Latest / The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of / Very American Things from August 10th, 2026

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Very American Things from August 10th, 2026 · The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It ran across this in the New York Times yesterday,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and it's pretty pretty interesting, I think, and pretty telling.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Says you want to understand this country, look at our stuff.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Our look at all this stuff.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: We are a big, unruly nation, prone to acting in
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: extreme and contradictory ways, often at the same time. But
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: American this is easy to spot. It lives in our mannerisms,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: big smiles, our worldview, bullish, and it's imbued in our stuff.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: The gadgets, the food, the tools, the household clutter that
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: we have. Just like you study the ancient Mesopotamia culture. Sure,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: whatever stuff they left behind, that's how you try to
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: understand who those people were. So here that here's the stuff,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the museum of stuff. Okay, first thing on it. I
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: guess this is a list, Carrie, actually in a way. Yeah.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: The first thing is the four ninety nine Costco rotisserie chicken.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And it's great in the in the in the article,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: it's sitting on a pedestal. Of course it is.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: We all love thetisic.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: They say, we're a divided country, but we have nothing
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: in common. Well, right, left, urban rural men, women, real America,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Fake America. But you go to costco. That's one thing
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: we all have in common. Four ninety nine rotisserie chickens
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty or a dollar fifty hot dogs
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Number two, the plastic lawn flamingo. Yeah,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: as the lawn began, so did the United States seeds.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Non native seeds arrived on ships, took to the wind,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: and colonized the landscape. Welcome to America. Our lawns might
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: be agriculturally worthless, economic sinkholes, requiring hard labor and constant maintenance.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: But the American urged to tame the wilderness by transforming
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: into our own image is hard to deny. That's the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: lawn flamingo. I'll skip some of these. The juicy coach
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: you or sweatsuit it was a thing since the invention
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: of lycra in nineteen fifty eight. The American athlete and
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the American couch potato have won in the same pants us.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Nothing wrong with being comfortable.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: No, there isn't juicy courture of the lure sets on
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: sets on the regular. It was a move that said
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I'm so wealthy, I don't even have to get dressed.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: The NASCAR Chevy and Paula Hm we can just let
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: that go by ring lights. Yeah, the country has finally
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: reached peak opinion. The modern day pamphleteer has a get
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: ready with me about the United States Mexico Canada agreement.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: And yes, we will tune in to watch it live.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that means, watch it live.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I mean it's it's for influencers.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: You have light.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's what they're talking.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: We're all influencers. Let's see this one, the goop yawny egg.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Gwyneth Paltrow's that was the kid to tighten things up.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you put that exercises.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Dirty Soda, this niche beverage, once popular only in Utah,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: has become a nationwide sensation thanks to a cadre of
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: teetotal Mormon influencers who drink doctored up sodas instead of
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: coffee and booze. The dirty Soda to dirty Soda non believers,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the drink is an ungodly concoction of soda, pop flavored syrup,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: fresh fruit juice, and cream. And I've had one and
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: that's all all it took. Would never get another one.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Too much sugar, Yeah, it's too much.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: The T shirt cannon.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Uniquely United States thing.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: The T shirt canon, merges three American obsessions, guns, sports,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: and giveaways. It was invented by a guy named Tim Dirk,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the first mascot for the San Antonio Spurs, who hype
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: up basketball fans during commercial breaks. He understood us. We
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: love free stuff, and we love guns and T shirts.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Crest white strips.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Huh.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: We are not the happiest nation on earth. That would
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: be Finland, but we are probably the smiliest. American teeth
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: have gotten whiter and bigger, thanks in no small part
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: two Procter and Gamble, Crest White strips, and Walton Goggins. Yeah.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I just threw that in there. The pizza hut lamp.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: The pizza Hut lamp pretty American?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know those they're supposed to look like
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: what do they call those Tiffany lamps? Stained glasses? Yeah,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: but they're plastic of course. Crocs with bling on them.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: They have been called the ugliest shoe in the world,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: enlisted among Time Magazine's fifty worst inventions of all Time.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: They are alongside Agent Origin, the Ford Pivot, and yet
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the croc, the shoe Americans love to hate will not die.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: These foam blobs are comfortable, indestructible, buoyant, and infantilizing. A
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: new pair of crocs arrives as a blank canvas. That
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: just thanks for another innovation, gibbets, the branded bobbles that
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: you can bling them with.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Just more crap.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: It's more crap. The tree shaped air freshener. Yeah, that's
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: very American and I think that's the last one. I
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: think it might be the last one to meet.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Your car air freshener that shaped like a tree.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Vanilla a Roma, that's the Vanilla Aroma to get there.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: That's the new one.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: No, that's not that's just the one.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: It's the one that most people get at the time.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: When I would purchase that a long time ago, that
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: is the one I would purchase.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There are many different scents, but Vanilla a Roma
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: is Oh here's some more. The George Foreman grill. Yeah,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: pretty American. Dude wipes x l Okay, this is an
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: ad for dude wipes, isn't it? No, No American industry
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and means we love solving problems that they're specifically saying
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: dude wipe.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because just wipes, Yeah, just wipes for one thing,
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: But dude wipes is a specific repackaging.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Here's what I say about such is the case with
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: dude wipes x L. The supposed problem was the American
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: man's dirty bottom. The solution repackaging wet wipes scent them
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: with coffee beans or pine trees and advertised using scatological
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: jokes and NFL stars. Unfortunately, when flushed, dude wipes may
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: clog your pipes. That's the thing about solving problems. Often
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: you end up creating another one. See also the Vietnam War,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the Inherent Question, engine and the Internet, and proposition thirteen.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: The sad desk salad. People sitting at their desks eating
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: a little sad little okay salads. The ring doorbell camera,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah American, the red solo cup, solo cop um. Real
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: tree print. I don't know what that is exactly. The
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: further Americans go from living trees in the forest, the
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: more desperate we are to touch grass. Thankfully, seel Tree
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: is here to help. It's a photo realistic camo print,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: once used only by hunters, and now it covers everything
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: from cheap travel mugs to luxury adjacent streetwear. I hate
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the camouflage everywhere. Yeah, and this one is the it's
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: a specific everywhere, a bottomless basket of chips and salsa.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: What's wrong with that? Nothing American live, laugh, love signs.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: That's those need to go dog strollers, dog stroller.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Putting your putting your dog in a little stroller. And
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I saw somebody at Costco with one of those and
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: this little white dog, and I thought it was actually
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: kind of cute. You could tell he could not wait
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: to jump there. They were getting out of the car,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and he couldn't wait to jump into that stroller, and
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: he did and off they went. I think that's fine.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: The gas station bathroom key, uh yeah, it's it's it's
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the key is connected to something big and unwielding.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: That's why you go to the Maverick. You don't need
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: the key. And they're the clean bathrooms.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Botox pretty American. Yeah. And the inflatable tube man come
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: into waving outside of stores dealers. Yeah. And I think
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: that's the last one. Yep, that's the last one, all
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: pretty American. You go to the The photos that will
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: go with them are really great too. It's just at
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: the New York Times Sunday Times.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: I think you had crocs for a while.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Did you stop that I still have a pair of
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: crocs on me, and the only reason I got them
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: was when I went to Nepal, because you put them
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: on to go because there's no you know, you have
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: to go outside to go to the bathroom.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: And you don't want to tie your shoes just to go.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: I just want to slip them on.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: And I still have them, but I don't. I don't
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: remember the last time I ever put them on a
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: right