: chance to talk to her, and I've been looking for
Speaker 2: like her email address or something so I could just
Speaker 2: send her a note. But she was probably like fourteen
Speaker 2: years old when I was a meum, so she might
Speaker 2: even know who I am sure she.
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone does it like you had the full
Speaker 1: kind of arc where you had the original wave of attention,
Speaker 1: that the appearances, a lot of requests, you had the
Speaker 1: moment of the Reddit post resurfacing and having to just
Speaker 1: navigate all of that and such a short period of
Speaker 1: time when things are coming that fast and that intensely,
Speaker 1: how do you manage in the day to day sense?
Speaker 2: Well, I you know, everybody's like the hero of their
Speaker 2: own story, and it's no different to me. So when
Speaker 2: I started getting questions about like why did you say this, insensitive,
Speaker 2: terrible thing on Reddit. I'm like, well, that was a
Speaker 2: jerk thing to do. I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 2: And I think because I didn't try to go out
Speaker 2: of my way to justify it, that was big and
Speaker 2: people like being willing to forgive and move on. They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: you thought you were anonymous, you said something insensitive, you know,
Speaker 2: tried to play it off for cheap laughs or whatever
Speaker 2: at the time. But what I would always say to
Speaker 2: people is like, it wasn't a press release. I did
Speaker 2: not curate this for you know, wide consumption. I was
Speaker 2: talking to the three people that I was, you know,
Speaker 2: in a comment thread with made a dumb joke that
Speaker 2: was that I feel bad about but I I believe
Speaker 2: in learning from your mistakes and moving on. I read it.
Speaker 2: Username is stan Gibson eighteen. I still use the same username.
Speaker 2: I do not have an alt account. I think that
Speaker 2: alt accounts are for cowards, honestly, and I think that
Speaker 2: even more strongly now if you look far enough back
Speaker 2: in my history, you can read the comments yourself. I
Speaker 2: have not deleted or edited a single one, because even
Speaker 2: the ones that I'm not proud of, I feel like
Speaker 2: if you do not stick by your words and learn
Speaker 2: from them even when they're wrong, then you failed as
Speaker 2: a person. That's something my grandfather taught me because I
Speaker 2: made that mistake, and I think that goes a lot
Speaker 2: farther than just pretending it was okay or pretending it
Speaker 2: didn't happen.
Speaker 1: When did it feel like? Things started to kind of
Speaker 1: feel less intense, it's less of a part of your
Speaker 1: daily life.
Speaker 2: Probably by about Thanksgiving it started to tone down because
Speaker 2: of the nature of what I was famous for. You know,
Speaker 2: it's because of the election. Well, the election is obviously
Speaker 2: not over yet. The election wasn't until early November, and
Speaker 2: then of course Donald Trump wins, and I know what
Speaker 2: I saw that. I don't think Donald Trump saw that coming.
Speaker 2: The political climate is super fraught, and people are either
Speaker 2: looking for somebody to lash out at and blame or
Speaker 2: they're looking for some kind of anchor of something that's
Speaker 2: supposed to be fun. That's one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: I got so big is because everybody was so busy
Speaker 2: in this nasty election cycle, with everything that's so awful,
Speaker 2: they're like, hey, this guy seems kind of fun. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about that for a while. And after the election,
Speaker 2: was over, They're like, let's talk about fun guy a
Speaker 2: little bit for a while, because oh my god, this
Speaker 2: is bad, this is so weird. So that carried it
Speaker 2: a little farther, you know, started settling down where I
Speaker 2: was only doing a couple of couple of things a week,
Speaker 2: you know, the interview here and there. I went to
Speaker 2: Seapack that that year, in twenty seventeen, in February, the
Speaker 2: big conservative thing. I'm not a very conservative guy. I
Speaker 2: didn't go as a speaker or anything. There was a
Speaker 2: company that sells fundraising and campaign management software that wanted
Speaker 2: me to be the spokesmarsa a spokesperson. So I went
Speaker 2: to a Seapack and then I went to net Its Nation,
Speaker 2: which is sort of the sort of the liberal equivalent,
Speaker 2: except it's not nearly as much of a party atmosphere
Speaker 2: as Seapack. So we went to these big political conferences
Speaker 2: trying to sell the fundraising software. I mean that was fun.
Speaker 2: I got to meet AOC before she got elected. We
Speaker 2: got a picture of me and an AOC from before
Speaker 2: her primary, before anybody else knew who she was, so
Speaker 2: I got any So I did a few more events
Speaker 2: with them. They were the ones who arranged for me
Speaker 2: to be on Bill maher like the year after that,
Speaker 2: but it really slowed down a bunch, and then by
Speaker 2: the time we got to the pandemic that stopped everybody's
Speaker 2: life completely in its tracks and never really picked up
Speaker 2: as much after that.
Speaker 1: Was there ever a point where you were able to
Speaker 1: make a full time living? Did you want to make
Speaker 1: a full time living of this or was it sort
Speaker 1: of like, well, we'll just sort of see what happens
Speaker 1: early on.
Speaker 2: If I had gone and gotten like an agent who
Speaker 2: could help me navigate all that stuff, Yeah, pretty confident
Speaker 2: that I could have made a full time living being
Speaker 2: like one of those talking head contributors does segments, you know,
Speaker 2: a few times a week, and then while you're doing that,
Speaker 2: you write a book, and then you plug your book
Speaker 2: when you're in this stuff. Yeah, it was a whole
Speaker 2: ecosystem of people that do that, and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 2: I could have done it, and I could have done
Speaker 2: a good enough job where I could have kept it going,
Speaker 2: But it also seemed kind of like a bummer. And
Speaker 2: I have a decent career that I already liked. That's
Speaker 2: like a sure thing that I'm really good at. What
Speaker 2: I do, and it doesn't require me to be out
Speaker 2: of town all the time or be stressed out and
Speaker 2: do hair and makeup and stuff. The media atmosphere moves
Speaker 2: so fast. If you don't jump on that immediately, it's done.
Speaker 2: If I wanted to write a book, now, nobody's going
Speaker 2: to buy that book. I did have more staying power
Speaker 2: than most. I think that's attributable to me just being
Speaker 2: willing to do more appearances and being kind of okay
Speaker 2: on camera. People don't remember Chewbacca Mom as much because
Speaker 2: I don't think she wanted to do as many appearances
Speaker 2: as I did. People don't remember her Ambie because he's dead.
Speaker 2: He don't do interviews anymore. Yeah, you don't grow without
Speaker 2: changing a little bit. You know, It's been eight years
Speaker 2: since I was a meme. I'm not the same person
Speaker 2: I was eight years ago. Have grown and changed and involved.
Speaker 2: I'm not to slap too many labels on it, but
Speaker 2: I think I'm a lot more progressive than I was before.
Speaker 2: Believe more in things like universal health care and things
Speaker 2: of that nature. And not because I'm like I used
Speaker 2: to be a bad guy and I wanted Grandma to
Speaker 2: die because she was broke no, it's because I used
Speaker 2: to believe that it would never be efficient enough to
Speaker 2: roll out wide scale. And the more I've read about it,
Speaker 2: and the more I've talked to people about it, and
Speaker 2: realized every other civilized nation in the world does it.
Speaker 2: Why couldn't we do it? Then my beliefs have grown
Speaker 2: and changed over time. But I also realized that there's
Speaker 2: a lot of people who think the way that I
Speaker 2: did eight or ten years ago. They're not evil. They
Speaker 2: came by those beliefs honestly. And most people, probably ninety
Speaker 2: plus percent of people, want everybody to have rights. They
Speaker 2: want everybody to have health care, they want everybody to
Speaker 2: have whatever. They don't agree on how we should get it.
Speaker 1: You both have a lot of criticism of media and
Speaker 1: have experienced and bored and witness to American media in
Speaker 1: a way very few have. Has your view on media
Speaker 1: shifted in these last eight years.
Speaker 2: Very much so, media and politics. Also, once you've peered
Speaker 2: behind the curtain, you can't unsee that stuff. We have
Speaker 2: so many politicians and media figures who could not chew
Speaker 2: bubble gum and walk at the same time. In general,
Speaker 2: they're good at one thing. Politicians are good at getting elected.
Speaker 2: And media figures are good at staying on television, and
Speaker 2: that is largely it. Very few of them actually have
Speaker 2: something to say. Most of them are just good at
Speaker 2: drawing your attention for short periods to close out.
Speaker 1: When you look back on this time of this initial virality,
Speaker 1: have your feelings changed towards it? And you know, as
Speaker 1: you like have processed that experience over the years, how
Speaker 1: do you look back on it now?
Speaker 2: The more distance I get from it, the more I
Speaker 2: realize that it does not define me as a person.
Speaker 2: And that is a lot of what I had to
Speaker 2: talk through in therapy. If like I had these great
Speaker 2: emotional highs of everybody loves me without even knowing me,
Speaker 2: that's addictive. But I realized that I don't need that
Speaker 2: to define me as a peron. I'm defined as a
Speaker 2: person by the relationships that I maintain and the internal
Speaker 2: work that I do on improving myself. Also by smaller
Speaker 2: things like my career and my interests, and those things
Speaker 2: define me as a human being, not the way people
Speaker 2: chose to perceive me on television. If somehow a magic
Speaker 2: wand were to excise that whole experience from my life,
Speaker 2: I realized that I could still be who I am.
Speaker 2: I could still be a good person, I could still
Speaker 2: be a worthwhile human being without any of that attention.
Speaker 2: And I think that having some distance from it and
Speaker 2: some years later has helped me gain perspective on that.
Speaker 2: If I had to do it all again, absolutely when
Speaker 2: it's an amazing, unique experience that almost nobody gets to have,
Speaker 2: and I was very fortunate that I was able to,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not a saint. I've gained financially from
Speaker 2: it also, but I was able to help my community
Speaker 2: as well, so a lot of people benefited. So I
Speaker 2: think overall it is a great experience. If I had
Speaker 2: to do it the same way, you know, and I
Speaker 2: didn't get to change anything, I would still do it.
Speaker 2: But I don't need it. I don't have to have
Speaker 2: had it to be satisfied with who I am.
Speaker 1: Wonderful. Thank you for being so open and so generous
Speaker 1: with your time and your experience. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I really love, you know, interviews like this and programs
Speaker 2: like yours, because the long form format where you can
Speaker 2: really get into a subject, is so much more beneficial
Speaker 2: and so much more fun to engage in than the
Speaker 2: like eight minute radio segments that I've done a million.
Speaker 1: Of I hope, so thank you, Thank you again to
Speaker 1: Ken Bone. You can follow him on Twitter for updates
Speaker 1: he shares as he sees fit, and you can also
Speaker 1: donate to his nonprofit of choice, the Saint Patrick Center
Speaker 1: in Saint Louis, at the link in the description. I'll
Speaker 1: be doing the same, and I really appreciate it. Ken
Speaker 1: made it a part of his mission to include the
Speaker 1: interest of his own community. I really hope this is
Speaker 1: something that characters of the day kind of put into
Speaker 1: practice when their time randomly comes oddly enough. Talk to
Speaker 1: a girl. Hailey Welch is a pretty solid example of this.
Speaker 1: She's recently started a nonprofit for stray animals in her area.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, there will never
Speaker 1: be another Ken Bone. But he is an important hallmark
Speaker 1: in Internet history. He's a clear and early example of
Speaker 1: the milkshake duck phenomenon, a crossover between the mainstream media
Speaker 1: and social media, and a person who was able to
Speaker 1: grow and change with the phenomenon that surrounded him. So
Speaker 1: here we are again at the end of another fucked
Speaker 1: up American election cycle. Vote your conscience, vote down ballot
Speaker 1: in your community and participate in mutual aid in your area.
Speaker 1: Vote blue no matter who is for losers and Nimbi's
Speaker 1: people help people period. And for your moment of fun
Speaker 1: this week. There are still a few weeks of rancid
Speaker 1: SNL sketches to get through before election day. So here
Speaker 1: was Ken's rancid SNL moment. Next week, more hot dogs.
Speaker 2: Bye, all right, and now since everyone has been so good,
Speaker 2: it's time for a special treat. That's right, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 2: put your hands together, the one, the only, mister Kenbone.
Speaker 1: You all ready for the Oh my god, he is
Speaker 1: so cute.
Speaker 2: I really needed that right now.
Speaker 1: No, wait, Ken, You're not going to turn out to
Speaker 1: be a weird little creep or anything, are you?
Speaker 2: Maybe?
Speaker 1: God, we can't have anything nice? Oh well. Sixteenth Minute
Speaker 1: is a production of Whole Zone Media and iHeart Rodeops.
Speaker 1: It is written, hosted, and produced by me Jamie Rastus.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans. The
Speaker 1: Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is
Speaker 1: from Grant Crater and pet Shout Outs. To our dog
Speaker 1: producer Anderson, my Kat's flee and Casper, and my pet Rothbert,
Speaker 1: who will outlive us all. Bye.