Latest / Black Ibis Social Club / S2E8: Calm Night w/Isaiah Evanson

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S2E8: Calm Night w/Isaiah Evanson · Black Ibis Social Club

0:11
SPEAKER_01: Good evening.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Black Ibis Social Club.
0:15
It's kind of a cold night in South Carolina and it kind of
0:24
matches my mood.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: I've been feeling a bit of a
0:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to describe it.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Boredom, maybe?
0:31
SPEAKER_01: Ennui?
0:33
SPEAKER_01: Ennui?
0:34
SPEAKER_01: What's the proper word for it?
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Just not really been into the internet lately.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: Haven't been going on Substack,
0:42
SPEAKER_01: and I haven't been catching up on articles,
0:45
SPEAKER_01: and I haven't really been doing anything.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: I've had an overall lack of interest in
0:51
SPEAKER_01: politics, conversations, arguments, and any of that stuff.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: It's become overall schizophrenic.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: And I was driving to work this morning,
1:02
SPEAKER_01: and I kind of was reflecting on the overall schizophrenia of my life.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: I have this rich intellectual conversations with tons of people online.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: A lot of them I've known for
1:17
SPEAKER_01: God,
1:17
SPEAKER_01: like six,
1:18
seven years now or even longer that I've talked to almost every
1:21
day on chat groups
1:23
SPEAKER_01: and over social media like Substack or Twitter and different places.
1:29
And that life is completely disconnected and separate from my
1:35
day-to-day life to the point where
1:40
SPEAKER_01: Intellectually,
1:40
I look at my internet conversations and my communications with
1:45
people as the real
1:46
SPEAKER_01: world and the time I spend in the real world as something that's passing,
1:52
SPEAKER_01: fleeting,
1:52
and boring because I can't really have this level of
1:55
conversation with people.
1:57
And that kind of breeds a strange schizophrenia in me that I'm
2:03
starting to notice
2:04
SPEAKER_01: and I don't know if that's a good thing.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: So I've been pondering that.
2:09
But tonight at the Black Ibis Social Club,
2:12
like usual,
2:13
we have Mr.
2:13
Fisto.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: What's up, Fisto?
2:15
SPEAKER_01: Hey, how you doing, man?
2:17
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: And then we have previous guest, returning guest, Mr. Isaiah.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: What's up, man?
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Not much.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Glad to be here.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: So you know what I've been into these last few days?
2:31
SPEAKER_01: I've been listening to a lot of Soviet era goth punk rock music, right?
2:38
SPEAKER_01: And I've been listening to Kino.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: Have you guys ever listened to Kino?
2:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Can't say that I have, no.
2:43
No,
2:44
I can't say that I have either,
2:45
but I think I did listen to the song you had sent.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: It captures a really nice vibe.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: I actually really enjoyed it.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: I've listened to it a couple of times.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's one of their most famous songs.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: It's called Calm Night.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: Spokoinenok, or whatever, how you pronounce it in Russian.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be crucified by the Russians.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: I don't speak Russian.
3:08
but I like listening to foreign music I have a I think that
3:14
it's interesting to the
3:16
20th century is interesting because throughout all the
3:20
different cultures there's a
3:21
lot of you know we think of like the hippies and the beats and
3:26
the disco era and
3:27
SPEAKER_01: that kind of stuff but non-english countries also had their own kind of
3:32
SPEAKER_01: sub-genres or,
3:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:35
cultural trends that are often very different yet similar to
3:40
American trends.
3:42
It's always interesting to get into that kind of stuff and,
3:44
like,
3:45
kind of explore it.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, I really like French yayay music.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: And French yayay music is, like, 1960s, like, girl pop music.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: And one of the most beautiful women of all time,
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Francois Hardy,
4:02
SPEAKER_01: was one of the main French yayay singers,
4:05
SPEAKER_01: and she recently passed away.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: But Kino's interesting,
4:09
and I bring up Kino because it's kind of the topic I'm going to
4:13
talk a little bit
4:14
SPEAKER_01: about today,
4:14
SPEAKER_01: and I want to ask you guys some questions about it.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: Kino is actually,
4:20
SPEAKER_01: if you're on the internet and you see those,
4:22
SPEAKER_01: do you guys know,
4:22
SPEAKER_01: remember those Doomer videos or Doomer scrolling videos?
4:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
4:26
SPEAKER_00: it's like,
4:29
SPEAKER_00: I guess certain songs,
4:30
SPEAKER_00: I guess you could say it's like,
4:32
SPEAKER_00: like Alice in Chains or something like that,
4:33
SPEAKER_00: but it's slowed down.
4:34
It's got like a picture of a guy in like a hoodie or something
4:37
like that smoking a
4:38
SPEAKER_00: cigarette and he just looks utterly depressed.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: Right.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: And in the background is like an old Soviet block.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: Right.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of those Doomer video memes use a lot of Kino music.
4:50
And Kino is actually also a word that people kind of like
4:52
adopted unironically.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: Would say, oh, that's very Kino.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: Kino in Russian means cinema, right?
4:58
SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, Kinema, right?
5:01
SPEAKER_01: So it's like shorthand slang for the movies, basically.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: But it's also, the word itself, I'm cracking open a cold one.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: By cold one, I mean a grapefruit flavored sparkling water.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: By Keno, people can also mean that's cool, that's like hip.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: It's like, gosh, it's Keno.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: Bussin, like the kids say these days.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: But Keno was a band that was
5:33
SPEAKER_01: It's super popular in Russia,
5:35
SPEAKER_01: and it was a band that was formed in 1981 in Leningrad,
5:39
SPEAKER_01: the city formerly known as Leningrad,
5:41
SPEAKER_01: now St.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: Petersburg.
5:45
And their lead singer is interesting,
5:47
and he was kind of like a goth icon.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: He's basically the Kurt Cobain of Soviet post-punk music.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: His name was Victor Soy.
6:00
And he's interesting from an American perspective because he's
6:04
actually not white,
6:06
SPEAKER_01: if that makes sense,
6:07
SPEAKER_01: right?
6:08
SPEAKER_01: He is Soviet Korean and Russian.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to Google him,
6:15
SPEAKER_01: Victor Soy,
6:16
SPEAKER_01: he looks like a pretty boy Korean guy or a half-white guy.
6:19
He's very Bruce Lee in his appearance,
6:22
and he even cultivated that kind of Bruce Lee look.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: And it kind of illustrates that
6:28
Russia is actually much more of a multicultural country than
6:32
even the United States
6:33
SPEAKER_01: when it comes to ethnicities.
6:35
There's tons of ethnicities in Russia,
6:37
especially under the USSR,
6:39
the Soviet Union.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: I got to be honest.
6:43
SPEAKER_03: He's kind of putting off the room vibes.
6:45
SPEAKER_03: The what?
6:45
SPEAKER_03: The guy that did the room.
6:46
The guy that did the room,
6:47
there's this one picture of him that's just like,
6:50
oh,
6:51
hi,
6:51
Mark.
6:52
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
6:53
SPEAKER_03: Pretty great, though.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: I can't see it, bro.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: What's crazy about that is that,
7:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:01
SPEAKER_01: he wrote these songs and these guys were playing music and,
7:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:05
SPEAKER_01: and when he was playing music,
7:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:07
SPEAKER_01: it was the miserable Soviet era and,
7:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:11
SPEAKER_01: rock and roll and that kind of stuff was pretty much banned.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: You really couldn't be, you couldn't make money doing that.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: You weren't going to be a rock star, you know?
7:19
SPEAKER_01: And, um,
7:20
SPEAKER_01: he,
7:20
SPEAKER_01: you could,
7:21
SPEAKER_01: they had like,
7:21
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:21
SPEAKER_01: the official bands that were allowed to play shows and stuff.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: And these guys were,
7:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:26
SPEAKER_01: very underground,
7:27
SPEAKER_01: kind of kept it on the down low,
7:29
SPEAKER_01: didn't make any money off of it at first.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: And,
7:31
SPEAKER_01: um,
7:33
SPEAKER_01: he,
7:33
SPEAKER_01: it's interesting enough,
7:34
SPEAKER_01: this guy was super popular,
7:36
SPEAKER_01: but he worked as in,
7:39
SPEAKER_01: in a boiler room,
7:41
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:41
SPEAKER_01: like in,
7:41
in a boiler room in his apartment building in a Soviet block as
7:44
the boiler stoker,
7:46
SPEAKER_01: you know?
7:47
SPEAKER_01: And, uh,
7:49
SPEAKER_01: They make it huge.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: They inspire everybody in Eastern Europe.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: The music gets translated to all different languages and stuff.
7:58
And this dude's slinging away at a boiler in some Soviet bloc
8:03
in Leningrad.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: And then once Perestroika happens and the wall comes down,
8:09
SPEAKER_01: he's out in freaking Latvia and he dies in a car accident at 33.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: It's a pretty tragic, very...
8:18
SPEAKER_01: very dark kind of Russian thing.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: I've just been thinking a lot about Russian stuff.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: I've been in a Dostoevsky mood.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: I re-watched a movie The Island.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you guys got a chance to watch that.
8:34
Yes,
8:34
I actually got to finish that last night,
8:36
and I got some thoughts on it.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about that in a bit.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: But that's kind of where I'm at today.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: How about you, Fisto?
8:42
SPEAKER_01: Where are you at today?
8:45
SPEAKER_03: Well...
8:47
SPEAKER_03: I was sneaking a listen to Kino.
8:50
SPEAKER_03: And I'm going to throw that on tomorrow.
8:52
SPEAKER_03: In class,
8:54
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to be doing Khrushchev's speech,
8:57
SPEAKER_03: secret speech to the Congress where he denounced Stalin.
9:03
So that'll be kind of fun as the background music as the kids
9:06
read the speech and
9:08
SPEAKER_03: work on some questions regarding the speech.
9:10
SPEAKER_03: So that'll be pretty fun for me.
9:11
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for the thank you for the music tip, my friend.
9:15
SPEAKER_03: But no, I've been just crazy busy with school like.
9:18
SPEAKER_03: You guys go, hey, check out this movie.
9:20
SPEAKER_03: Check out this book.
9:21
SPEAKER_03: And check out this.
9:22
SPEAKER_03: And I'm just like, must make lessons.
9:25
SPEAKER_03: So that's kind of where I'm at.
9:26
SPEAKER_03: Although this week's been fun.
9:28
SPEAKER_03: I've gotten to get into the Cold War stuff,
9:30
which a lot of people may not know is what I studied when I was
9:33
in college and what
9:34
SPEAKER_03: I got my history degree in for the most part.
9:37
SPEAKER_03: Today, we discussed Stalin.
9:39
SPEAKER_03: And it's a lot of fun.
9:42
SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to kind of explain just very briefly, very basically how
9:46
communism developed,
9:47
how it developed into Leninism and Trotskyism and Stalinism.
9:52
SPEAKER_03: And then when I start talking about Stalin, I told two stories.
9:58
SPEAKER_03: I told the story of the airbrush photo, the famous airbrush photo.
10:03
and then told the story of the orchestra uh the orchestra story
10:08
um you know the the
10:09
movie death of stalin yeah at the beginning they have that
10:11
whole orchestra where
10:12
they basically kidnap the audience kidnap the orchestra and
10:15
have them replay this
10:16
the show um so that way stalin can get a copy of it and that
10:21
definitely like
10:22
reached many of the children many of the kids they're like so
10:26
they just like go to
10:26
SPEAKER_03: prison no no no no no no that's if they're lucky
10:30
like you're vanished you're gone just like you never existed
10:35
steve nah never heard
10:37
of the guy never heard of him he's not yeah you've been working
10:39
with him known for
10:40
30 years nope never heard of him don't know where he went you
10:45
know what's what's
10:47
interesting about the soviet period and just all of eastern
10:52
europe and the part
10:53
SPEAKER_01: that i
10:55
SPEAKER_01: I like the best when I read about that era.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: And it's an era that I caught the tail end as a kid.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: But the part that really, I think, inspires me in a way is that
11:10
with all this oppression,
11:11
with all this like suppression of art and culture.
11:14
And,
11:14
you know,
11:14
you listen to these guys today,
11:16
talk about censorship and blah.
11:18
It's such a joke compared to,
11:20
you know,
11:21
what these guys in Eastern Europe went to.
11:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:23
SPEAKER_03: My,
11:24
I tell the story of my Russian history professor who had his
11:28
grandfather killed
11:30
SPEAKER_03: because his,
11:31
SPEAKER_03: his brother,
11:31
him and his brother got into a fight at a bar and his brother
11:35
decided to leak,
11:36
SPEAKER_03: decided to say some things to the cops.
11:37
SPEAKER_03: And,
11:38
SPEAKER_03: by the end of the night, his brother had vanished.
11:40
SPEAKER_03: His, his, his, the grandfather, my professor had vanished.
11:44
SPEAKER_03: Right.
11:44
SPEAKER_03: I mean, guys, you have no fucking clue.
11:47
SPEAKER_03: Well,
11:48
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:50
SPEAKER_01: and you,
11:50
SPEAKER_01: you listen to these,
11:51
SPEAKER_01: these,
11:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:53
SPEAKER_01: fucking bots on,
11:54
SPEAKER_01: on Substack going,
11:55
SPEAKER_01: Oh,
11:56
SPEAKER_01: Trump banned AP from a shut up,
11:59
SPEAKER_01: man.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: You don't even know what you're talking about.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, like,
12:04
SPEAKER_03: Ty E.V.
12:04
SPEAKER_03: had this great article today about the AP style manual.
12:09
SPEAKER_03: And he's like,
12:09
SPEAKER_03: yeah,
12:09
if you want to complain about the White House controlling what
12:11
people think and you
12:12
SPEAKER_03: haven't read the AP style manual as of late,
12:14
SPEAKER_03: basically,
12:16
SPEAKER_03: yeah,
12:16
SPEAKER_03: just shut up and read this.
12:18
SPEAKER_03: Because like, yeah, it's...
12:20
SPEAKER_01: These people are the most sniveling cowards ever.
12:23
And you know what makes me want to just slap the taste out of
12:25
all their mouths,
12:26
right?
12:27
SPEAKER_01: I want to beat them with like a fucking piece of rebar, you know?
12:31
SPEAKER_01: Is that these cowards, these sniveling, pathetic cucks, right?
12:37
They want to LARP like they would be the ones hiding Anne Frank
12:41
in the fucking
12:41
SPEAKER_01: basement or whatever,
12:42
SPEAKER_01: right?
12:43
SPEAKER_01: But they had that chance, man.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: They lived.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: We've all lived through true creepy oppression, right?
12:49
SPEAKER_01: The beginning of it.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: Oppression light.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: But we lived through COVID, right?
12:53
When people were afraid of losing their livelihood,
12:56
afraid of losing their jobs if they spoke.
12:59
People would get sick after the vaccine and were afraid to
13:03
admit that they got sick
13:04
because they did not want to be tarred and feathered by these
13:08
disgusting fucking reptiles.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: And what did these people do?
13:11
SPEAKER_01: They cheered.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: They called the cops on their neighbors.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: And they want to LARP.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: They want to pretend now.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: That they're freedom fighters?
13:22
SPEAKER_01: The fuck with them?
13:23
SPEAKER_01: May they rot in hell for all eternity, in my opinion.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: All of them.
13:27
And these are the people that locked up children and kept them
13:32
from being together
13:33
SPEAKER_01: in school and kept people from being at their parents' deathbed or their
13:37
SPEAKER_01: grandparents' deathbed for a cold.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: And you want to LARP like you're a fucking freedom fighter?
13:44
SPEAKER_01: Like you put Anne Frank in your body?
13:46
basement the hell you went right you're sniveling cowards
13:51
you're the guys that
13:51
would inform to the kgb or the uh gestapo you're the the the
13:56
left is the most
13:57
disgusting pathetic pieces of shit right and i have no and you
14:03
know what and this
14:04
is a message to all those people that are trying to tell me to
14:07
tone it down or
14:08
SPEAKER_01: whatever no i do come in
14:11
quiet all right if you were a leftist in the last five to ten
14:15
years shut the fuck
14:18
up all right how dare you go on substack and tell me oh well i
14:22
voted for kamala but
14:23
like you know i think you guys should tone it down shut the
14:26
fuck shut up retard no
14:28
retard i think we're a little beyond toning it down i think
14:33
we're we're a little uh
14:34
SPEAKER_00: further along the process here because
14:38
They had plenty of opportunities to tone it down themselves,
14:40
and they never did.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: So I don't think that we have any reason to tone it down anymore.
14:45
Yeah,
14:47
the funny thing,
14:47
too,
14:47
is just sitting back and just watch history unfold.
14:50
SPEAKER_03: I mean, with what happened in the election and what's happened.
14:53
SPEAKER_03: I mean, guys, it's been a month.
14:54
SPEAKER_03: It's been a month.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: It feels like it's been in four years.
14:58
SPEAKER_03: Holy shit, guys.
15:00
I've been following all the stuff going on in Saudi Arabia and
15:02
Riyadh with Russia
15:04
SPEAKER_03: and United States getting together.
15:06
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, we just dodged the big one.
15:09
SPEAKER_03: Holy shit.
15:10
SPEAKER_03: The big old shoved billions of people in the forever box.
15:14
SPEAKER_03: We may have dodged it.
15:15
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, you want to talk?
15:16
SPEAKER_03: No, no, no.
15:16
SPEAKER_03: Look, whatever else happens, I voted for that shit.
15:19
SPEAKER_03: I don't give you a fuck.
15:21
SPEAKER_03: Like we missed the – it's like, guys, this is what's going on.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: I would like it to just – It's so cool.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: It's crazy.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
15:29
SPEAKER_01: I wish – and this is an honest thing.
15:31
I wish that the Trump administration was one-tenth of the
15:37
fascists that these guys
15:38
SPEAKER_01: accuse him of being.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
15:40
Because I don't think I'd bat an eye if some of those COVID
15:43
pimps would get shoved
15:44
SPEAKER_01: into a death camp.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I –
15:48
SPEAKER_03: He's so fascist.
15:49
SPEAKER_03: Guys, we should probably cut our military spending by 50%.
15:51
We should probably withdraw our troops from all the places that
15:56
joined NATO after 1990.
15:57
SPEAKER_03: Hey, Putin, let's hang out.
15:59
SPEAKER_03: We need to figure this out.
16:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, guys, super fascist, super fucking fascist.
16:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, remind me of all those countries that the Germans voluntarily...
16:10
The left is trying to redefine what actually led to fascism in
16:16
Europe in the 30s and 40s.
16:18
SPEAKER_03: That free speech thing?
16:19
SPEAKER_03: What was that?
16:21
SPEAKER_03: That Margaret lady?
16:22
SPEAKER_03: The Margaret I don't really care?
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Really?
16:25
And she keeps saying,
16:26
or they kept saying that it was because of free speech.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, I don't think that's the polar opposite of fascism.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: I was thinking earlier today when I was reading some of that stuff,
16:36
SPEAKER_03: I'm like,
16:37
SPEAKER_03: guys,
16:37
SPEAKER_03: did you watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?
16:40
That book burning scene doesn't make a whole lot of sense if
16:42
it's all about that
16:42
SPEAKER_03: free speech,
16:43
SPEAKER_03: right?
16:43
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's obviously a joke.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: But it was, what was it?
16:47
SPEAKER_00: It was some German dude that stood up and was like,
16:50
SPEAKER_00: you know,
16:50
SPEAKER_00: this is completely unacceptable what Vance is saying to us.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like,
16:54
bro the last time somebody did that there was a world war yeah
17:00
you should probably
17:01
it's like if you're not that i mean they lack no self-awareness
17:04
whatsoever they
17:05
listen listen listen listen germany if you think it's illegal
17:08
to insult somebody on
17:09
SPEAKER_03: the internet i have a taint that needs a fucking tongue bath come at me
17:13
motherfucker let's fucking go you for the first time ever in
17:17
your life you will
17:18
SPEAKER_03: have done something useful for your fellow man all right
17:21
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: I look at some of these comments and some of this commentary and I go,
17:28
you woke up this morning and you typed that shit and then you
17:32
brushed your teeth so
17:33
SPEAKER_01: you had to have looked in the mirror.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: How do you bear the visage of such faggotry every morning?
17:39
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Because you can't be honest.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: These people cannot truly believe that shit.
17:47
SPEAKER_03: But guys, without the IRS, who will audit Americans?
17:51
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
17:52
SPEAKER_03: That fucking came out of your mouth?
17:53
SPEAKER_03: Really?
17:54
SPEAKER_03: We're going to bat for the IRS.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: We're going to bat for the IRS.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: You said that.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: You sat down and typed that.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: That required a higher level of cognition to be able to do that.
18:07
And you,
18:08
as a human being,
18:09
put that down into writing for the entire world to see.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: If I was that level of a scumworm...
18:16
I would walk right into the 405 and get run over by a big rig
18:19
because that's what I
18:20
SPEAKER_01: would deserve.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: I would be so embarrassed.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: I would go live in some hovel in the desert because that's embarrassing.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh, my God, dude.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:29
SPEAKER_03: Just what?
18:31
SPEAKER_03: Going to the IRS.
18:32
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
18:33
SPEAKER_03: That's the hill we're dying on.
18:35
What it's doing is it's revealing just how utterly absurd the
18:38
entire leftist
18:39
SPEAKER_00: mindset is because they're contradicting themselves at every turn.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: They're like, free speech is fascism.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Without the IRS, who's going to audit Americans?
18:47
It's like these are the – this is why you have no worldview
18:50
worth preserving
18:52
SPEAKER_00: because there's nothing that you're saying that makes any sense.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have any logical consistency whatsoever, and every time you –
19:00
yeah that's that's it that's all they're doing is they're just
19:03
repeating bad Elon
19:05
Musk has my social security number it's like they remind the
19:08
fact that the actual
19:09
social security administration is paying out millions of
19:12
dollars to people who are
19:14
like 350 years old it's like oh so they have my thing that
19:17
thing how many millions
19:20
of people are on the social security rolls like whether or not
19:23
they're getting paid
19:24
that size clerical other error listen the bet the best the best
19:28
comparison I heard
19:29
SPEAKER_03: regarding that was these are the brown M&Ms.
19:32
SPEAKER_03: And I learned a thing this week.
19:33
SPEAKER_03: What's the guy's name?
19:34
SPEAKER_03: Peter or something or other.
19:36
SPEAKER_03: The guy that runs the All Facts Matter blog,
19:37
SPEAKER_03: he had this great post where he goes,
19:39
SPEAKER_03: listen,
19:39
SPEAKER_03: it's like Van Halen and the brown M&Ms.
19:43
SPEAKER_03: They put that in their contracts so that way the concert managers,
19:47
SPEAKER_03: the concert hall managers,
19:48
SPEAKER_03: if the staff caught
19:51
no brown m&ms in the bowl then they had pretty good confidence
19:54
they had really
19:55
excellent attention to detail which is kind of low-key
19:58
brilliant like you're
19:59
getting their money's worth basically yeah i was like well done
20:02
van halen that's
20:02
really freaking clever and that's what the social security
20:05
number thing is like if
20:06
they miss this think about what else they're missing holy all
20:11
right just cut loose
20:12
man i don't give a you burn it all down fine go that's what i
20:16
voted for i mean i i
20:17
SPEAKER_03: mean at this point
20:19
SPEAKER_03: It's just got to be done.
20:20
If you don't do it,
20:21
you're going to leave the opportunity for it to return.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: I voted for exterminatus.
20:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:29
SPEAKER_03: No, I agree.
20:30
SPEAKER_03: You voted for Franco, it turns out.
20:33
Look,
20:35
in a just democratic society where we are citizens with equal rights,
20:42
we have the right to
20:44
SPEAKER_01: We have the right,
20:45
we have the responsibility to know where every shaving of a
20:50
penny of our tax money
20:53
SPEAKER_01: goes to.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: I do not have a problem with paying taxes.
20:57
I do not have a problem with paying for the salaries of the
21:01
government employees
21:02
SPEAKER_01: that are there to take care of taxes.
21:05
the day-to-day necessities of government i do not have a
21:08
problem paying for roads
21:10
schools police firemen and military but i have a right to know
21:16
where my money is
21:17
going i have a right to know where the elected representatives
21:21
of my country are
21:23
SPEAKER_01: spending that money i have a right to say no
21:27
to having even a penny of my tax contributions be used to trans
21:33
guatemalan children
21:34
in Guatemala the one the one that killed me dude the one that
21:37
killed me atheism in
21:39
tibet mother what you guys are screaming and yelling about the
21:45
value of diverse you
21:47
SPEAKER_03: know diversity and inclusion of cultures and
21:51
SPEAKER_03: And it's just like, what the fuck?
21:54
SPEAKER_03: Atheism in Tibet?
21:55
Aren't you the same people screaming,
21:57
yelling free Tibet like 20,
21:59
30 years ago?
21:59
SPEAKER_03: What the fuck?
22:00
SPEAKER_03: Is that like the equivalent of atheist missionaries?
22:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like what do you mean spread it?
22:05
SPEAKER_03: Leave the Tibetans alone.
22:07
SPEAKER_03: They're up in their mountains doing mountain shit.
22:09
SPEAKER_03: Okay, fucking leave them alone.
22:11
SPEAKER_03: Guys, this is not really a guy.
22:13
SPEAKER_03: We're in the middle of the Himalayan mountains.
22:14
SPEAKER_03: We are literally in his domain, all right?
22:16
SPEAKER_03: You guys, like, just toss him off the mountain.
22:18
SPEAKER_03: Look,
22:18
the only atheism that should happen in Tibet is getting tossed
22:23
off the Potala Palace,
22:24
SPEAKER_03: all right?
22:26
SPEAKER_03: That's the long and short of it, as far as I'm concerned.
22:29
SPEAKER_03: Just leave those guys alone.
22:30
SPEAKER_03: Come on.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what?
22:32
SPEAKER_01: The one that really gets to me...
22:35
SPEAKER_01: And joking aside,
22:37
is the fact that there was millions of dollars spent on
22:41
suppressing the Orthodox
22:42
SPEAKER_01: Church in Ukraine.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: And,
22:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:47
SPEAKER_01: as a combat veteran who was in Afghanistan,
22:50
SPEAKER_01: and we were not allowed to even step near a mosque,
22:53
SPEAKER_01: right?
22:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: put a 50 cal machine gun on a mosque and started shooting at us,
22:58
SPEAKER_01: we were not allowed to return fire.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: All right.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: We are not allowed to engage with that.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: If we knew guys that just blew one of our guys up,
23:05
SPEAKER_01: walked into a mosque,
23:06
SPEAKER_01: we are not allowed to go in there,
23:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:09
SPEAKER_01: or do anything to those guys out of respect for their religion.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, my government is funding anti-Christian stuff, right?
23:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:20
SPEAKER_03: They want to defend Ukraine and they're trying to,
23:23
SPEAKER_03: And they're attacking the Eastern Orthodox Church.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: Right.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: And to me, to me, it goes, that's just evil.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: But half the stuff is evil.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: Transing children is evil.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: You know,
23:32
SPEAKER_01: you're going to trans children in third world countries,
23:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:35
where they can't afford the monthly injections of poison that
23:39
you're going to be
23:40
SPEAKER_01: putting into their bodies.
23:41
What are you going to leave a bunch of castrated third world
23:44
children around?
23:45
SPEAKER_01: Is that what we're doing with my money?
23:46
SPEAKER_01: That's evil, man.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: That's not even like.
23:48
SPEAKER_03: What happened to $5 a month to make sure this kid gets fed?
23:52
yeah i wanna like what happened to that and i don't care what
23:57
what political party
23:58
what belief system you have whatever if you defend that shit
24:01
you're a wrong man
24:03
SPEAKER_03: you're wrong look that that thing
24:06
I wouldn't be surprised if they were never,
24:08
ever going to do any of that.
24:09
SPEAKER_03: It was just a way to get money out of people who are fucking retards.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh, of course.
24:13
SPEAKER_03: At the end of the day, like, yeah, no, we got all that stuff.
24:15
SPEAKER_03: We got all that atheism spread into bed.
24:16
SPEAKER_03: Here we go.
24:17
SPEAKER_03: They just pocketed that shit.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: Here's my question.
24:20
How do we know this money actually went to the people that it
24:23
was supposed to go to?
24:25
How do we know that it didn't get funneled into the bank
24:28
accounts of the local authorities?
24:30
SPEAKER_00: How much?
24:32
whatever train aid they can't find something like a hundred
24:35
billion i saw that
24:35
number yeah yeah like where the fuck did it go like did it like
24:39
is zelinski like
24:40
got like an underground bunker in it oh i'm sure he's got
24:42
plenty of underground
24:43
bunkers i mean you know the black ivy social club where we're
24:47
going to be screaming
24:47
SPEAKER_03: about helicopter rides for communists for literally an hour and a half
24:51
SPEAKER_01: Here we fucking go.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, and here's the thing.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm over it, man.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing.
24:55
This has sent reverberations throughout,
24:59
you know,
24:59
the podcasting circuit because you know what?
25:02
SPEAKER_01: A lot of these leftist fuckers and even these moderate – Yeah, right.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: A bunch of podcasts just vanished.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: Just vanished all of a sudden, you know.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: And you become suspicious all of a sudden.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: Once you read this stuff, you're like, hmm, hmm.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:15
There's a lot of these podcasters that are podcasting about the
25:19
United States,
25:20
SPEAKER_01: you know,
25:21
SPEAKER_01: American politics and culture,
25:23
SPEAKER_01: but they live in fucking Uzbekistan or something like that.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: I wonder who gives them that paycheck, you know?
25:29
SPEAKER_01: Am I paying for it?
25:30
SPEAKER_03: Black-eyed social club is proudly free-range organic, no USAID additives.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't take it if it was – I wouldn't take a dime from them.
25:40
Even if it was the most right-wing-based Christian government
25:44
of all time,
25:44
I still wouldn't take a dime for it because I'm a freaking free
25:47
speech absolutionist.
25:48
I don't ever need the – I don't believe in – I believe in
25:52
separation of church and
25:53
state because I believe that the government should not be
25:56
touching churches because
25:57
SPEAKER_01: the second you take a dime from the government,
25:59
SPEAKER_01: you're no longer a church.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: You're a freaking servile to the government.
26:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, state –
26:05
SPEAKER_03: State churches are not an American thing.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: Which is, which is my, one of my, my beefs with the Orthodox church, but.
26:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's, that's what it is, what it is, right?
26:17
SPEAKER_01: Right.
26:17
SPEAKER_03: No, I mean, that's, that, that's what's going back to the origin of.
26:21
the freaking orthodox church and you know whatever fair enough
26:24
i mean i get it it
26:25
makes sense for for those for those who don't know it it it
26:29
correct me if i'm wrong
26:30
but i mean it emerges out of the eastern roman empire and the
26:33
the the union of
26:36
church and state is like the most natural thing in the world
26:39
which i get it all
26:41
SPEAKER_03: right that's that's how it is over there
26:43
If it's on the surface,
26:44
man,
26:44
it has to be visible and,
26:46
you know,
26:47
decided.
26:48
SPEAKER_03: That ain't how we do it here in America.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: It cannot be through,
26:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:53
like that freaking heretical apostate that calls herself a
26:59
bishop that gave a
27:00
SPEAKER_01: speech at the inauguration thing,
27:02
SPEAKER_01: right?
27:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:04
I don't attack people's denominations or beliefs,
27:06
but women are not preachers.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: They never will be.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: It is heretical.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: It is wrong.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
27:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm not even going to debate that.
27:15
If I ever walk into a church and get invited and a woman goes
27:18
up there to speak,
27:19
SPEAKER_01: I will walk out.
27:22
SPEAKER_03: All right.
27:22
Once all the communists are thrown out of the helicopters,
27:24
we're retaking Constantinople.
27:26
SPEAKER_03: Here we go.
27:27
But anyways,
27:27
you find out that her entire denomination is basically funded
27:33
by USAID.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, of course, because everybody else knows that shit's heretical too.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: So it has to be fun.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: And what's really good.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: I think what's great.
27:44
What's great about this whole thing is that we've realized for
27:46
so long when we are
27:48
SPEAKER_01: skulking in the shadows,
27:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
27:50
SPEAKER_01: people with any belief outside the mainstream,
27:52
SPEAKER_01: right?
27:53
SPEAKER_01: We're skulking in the shadows.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: You know,
27:54
SPEAKER_01: we're,
27:55
we're living in on telegram channels and on the dark side of
27:58
Twitter and stuff,
27:59
SPEAKER_01: talking in code and that type of thing,
28:01
SPEAKER_01: even though our beliefs are baseline normal,
28:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:04
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, maybe I shouldn't trans my kid.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm a heretic to the liberal religion, right?
28:09
SPEAKER_01: Um...
28:10
We always thought that there was a massive mainstream support
28:14
for this stuff.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, we thought that like, this is organic.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: This is the way the culture is.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: And we, no, no, it wasn't.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: It's all fake.
28:24
SPEAKER_03: I think, I think, I think that's a really great point.
28:26
Cause I was just thinking to myself,
28:27
I mean,
28:28
for a while you're like,
28:29
is this for real?
28:30
SPEAKER_03: Is this really where my culture is going?
28:32
SPEAKER_03: Is this really where America is going?
28:34
SPEAKER_03: It's like getting it up and it's all fucking fake.
28:37
SPEAKER_03: It's like, I wasn't crazy this whole time.
28:40
It's getting a glimpse behind the curtain and seeing that the
28:42
great and powerful Oz
28:44
SPEAKER_00: is just a dude working some levers and shit.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: It's a dude jacking it.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a feeble cretin fucking jerking a monkey the whole time.
28:52
SPEAKER_03: He's not even pulling the levers and running the illusion.
28:54
SPEAKER_03: He's just fucking wanking that shit.
28:56
and drooling on himself that's exactly right because the whole
28:59
thing you know you
29:00
look at the whole thing and it's not it's not this whoo
29:02
mastermind thing it's just
29:04
this it's just incompetent fucking stupidity you know it's just
29:09
that's the that's
29:09
the worst thing about it is that because we were dumb and quiet
29:13
and afraid we
29:15
allowed incompetent simpletons to basically just drive us off
29:21
the cliff out of our
29:21
SPEAKER_01: own politeness you know because we were the the
29:27
you know people talk about masculinity and a whole like uh uh
29:31
patriarchy and stuff
29:33
right the biggest destructors of the patriarchy and masculinity
29:38
weren't women it
29:39
was other men and it was men who basically stood by and did not
29:43
want to be the bad
29:44
guy they wanted to be the nice guy and we just let our child
29:48
right drive the car
29:50
on the wrong side of the fucking road for like the last 50
29:53
years because we were
29:54
too kind and too nice to go hey quirky you're a retard turn the
29:57
car around you know
29:59
yeah and maybe we're doing it right now out of the car yeah
30:02
stop yeah stop put the
30:04
car in park get out and you're walking a lot to drive grandma
30:08
we're taking the keys
30:09
all right get in the fucking trunk get in the trunk that's
30:11
where you belong
30:11
backseat i'll drive you that's what that's where they all
30:13
belong they all belong in
30:14
SPEAKER_01: a trunk from now on
30:16
SPEAKER_03: That's why I'm like, I'm not... What about those station wagons?
30:19
Hey,
30:20
can we ask Trump to bring those station wagons that had the
30:23
first back seats back?
30:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the wood panels.
30:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the wood panels.
30:27
SPEAKER_03: Can we get those back?
30:28
SPEAKER_03: Can we just go right back to the 80s?
30:30
SPEAKER_01: Right.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, man.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: That's what we need to do.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: That was a great anger-relieving session.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: I was irritated all day, so that came out a bit.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: Hey, man.
30:38
SPEAKER_03: Hey, man.
30:39
SPEAKER_03: We're here for you.
30:39
SPEAKER_03: We're here for you, brother.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I think...
30:43
SPEAKER_01: you know, before we go, I want to go off this topic.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to talk about politics, really.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, it's fine.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
30:48
What I think is important,
30:49
man,
30:50
is that we just don't,
30:53
we're done engaging with these people.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
30:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, that's the thing.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: There is, we've had
31:00
SPEAKER_01: I've been doing this internet conversation thing for,
31:03
SPEAKER_01: God,
31:04
SPEAKER_01: what,
31:04
SPEAKER_01: like eight,
31:05
SPEAKER_01: nine,
31:05
SPEAKER_01: ten years now?
31:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: And it's just a waste of time because you know what?
31:10
SPEAKER_01: You cannot argue.
31:11
You cannot have a good faith conversation with people that
31:14
believe in nothing.
31:16
you know right it's like talking to the nihilists in the big
31:19
lebowski you know
31:20
those guys don't believe in nothing you know they believe in
31:22
they believe in
31:22
nothing man you know like you well about national socialism at
31:25
least it was an
31:26
aesthetic right i will take the most rabbit like like far left
31:30
communist over your
31:32
average shit lib okay because at least those guys pretend to
31:34
believe in something
31:35
SPEAKER_01: you know at least those guys fought for something
31:37
Yeah,
31:38
these guys,
31:39
the majority of these guys,
31:41
they're like,
31:42
they believe in the IRS?
31:43
SPEAKER_01: What?
31:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: They're so incoherent and useless, and it's just like, shut up.
31:49
SPEAKER_03: It's like, I believe in AOL.
31:50
SPEAKER_03: I believe in AOL.
31:51
SPEAKER_03: My AOL email address, ride or die.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't want to listen to you.
31:58
I don't care about your opinions on anything if you voted for
32:01
Kamala Harris.
32:02
If you looked at that giant sloppy mess of a campaign and you
32:05
thought that that's
32:06
SPEAKER_01: what you're going to vote for.
32:07
Did you see the screenshot going around of the one like TDS
32:11
slop dude going like,
32:13
SPEAKER_03: where are you Kamala?
32:14
SPEAKER_03: We need you.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: She's back home enjoying her life, man.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: She was going to ride the gravy train if it was going to happen.
32:21
She's like,
32:21
thank God I lost that thing because by God,
32:23
I didn't know what I was doing.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because she wanted four years of being called dumb by everybody.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: The last thing she wanted,
32:30
SPEAKER_01: she just wanted to go back to California and enjoy her life,
32:32
SPEAKER_01: you know?
32:33
Like,
32:34
come on,
32:34
these people are so...
32:35
She doesn't even know she was running for president.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: She just got back home and is like, yeah, no, it's okay.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's like, I'm going to Jamaica.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to go party.
32:42
SPEAKER_01: Man, these guys are so pathetic.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: It's like, look, if you're going to carry water, I mean, come on, man.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: For her?
32:48
SPEAKER_01: Like...
32:49
like inspiring right there if that's what you find inspiring
32:52
and like you are
32:53
that's just i don't know save me queen yeah you're you're
32:58
you're you're a fucking
32:59
clown dude you know i mean like i'd rather vote for fucking
33:03
hermione potato vote
33:04
SPEAKER_01: for a potato
33:06
SPEAKER_00: You'd get less word salad from a potato, to be honest with you.
33:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
33:09
SPEAKER_03: And I can make French fries out of the potato if it pissed me off.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: You can make potato salad if you wanted to.
33:14
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
33:15
SPEAKER_03: I can make an actual potato salad,
33:16
SPEAKER_03: feed it to Hermione Granger,
33:18
and still get more out of the government than Harris ever could
33:20
have ever managed.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: It's like those guys that post, like, Mamala or whatever.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: How are you a dude that posts that?
33:27
SPEAKER_03: You know what?
33:29
I didn't know that was a thing,
33:30
and now I hate something more than furries.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: That coming out of my mouth right now,
33:36
SPEAKER_01: literally,
33:38
SPEAKER_01: I feel spiritually castrated just by even saying that.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: I need to go... I'm ready to die for the emperor.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: I need to go for a run right now because of that, man.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: We're going to pause the podcast, go for a run.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to jog real fast.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what it was either, and I googled it, and now I want to...
33:59
SPEAKER_00: There's not enough brain reach for this.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, somebody got paid, like, $2 million for that ad campaign.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
34:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: USAID, there it is.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: The purge has begun.
34:10
SPEAKER_01: Oh,
34:11
SPEAKER_01: you know some,
34:11
SPEAKER_01: like,
34:12
SPEAKER_01: fucking,
34:12
SPEAKER_01: like,
34:13
SPEAKER_01: 22-year-old,
34:14
SPEAKER_01: like,
34:15
SPEAKER_01: intern aide fresh out of,
34:16
SPEAKER_01: like,
34:16
SPEAKER_01: some stupid-ass Ivy League schools?
34:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, guys, how about we do, like, hashtag Mamala, you know?
34:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, yes, girl.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: That's a great idea.
34:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, perfect.
34:25
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
34:25
SPEAKER_03: Totally emasculate the whatever.
34:28
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
34:30
That's going to totally inspire me to not shove my face into a
34:34
nail sticking out of a tube.
34:35
Man,
34:35
like if I ever wanted to shove my meat into a meat grinder,
34:39
here we go.
34:41
So it makes me want to cut my eyeballs open and shove hoses in
34:44
there and pump vinegar into them.
34:46
Kamala Harris' entire political career literally set back women
34:52
in American
34:53
SPEAKER_01: politics for the next 20 years.
34:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, ladies, ladies.
34:59
SPEAKER_03: Look, if one of you are going to be president, just not her.
35:03
SPEAKER_03: Not her.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: You could do better than that.
35:06
SPEAKER_03: Women absolutely are better than that.
35:08
SPEAKER_03: Kamala Harris is an example of exactly what can be the worst in women.
35:15
What's that woman that ran for vice president with McCain back
35:20
in the day?
35:21
SPEAKER_01: The one from Alaska.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: What was her name?
35:23
SPEAKER_03: Sarah Palin.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: My God, yeah.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: She makes her look good.
35:26
SPEAKER_03: She does make Sarah Palin look confident.
35:27
SPEAKER_03: I would never expect that sentence to come out of my face.
35:29
SPEAKER_03: She'd make Sarah Palin look confident.
35:32
SPEAKER_03: It's like literally Sarah Palin.
35:33
SPEAKER_03: At least Sarah Palin knew where Russia was.
35:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:36
Like she said she could see her from her house,
35:37
but at least she knew what direction to look.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
35:40
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
35:40
she had that vibe of like the kind of woman you pick up on a
35:43
Wednesday night at a
35:44
SPEAKER_01: truck stop.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
35:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:49
I just want to throw this out there just as this is another
35:51
thing in my class.
35:52
SPEAKER_03: This was some cool conversations last week.
35:56
SPEAKER_03: But we did Catherine the Great.
35:59
SPEAKER_03: I spent a day on Catherine the Great.
36:02
SPEAKER_03: And if all y'all are unfamiliar,
36:03
she was the Russian czar from just outside Stettin back when it
36:08
was Prussian.
36:10
SPEAKER_03: She ascends to the throne through all kinds of exciting things.
36:14
and she is a legitimately impressive person and we spent some
36:19
time on the nakaz the
36:20
nakaz was this massive document of directions to a to a
36:25
commission of russian guys
36:27
or whatever where they wanted him to redo the code of laws of
36:30
russia and i'm
36:31
reading through this thing and you know katherine wrote it and
36:33
it's like holy
36:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:36
SPEAKER_03: All right.
36:36
SPEAKER_03: I'd follow her into hell.
36:38
SPEAKER_03: This is legitimately good, thoughtful stuff.
36:40
And one of my favorite parts about it was very,
36:42
very late in the document.
36:43
SPEAKER_03: She explained something to the effect of like,
36:46
SPEAKER_03: you know,
36:46
SPEAKER_03: unlike in Europe,
36:48
SPEAKER_03: where,
36:49
SPEAKER_03: you know,
36:49
this horrible idea is being spread that the people are there to
36:53
serve at the
36:53
SPEAKER_03: pleasure of the sovereign.
36:55
SPEAKER_03: She's like, it is our pleasure to declare that I am here.
36:58
SPEAKER_03: We are here to serve, you know, Russia, to serve the people.
37:02
SPEAKER_03: And she's like, holy shit.
37:04
SPEAKER_03: Ladies, Catherine the Great, come at me.
37:07
SPEAKER_03: That's what we need.
37:09
SPEAKER_03: I'll take that all day goddamn long.
37:11
SPEAKER_03: Amala Harris?
37:13
SPEAKER_03: Jesus fucking Christ.
37:14
SPEAKER_03: Not even to wipe my ass.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: To be fair, on the right, you get straight up retards on the left.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: And then all the right is filled with prostitutes, basically.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:30
And it's like – They all have that thirst trap picture where
37:33
their eyes look real
37:34
SPEAKER_03: big and they got that pointy nose and there's some tits hanging out.
37:36
SPEAKER_03: It's like, all right, I get it, but come on.
37:39
SPEAKER_01: Can I get some like politics or cultural opinion with your tits?
37:44
Oh,
37:44
because it seems like your entire posts are just pictures of
37:47
your tits,
37:47
you know?
37:48
SPEAKER_01: Is that what we're doing?
37:50
SPEAKER_01: And look, there's nothing wrong with pictures of your tits, right?
37:53
SPEAKER_01: But we're not serious people here, you know?
37:56
SPEAKER_01: Like –
37:58
It just seems that you take your average male and their average
38:02
male commentary on
38:04
SPEAKER_01: Substack or X or whatever has got some PFP of,
38:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
38:08
SPEAKER_01: some Viking or some freaking,
38:11
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
38:12
SPEAKER_01: whatever,
38:12
SPEAKER_01: black and white statue or something like that.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: And then...
38:15
Every single like right wing female commenter is just like a
38:20
top down tit picture,
38:21
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:21
SPEAKER_01: like like an Instagram thought thing going on.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: It's like,
38:25
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
38:26
SPEAKER_01: man,
38:26
SPEAKER_01: maybe we should just,
38:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
38:28
SPEAKER_01: not listen to you if that's the case.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
38:30
SPEAKER_01: Listen, guys, guys, listen, it's simple.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: We kill the Internet.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: That's always been the answer.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: We should.
38:35
SPEAKER_03: We should.
38:35
SPEAKER_03: We should just nuke it.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: I actually promised that I would tie in Cyberpunk real fast.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: Ah, yes.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: Every episode.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: I forgot to tie it in a little intro, right?
38:47
SPEAKER_01: So back to Kino, right?
38:49
SPEAKER_01: Victor Soi.
38:50
SPEAKER_03: Back to Victor Soi.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
38:51
So in Cyberpunk 2077,
38:55
if you are very attentive of the graffiti on the wall,
38:59
right?
39:00
SPEAKER_01: Numerous places in the city as Victor Soi lives.
39:05
graffitied on the buildings because the creators of cyberpunk
39:09
you know being polish
39:11
uh were fans of kino so they threw that into the game that's in
39:16
multiple spots in
39:17
the in the game so there you go there's my cyberpunk tie-in for
39:20
the day enjoy it
39:21
SPEAKER_01: guys listening i remember seeing those that's fantastic
39:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll have to go look for it.
39:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
39:27
Well,
39:27
time for a new play through Cyberpunk 2077 based on that little
39:34
Easter egg.
39:34
SPEAKER_03: Right.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: So if you,
39:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
39:36
SPEAKER_01: that song I shared with you guys,
39:37
SPEAKER_01: which I'm going to link because I think it's a great song.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: I think it applies to our conversation today too.
39:43
So if you read the lyrics translated in English,
39:46
the middle verse reads as follows.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: All right.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: I've been waiting for this time and now the time has come.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: Those who were silent aren't silent anymore.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: Those who have nothing to wait for mount their horses.
39:58
SPEAKER_01: You won't catch up with them.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: It's too late now.
40:02
SPEAKER_01: All right?
40:02
SPEAKER_01: And that's where we're fucking at, man.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: We're done with your shit.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: All right?
40:06
SPEAKER_01: All right?
40:08
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly where we're at.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: Tired of your shit.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: Moving on from all the nonsense of the world.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, hopefully.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, God willing.
40:17
SPEAKER_03: I've got a feeling.
40:18
SPEAKER_03: I got a feeling.
40:20
SPEAKER_03: Look, at the end of the day, the cat's not going back in the bag.
40:23
SPEAKER_03: It's impossible that there's no, yeah, it can't.
40:27
SPEAKER_03: It's too big.
40:28
SPEAKER_03: It's too hard.
40:29
SPEAKER_03: It's too loud.
40:30
SPEAKER_03: It's been a month.
40:32
SPEAKER_03: You look at some of the numbers being run with like Doge,
40:34
SPEAKER_03: for example,
40:35
SPEAKER_03: and if they keep trucking like they are,
40:36
SPEAKER_03: whoa.
40:39
SPEAKER_03: Holy crap.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: Just now getting into the IRS.
40:41
And what I'm really looking forward to is when they're going to
40:43
get into the Pentagon.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, my God.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: Because how many audits has the Pentagon failed?
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, where's the money going?
40:51
SPEAKER_00: It's not going into.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: Let's just be honest here.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: The F-35 program is really expensive,
40:57
but the F-35 program isn't the only thing that constitutes all
41:00
that spending.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: And if they can't account for it, where the hell is it going?
41:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I really want to know.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: Because if it's going over into foreign military programs,
41:10
SPEAKER_00: Saudi Arabia,
41:11
SPEAKER_00: Qatar,
41:12
SPEAKER_00: Korea,
41:13
SPEAKER_00: Israel,
41:15
SPEAKER_00: that's a shit ton of money to be losing out to foreign powers.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: And that's stuff that should be spent here at home.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand...
41:24
SPEAKER_00: Is it going to black projects that are right?
41:28
SPEAKER_00: You know,
41:28
SPEAKER_00: because that's the real big question,
41:30
SPEAKER_00: because if the Pentagon can't account for it,
41:32
is it because they can't account for it or they don't want to
41:35
account to a little
41:36
SPEAKER_03: bit about?
41:37
SPEAKER_03: Well, they probably can't because they don't want to.
41:38
SPEAKER_03: So it goes off to wherever it goes.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: Look,
41:41
SPEAKER_01: the truth is,
41:41
SPEAKER_01: if I was Elon Musk,
41:43
SPEAKER_01: OK,
41:44
SPEAKER_01: that dude better have fucking Arasaka Samurais as bodyguards.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:50
he better actual t1000 yeah he better you know if i was him i
41:54
would have an army of
41:57
SPEAKER_01: mercenaries protecting me at all times because you know
42:00
SPEAKER_01: He is going after the funding of some dark and evil shit.
42:07
SPEAKER_03: Or you've got a dead man's hand like you would never – just unbelievable.
42:12
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: He better be careful.
42:15
I hope he doesn't take this in the same way people take
42:18
shitposting because this is
42:20
SPEAKER_01: serious shit he's getting into.
42:21
SPEAKER_03: The most epic shitpost of all time.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: Right.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: It is some scary shit to think about,
42:27
SPEAKER_00: though,
42:28
because I think I think that's probably why they're moving so
42:30
fast is because they
42:31
SPEAKER_00: realize there is that possibility.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: And we know that from from last year with Trump nearly being shot.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: You know,
42:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
42:38
SPEAKER_00: can you can we just stop for a second and think about the fact that,
42:41
SPEAKER_00: like,
42:43
none of what we're talking about right now would have been
42:45
possible if he hadn't
42:46
SPEAKER_00: turned his fucking head?
42:49
SPEAKER_00: Like,
42:50
what's the meme where it shows him like looking forward and the
42:53
bullet going
42:54
SPEAKER_00: through his head and it's like,
42:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:55
SPEAKER_00: World War Three and then turning his head.
42:57
SPEAKER_03: Civil War, my liberal ink gets roasted at Thanksgiving.
42:59
And then what I would probably change it to is like World War
43:04
Three and then
43:05
SPEAKER_00: turning his head,
43:05
SPEAKER_00: it says like big balls or something,
43:08
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:08
SPEAKER_00: that's.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: That's the timeline we're in now, you know?
43:12
SPEAKER_03: That meme will basically summarize the era.
43:16
SPEAKER_03: It could hypothetically summarize the era.
43:18
SPEAKER_03: You could have an entire textbook 100 years from now where each chapter
43:22
SPEAKER_03: is like, what would have happened if you'd been hit?
43:24
SPEAKER_03: And then what actually ended up happening?
43:27
It's rare that we get to see a moment in history where we
43:31
literally watched where
43:32
SPEAKER_00: the timeline diverged.
43:33
Right,
43:34
we lived through that Star Trek episode,
43:36
the city at the end of time or whatever.
43:38
SPEAKER_03: City at the end of tomorrow?
43:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, tomorrow or time or something like that.
43:42
SPEAKER_01: Where they go back in time and they rescue that girl and she ends up...
43:46
causing the world war ii to be lost you know yes uh yeah it's
43:50
definitely a timeline
43:52
changer man you're right like it and it's wild to think about
43:54
that kind of stuff
43:55
the whales just came back baby they just dumped off the whales
43:58
in san francisco
43:59
harbor yeah and that's now but that's really the same though
44:02
like it like all of
44:03
SPEAKER_00: this would not have happened had he
44:05
kept looking forward and that guy landed the shot um i mean
44:09
it's just and i that's
44:11
and to tie into my point i think that's probably why they're
44:15
being so aggressive
44:16
and pushing so hard because i think he had the four years to
44:20
plan all this stuff
44:21
out and then he was just like okay i almost died if we're gonna
44:25
go after these
44:25
people we need to go after them hard and we need to do it fast
44:28
because there might
44:28
not be a whole lot of time for all of us we might actually die
44:31
in the process of
44:32
SPEAKER_00: doing all of this
44:33
SPEAKER_01: Right.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: You know,
44:34
SPEAKER_01: one thing they're doing,
44:35
SPEAKER_01: and which is very interesting to watch,
44:37
SPEAKER_01: is that they're outrunning the media,
44:39
SPEAKER_01: basically.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
44:40
They're not allowing the media any time to sit down in their
44:45
cuck sheds where they sit,
44:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
44:47
SPEAKER_01: and come up with...
44:49
explanations and narrative and they're not allowing they're
44:53
controlling the
44:53
narrative perfectly a lot of the the pre the first uh political
44:58
term with trump he
45:00
was a reactive president he was reacting to the media he would
45:03
allow them to to
45:04
craft the narrative and attack him and then he would call him
45:07
stupid or whatever
45:08
SPEAKER_01: but overall he was a it was basically media comes out
45:12
And then he would come out and like,
45:13
you know,
45:14
what does Trump say on Twitter?
45:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, and he would react to it.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: Right.
45:17
And it would cause a media storm and everybody would make money
45:19
off of it.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: Right.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: But this time around, it's the opposite way around.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: They're just dropping bombs left and right.
45:25
And one interesting thing he's doing is that he's really
45:28
stepping aside and letting
45:29
SPEAKER_01: other people,
45:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:30
SPEAKER_01: take the limelight.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: If you listen,
45:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
45:32
SPEAKER_01: if you watch the news or any of the events,
45:35
SPEAKER_01: the last like,
45:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:36
SPEAKER_01: two weeks,
45:36
SPEAKER_01: I've really not been very Trump heavy.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: They've,
45:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:38
SPEAKER_01: you've had a focus on the secretary of defense and you had a focus on,
45:42
SPEAKER_01: on Vance a lot.
45:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:45
And he's allowing these guys to – these young guys that are
45:50
from our generation for
45:51
SPEAKER_01: the first time,
45:52
SPEAKER_01: which is great to me.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: I think that's what's great about Vance, whether you like him or not.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: He's our dude.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: He's my age, right?
45:59
SPEAKER_01: He's my age.
46:00
SPEAKER_01: He served in the military at the same time I did.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: And I feel represented, guys.
46:05
I feel like somebody is saying the shit I've wanted to scream
46:08
at people for a decade,
46:10
SPEAKER_01: and he's sitting there saying this stuff.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, okay.
46:13
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
46:14
SPEAKER_03: You know, you see what he called media son?
46:15
SPEAKER_03: Yes, dummy.
46:18
SPEAKER_03: Fuck that guy.
46:19
SPEAKER_03: That was that was great.
46:20
SPEAKER_03: Look,
46:20
SPEAKER_03: I think part of this,
46:21
we got to pause for a second to just realize that the Democrats
46:25
had this incredible
46:28
SPEAKER_03: system of faking gay narrative management.
46:31
SPEAKER_03: And now we're seeing what that same sort of,
46:35
SPEAKER_03: not sort of narrative management,
46:37
SPEAKER_03: but the focus on how this looks,
46:40
SPEAKER_03: but then it is coupled with
46:43
SPEAKER_03: the actual democratic will of the people to a certain extent,
46:47
SPEAKER_03: along with the actual reality of what the world is.
46:51
SPEAKER_03: The problem,
46:51
SPEAKER_03: the biggest problem with the Democrats is all of their messaging,
46:54
SPEAKER_03: all of their propaganda,
46:55
SPEAKER_03: all of this shit had no relation to reality.
46:59
SPEAKER_03: It was a complete simulation of what the world actually is like.
47:03
SPEAKER_03: Now we're seeing it with Russia, with Russia,
47:07
SPEAKER_03: doge with all of this crap, all this stuff.
47:11
SPEAKER_03: And I mean, think of the imagery.
47:12
SPEAKER_03: You've got Trump.
47:13
SPEAKER_03: Most of the time I see Trump sitting in the fucking White House.
47:17
that presents he's working right i'm the president i'm supposed
47:20
to be in the white
47:20
house this is where i work right and he's got his guys out
47:24
there like vance is a
47:26
fucking hammer that speech he gave to the munich security
47:29
conference battle acts to
47:31
the face like that's that's that dude that's who he is and then
47:35
a twitter he
47:36
doubles down on it like somebody says something stupid i'm
47:39
waiting for vance to
47:40
SPEAKER_03: finally just go shut up retard
47:42
SPEAKER_03: I'm literally waiting for that moment and then I will die happy.
47:45
SPEAKER_03: And then you've got Musk just doing autistic Musk shit.
47:50
SPEAKER_03: They're playing to the strengths of these people.
47:53
SPEAKER_03: We haven't even seen RFK cut loose yet.
47:56
SPEAKER_03: We haven't even seen Gabbard cut loose yet.
47:59
SPEAKER_03: And these other guys, I mean, Jesus Christ.
48:02
SPEAKER_03: It's kind of like,
48:03
SPEAKER_03: whatever you think of it,
48:04
SPEAKER_03: it's kind of like,
48:05
SPEAKER_03: damn,
48:05
SPEAKER_03: all right,
48:06
SPEAKER_03: let's fucking go.
48:07
SPEAKER_03: Get the popcorn.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: He's basically introduced the next generation of conservative leadership.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: Because if you look at everybody,
48:14
they're either really young or they are outsiders in the purest
48:18
sense of the word.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: And they even got a Kennedy.
48:21
SPEAKER_03: They even got a Kennedy just to get that.
48:23
SPEAKER_03: Full extra American political royalty.
48:26
but that's that's really the thing too is that it leaves the
48:29
democrats reeling even
48:31
more because they can't find anyone all their people are old
48:34
white guys and when
48:36
they try to be diverse they don't end up being diverse they
48:39
just get another white
48:40
guy yeah they don't even get the good they don't even get the
48:42
good i mean look at
48:44
trump's team for crying out loud i mean some of the i mean what
48:47
gabbard like you
48:48
want to talk about diverse all right that's literally the
48:51
diversity quotient right
48:52
SPEAKER_03: there
48:53
you know in a single person and then the world the world in
48:56
general is looking at
48:57
us and it's like ah so you've come out of the uh the weird
48:59
phase with you know sort
49:01
of in the Obama administration and yeah hey look I think I
49:05
think what we're seeing
49:05
here is that de facto Obama got four terms yeah back though you
49:11
have the two terms
49:13
you have this third term where they were basically fucking with
49:15
Trump the whole
49:16
SPEAKER_03: time and then you had that fourth term under Biden
49:20
SPEAKER_03: Thank God they didn't get number five.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: Historically speaking,
49:26
I feel slightly vindicated because in 2020 when Joe Biden won
49:33
the presidency,
49:35
SPEAKER_01: allegedly,
49:38
SPEAKER_01: I was one of those guys that was like,
49:39
SPEAKER_01: no,
49:39
SPEAKER_01: no,
49:39
SPEAKER_01: it's not that bad.
49:40
SPEAKER_01: It's not that bad.
49:41
SPEAKER_01: It's actually probably a good thing.
49:44
SPEAKER_01: Because at that point we were running into a complete deadlock and the,
49:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
49:52
SPEAKER_01: post the George Floyd stuff,
49:54
SPEAKER_01: post the COVID stuff,
49:56
SPEAKER_01: the Democrats and their media machine was running on off,
50:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
50:01
SPEAKER_01: just beasting.
50:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
50:02
SPEAKER_01: They're, they're in charge.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: Right.
50:04
SPEAKER_01: And if Trump would have won that election,
50:07
it would have been a catastrophic thing for the right wing in
50:11
the United States
50:11
because they would have kept them locked up in the same way
50:14
they did during the
50:15
SPEAKER_01: first term.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: It would have been just endless court battles and idiotic shit,
50:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
50:20
SPEAKER_01: and by letting them win.
50:22
SPEAKER_01: They showed that they have nothing.
50:24
SPEAKER_01: They showed that you won.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: You won.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: You're going to go back to normalcy or whatever.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: And what did they take us back to?
50:32
Like the retarded guy in the corner of when one flew over the
50:35
cuckoo's nest,
50:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
50:36
SPEAKER_01: like drooling on himself.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: That's what we did.
50:39
We basically – they just farted all over the place and made
50:42
everything into ass.
50:43
And they turned a bunch of moderates into like maybe Trump
50:46
wasn't that bad,
50:48
you know?
50:48
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
50:50
SPEAKER_03: I'm raising my hand over here.
50:51
SPEAKER_03: I'm one of those guys.
50:52
SPEAKER_03: I'm one of those dudes.
50:53
SPEAKER_03: Diehard, grew up Denny Kucinich, right?
50:56
SPEAKER_03: I voted for Clinton the first time around.
50:57
SPEAKER_03: All right.
50:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean, sorry, guys.
50:59
But I did,
51:00
you know,
51:00
because I was buying the fact that it was fucking Donald Trump.
51:04
SPEAKER_03: And now I've come around to...
51:06
SPEAKER_03: Hail Caesar.
51:07
SPEAKER_03: Fuck it.
51:09
SPEAKER_03: So I feel you, man.
51:10
SPEAKER_03: You're 100% correct in feeling vindicated in this.
51:14
Fisto and I have known each other long enough that I can attest
51:17
to all the things
51:17
SPEAKER_00: that he's saying.
51:19
He and I both have kind of had this evolution because I
51:23
remember there was a time
51:24
SPEAKER_00: when we were just like,
51:25
SPEAKER_00: you know,
51:25
SPEAKER_00: it's all a fucking game.
51:26
And then we're like,
51:27
I think we had that discussion like October of last year that
51:32
SPEAKER_00: You know,
51:33
SPEAKER_00: I even said I was I was still on the fence about voting for Trump,
51:36
SPEAKER_00: but I was like,
51:37
SPEAKER_00: there's there's a definite sort of.
51:43
SPEAKER_00: I guess like a necessity,
51:45
there's there's this urging that I'm feeling that I need to I
51:48
need to cast my vote
51:49
SPEAKER_00: for this guy,
51:49
SPEAKER_00: because if there's people out there trying to kill him,
51:53
SPEAKER_00: if there's all the stuff that he's talking about doing,
51:56
SPEAKER_00: it's like,
51:57
SPEAKER_00: OK,
51:57
SPEAKER_00: I haven't voted.
51:59
SPEAKER_00: So I was a registered Republican.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: I voted in two elections prior to this.
52:02
I voted for McCain because I was 18 and I voted for Romney
52:06
because I was 21.
52:09
And I hadn't really had time to think about all of my political
52:13
views other than
52:14
SPEAKER_00: Barack Obama's a socialist.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, well, how do you quantify all that stuff?
52:19
SPEAKER_00: How do you explain all that?
52:21
SPEAKER_00: And over the years, I spent more time thinking about it.
52:24
SPEAKER_00: And I went from being a conservative Republican to a libertarian and to a
52:29
SPEAKER_00: monarchist and to an anarchist.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: And then over the course of, I guess, the last year, I was like –
52:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but what am I really thinking here?
52:39
SPEAKER_00: What am I really wanting to do?
52:41
SPEAKER_00: Do I just completely disengage from the system and let it go?
52:47
Or do I actually do something that I think is going to benefit
52:50
myself and for the
52:51
SPEAKER_00: people around me?
52:53
SPEAKER_00: And actually,
52:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
52:54
take a chance on this this opportunity that maybe Trump will
52:57
actually do something
52:58
SPEAKER_00: about this,
52:59
SPEAKER_00: because he did do something the first time.
53:01
SPEAKER_00: But like you said, he was very reactionary.
53:03
SPEAKER_00: I think he also put a lot of trusted people who were,
53:06
SPEAKER_00: quote unquote,
53:07
SPEAKER_00: experts in their fields,
53:09
SPEAKER_00: but didn't have the same vision that he did.
53:11
And now he's got a young group of people that are coming into
53:16
the agency positions
53:17
SPEAKER_00: that he's got.
53:18
SPEAKER_00: He's got all those cabinet members almost.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: They're all on the same page.
53:22
SPEAKER_00: They're not recommended to him.
53:25
It's like he's had time to actually talk to them,
53:27
get to know them,
53:27
see what they're thinking.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, here's – and that's really what the feeling was.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: It's like me and Fisto were talking about.
53:34
There's a real opportunity for something to change with this
53:37
because he's not just
53:38
SPEAKER_00: picking random people that have always been there.
53:40
He's picking people that are well outside the system that might
53:43
actually shake this stuff up.
53:45
SPEAKER_03: Got to grab the door, and then I need to yell at something.
53:46
SPEAKER_03: Hold on one second.
53:47
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, but that was really the point.
53:51
SPEAKER_00: It was like, okay, well –
53:53
SPEAKER_00: This actually feels like it counts for something.
53:55
It isn't just the token vote to resist against,
53:57
you know,
53:58
Democrat policies.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: This is like,
54:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
54:01
life or death for I think FISTA would probably agree that it's
54:06
it's a life or death
54:06
SPEAKER_00: thing because we could end up facing like
54:10
SPEAKER_00: you know, World War three at this point.
54:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
54:12
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, I'll vote.
54:15
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of plugged my nose for a second and I said,
54:18
SPEAKER_00: okay,
54:18
SPEAKER_00: well,
54:19
SPEAKER_00: this is,
54:20
SPEAKER_00: you know,
54:20
SPEAKER_00: I made my selections at the ballot box on November 5th and I was like,
54:24
SPEAKER_00: all right,
54:25
SPEAKER_00: let's see what happens.
54:26
SPEAKER_00: And, um,
54:28
SPEAKER_00: And here we are.
54:29
And it's beyond my wildest dreams at this point because I'm
54:34
watching this play out
54:35
SPEAKER_00: and I'm thinking,
54:36
SPEAKER_00: this is what...
54:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
54:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm a kid in the 90s.
54:38
SPEAKER_00: And the 90s were probably...
54:44
I guess it depends on who you when you were born and what your
54:47
subjective opinion is on it.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: But like for me,
54:49
SPEAKER_00: the 90s are the peak of what America used to be,
54:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
54:54
SPEAKER_00: but these are also things that,
54:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
54:55
SPEAKER_00: we heard stories about when we were when I was growing up of,
54:58
SPEAKER_00: you know,
54:59
SPEAKER_00: American exceptionalism going in kicking ass getting out whatever,
55:03
SPEAKER_00: you know.
55:04
this is the kind of american attitude that i heard stories
55:08
about growing up right
55:09
and i'm like yeah welcome back welcome back but it's it's those
55:16
ancient it's like
55:17
hearing stories about ancient heroes and then blam there you go
55:23
they're actually
55:23
there you know right well it it's interesting because for a
55:27
while you you become
55:29
SPEAKER_01: you become set on
55:32
SPEAKER_01: Oh, nothing's going to change.
55:33
SPEAKER_01: It's all going to be the same, no matter what.
55:34
SPEAKER_01: It's all going to be the same, and it's all a waste of time.
55:37
SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, shockingly, we're starting to see change.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: We're starting to see at least movement.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: Why do I agree with all of it?
55:45
SPEAKER_01: No.
55:47
SPEAKER_01: Am I 100% religiously wedded to the ideas?
55:50
SPEAKER_01: No, absolutely not, right?
55:55
SPEAKER_01: I have...
55:56
SPEAKER_03: I have hope for the future.
55:57
SPEAKER_03: That's what it is.
55:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
56:00
SPEAKER_03: Sorry, go ahead.
56:00
SPEAKER_03: Finish and then I need to tell a story.
56:02
SPEAKER_01: Well,
56:02
I feel like I have a little bit more faith in the idea of
56:07
democracy than I did
56:08
SPEAKER_01: before because I'm actually seeing votes equal change,
56:13
SPEAKER_01: which we did not see.
56:15
SPEAKER_01: It always felt like whatever I vote for, the same stuff happens.
56:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
56:20
SPEAKER_01: no matter what,
56:20
SPEAKER_01: like there's this program,
56:22
SPEAKER_01: there's this,
56:22
SPEAKER_01: this,
56:23
SPEAKER_01: this ever flowing,
56:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:26
SPEAKER_01: movement toward in one direction.
56:27
SPEAKER_01: And that's where we're going no matter what.
56:30
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just voting for a WWF character.
56:32
SPEAKER_01: And for the first time, I'm like, Oh, people are getting fired.
56:36
SPEAKER_01: People are taking on, you know what I mean?
56:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm actually seeing.
56:39
SPEAKER_01: And what,
56:40
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:40
what the best is you see these media guys and you see them like
56:43
dumbfounded by this
56:44
SPEAKER_01: change because they didn't expect it.
56:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't think, I think they expected that.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: I think they expected to,
56:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:51
SPEAKER_01: go back to 2016 and spend the next four years just constantly,
56:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:57
SPEAKER_01: coming up with,
56:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:58
SPEAKER_01: orange man,
56:59
SPEAKER_01: bad mango,
57:00
SPEAKER_01: Hitler or whatever,
57:01
SPEAKER_01: like nonsense over and over and over and then have their cheering squads,
57:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
57:05
SPEAKER_01: jumping for joy at every idiotic post.
57:08
SPEAKER_01: And you see across the internet, people just don't just shut the fuck up.
57:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, we don't care.
57:13
SPEAKER_01: Stop.
57:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, like you don't have a mandate.
57:15
SPEAKER_01: You're not.
57:17
SPEAKER_01: You're not as important as you think you are.
57:20
SPEAKER_01: And that's the positive thing as a takeaway from this.
57:23
SPEAKER_00: The thing that I would say too is –
57:27
The one thing that they were counting on was everyone to remain apathetic,
57:30
SPEAKER_00: that Trump was immediately going to pivot back to the center and be like,
57:33
SPEAKER_00: oh,
57:33
SPEAKER_00: no,
57:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to work with the other side of the aisle.
57:36
SPEAKER_00: We tried that.
57:37
SPEAKER_00: It didn't work.
57:38
When they got power back,
57:40
they didn't work with the other side of the aisle.
57:42
SPEAKER_00: They went immediately hard left.
57:44
So it's like at that point,
57:46
Trump realized,
57:46
OK,
57:47
there is no negotiation with terrorists.
57:49
SPEAKER_00: We have to actually go ahead and push forward as hard as we can,
57:53
SPEAKER_00: as fast as we can,
57:55
SPEAKER_00: as far as we can to the right.
57:57
SPEAKER_00: Because there's no point in trying to communicate with them anymore.
58:02
You can't communicate with people who aren't even speaking your
58:04
own language.
58:05
SPEAKER_00: They're literally trying to rewrite the language.
58:07
SPEAKER_00: Like we go back to the whole thing with free speech being fascism.
58:11
SPEAKER_00: That's the level of retardation that we're dealing with at this point.
58:16
SPEAKER_00: And there's no point in dealing with that.
58:17
SPEAKER_00: There's no point in talking to them about it.
58:19
SPEAKER_00: There's no point in trying to make them understand.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: Forget it.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: Go as hard as you can, as fast as you can, as far as you can.
58:25
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, basically just damage torpedoes.
58:29
SPEAKER_00: Just go.
58:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
58:30
SPEAKER_03: Just do it.
58:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
58:31
SPEAKER_03: Leave them in the dust.
58:32
I think part of it for me,
58:34
and I think back to the discussion,
58:37
the,
58:37
the,
58:38
the,
58:39
the,
58:39
uh,
58:41
SPEAKER_03: Isaiah talking about,
58:42
SPEAKER_03: you know,
58:43
the political journey him and I have been on and we've known
58:45
each other for a very
58:45
SPEAKER_03: long time at this stage.
58:48
SPEAKER_03: And I think about it.
58:50
SPEAKER_03: You know,
58:50
boils down to something that happened today in class where I
58:53
got into a discussion
58:54
SPEAKER_03: with a kid and talking about.
58:58
SPEAKER_03: hey, where's the world going to go?
58:59
SPEAKER_03: What's going on with the world?
59:00
SPEAKER_03: And I got to basically lay out the ideas of,
59:03
SPEAKER_03: hey,
59:04
SPEAKER_03: this is what the multipolar world might look like.
59:06
SPEAKER_03: We're going to have the center here in the United States.
59:08
SPEAKER_03: We're going to have the center here over in Russia.
59:10
SPEAKER_03: We're going to have the center over here in China.
59:12
We have all these different things going on and this and that
59:13
and the other thing.
59:15
SPEAKER_03: And I spoke of it all in the context of the Cold War is finally over.
59:22
SPEAKER_03: We're not in this situation where you have two huge competing ideologies.
59:28
SPEAKER_03: looking to blast each other with nuclear weapons.
59:31
SPEAKER_03: And then,
59:32
SPEAKER_03: you know,
59:32
SPEAKER_03: over the past 40,
59:33
SPEAKER_03: 50 years of American history,
59:35
SPEAKER_03: you finally have the ideology of liberal democracy has exhausted itself.
59:41
SPEAKER_03: It's not going to take over the world.
59:42
SPEAKER_03: It's just not going to do it.
59:43
SPEAKER_03: It's not going to destroy the world, right?
59:46
You're going to have these real legitimate centers of human
59:50
identity emerge.
59:52
SPEAKER_03: And I was able to look at a student.
59:54
SPEAKER_03: I was able to look at a young woman and say,
59:57
you're going to be living in a world where you can raise brave
59:59
sons and brave daughters.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_03: Do it.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_03: And she's just like, yeah, all right.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_03: That's fucking, come on.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, dude.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_03: That's the world we are walking into.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_03: I'm able to look at a fellow and go, you're going to do something.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_03: You're from this small little town in the middle of Florida.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_03: You ain't doing, nah, mm-mm.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_03: you're all potential Caesars.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_03: You're all potential Thedoras.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_03: You're all potential everything that we've been talking about.
1:00:22
It kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier,
1:00:26
like the 90s being what it is.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_00: I remember growing up and having my teachers,
1:00:29
SPEAKER_00: and mind you,
1:00:30
SPEAKER_00: I went to a private Christian school,
1:00:33
SPEAKER_00: but that was what they were telling us.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: You can be the president.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: You could be an astronaut.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_00: You could be a movie star if you wanted to.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_00: That's something that you could do whatever you want.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_00: We're getting to that point now
1:00:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's going to be a painful process because,
1:00:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:00:48
SPEAKER_00: we're going to have resistance along the way.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: But there's this,
1:00:54
SPEAKER_00: like we're turning the truck around,
1:00:56
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:00:56
SPEAKER_00: we're getting back to that idea that if you're growing up in the world,
1:01:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:01:03
it's not going to be a total shit show by the time you get it
1:01:06
or get your shot at it.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're, we're trying to, to write the ship, you know?
1:01:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_00: And it starts with, and yeah, it's going to hurt.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_00: It's going to hurt like a son of a bitch for us,
1:01:18
SPEAKER_00: but in,
1:01:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't have kids,
1:01:20
SPEAKER_00: but I might,
1:01:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:01:22
SPEAKER_00: on the off chance that maybe I do have kids one day,
1:01:24
I don't want them to grow up in a world where they're on the
1:01:27
hook for the,
1:01:30
usa type shit where their their taxpayer money is being sent to
1:01:35
foreign foreign
1:01:36
powers foreign entities that to transition children into
1:01:41
whatever the fuck it is
1:01:42
this has probably been just culturally one of the biggest sins
1:01:45
of the boomers is
1:01:46
that they've made they put their children on the hook for their
1:01:49
mistakes right
1:01:50
SPEAKER_03: that's what happened and millennials we're all millennials here
1:01:56
The best opportunity millennials have are to make sure that
1:02:00
whoever comes after us
1:02:02
SPEAKER_03: is on the hook for the future,
1:02:04
SPEAKER_03: not for the past.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:07
If I got to burn myself down and burn every last bit of thing
1:02:10
I've got and leave
1:02:11
SPEAKER_03: nothing left,
1:02:12
SPEAKER_03: if that gives them a chance to be on the hook for the future,
1:02:16
sign me up we're trying we're trying to live up to the ideal of
1:02:21
leaving a better
1:02:22
world for our children yes finally instead of just talking
1:02:25
about my retirement and
1:02:26
make sure i can go on my trips and make sure i can do no no no
1:02:30
no no no no no there
1:02:31
is no retirement there is no trips there is no rest you work
1:02:35
and work and work and
1:02:36
work and work and you leave a great world for your kids so that
1:02:39
they can then turn
1:02:40
around and do the same goddamn thing yeah and crush it from now
1:02:43
until the freaking
1:02:45
SPEAKER_03: end times
1:02:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:02:47
And that's the problem is that you had a generation of late
1:02:52
boomers that are
1:02:54
SPEAKER_01: spiritually devoid,
1:02:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:02:56
SPEAKER_01: just completely materialistic and selfish.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: And,
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: of course you're going to have the one person going,
1:03:05
SPEAKER_01: but not all boomers,
1:03:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:07
SPEAKER_01: you're absolutely right.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_01: But as a generation, as a group, uh,
1:03:14
You have a people that basically put everything on the Visa
1:03:19
MasterCard or whatever,
1:03:20
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:21
SPEAKER_01: and then they left the bills for us to pick up.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully we're able to pick it up.
1:03:27
And so far,
1:03:28
it looks like we're going to be up to the challenge,
1:03:31
you know.
1:03:32
SPEAKER_03: And it seems to me,
1:03:34
it seems to me that the United States is very much going to
1:03:38
follow a similar kind
1:03:40
SPEAKER_03: of path that the Soviet Union did.
1:03:42
But I think the underlying strength of the United States and
1:03:47
the underlying wealth
1:03:48
SPEAKER_03: of the United States is going to make the landing a little bit softer.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, I hope so.
1:03:55
SPEAKER_03: Which we're extremely lucky for that.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_03: It's not going to make it any easier per se, but like.
1:03:59
it may be slightly less of a disaster than what those poor guys
1:04:02
went through.
1:04:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the question I have.
1:04:04
Is this almost kind of a watershed moment in the vein of like
1:04:10
the falling of the
1:04:11
SPEAKER_00: Berlin Wall from the United States?
1:04:13
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
1:04:15
Because it wasn't so much the actual breaking down of the wall
1:04:20
that was the big deal.
1:04:21
I mean,
1:04:21
it was a big deal,
1:04:21
obviously,
1:04:22
but it was the fact that it was a moment in time where
1:04:27
it showed that communism was on its way out and so the union at
1:04:32
that point what
1:04:33
this is worth for what this is worth when i see people like
1:04:36
alexander dugan write
1:04:38
things like i foresee a future where the american and russian
1:04:42
empires the american
1:04:44
and russian cultures can be friends i'm eight years old again
1:04:47
watching the berlin
1:04:48
wall fall down 100 absolutely feel like i did when i was when i
1:04:53
was a young boy
1:04:54
SPEAKER_03: watching that on the television going
1:04:56
SPEAKER_03: maybe we aren't going to kill each other.
1:04:57
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_01: And that's always a good thing.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_01: And that,
1:05:00
SPEAKER_01: that,
1:05:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:05:01
SPEAKER_01: in,
1:05:03
SPEAKER_01: in the old days,
1:05:04
SPEAKER_01: and I mean the old days as in like 20,
1:05:07
SPEAKER_01: 30 years ago,
1:05:07
SPEAKER_01: it used to be,
1:05:08
SPEAKER_01: it used to be the left that was about peace and about prosperity.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_01: The left was the ones that part of their,
1:05:18
SPEAKER_01: their package,
1:05:20
SPEAKER_01: their philosophical package was world peace,
1:05:23
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:05:24
And I don't know what happened,
1:05:25
but they,
1:05:26
you know,
1:05:27
they got crazy on the gun power,
1:05:32
you know?
1:05:33
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, we don't want war.
1:05:36
SPEAKER_01: We don't want death and destruction around the world.
1:05:40
And what we don't want,
1:05:41
you know,
1:05:41
we don't have to be friends with the Russians,
1:05:44
okay?
1:05:44
SPEAKER_01: The Russians are not perfect.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_01: They're not allies.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_01: They're not even,
1:05:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:05:47
SPEAKER_01: they're not even,
1:05:49
SPEAKER_01: they don't,
1:05:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:05:50
SPEAKER_01: they're people like other people,
1:05:52
SPEAKER_01: you know?
1:05:53
SPEAKER_01: But we don't need any allies, really.
1:05:55
What we need to focus on is ourselves and the well-being of our
1:06:00
own people.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_01: That's the key.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_01: So much of this,
1:06:04
SPEAKER_01: even discussion about Europe and stuff,
1:06:07
SPEAKER_01: the underlying element behind it is that what are we doing?
1:06:11
SPEAKER_01: How does this benefit my kids?
1:06:14
SPEAKER_01: How does it benefit you?
1:06:15
SPEAKER_01: What is this?
1:06:18
SPEAKER_01: Why are we taking all this money and all this time and this effort
1:06:22
You know,
1:06:22
people talk about like,
1:06:24
oh,
1:06:24
yeah,
1:06:24
you know,
1:06:25
we need to back the Ukraine.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:06:27
SPEAKER_01: when you say that,
1:06:28
SPEAKER_01: when you say that you need to back somebody up in a military conflict,
1:06:32
what you're saying is that you want your neighbor's son to be
1:06:35
put in a life or
1:06:36
SPEAKER_01: death situation.
1:06:37
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:06:38
Like,
1:06:39
even when we have full and total superiority,
1:06:42
like we did in Afghanistan,
1:06:43
Americans died.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, they came back in flag draped coffins.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_01: Not only did they die, but they killed other people, other human beings.
1:06:54
SPEAKER_01: And
1:06:56
it doesn't matter how many F-35s or whatever cool planes we
1:07:00
have and Tomahawk missiles,
1:07:02
SPEAKER_01: every time a pilot pushes a button and drops a bomb and kills somebody,
1:07:06
SPEAKER_01: that destroys their soul.
1:07:08
SPEAKER_01: So when you're saying that you're going to,
1:07:11
SPEAKER_01: we'll fucking rock you,
1:07:14
SPEAKER_01: shock and awe you or whatever,
1:07:16
SPEAKER_01: you're saying that you're going to send your fellow,
1:07:20
SPEAKER_01: your neighbors,
1:07:21
SPEAKER_01: the people next to you into harm's way
1:07:25
right to kill or be killed and that right there that that is
1:07:30
not an ex twitter post
1:07:32
nonsense that's real fucking life you know there's americans
1:07:35
right now you know
1:07:37
walking on on on metal legs because they got their legs blown
1:07:41
off by ieds i have
1:07:42
friends that never came back from that shithole you know what i
1:07:46
mean yeah that
1:07:47
SPEAKER_01: who's who's you know uh
1:07:50
SPEAKER_01: Good friend of mine, he didn't make it back from my deployment.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_01: He got married two months before we left and his wife was pregnant.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_01: So there's a 20-year-old kid right now,
1:08:00
a 17-year-old kid right now who never met his fucking dad
1:08:04
because we sent people there.
1:08:07
SPEAKER_01: So when you're posting that shit,
1:08:09
SPEAKER_01: take a breath and think,
1:08:11
SPEAKER_01: when you're saying that kind of stuff,
1:08:12
SPEAKER_01: when you're sending your fellow neighbors,
1:08:16
SPEAKER_01: the people that live next to you,
1:08:17
SPEAKER_01: their children,
1:08:18
into harm's way it better be fucking for a goddamn good reason
1:08:23
you know and it
1:08:23
better benefit their children you know and we forget about that
1:08:28
because it's not a
1:08:28
video game man you know especially when we're talking about
1:08:31
nuclear weapons it's
1:08:32
not a video game well there was a there was a picture i saw on
1:08:36
i think it was on x
1:08:37
or something like that it was from about an air show out in
1:08:40
india and it was of
1:08:44
SPEAKER_00: One of our F-35s taxing or sitting next to a Sukhoi SU-57,
1:08:51
SPEAKER_00: Russia's super fighter meeting our super fighter and stuff.
1:08:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, it's kind of poetic a little bit.
1:08:57
And this was just a couple of weeks before all this stuff went
1:08:59
on with us talking
1:09:00
SPEAKER_00: with Russia and normalizing relations.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_00: I was like,
1:09:03
isn't it kind of funny that the first place that they actually
1:09:06
end up meeting each
1:09:06
SPEAKER_00: other is at an air show,
1:09:08
SPEAKER_00: and they actually park next to each other the entire time,
1:09:10
SPEAKER_00: and it's not in combat?
1:09:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that's poetic.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful.
1:09:16
SPEAKER_00: Because there's this sort of feeling of...
1:09:21
SPEAKER_00: Because there's some people who are like,
1:09:22
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
1:09:22
SPEAKER_00: well,
1:09:23
SPEAKER_00: SC-57 can kill the F-35,
1:09:24
SPEAKER_00: blah,
1:09:24
SPEAKER_00: blah,
1:09:25
SPEAKER_00: blah,
1:09:25
SPEAKER_00: blah.
1:09:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't give a shit about that.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_00: There's a symbolic image about it that the two...
1:09:31
SPEAKER_00: I guess you'd want to call it.
1:09:33
SPEAKER_00: Most people would say the F-22 is the flagship of the U.S.
1:09:36
SPEAKER_00: Air Force, but the F-35 is the face of it now.
1:09:41
Having those two aircraft side by side next to each other for
1:09:44
maybe not the first time,
1:09:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
1:09:46
SPEAKER_00: but it was poetic in the sense that
1:09:49
SPEAKER_00: They're not sitting there fighting each other.
1:09:53
I'm sure the crews are probably asking each other questions like,
1:09:56
what is it like?
1:09:56
SPEAKER_00: Do you like it?
1:09:58
SPEAKER_00: That kind of thing.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_00: Or they could have just been shit-talking each other the entire time.
1:10:01
SPEAKER_00: I guess the point that I'm trying to make is...
1:10:07
It's almost a little bit like a foreshadowing about how this
1:10:11
whole thing with
1:10:12
SPEAKER_00: Russia is going with us now,
1:10:13
SPEAKER_00: where it's like,
1:10:14
SPEAKER_00: OK,
1:10:14
SPEAKER_00: now we're actually making peace with people.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_00: And the irony of it is,
1:10:18
is that the left is going batshit insane over it because and
1:10:21
I'm thinking to myself,
1:10:22
SPEAKER_00: was it in the 50s,
1:10:23
like Barry Goldwater and all of them or somebody just going
1:10:26
absolutely no McCarthy.
1:10:28
SPEAKER_00: McCarthy's who I was thinking of.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_00: McCarthy was losing a shit and wasn't he a Republican?
1:10:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he was.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_00: The Red Scare?
1:10:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the Red Scare.
1:10:36
SPEAKER_00: And now the left, this is like the second Red Scare.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_00: They're like, Japan is an organ of the Soviet state and stuff like that.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_00: I was like, are you even listening to yourselves?
1:10:45
SPEAKER_00: Like, do you even realize what you're saying?
1:10:49
SPEAKER_00: Do you not want to be at peace with Russia?
1:10:51
Do you not want to have some kind of cooperation with China and
1:10:54
all these other countries?
1:10:55
SPEAKER_00: Do you not want these things anymore?
1:10:57
SPEAKER_03: Like, what happened?
1:10:58
SPEAKER_03: This is why I keep saying,
1:10:59
SPEAKER_03: or at least I've been saying,
1:11:01
SPEAKER_03: that it seems the Cold War has finally ended.
1:11:04
SPEAKER_03: because the Cold War didn't end when the Soviet Union was defeated.
1:11:08
SPEAKER_03: The Cold War ends when all of the ideologies are gone and dead.
1:11:11
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_03: And these ideologies,
1:11:13
SPEAKER_03: look,
1:11:13
SPEAKER_03: the end of any ideology is totalitarianism,
1:11:17
SPEAKER_03: whether it's fascism,
1:11:19
SPEAKER_03: communism,
1:11:19
SPEAKER_03: or liberal democracy.
1:11:21
SPEAKER_03: At the end of the day,
1:11:22
it must be supreme and it must spread itself across the entire
1:11:26
world because that
1:11:27
SPEAKER_03: is inherent to the ideology itself.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_03: We are finally breaking out.
1:11:32
And I think we can probably mark Vance's speech in Munich as
1:11:35
the moment it happened.
1:11:36
but we're finally breaking out of this ideological doing things
1:11:41
because the
1:11:42
SPEAKER_03: ideology demands it.
1:11:44
SPEAKER_03: Now we're doing things based on
1:11:46
what makes sense right just this is this is what needs to be
1:11:49
done because we live
1:11:50
in a world that has constraints we live in a we live in the
1:11:52
real world again we
1:11:54
live in the real world again as opposed to the pretend
1:11:57
ridiculousness of the and i
1:11:59
mean the ideology has made sense in the 20th century you know
1:12:02
what i mean like it's
1:12:02
very difficult to see outside the the box that you are in but
1:12:07
you know guys the
1:12:08
cold war has been over frederick like people talking about nato
1:12:11
finally going away
1:12:12
SPEAKER_03: Good.
1:12:12
NATO should have been disbanded the moment the Soviet Union
1:12:15
fell apart because
1:12:15
SPEAKER_03: that's why it existed.
1:12:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it should have been disbanded in 1991 because it existed.
1:12:21
SPEAKER_03: to go against the Soviet union and we didn't disband it.
1:12:23
And we got what we got the last 40 years have been a complete
1:12:26
goddamn waste.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:12:27
Now I want to,
1:12:28
I want to make one,
1:12:30
one last note and then I want to switch topics.
1:12:32
SPEAKER_01: But I think that when we look at the crusty ass leftist,
1:12:36
SPEAKER_01: right,
1:12:36
SPEAKER_01: all the gnome Chomsky's and all the,
1:12:38
SPEAKER_01: the,
1:12:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:12:39
SPEAKER_01: the guys are so anti-Russia right now.
1:12:43
SPEAKER_01: What, what you have to realize is that these guys are,
1:12:47
hate russia because russia well because the communists lost the
1:12:52
cold war yeah you
1:12:53
see their entire identity was carrying water for the stalinists
1:12:57
you know and the
1:12:58
trotskyist and all the other like degenerate like soviets right
1:13:02
and that was their
1:13:03
identity you know these are the guys that like spat on american
1:13:06
soldiers you know
1:13:07
who fought in vietnam and stuff and there were some sort of get
1:13:11
angry at animal
1:13:11
SPEAKER_03: farm
1:13:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:13:13
SPEAKER_01: And they were supporting communism and stuff.
1:13:15
And when the Soviet Union collapsed and the entire Eastern Bloc collapsed,
1:13:20
they weren't happy.
1:13:21
SPEAKER_01: They weren't cheering.
1:13:22
SPEAKER_01: They lost their grift.
1:13:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, they lost their identity.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_01: They realized that,
1:13:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:13:26
and all the truth of the horrors of Eastern Europe came out and
1:13:30
it couldn't be
1:13:31
SPEAKER_01: denied anymore.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_01: They couldn't lie about it.
1:13:35
SPEAKER_01: They lost their grift.
1:13:36
So they despise the Eastern Europeans who rejected communism
1:13:40
because it was their utopia.
1:13:42
And they despise the Eastern Europeans and despise the Russians
1:13:45
for becoming,
1:13:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:13:48
SPEAKER_01: what they are today because it gave a win to Ronald Reagan.
1:13:52
SPEAKER_01: It gave a win to the right wing in the United States.
1:13:55
And they hate that for it because for so long they were,
1:14:00
you know,
1:14:00
the pro-Soviet side.
1:14:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, they were the guys that like, let's try socialism.
1:14:05
SPEAKER_01: Let's do this.
1:14:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, Russia is not that bad.
1:14:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean.
1:14:08
SPEAKER_03: That's how great Russia is.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean, let's be honest here.
1:14:11
We had a vice president nominee or whatever who went and had
1:14:15
his wedding in Russia
1:14:17
SPEAKER_01: during communism.
1:14:20
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:14:21
and also Bernie Sanders also visited the Soviet Union numerous
1:14:26
times as a guest and
1:14:27
SPEAKER_01: as a super friendly with them.
1:14:28
SPEAKER_01: And now these guys are anti-Russia,
1:14:30
SPEAKER_01: but they spent,
1:14:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:14:31
SPEAKER_01: they were supporters of the previous Russian regime.
1:14:35
SPEAKER_01: And they look at the Russians as betrayers of their ideology.
1:14:38
SPEAKER_01: And that's the damn truth.
1:14:39
SPEAKER_03: And that's why they hate them.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_03: There's no one more hated than the Apple States.
1:14:43
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:14:44
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly it.
1:14:44
SPEAKER_01: And that's where their beef with Russia is, you know?
1:14:47
SPEAKER_01: And because Russia,
1:14:49
Russia removing communism from their country and removing
1:14:52
communism from Eastern
1:14:53
SPEAKER_01: Europe basically gave their enemies a win,
1:14:57
SPEAKER_01: which was,
1:14:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:14:58
SPEAKER_01: us.
1:14:59
And some of them adopted,
1:15:00
you know,
1:15:01
neoliberal ideas and that's what they became.
1:15:03
SPEAKER_01: But for the most of them,
1:15:05
SPEAKER_01: deep down inside,
1:15:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:15:06
they've got their freaking card carrying member of the
1:15:08
communist party of the
1:15:09
SPEAKER_01: United States or the socialist club of whatever college they went to,
1:15:12
SPEAKER_01: you know?
1:15:13
SPEAKER_01: So that's why they hate Russia.
1:15:16
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
1:15:17
SPEAKER_03: And it's, that's a great insight.
1:15:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:15:19
And you gotta,
1:15:19
you gotta realize that is they hate Russia because they feel
1:15:22
betrayed by Russia.
1:15:23
SPEAKER_01: They feel betrayed, you know, by that.
1:15:26
Um,
1:15:27
so this is like our Russia episode,
1:15:29
even though I'm not Russian,
1:15:30
but we'll,
1:15:30
we'll talk.
1:15:31
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to talk about another thing,
1:15:33
SPEAKER_01: which was,
1:15:34
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:15:35
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah,
1:15:35
SPEAKER_01: you and I were chatting online the other day and we,
1:15:38
SPEAKER_01: we chatted a little bit about,
1:15:39
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:15:40
SPEAKER_01: Eastern Orthodoxy, right?
1:15:42
SPEAKER_01: And your interest in Eastern Orthodoxy.
1:15:45
SPEAKER_01: Want to tell us a little bit about that?
1:15:49
yeah i so i've kind of been going through like a bit of a
1:15:52
spiritual uh reawakening
1:15:54
i guess over the past year or so and one of the things that
1:15:58
i've always had a
1:15:59
trouble with um i guess you could say it kind of came out of a
1:16:04
the end of a
1:16:04
relationship so before you call me a heretic i was dating a
1:16:11
girl that shut up
1:16:17
sorry i'm cracking up here well anyway you know i want to throw
1:16:20
a caveat caveat
1:16:21
before we uh we go on to this conversation we're going to talk
1:16:23
about religion for a
1:16:24
little bit and i need to give the honest assessment of myself
1:16:31
first which is i've
1:16:32
said this before i'm a horrible christian i'm bad i barely go
1:16:37
to church i i
1:16:41
I'm a sinful,
1:16:44
just degenerate in the eyes of God,
1:16:46
and I'm pathetic,
1:16:47
okay?
1:16:47
SPEAKER_01: So I...
1:16:50
i just i'm horrible and never nothing i say uh after this is
1:16:55
gonna i'm not a
1:16:57
theologian i am just a dude that wants to talk about you know
1:17:02
the stuff that i find
1:17:03
interesting and spiritually edifying you know i mean so that's
1:17:06
my caveat that i'm
1:17:07
not in any way a good christian by any means possible i'm
1:17:12
probably horrible
1:17:13
that makes two of us because i'm still of us really well yeah
1:17:18
so i mean hey if
1:17:20
anyone's listening and you guys are judging us really hard we
1:17:23
don't care uh because
1:17:25
we're we're well aware of our uh degeneracy yeah tell me
1:17:28
something i don't know
1:17:29
we're working on it but it's gonna we're not hey speak for
1:17:32
yourself just kidding
1:17:34
great whatever mother theresa over there in florida we're
1:17:37
working on it okay yeah
1:17:38
SPEAKER_03: it must be nice
1:17:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:17:41
SPEAKER_00: But anyway,
1:17:43
SPEAKER_00: so girl that I was dating,
1:17:45
she was part of the Church of the Nazarene and Church of the
1:17:47
Nazarene has no
1:17:49
SPEAKER_00: compunctions about female pastors.
1:17:52
She is worship pastor,
1:17:55
children's pastor,
1:17:56
and occasionally she will actually preach sermons.
1:17:59
SPEAKER_00: We dated for about a year and 12, you know, 12, 14 months.
1:18:03
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that always kind of,
1:18:06
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:18:07
I was not only a Christian to begin with because I grew up in a
1:18:09
Christian household,
1:18:10
SPEAKER_00: went to a Christian school for until I was in like 10th grade.
1:18:13
SPEAKER_00: Protestant, right?
1:18:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Protestant.
1:18:15
SPEAKER_00: That was, well, non-denominational.
1:18:20
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, Protestant, basically.
1:18:21
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't Catholic, it wasn't Orthodox.
1:18:24
SPEAKER_00: It was, you know, Protestant.
1:18:27
SPEAKER_00: My dad was a Baptist,
1:18:28
SPEAKER_00: my mom was Pentecostal,
1:18:31
and then we started going to the non-denominational church when
1:18:33
I was growing up.
1:18:34
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I started to kind of come back to the church a little bit.
1:18:40
SPEAKER_00: But the thing that I was learning through by being with her was like,
1:18:44
SPEAKER_00: there's so much drama going on behind the scenes in her church.
1:18:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:18:49
SPEAKER_00: And we ended up breaking up or whatever, which we did so amicably.
1:18:56
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have anything against her.
1:18:57
SPEAKER_00: She didn't have anything against me.
1:18:58
SPEAKER_00: We just had different life goals, that kind of thing.
1:19:02
But it kind of set me on this path that I've been on for trying
1:19:06
to learn more about
1:19:07
because i wanted to go back to church i wanted to go back to
1:19:09
church but i was like
1:19:10
SPEAKER_00: the nazarene church is not for me i don't want to go back to a protestant
1:19:13
pentecostal church i'm not a southern baptist i'm not
1:19:17
episcopalian or lutheran or
1:19:19
anything like that i really want to you know tap into the
1:19:25
source i don't want to go
1:19:26
in and and keep because the biggest thing that i think drives
1:19:31
me nuts about
1:19:31
SPEAKER_00: protestant churches is how
1:19:35
SPEAKER_00: And they don't – they try to do things like the world.
1:19:39
SPEAKER_00: They try to – you look at some of these megachurches,
1:19:43
SPEAKER_00: and I'm not even talking about the megachurches at this point.
1:19:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about just average churches.
1:19:48
There are some that are really good about sticking to what the
1:19:51
Bible actually says,
1:19:52
SPEAKER_00: what Jesus actually has taught,
1:19:55
SPEAKER_00: and being solid on their theology.
1:19:59
SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot of them that are making exceptions for things.
1:20:02
SPEAKER_00: Like you said,
1:20:03
SPEAKER_00: even Paul talks about it,
1:20:04
SPEAKER_00: that a woman is not supposed to be reading a congregation.
1:20:09
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what the Nazarene church doesn't do.
1:20:12
SPEAKER_00: And there's, they make all sorts of arguments about it, whatever.
1:20:15
SPEAKER_00: But the ultimate fact is that that's not what the Bible actually says.
1:20:21
SPEAKER_00: And then when you start looking at all the other denominations and,
1:20:23
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:20:24
SPEAKER_00: and Protestantism,
1:20:25
SPEAKER_00: there's so many,
1:20:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:20:27
SPEAKER_00: there's the people who affirm gay marriage.
1:20:28
SPEAKER_00: There's people who say that,
1:20:31
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:20:32
SPEAKER_00: I think I've heard some that said that sex before marriage isn't a sin.
1:20:35
SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, well,
1:20:37
SPEAKER_00: If you're not actually going by the book, then what are you going by?
1:20:41
SPEAKER_00: Why are you interpreting it this way?
1:20:43
SPEAKER_00: You know,
1:20:44
SPEAKER_00: and so there's that sense of,
1:20:46
SPEAKER_00: OK,
1:20:47
SPEAKER_00: well,
1:20:47
the churches are changing themselves and that's not what's
1:20:50
supposed to be going on.
1:20:52
SPEAKER_00: And so I looked at,
1:20:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:20:53
SPEAKER_00: Roman Catholicism and I'm like,
1:20:55
SPEAKER_00: hope has made many statements that have.
1:20:58
SPEAKER_00: And of course, you look back at the great schism and all that stuff.
1:21:04
how much has changed in the two centuries since christ departed
1:21:08
from earth and and
1:21:10
um you know the the church started to grow as a result of all
1:21:14
that and you see how
1:21:16
much has changed and and the roman catholic church and then you
1:21:18
look at the eastern
1:21:19
orthodox church and it's like they stay pretty solid on what
1:21:24
what they teach there
1:21:25
isn't a whole lot of deviation from it i mean you know you've
1:21:28
had like the
1:21:29
SPEAKER_00: different um oh what are they called
1:21:35
SPEAKER_01: Patriarchs and like the different national churches, basically.
1:21:43
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:21:43
SPEAKER_00: You know,
1:21:43
SPEAKER_00: you've got these different,
1:21:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:21:45
SPEAKER_00: you've got Coptics and,
1:21:46
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:21:47
SPEAKER_00: the Russian Orthodox Church,
1:21:48
SPEAKER_00: the Greek Orthodox Church,
1:21:49
SPEAKER_00: that kind of thing.
1:21:51
SPEAKER_00: And
1:21:52
SPEAKER_00: But they all have,
1:21:54
they might have little differences in how they do things in the
1:21:57
church themselves,
1:21:58
SPEAKER_00: but the teachings are pretty much the same as far as the dogmatic stuff.
1:22:02
They leave a lot of the non-dogmatic stuff or whatever kind of
1:22:05
open to interpretation.
1:22:07
SPEAKER_00: But
1:22:08
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's kind of what drew me in was like,
1:22:11
SPEAKER_00: okay,
1:22:12
SPEAKER_00: what is it about this that's making me want to look at it?
1:22:15
SPEAKER_00: And I've spent a lot of time thinking about it.
1:22:18
SPEAKER_00: I still spend a lot of time thinking about it.
1:22:19
SPEAKER_00: I still keep reading those two books you recommended to me.
1:22:24
SPEAKER_00: What is it?
1:22:25
The Orthodox Way,
1:22:25
The Orthodox Church,
1:22:26
and those two introductions by...
1:22:31
Dang it.
1:22:33
SPEAKER_00: You know who I'm talking about.
1:22:34
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about it.
1:22:38
The thing that draws me to it is that there's a reason for
1:22:41
everything that is taught.
1:22:43
SPEAKER_00: It isn't just anecdotes.
1:22:45
SPEAKER_00: It's not just, you know, this willy-nilly sort of...
1:22:53
this is just the way we do it because this is how we interpret
1:22:55
this specific verse.
1:22:56
SPEAKER_00: No,
1:22:56
there's 2,000 years of the church fathers talking about why we
1:23:02
believe the way
1:23:02
things that we do and expanding on the things that we find in
1:23:05
the Bible and
1:23:06
explaining why we believe the things that we are supposed to
1:23:09
believe and the way we
1:23:10
SPEAKER_00: do things.
1:23:11
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, I want substance with my beliefs.
1:23:15
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to just go to church and feel good.
1:23:17
I don't want to go there because ultimately when you go there
1:23:20
and you're sitting in
1:23:21
SPEAKER_00: a Protestant church,
1:23:23
SPEAKER_00: you're sitting there and you're doing the worship thing or whatever.
1:23:25
SPEAKER_00: It's not really worship.
1:23:27
SPEAKER_00: It's more of a feeling.
1:23:28
SPEAKER_00: It's not a, it's a feeling that you get for what you're around.
1:23:33
It's not so much,
1:23:35
you know,
1:23:35
the feeling that you get being in God's presence.
1:23:38
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like,
1:23:38
SPEAKER_00: okay,
1:23:40
SPEAKER_00: I can see where I'm,
1:23:42
SPEAKER_00: where this is drawing me in because I don't want something that,
1:23:46
that makes me feel good i want something that that convicts me
1:23:49
of what i'm falling
1:23:50
short on and demands that i change the thing that i've always
1:23:54
noticed or that i've
1:23:55
noticed with with looking at the orthodox church is that
1:23:58
orthodoxy demands that you
1:24:00
change yourself to fit within the faith whereas protestantism
1:24:06
says come as you are
1:24:07
and stay as you are it says all you have to do is believe that
1:24:10
christ is your
1:24:10
savior and he rose again and died on the cross and all that
1:24:12
stuff and it's like
1:24:13
SPEAKER_00: okay well that's great but what happens after that
1:24:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:24:15
SPEAKER_01: It's like, hey, guys, come in.
1:24:17
SPEAKER_01: And now you're invited to the after party and welcome to our church.
1:24:20
And it's,
1:24:21
you know,
1:24:23
it's like an Apple store with a Starbucks attached to it.
1:24:26
SPEAKER_01: And we're all friends.
1:24:27
And this is just a social time for us to show off our expensive
1:24:30
cars in the parking lot.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:24:32
And this is from personal experience with some of the
1:24:36
Protestant churches I've
1:24:37
SPEAKER_01: attended in my area out of invitations and interest.
1:24:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:24:44
SPEAKER_00: And it's just this feeling of there's a superficiality to Protestantism,
1:24:49
SPEAKER_00: or at least the churches that I've been to,
1:24:52
SPEAKER_00: that on one hand,
1:24:53
SPEAKER_00: they're all saying that they're there to worship God and to learn and to,
1:24:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:24:58
SPEAKER_00: affect their faith.
1:24:59
SPEAKER_00: But then they go around the church gossiping about each other,
1:25:02
SPEAKER_00: which I'm going to be honest with you,
1:25:03
SPEAKER_00: that's just human nature.
1:25:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:25:05
SPEAKER_01: It happens in Orthodox churches too.
1:25:07
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:25:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's understandable.
1:25:08
SPEAKER_00: That's just part of being human and being in a human institution.
1:25:12
SPEAKER_00: But like,
1:25:14
SPEAKER_00: If that's all there is to it,
1:25:16
SPEAKER_00: if you can't be,
1:25:18
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:25:19
SPEAKER_00: if you can't go to your church father and ask him,
1:25:21
SPEAKER_00: hey,
1:25:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:25:23
SPEAKER_00: I need advice or any guidance or something like that,
1:25:25
SPEAKER_00: and he's not able to give you that guidance,
1:25:27
SPEAKER_00: then what good is it?
1:25:29
You know,
1:25:29
I mean,
1:25:30
and you have other places,
1:25:32
other sources that you can go to that isn't
1:25:35
you know that these are saints that are talking about these
1:25:37
things these are you
1:25:39
know that have spent their entire lives well maybe not their
1:25:43
entire lives I think
1:25:44
what is it Saint Paisios he was a radio operator in the Greek
1:25:48
military when they
1:25:50
had their civil war and I was I was actually really surprised
1:25:52
to learn all that
1:25:52
stuff but like these are people that have walked that you know
1:25:56
a normal person's
1:25:58
life and then chose to push all that away to draw closer to God
1:26:02
and it's like
1:26:04
SPEAKER_00: That's a whole different kind of thing than Protestantism.
1:26:06
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking about this when I was watching The Island last night.
1:26:11
SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay.
1:26:13
SPEAKER_00: And for what it's worth, that movie was really good.
1:26:17
And I know you had asked some questions because you wanted to
1:26:20
know what my thoughts were.
1:26:22
What I found interesting about it was,
1:26:24
right off the bat,
1:26:25
it doesn't spoon-feed you anything.
1:26:27
It doesn't spoon-feed any kind of...
1:26:29
There's no great exposition about stuff.
1:26:31
SPEAKER_00: It's all showing you what is happening in the story.
1:26:33
SPEAKER_00: The...
1:26:35
SPEAKER_00: And spoiler alert,
1:26:36
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:26:38
the story starts off with the guy killing his captain because
1:26:41
he's about to be
1:26:42
SPEAKER_00: killed by the Nazis.
1:26:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's been captured and what have you.
1:26:46
SPEAKER_00: And then after he shoots him,
1:26:47
he's struck with that that realization that he's just killed
1:26:50
someone or he believes
1:26:51
SPEAKER_00: he's just killed someone.
1:26:53
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, the German sailors leave the I don't even know.
1:26:59
SPEAKER_00: Was it an island or was it like a it was a it was a barge.
1:27:03
SPEAKER_00: A barge.
1:27:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it had coal on and then all that.
1:27:05
SPEAKER_00: And he was on top of it and he's like, I survived.
1:27:08
SPEAKER_00: And then it blew up because they had set a bomb.
1:27:11
and you know and then of course he gets rescued by the orthodox
1:27:13
monks and they had
1:27:14
that that time jump from 1942 to i think like 1970 something
1:27:19
yeah it was 75 yeah
1:27:20
and he had that realization that he's been there for a long
1:27:24
time and he's very i
1:27:28
thought he was very offbeat and father i think it was father
1:27:30
anatoly he's very
1:27:33
SPEAKER_00: offbeat like he he
1:27:35
SPEAKER_00: He's very humorous about things, but he's also deadly serious at times.
1:27:39
And then the first time we actually see him interacting with
1:27:44
someone on the island is,
1:27:45
SPEAKER_00: of course,
1:27:45
SPEAKER_00: with the woman who's wanting an abortion.
1:27:48
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, did you want a blessing for murder?
1:27:50
SPEAKER_00: It was already ordained that you were going to have this kid.
1:27:54
SPEAKER_00: You may not get married, but you'll have this child to raise.
1:27:59
SPEAKER_00: And then he, you know, comforts her a little bit.
1:28:03
SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, get off the island.
1:28:05
SPEAKER_00: He's, he's, he's, you know, a quick note on that scene.
1:28:09
SPEAKER_01: What's very interesting is that if you remember from that scene,
1:28:13
SPEAKER_01: he actually pretends to not be himself.
1:28:16
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:28:17
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:28:17
SPEAKER_01: That's, Oh, that's kind of a key.
1:28:18
SPEAKER_01: I think, uh, spiritually where she comes, um,
1:28:23
SPEAKER_01: In the scene,
1:28:23
she comes to see Anatoly because he's like a holy fool and she
1:28:28
wants the fool's
1:28:29
SPEAKER_01: blessing and she brings a bunch of money with her too,
1:28:31
SPEAKER_01: you know?
1:28:32
SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of symbolism in there.
1:28:35
And he pretends to be like the assistant or like just some
1:28:40
peasant coal keeper or whatever.
1:28:43
And he pretends to say – the way he tells her is like you want
1:28:46
to take your money
1:28:48
SPEAKER_01: to a holy man and ask for a blessing to murder somebody.
1:28:51
SPEAKER_01: And that's what he says to her.
1:28:54
And I think that the fact that he doesn't – he kind of gives up
1:28:59
the authority of his sainthood.
1:29:02
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
1:29:02
SPEAKER_01: His like religious authority by pretending he's not him.
1:29:07
SPEAKER_01: She doesn't get castigated by a saint.
1:29:09
SPEAKER_01: She gets castigated by a coal stoker.
1:29:12
That's supposedly the assistant to the – I thought that was
1:29:17
really an interesting kind of twist.
1:29:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:29:20
SPEAKER_00: And he does it again at another point in the movie, too.
1:29:23
But he actually has a full-on conversation with himself so the
1:29:25
lady listening can hear it.
1:29:28
SPEAKER_00: But like I said, the movie itself is so...
1:29:34
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't say it's depressing.
1:29:35
SPEAKER_00: It's just, it's very somber.
1:29:36
SPEAKER_00: It's very, like the scenery is very hard.
1:29:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's barren.
1:29:42
SPEAKER_00: It's, you know, it's the subarctic, arctic area.
1:29:44
SPEAKER_00: They got permafrost, they got snow, they got ice, all that good stuff.
1:29:49
SPEAKER_00: But it sets that tone that it's a very...
1:29:53
it's not just a cold environment that he's in but it's also a
1:29:55
very cold life as
1:29:56
well because you know he's living as a coal stoker he's
1:30:00
literally in there with the
1:30:02
furnace stoking the flames and every day he goes out he breaks
1:30:05
down the cold puts
1:30:06
it in the wheelbarrow pushes it back that's his life and then
1:30:09
in between that and
1:30:12
SPEAKER_00: his normal tasks he's going out and
1:30:16
SPEAKER_00: he's wracked with guilt for what he did.
1:30:19
SPEAKER_00: And he's constantly trying to be,
1:30:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:30:23
SPEAKER_00: he's trying to,
1:30:24
SPEAKER_00: he's begging for forgiveness and his sins are always bothering him.
1:30:27
SPEAKER_00: He's always feeling guilty about what he did back in 1942.
1:30:30
And it's like,
1:30:31
can you imagine being alone like that and carrying that burden
1:30:35
with you?
1:30:36
SPEAKER_00: And never,
1:30:36
SPEAKER_00: and it doesn't,
1:30:37
I don't think it's ever really mentioned if he ever actually
1:30:39
tells someone,
1:30:39
SPEAKER_00: maybe he hints at it with the first woman that he talks to.
1:30:43
SPEAKER_00: Right, he never talks about it ever.
1:30:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
1:30:45
he never actually mentions it to anyone else on the island that
1:30:49
he killed someone,
1:30:50
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:30:51
SPEAKER_00: or that he believed that he had killed someone.
1:30:53
SPEAKER_00: And he's always carrying that burden around with him,
1:30:57
SPEAKER_00: but he never shares it with anyone because,
1:30:58
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:30:59
SPEAKER_00: I guess there's a he doesn't feel like he can confess that kind of thing.
1:31:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, not at least not around to anyone else.
1:31:05
SPEAKER_00: But anyway.
1:31:08
SPEAKER_01: Real fast before – because I want to hear your thoughts some more,
1:31:10
SPEAKER_01: but I wanted to interject that for guys listening at home,
1:31:13
SPEAKER_01: what we're talking about right now is –
1:31:17
in my opinion,
1:31:18
probably the best Christian movie in the last 20 or so 30 years.
1:31:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:31:26
SPEAKER_01: The only other Christian movie that I think is better and more important,
1:31:30
SPEAKER_01: better is not the right word,
1:31:31
SPEAKER_01: but as powerful is,
1:31:33
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:31:34
SPEAKER_01: Mel Gibson's the passion of Christ.
1:31:36
SPEAKER_01: Um,
1:31:37
But in a way,
1:31:38
I actually prefer this movie because The Passion of Christ,
1:31:41
we know the story.
1:31:43
SPEAKER_01: We know,
1:31:44
SPEAKER_01: and it's beautiful to see it and to really get the – I mean,
1:31:46
SPEAKER_01: that movie was a masterpiece,
1:31:48
SPEAKER_01: right?
1:31:48
SPEAKER_01: But this movie, it's called The Island in English.
1:31:52
SPEAKER_01: It's called Ostrov in Russian.
1:31:55
SPEAKER_01: It's one you can rent.
1:31:56
SPEAKER_01: I think you can find it for free on YouTube everywhere.
1:31:59
SPEAKER_01: It's from 2006, and it was directed by Pavlov Lugin.
1:32:03
SPEAKER_01: who was like a pretty big, I believe he's a pretty big Russian director.
1:32:07
And the actor that,
1:32:10
I'm gonna tie it in with everything we've talked about earlier.
1:32:12
SPEAKER_01: The actor that played the main character, right?
1:32:17
SPEAKER_01: His name is,
1:32:18
SPEAKER_01: his name was Pyotr Mamunov, right?
1:32:22
And if you're familiar with Russian culture,
1:32:25
uh,
1:32:25
Pyotr Mamunov was a,
1:32:27
he was a rock star.
1:32:28
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:32:28
SPEAKER_01: He was probably up there with Victor soy,
1:32:30
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:32:31
SPEAKER_01: as one of the biggest rock stars of the Soviet era.
1:32:35
SPEAKER_01: And, um,
1:32:37
He,
1:32:37
you know,
1:32:37
he did work with like Brian Enno and stuff and all this stuff.
1:32:40
SPEAKER_01: But in the 90s, in his older age, he converted.
1:32:45
SPEAKER_01: He was an atheist, the Soviet atheist who converted to...
1:32:50
SPEAKER_01: Back to orthodoxy,
1:32:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:32:51
he rekindled his fate and he went and basically lived like a
1:32:56
monk for the rest of
1:32:58
SPEAKER_01: his life up over there in the same area that the movie was filmed.
1:33:02
SPEAKER_01: And a director,
1:33:03
SPEAKER_01: Pavel Lugin,
1:33:04
SPEAKER_01: when they wrote this movie,
1:33:05
SPEAKER_01: they,
1:33:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:33:06
SPEAKER_01: they insisted that he be the main character,
1:33:09
SPEAKER_01: you know.
1:33:10
And,
1:33:10
um,
1:33:11
they went and filmed it and,
1:33:12
um,
1:33:13
it was filmed actually in the Karelia region.
1:33:17
SPEAKER_01: And if you're familiar,
1:33:18
SPEAKER_01: if you can imagine a map of Russia,
1:33:20
SPEAKER_01: it's the very West where the white sea is it's overlooking Finland.
1:33:25
SPEAKER_01: So it's a very West,
1:33:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:33:27
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:33:27
SPEAKER_01: when you think of like,
1:33:28
SPEAKER_01: when you see the,
1:33:29
SPEAKER_01: the,
1:33:29
SPEAKER_01: the stills from the movie,
1:33:30
SPEAKER_01: you might think like Siberia somewhere.
1:33:32
SPEAKER_01: I know it's actually in the very West of Russia.
1:33:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
1:33:35
SPEAKER_01: Basically in the White Sea and the Corellia region.
1:33:37
SPEAKER_01: And there's some really very interesting things about the movie.
1:33:40
SPEAKER_01: It was filmed pretty fast on a pretty low budget.
1:33:44
And it was the area where the movie was filmed was where a
1:33:49
Soviet prison for dissidents was.
1:33:52
SPEAKER_01: And,
1:33:52
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:33:52
SPEAKER_01: a lot,
1:33:53
SPEAKER_01: there was,
1:33:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:33:54
SPEAKER_01: if you read that stuff,
1:33:55
SPEAKER_01: the directors,
1:33:55
there's cemeteries for thousands of people that were killed by
1:33:58
the communists in
1:33:58
SPEAKER_01: that area,
1:33:59
SPEAKER_01: you know?
1:34:00
SPEAKER_01: Um,
1:34:01
and there's a really cool anecdotal thing is that they were
1:34:06
worried that they were
1:34:07
SPEAKER_01: not going to be able to beat the snow,
1:34:09
SPEAKER_01: like,
1:34:09
SPEAKER_01: cause they were filming it in the fall and they had,
1:34:11
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:34:11
SPEAKER_01: it's going to get too cold to be out here.
1:34:13
SPEAKER_01: It's going to get too cold.
1:34:14
SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, sub Arctic, it's going to be freezing.
1:34:16
SPEAKER_01: Um,
1:34:17
SPEAKER_01: And all the weather reports that it's going to snow,
1:34:19
SPEAKER_01: it's going to snow,
1:34:20
we're going to have to leave because all the boats are going to
1:34:24
freeze and we won't
1:34:25
SPEAKER_01: be able to get the camera equipment and stuff out there.
1:34:28
SPEAKER_01: And it did not snow for the entire time, the entire filming of the movie.
1:34:33
SPEAKER_01: And the only time it started to snow was in the last scene they shot,
1:34:37
SPEAKER_01: which was the scene with the exorcism.
1:34:41
yeah i remember that when you see that in when the demon or
1:34:45
whatever leaves the
1:34:46
girl it um it started the snow and that was a one take thing
1:34:51
and it started to snow
1:34:52
during that you know i mean it was like that's it's a freaking
1:34:56
amazing thing you
1:34:57
SPEAKER_01: know i mean if the story's true
1:34:59
SPEAKER_01: But for listeners,
1:35:01
SPEAKER_01: what the movie is about,
1:35:02
SPEAKER_01: because I want to talk about it more because it's such a great movie.
1:35:05
I recommend this movie to everybody that's interested in Christianity,
1:35:08
right?
1:35:09
SPEAKER_01: Because I think that it approaches Christianity from –
1:35:14
SPEAKER_01: From an angle that is not often approached in the West, okay?
1:35:19
And the reason I say that is because a lot of times when you
1:35:25
look at Protestant Christianity,
1:35:26
you see very Hallmark Channel kind of movies and that type of
1:35:29
stuff or a lot of
1:35:30
SPEAKER_01: cringe type shit,
1:35:31
SPEAKER_01: you know?
1:35:33
The Roman Catholics,
1:35:35
their right-wing Christian symbolism tends to be very...
1:35:40
medieval crusader type stuff that's the symbology the symbolism
1:35:44
that they use a lot
1:35:46
which is not very current to the modern representation of what
1:35:51
the roman catholic
1:35:52
church is you know matter of fact i believe if you know most of
1:35:56
the archbishops and
1:35:57
stuff in the roman catholic church would would frown upon the
1:36:00
right-wing uh trad
1:36:02
SPEAKER_01: cath like uh symbolism of crusades and that kind of stuff uh
1:36:07
SPEAKER_01: And this movie approaches Christianity from a truly orthodox way.
1:36:12
And it's a very interesting way because it's the idea of this
1:36:16
like penance doesn't really,
1:36:18
it's not something we talk about in our Western modern kind of Christianity,
1:36:24
but it is a modern movie and it's a contemporary movie that
1:36:27
takes place in
1:36:28
SPEAKER_01: contemporary times,
1:36:29
SPEAKER_01: right?
1:36:29
SPEAKER_01: Which makes it fascinating.
1:36:31
SPEAKER_01: So for the listeners,
1:36:34
I highly recommend the movie,
1:36:35
but I'm going to give you a quick spoiler,
1:36:38
right?
1:36:39
SPEAKER_01: So the movie is about Anatoly.
1:36:41
SPEAKER_01: Anatoly was a...
1:36:44
SPEAKER_01: kind of like a conscripted sailor on a tugboat, right?
1:36:49
SPEAKER_01: And on this tugboat, there was two people, him and an officer.
1:36:52
SPEAKER_01: And the officer's name was, I think, Anatoly.
1:36:54
SPEAKER_01: No, Anatoly was the main character.
1:36:56
SPEAKER_01: Ticon.
1:36:56
SPEAKER_01: Ticon.
1:36:57
SPEAKER_01: Ticon was like the officer.
1:36:58
SPEAKER_01: He was like a young lieutenant, you know?
1:37:00
SPEAKER_01: And they're in a tugboat, and they're basically pulling a...
1:37:04
SPEAKER_01: a giant tug of coal,
1:37:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:37:06
SPEAKER_01: and it's,
1:37:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:37:07
SPEAKER_01: it's military equipment,
1:37:08
SPEAKER_01: basically,
1:37:09
SPEAKER_01: in the White Sea somewhere.
1:37:11
SPEAKER_01: And a German Nazi ship rolls up on them.
1:37:16
SPEAKER_01: And obviously,
1:37:17
SPEAKER_01: they're on a tugboat,
1:37:18
SPEAKER_01: man,
1:37:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:37:18
SPEAKER_01: there's,
1:37:19
SPEAKER_01: there's an enlisted guy and an officer,
1:37:21
SPEAKER_01: and that's all there is,
1:37:21
SPEAKER_01: right?
1:37:22
SPEAKER_01: They capture them.
1:37:24
SPEAKER_01: And the
1:37:25
SPEAKER_01: The Nazi officer basically tells – he sees Anatoly.
1:37:28
SPEAKER_01: He's like a little – he's a coward.
1:37:29
SPEAKER_01: They find him hiding underneath like the coal.
1:37:36
SPEAKER_01: He's just a coward.
1:37:37
SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, his officer buddy is like standing up.
1:37:39
SPEAKER_01: He's like, let me have a cigarette.
1:37:41
SPEAKER_01: He's kind of rebelling against the Nazis, right, his captors.
1:37:45
SPEAKER_01: So the Nazis being sadistic fucks in the movie,
1:37:48
SPEAKER_01: what they do is they tell Anatoly,
1:37:50
SPEAKER_01: we'll let you live if you shoot –
1:37:53
SPEAKER_01: your, your, your officer, right?
1:37:56
SPEAKER_01: So they give him a pistol with one bullet in it.
1:37:59
SPEAKER_01: And he does, he shoots his officer.
1:38:01
SPEAKER_01: He shoots the captain of the tugboat.
1:38:04
SPEAKER_01: And he,
1:38:05
SPEAKER_01: the guy falls overboard,
1:38:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:38:07
SPEAKER_01: he got shot,
1:38:07
SPEAKER_01: falls overboard and then the Nazis let him live,
1:38:10
SPEAKER_01: but they actually blow up the tugboat anyways.
1:38:12
SPEAKER_01: And he washes ashore onto this very remote Orthodox monastery.
1:38:19
SPEAKER_01: And then he spends his entire life living there as a,
1:38:23
SPEAKER_01: as a monk,
1:38:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:38:24
SPEAKER_01: he's kind of an unofficial monk,
1:38:26
SPEAKER_01: right?
1:38:26
SPEAKER_01: And,
1:38:27
SPEAKER_01: And his entire life is basically just penance, right?
1:38:32
SPEAKER_01: He is wracked by guilt.
1:38:34
SPEAKER_01: And I found that interesting.
1:38:37
SPEAKER_01: I found that the choice of crime to be interesting, right?
1:38:42
Because when you think about it,
1:38:43
in a Western movie,
1:38:45
the crime would have not...
1:38:47
SPEAKER_01: His sin is really cowardice, right?
1:38:51
SPEAKER_01: It's not so much murder that's the biting problem, right?
1:38:57
SPEAKER_01: It's the fact,
1:38:58
it's like the betrayal and it's very biblical when you think
1:39:01
about it because it
1:39:02
SPEAKER_01: makes you think of the passion of Christ where he was twice denied.
1:39:08
The most biting things of that story in the Bible is how people
1:39:18
that were true
1:39:18
SPEAKER_01: believers denied Christ out of cowardice for their own lives.
1:39:24
SPEAKER_01: And that's what you had here.
1:39:26
SPEAKER_01: You had this...
1:39:28
SPEAKER_01: denial of your fellow man and stuff for your own safety is what he did.
1:39:33
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:39:34
SPEAKER_01: So that's almost, it's almost worse than murder in a way.
1:39:37
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:39:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and he, he spends, you know, the movie fast forward to 1975.
1:39:43
SPEAKER_01: So now we're in the seventies, but he's never left.
1:39:46
SPEAKER_01: And his every day is just him living a life of penance,
1:39:50
SPEAKER_01: constantly,
1:39:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:39:52
SPEAKER_01: praying the,
1:39:53
SPEAKER_01: the,
1:39:53
SPEAKER_01: the prayer,
1:39:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:39:55
SPEAKER_01: um,
1:39:56
And all he's doing is he keeps on going to where,
1:39:59
like,
1:39:59
the remnants of the barge are.
1:40:01
SPEAKER_01: And he's, like, praying for the soul of Tikhan, who he killed.
1:40:05
You know,
1:40:05
he's just begging God for,
1:40:07
you know,
1:40:08
intercession on his behalf.
1:40:10
And he kind of becomes something that's kind of an orthodox
1:40:14
concept of the holy fool,
1:40:16
where...
1:40:17
SPEAKER_01: he's just there.
1:40:18
SPEAKER_01: He's just kind of this kind of crazy guy that just does whatever.
1:40:22
SPEAKER_01: And he,
1:40:22
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:40:23
SPEAKER_01: he,
1:40:23
he acts like a fool or inside the monastery where he prays in
1:40:27
the wrong direction.
1:40:28
SPEAKER_01: And he's kind of like, he's showing the, the, the,
1:40:32
SPEAKER_01: the faults of,
1:40:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:40:34
SPEAKER_01: the other monks through his like ridiculousness,
1:40:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:40:39
SPEAKER_01: and there's this beautiful scene that I,
1:40:41
SPEAKER_01: and I think it's so great where the,
1:40:45
the prior of the monastery goes to live with him because his
1:40:49
house burnt down and,
1:40:51
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, oh, I'm going to live like a hermit, just like you.
1:40:55
SPEAKER_01: And he's going to be this like,
1:40:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to live like a desert father out here in your crazy coal house.
1:41:03
And he comes there and he's got his fancy blanket and his fancy
1:41:06
boots and stuff.
1:41:07
SPEAKER_01: And
1:41:09
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:41:09
SPEAKER_01: in the middle of the night,
1:41:10
SPEAKER_01: he wakes up and,
1:41:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:41:13
SPEAKER_01: what's his name is just,
1:41:14
SPEAKER_01: Anatoly's just like,
1:41:15
SPEAKER_01: oh my God,
1:41:16
SPEAKER_01: he's got devils inside your boots.
1:41:18
And he throws his boots in the fire and he like,
1:41:20
you know,
1:41:21
throws his blanket in the fire.
1:41:23
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I'm just trying to save you.
1:41:24
SPEAKER_01: And they almost die because they're about to asphyxiate on smoke.
1:41:27
SPEAKER_01: And they come out and the head monk realizes that like,
1:41:31
SPEAKER_01: oh my God,
1:41:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm crying about boots in a blanket.
1:41:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, like I have completely missed the point.
1:41:38
SPEAKER_01: It's such a powerful moment.
1:41:40
SPEAKER_01: And of course,
1:41:42
the end of the movie is so interesting because an admiral comes
1:41:50
to this faraway
1:41:52
SPEAKER_01: monastery and he brings his daughter with him.
1:41:56
SPEAKER_01: And his daughter is messed up.
1:41:57
SPEAKER_01: Like, she's demonically possessed, right?
1:42:00
SPEAKER_01: They don't say it.
1:42:02
SPEAKER_01: Honestly,
1:42:03
SPEAKER_01: out of every movie I've seen that even touches on demonic possession,
1:42:07
SPEAKER_01: I think this is the best and scariest demonic possession on film.
1:42:12
all right yeah because it's so simple you know because she's
1:42:16
cute as a demon
1:42:17
possessed bpd girl you know what i mean it's like you're like
1:42:21
oh she's just acting
1:42:22
quirky and weird you know and then but then you realize that oh
1:42:25
no this is dark
1:42:26
this is dark you know and this admiral this this atheist this
1:42:30
is this you know
1:42:31
soviet admiral brings his daughter to this far away place all
1:42:35
the way in corelia
1:42:36
SPEAKER_01: you know on the freaking white sea and
1:42:39
SPEAKER_01: at his last hope to try to cure his young daughter.
1:42:43
SPEAKER_01: She's like a 20 year old or something like that.
1:42:46
And he goes to talk to him and Anatoly immediately notices that
1:42:51
the Admiral is actually Tikhan.
1:42:53
SPEAKER_01: That he never died.
1:42:54
And then he takes his daughter out to the island where
1:43:01
everything happened.
1:43:02
SPEAKER_01: He takes him to where he supposedly killed Tikhan.
1:43:08
SPEAKER_01: And he begs for God to cure her.
1:43:11
SPEAKER_01: To fix the
1:43:14
demon in her you know and it is one of the craziest scenes if
1:43:17
you anybody listening
1:43:18
SPEAKER_01: if you just watch this scene it's such a like a it's such a simple yet
1:43:22
exceptionally powerful scene of just scary demonic possession
1:43:27
you know and it's all
1:43:29
done the acting is fantastic that that female actress was great
1:43:33
in it and it starts
1:43:34
SPEAKER_01: to snow and she's cured and he goes back
1:43:37
SPEAKER_01: And he begs forgiveness from T-Con.
1:43:40
SPEAKER_01: And T-Con tells him, I've forgiven you already a long time ago.
1:43:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, I've forgiven you for being a coward.
1:43:46
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you did what you did, you know?
1:43:49
And,
1:43:51
you know,
1:43:51
Anatoly doesn't like,
1:43:52
he just goes and the next day he dies.
1:43:56
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
1:43:57
SPEAKER_01: And it's such a freaking,
1:43:58
SPEAKER_01: you're like,
1:43:58
SPEAKER_01: and it makes you think that like,
1:44:01
SPEAKER_01: I think that the key of the movie is that,
1:44:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:44:05
SPEAKER_01: if there's no penance,
1:44:06
SPEAKER_01: there's no peace,
1:44:07
SPEAKER_01: right?
1:44:08
SPEAKER_01: If there's no suffering, there's no love.
1:44:10
And,
1:44:10
you know,
1:44:10
if there's no cross to bear,
1:44:11
right,
1:44:12
there's no heaven at all,
1:44:14
you know?
1:44:15
SPEAKER_01: And,
1:44:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:44:17
we look at the world and why we even bother with religious
1:44:20
stuff or the spiritual
1:44:21
SPEAKER_01: is that like,
1:44:22
SPEAKER_01: we don't live for stuff.
1:44:26
SPEAKER_01: We're not alive on this earth to,
1:44:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:44:28
SPEAKER_01: eat,
1:44:28
SPEAKER_01: sleep,
1:44:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:44:30
SPEAKER_01: to gain things,
1:44:31
SPEAKER_01: to buy things,
1:44:31
SPEAKER_01: to dominate other people,
1:44:32
SPEAKER_01: you know.
1:44:34
SPEAKER_01: We are here and the most beautiful parts of humanity are that,
1:44:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:44:40
SPEAKER_01: we endure the world,
1:44:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:44:42
SPEAKER_01: and that we love and we hope.
1:44:44
SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of
1:44:48
SPEAKER_01: what I find like beautiful in this movie and in the Orthodox faith.
1:44:53
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that it doesn't exist in other denominations,
1:44:57
but I feel like the focus of this kind of stuff is what I find
1:45:03
exceptionally attractive.
1:45:04
This small out of the way place where we're not focused on
1:45:11
political or,
1:45:12
or,
1:45:12
uh,
1:45:14
ideological kind of stuff we're just focused on interactions
1:45:18
between people and our
1:45:20
own spiritual growth you know yep it's that's oh go ahead sorry
1:45:27
it's just it's
1:45:28
hearing the description of the movie and then i was reading a
1:45:30
little bit about it
1:45:31
while you guys were talking i haven't seen it yet but it
1:45:34
reminds me of a story i
1:45:35
SPEAKER_03: did last week in class um
1:45:38
SPEAKER_03: Leo Tolstoy's God Sees the Truth But Waits.
1:45:42
SPEAKER_03: And it's an incredibly similar story.
1:45:44
SPEAKER_03: Do you guys know it?
1:45:45
SPEAKER_03: I'm familiar with it, yeah.
1:45:47
I mean,
1:45:47
long story short,
1:45:48
a guy ends up in the gulag for a crime he didn't commit.
1:45:53
SPEAKER_03: And then he eventually meets the man that commits the crime.
1:45:56
SPEAKER_03: He gets sent to the same gulag for a different crime.
1:45:59
And the story ends very similarly where the protagonist
1:46:04
eventually finally forgives
1:46:05
SPEAKER_03: the man for that crime.
1:46:08
SPEAKER_03: And the sin he had to do penance for was pride because he says,
1:46:13
SPEAKER_03: I may be a thousand times worse than you.
1:46:17
SPEAKER_03: And then that's the moment where his heart is lifted and he feels...
1:46:22
He feels whole for the first time in his life,
1:46:23
and then he dies a week later in the Gulag.
1:46:27
SPEAKER_03: And it's a freaking incredible story,
1:46:31
SPEAKER_03: very Russian,
1:46:32
SPEAKER_03: in that he goes to the Gulag for something he didn't commit.
1:46:34
SPEAKER_03: But there's bigger problems.
1:46:37
There were bigger problems in that guy's life than being sent
1:46:39
to the Gulag.
1:46:41
But it's like it's almost like a kind of a parable almost like
1:46:44
a retelling of the
1:46:45
SPEAKER_00: same kind of story where.
1:46:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
1:46:48
But,
1:46:49
you know,
1:46:49
kind of getting back to the point of what we're talking about
1:46:51
with the movie.
1:46:52
That's kind of the draw of Orthodox to me,
1:46:55
of Eastern Orthodoxy in particular is because.
1:46:58
SPEAKER_00: You look at how the Protestant churches are,
1:47:00
SPEAKER_00: in most cases,
1:47:03
SPEAKER_00: it puts an emphasis on the social aspect of it.
1:47:05
It puts an emphasis on feeling good and,
1:47:08
you know,
1:47:09
I want to say checking a box.
1:47:11
If that is the essence of your relationship with God and with
1:47:18
Jesus and with God,
1:47:20
SPEAKER_00: you know, your journey on faith?
1:47:22
SPEAKER_00: Is it really faith?
1:47:23
SPEAKER_00: You know,
1:47:24
SPEAKER_00: because the thing is that you have to constantly look at,
1:47:26
SPEAKER_00: and this is what I was kind of drawn to with Anatoly,
1:47:30
SPEAKER_00: is that no matter how hard he prayed,
1:47:32
SPEAKER_00: no matter how much he did,
1:47:33
SPEAKER_00: no matter what he said,
1:47:35
SPEAKER_00: or even at the end,
1:47:36
SPEAKER_00: even when Tikhon forgiven him and,
1:47:39
SPEAKER_00: or had told him that he'd forgiven him and he left,
1:47:42
SPEAKER_00: he still carried that weight to his grave.
1:47:44
SPEAKER_00: And he,
1:47:45
SPEAKER_00: like,
1:47:45
SPEAKER_00: even as he was getting into the casket,
1:47:48
SPEAKER_00: he was basically saying,
1:47:49
SPEAKER_00: my sins are oppressing me.
1:47:51
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, we realize just how imperfect we are.
1:47:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think me and, what was it?
1:47:59
SPEAKER_00: Me and...
1:48:01
griddle cakes we're talking about this this morning um griddle
1:48:06
cakes if you're
1:48:06
listening hey bud i'm talking about you shout out to the
1:48:09
griddle cake um we were
1:48:13
talking about it and i think he said something like let me let
1:48:17
me see if i can
1:48:17
actually look up the message real quick and then we'll take
1:48:19
them but a second um
1:48:22
SPEAKER_00: Because I actually mentioned the movie to him.
1:48:26
SPEAKER_00: You know,
1:48:26
SPEAKER_00: he was talking about many people would say,
1:48:28
SPEAKER_00: Lord,
1:48:29
SPEAKER_00: Lord,
1:48:29
SPEAKER_00: but wouldn't enter the kingdom.
1:48:31
The requirement is that you give up your idols and put your
1:48:33
efforts into acting as
1:48:34
SPEAKER_00: they commanded.
1:48:36
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we talked about it, you know, about how
1:48:42
For some people,
1:48:43
their journey in faith isn't going to be the same as St.
1:48:46
SPEAKER_00: Paisios or Anatoly or any of those people.
1:48:49
SPEAKER_00: We live in the world, but we're not called to be of the world.
1:48:54
We're supposed to be in it,
1:48:57
but our journeys are not going to be the exact same for everybody.
1:49:02
We're not necessarily going to be living an ascetic life and
1:49:06
constantly praying and
1:49:07
SPEAKER_00: just focusing on the aspects of prayer.
1:49:10
SPEAKER_00: But we're called to try and strive towards that perfection.
1:49:13
SPEAKER_00: Because even if we lead as faultless a life as we can,
1:49:17
SPEAKER_00: we're still unworthy of being in God's presence.
1:49:24
It's only through mercy and forgiveness that we're even able to
1:49:26
be in his presence.
1:49:28
SPEAKER_00: And so...
1:49:30
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of it feels like a lot of churches,
1:49:32
SPEAKER_00: sometimes they kind of shy away from that because they want to say,
1:49:34
SPEAKER_00: well,
1:49:34
SPEAKER_00: God will accept you as you are.
1:49:36
SPEAKER_00: And it's like,
1:49:36
SPEAKER_00: well,
1:49:36
SPEAKER_00: there's not he might accept you as you are,
1:49:39
SPEAKER_00: but there's a call to change,
1:49:40
SPEAKER_00: too.
1:49:41
SPEAKER_00: And the church, the Orthodox Church, at least the teachings of it.
1:49:46
Demand that you change your heart and take up your cross and
1:49:51
follow Christ to the
1:49:53
SPEAKER_00: best of your ability.
1:49:54
SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean you're not going to struggle.
1:49:56
SPEAKER_00: That's part of being human.
1:49:59
SPEAKER_00: We're fallen.
1:50:00
SPEAKER_00: We live in a fallen world.
1:50:01
SPEAKER_00: We're going to struggle.
1:50:02
SPEAKER_00: We're going to fall down.
1:50:04
SPEAKER_00: But it's getting up and continuing to try that matters.
1:50:07
And that's really,
1:50:09
I think,
1:50:09
the point of that movie,
1:50:11
too,
1:50:11
is saying,
1:50:12
you know,
1:50:13
you can commit the worst crimes imaginable but if you're living
1:50:17
in that that desire
1:50:20
to you know be forgiven and then seek that forgiveness and seek
1:50:25
that mercy then you
1:50:27
SPEAKER_00: know it's i'm i'm kind of losing my train of thought here but
1:50:35
SPEAKER_00: It gave me a lot to think about,
1:50:36
and it kind of related into what I've been evaluating for
1:50:39
myself with the Orthodox Church.
1:50:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:50:40
SPEAKER_00: there's two Orthodox churches where I live,
1:50:42
SPEAKER_00: and I've yet to go to them because I'm going to be honest with you,
1:50:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of scared.
1:50:49
SPEAKER_01: So when I decided to return to church after many years of atheism,
1:50:56
SPEAKER_01: I looked around where I lived,
1:50:57
SPEAKER_01: and this was back in California,
1:50:59
SPEAKER_01: and I found a Greek Orthodox church.
1:51:01
that was very close to me and I kept on seeing it and I was
1:51:04
like you know maybe I
1:51:05
should go and I went on I went online and I I went to the
1:51:10
little contact thing and
1:51:11
I sent an email to the the father and his name was Father
1:51:15
Constantine and I was
1:51:17
like okay I go hey man I am I'm terrified of coming back okay I
1:51:22
I don't know what
1:51:23
to do I am completely incompetent and I just I feel like I need
1:51:27
to come back but I
1:51:27
don't know I don't know how to do it because I never was really
1:51:30
you know I was a
1:51:31
SPEAKER_01: You know, I was born in Romania.
1:51:33
SPEAKER_01: I was baptized.
1:51:34
SPEAKER_01: And,
1:51:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:51:35
SPEAKER_01: we went to church like in a museum kind of concept,
1:51:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:51:37
SPEAKER_01: and the occasional like midnight Christmas mass.
1:51:41
SPEAKER_01: And he got back to me.
1:51:43
SPEAKER_01: And I,
1:51:45
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:51:46
SPEAKER_01: for some reason,
1:51:46
SPEAKER_01: I immediately pictured him to be like this wizard,
1:51:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:51:49
SPEAKER_01: this grand wizard kind of guy,
1:51:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:51:51
SPEAKER_01: like,
1:51:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:51:52
SPEAKER_01: like your stereotypical,
1:51:54
SPEAKER_01: like orthodox,
1:51:55
SPEAKER_01: like patriarch looking guy.
1:51:57
yeah and uh he's like hey man like how about we meet you know
1:52:01
somewhere and we just
1:52:01
talk about it we just chat you know i'm like sure so i went and
1:52:06
met the father at a
1:52:07
starbucks actually across the street from this church and the
1:52:10
dude was actually
1:52:11
SPEAKER_01: like my age and he was this like you know fit redheaded guy and uh
1:52:17
SPEAKER_01: And he was one of the coolest dudes I ever met.
1:52:20
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Whoa, okay.
1:52:22
SPEAKER_01: That's not what I expected at all.
1:52:23
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:52:24
SPEAKER_01: I expected,
1:52:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:52:25
SPEAKER_01: and he told me about how he,
1:52:26
SPEAKER_01: he became a priest and how he came to it.
1:52:29
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things he told me is like, he's like, Hey,
1:52:35
SPEAKER_01: unlike he's like a lot of churches,
1:52:38
SPEAKER_01: specifically American Protestant churches,
1:52:41
SPEAKER_01: um,
1:52:42
SPEAKER_01: are,
1:52:43
SPEAKER_01: are,
1:52:44
SPEAKER_01: they see religion in a speed dating kind of mentality,
1:52:47
SPEAKER_00: right?
1:52:48
SPEAKER_01: Where you just go,
1:52:49
SPEAKER_01: you sit down,
1:52:49
SPEAKER_01: boom,
1:52:50
SPEAKER_01: you're part of the crew now,
1:52:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:52:51
SPEAKER_01: like welcome,
1:52:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:52:52
SPEAKER_01: you showed up,
1:52:53
SPEAKER_01: you're,
1:52:53
SPEAKER_01: you're part of our,
1:52:54
SPEAKER_01: our,
1:52:54
SPEAKER_01: our group now,
1:52:55
SPEAKER_01: you know?
1:52:56
SPEAKER_01: And, uh, he's like, he's like, I'm, he's like, I'm not going to do that.
1:52:59
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I'm, I'm not going to, I'm not going to bug you.
1:53:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to be like, Hey, you need to come, you know?
1:53:04
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I don't want, I'm not going to be the one going after you.
1:53:08
If you are truly interested and I have a calling for it,
1:53:11
you will read the stuff.
1:53:13
SPEAKER_01: You'll ask me questions.
1:53:15
SPEAKER_01: And then you're always welcome to come and stand and watch.
1:53:18
SPEAKER_01: And then if you want to start taking part and become part of the church,
1:53:21
SPEAKER_01: then you are more than welcome.
1:53:22
SPEAKER_01: I'll sit down, you know, with you and we'll talk, you know.
1:53:25
SPEAKER_01: And,
1:53:25
SPEAKER_01: um,
1:53:26
SPEAKER_01: I really liked that,
1:53:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:53:28
SPEAKER_01: that idea that like,
1:53:29
SPEAKER_01: I had to work for it,
1:53:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:53:33
SPEAKER_01: like I wasn't being sold anything.
1:53:35
SPEAKER_01: It was actually the opposite way around.
1:53:37
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be part of it, you know?
1:53:40
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:53:41
and there's a quote in the the book i recommended to you which
1:53:45
is it's an intro to
1:53:47
orthodoxy book it's called the orthodox way by by by kalisto's
1:53:51
war and i will make
1:53:53
a note that a lot of orthodox hard hard conservative orthodox
1:53:57
people do not like
1:53:58
where because he is more of a liberal when it comes to things
1:54:02
um he passed away uh
1:54:05
SPEAKER_01: recently but um
1:54:07
SPEAKER_01: So one of the things it says in that book,
1:54:10
SPEAKER_01: right,
1:54:10
is that we see that it is not the task of Christianity to
1:54:15
provide easy answers to
1:54:16
SPEAKER_01: every question,
1:54:18
SPEAKER_01: but to make us progressively aware of a mystery.
1:54:20
God is not so much an object of our knowledge as the cause of
1:54:24
our wonder,
1:54:25
right?
1:54:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:54:27
and a lot of times when you especially in the you know the
1:54:31
2000s during the height
1:54:32
of the atheist debate you know uh between it was mostly between
1:54:36
atheists and
1:54:37
protestants right you had all these facts you know oh well the
1:54:41
world is 5 000 years
1:54:42
old and evolution this and evolution that you know and but why
1:54:45
don't you like gay
1:54:46
people and that kind of stuff right and to be honest i don't
1:54:49
think any of that
1:54:50
SPEAKER_01: stuff is important
1:54:52
SPEAKER_01: That is, a lot of it is political of this world mumbo jumbo, right?
1:54:57
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
1:54:58
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
1:54:59
It doesn't matter to my faith or to my own spiritual
1:55:03
development if the world is
1:55:06
SPEAKER_01: 5,000 years old or an infinite amount of years old.
1:55:09
SPEAKER_01: It has no bearing on my day-to-day spiritual development.
1:55:14
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
1:55:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't care if you're a homosexual.
1:55:19
SPEAKER_01: If that is the topic of a conversation we are having at church,
1:55:23
SPEAKER_01: right,
1:55:23
SPEAKER_01: we're talking about politics and behavior,
1:55:26
SPEAKER_01: right?
1:55:27
That's not something that is going to affect me because I am
1:55:31
not a homosexual.
1:55:33
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
1:55:34
And even though you're a homosexual,
1:55:37
I still love you,
1:55:38
you know,
1:55:39
because –
1:55:41
SPEAKER_01: That's between you and God, not between me and God, you know?
1:55:46
SPEAKER_01: So that's one of the things that I feel like
1:55:52
SPEAKER_01: I feel like the way I returned to this,
1:55:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm a believer,
1:55:56
SPEAKER_01: if you ever read Mere Christianity by C.S.
1:56:00
SPEAKER_01: Lewis, right?
1:56:01
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the best.
1:56:02
SPEAKER_01: It is an old classic of Christian apologetics, right?
1:56:06
SPEAKER_01: And it's intro level to garden variety Christianity, right?
1:56:12
SPEAKER_01: It's...
1:56:13
SPEAKER_01: It is what it is.
1:56:14
SPEAKER_01: And I've had a friend of mine that listens to this podcast.
1:56:16
He,
1:56:16
you know,
1:56:17
he poo-pooed at me,
1:56:19
you know,
1:56:19
what's up,
1:56:19
bro,
1:56:20
you know,
1:56:21
about this,
1:56:21
right?
1:56:22
SPEAKER_01: And yes, you're right, man.
1:56:24
SPEAKER_01: You're right that it is intro level to Christianity.
1:56:27
SPEAKER_01: But in it,
1:56:27
SPEAKER_01: he says,
1:56:29
SPEAKER_01: Lewis says something really interesting,
1:56:30
which is he describes the different denominations as a train
1:56:35
station in England.
1:56:36
SPEAKER_01: And there's all these trains going in every direction, right?
1:56:39
SPEAKER_01: And his view is that at least he came to the train station.
1:56:42
SPEAKER_01: And I agree with that because it is a journey.
1:56:48
And sometimes just being on the journey,
1:56:51
just leaving the shire is good enough.
1:56:57
And I think that we can all get something from every one of the
1:57:02
denominations to a
1:57:03
SPEAKER_01: certain degree.
1:57:04
SPEAKER_01: And I don't like interdenominational battles.
1:57:07
SPEAKER_01: But like I said, I was born –
1:57:09
In Romania,
1:57:10
I was baptized Orthodox,
1:57:12
but I grew up pretty much an atheist,
1:57:17
I guess.
1:57:17
SPEAKER_01: I grew up agnostic, right?
1:57:20
SPEAKER_01: Never truly part of a church or anything like that,
1:57:23
SPEAKER_01: especially once we moved to the United States.
1:57:25
And then I became a hard atheist in my middle school,
1:57:29
high school,
1:57:30
early college days.
1:57:31
SPEAKER_01: I was a hardcore atheist.
1:57:34
SPEAKER_01: I was a fan of Christopher Hitchens.
1:57:37
SPEAKER_01: And I always hated Sam Harris, by the way.
1:57:39
SPEAKER_01: I always found him a tool the entire time.
1:57:43
SPEAKER_01: But I was Richard Dawkins, Hitchens guy.
1:57:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:57:48
SPEAKER_01: And I did have a flirtation with Protestantism,
1:57:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:57:52
SPEAKER_01: around that time where I was like,
1:57:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:57:53
SPEAKER_01: it was around the time my father passed away.
1:57:55
SPEAKER_01: And I was very mad at God,
1:57:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:57:58
SPEAKER_01: that like a great man,
1:58:00
SPEAKER_01: a good,
1:58:01
SPEAKER_01: kind man died a horrible cancerous death at 46.
1:58:05
SPEAKER_01: And I was very angry about that.
1:58:06
SPEAKER_01: I was very mad at God.
1:58:08
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, how can I believe in this dumb shit?
1:58:10
SPEAKER_01: You know, how could God do this, you know?
1:58:13
And I through like some happenstances in high school,
1:58:17
I ended up going to a,
1:58:18
a,
1:58:18
a,
1:58:18
uh,
1:58:20
SPEAKER_01: Protestant church,
1:58:22
SPEAKER_01: and there were some great people there,
1:58:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:58:24
SPEAKER_01: but it left me empty,
1:58:26
SPEAKER_01: and it almost made me more of an atheist than I was going in,
1:58:30
SPEAKER_01: because there was no,
1:58:33
SPEAKER_01: there was a lack of spirituality.
1:58:36
SPEAKER_01: Their focus was like community building,
1:58:38
SPEAKER_01: and Christian camps,
1:58:41
SPEAKER_01: and that type of thing,
1:58:42
SPEAKER_01: instead of what I truly wanted.
1:58:45
I truly wanted what I truly craved you know and that pushed me
1:58:49
kind of back into
1:58:50
atheism after a while and I stayed an atheist really until my
1:58:58
trip to Afghanistan
1:59:00
and in my trip to Afghanistan I didn't have a conversion moment
1:59:04
or anything like
1:59:04
that but where my atheism fell apart in Afghanistan is that for
1:59:09
the first time in
1:59:09
SPEAKER_01: my life
1:59:11
SPEAKER_01: I witnessed true evil.
1:59:13
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not talking about,
1:59:14
SPEAKER_01: and remember,
1:59:15
SPEAKER_01: I went in there as a very liberal-minded,
1:59:17
SPEAKER_01: very person who had very liberal ideas of,
1:59:21
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:59:21
SPEAKER_01: all cultures are equal.
1:59:23
You know,
1:59:24
people do this because of this,
1:59:25
because of that kind of stuff,
1:59:26
right?
1:59:27
SPEAKER_01: And I witnessed some stuff that was just,
1:59:29
SPEAKER_01: I could not explain away as just pure evil,
1:59:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:59:33
SPEAKER_01: like evil just for evil's sake.
1:59:35
And I remember I was a medic and I got to deal with some
1:59:38
horrendous stuff out there.
1:59:41
SPEAKER_01: especially when it comes to like children that were hurt by these,
1:59:44
SPEAKER_01: these monsters,
1:59:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:59:45
SPEAKER_01: and I,
1:59:47
SPEAKER_01: I was shook, I guess that's the word for it.
1:59:51
SPEAKER_01: And it's not that I believed in God, it's that I believed in evil.
1:59:55
SPEAKER_01: And from believing in evil,
1:59:56
SPEAKER_01: in a supernatural evil,
1:59:58
SPEAKER_01: and that was the only way I could explain to myself,
2:00:01
SPEAKER_01: I wanted,
2:00:03
SPEAKER_01: the world is dark.
2:00:04
SPEAKER_01: There's true evil out there.
2:00:06
SPEAKER_01: And it's not like, you know, diversity, cultural misunderstanding.
2:00:11
SPEAKER_01: No, no, there's evil shit out there, you know?
2:00:14
SPEAKER_01: And I did not,
2:00:18
witness good until the second my daughter was born and when i
2:00:22
saw her face i was
2:00:23
like okay there's good in the world too you know and that's
2:00:27
when i was like fuck
2:00:29
you know like i'm wrong about everything you know i i need i
2:00:34
need to i need to read
2:00:35
something you know and the hardest thing about me or people
2:00:40
like you probably you
2:00:41
SPEAKER_01: know is that we're intellectual you
2:00:44
SPEAKER_01: That we're smart.
2:00:45
SPEAKER_01: And that makes it so freaking hard.
2:00:49
SPEAKER_01: It is a cross to bear that we're smart.
2:00:52
SPEAKER_01: Because it is so hard to believe this stuff.
2:00:55
SPEAKER_01: I wish I was a kid.
2:00:56
SPEAKER_01: I wish I believed in God in the same way my daughter believes in God.
2:01:00
SPEAKER_01: I wish I believed in God in the same way a child believes in God.
2:01:04
SPEAKER_01: But I can't.
2:01:04
SPEAKER_01: It's a constant change.
2:01:09
SPEAKER_01: It is a constant struggle.
2:01:11
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
2:01:13
SPEAKER_00: You need something that.
2:01:15
SPEAKER_00: Answer.
2:01:15
SPEAKER_00: Well,
2:01:16
SPEAKER_00: it may not necessarily answer all the hard questions,
2:01:18
but it gives you a concrete foundation to start from when
2:01:21
you're searching for it,
2:01:22
because and that's that has been my biggest struggle in my life
2:01:25
with Christianity,
2:01:26
SPEAKER_00: with my faith in God.
2:01:28
SPEAKER_00: There was a time when I was like,
2:01:29
SPEAKER_00: I believe in God because on a functional intellectual level,
2:01:32
SPEAKER_00: I know that none of this is an accident.
2:01:35
SPEAKER_00: It's just it's it's impossible.
2:01:38
SPEAKER_00: It can't be.
2:01:39
SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand,
2:01:40
SPEAKER_00: in the spiritual sense,
2:01:42
SPEAKER_00: I can't wrap my mind around it because,
2:01:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:01:45
SPEAKER_00: there's obviously the biggest thing was,
2:01:46
SPEAKER_00: like you said,
2:01:47
SPEAKER_00: you've seen true evil.
2:01:49
SPEAKER_00: The problem of evil is one of the biggest criticisms of,
2:01:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:01:55
SPEAKER_00: having a faith in an all-powerful,
2:01:58
SPEAKER_00: omnipotent God.
2:01:59
SPEAKER_00: And then you start to kind of deconstruct from there.
2:02:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where people kind of get lost in it,
2:02:06
SPEAKER_00: because there is that you do see such profound evil in the world.
2:02:09
SPEAKER_00: But then I think what kind of drew me back and was just kind of.
2:02:19
I almost want to say like it was kind of rediscovering that
2:02:22
childlike faith a
2:02:23
SPEAKER_00: little bit because it's like I started off in a very small way of just,
2:02:28
SPEAKER_00: okay,
2:02:28
SPEAKER_00: God,
2:02:29
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:02:30
SPEAKER_00: if you're there,
2:02:32
SPEAKER_00: show me something.
2:02:34
And like the first natural reaction to anything that would come
2:02:36
up even remotely as
2:02:38
SPEAKER_00: a possible sign,
2:02:40
SPEAKER_00: I would just dismiss outright as coincidence.
2:02:42
SPEAKER_00: But I'm like, at some point, those coincidences stopped.
2:02:45
And despite the fact that this girl that I was dating at the
2:02:50
time broke up,
2:02:53
she...
2:02:55
altered my trajectory somewhat where i came back to the church
2:02:59
and i realized i
2:03:01
this is not what i want but i want something i want something
2:03:05
more than this and i
2:03:07
think that's kind of where what started my journey into looking
2:03:10
into orthodox
2:03:11
christianity is because like you said we're smart we need
2:03:15
something that meets that
2:03:17
SPEAKER_00: intellectual need that we have why you know
2:03:23
SPEAKER_00: why are the things the way that they are?
2:03:24
You know,
2:03:25
what has the church,
2:03:26
what are the fathers all through history talked about?
2:03:28
SPEAKER_00: What do they have to say about it?
2:03:30
SPEAKER_00: Because we can't just go to the church.
2:03:32
And this is something that kind of is pointed out in the island
2:03:37
versus like all
2:03:38
SPEAKER_00: these other movies that we see in modern Christianity.
2:03:41
um that are very hallmark like stuff because i think there was
2:03:44
one that i watched
2:03:44
the other time i think it was like my parents had recommended
2:03:47
it to me and i was
2:03:48
watching something it was about this guy that was you know
2:03:52
learning to become a
2:03:53
christian and he was working at like a shipping company or
2:03:57
something like that and
2:03:57
the big the climax of the movie is about them trying to meet an
2:04:00
order in 16 hours
2:04:02
and i'm like is that is that the best you guys can do that this
2:04:07
isn't exactly heavy
2:04:07
SPEAKER_00: hitting you know theology here
2:04:11
SPEAKER_00: And then you watch something like The Island,
2:04:12
SPEAKER_00: and it's like,
2:04:15
SPEAKER_00: this is what I expect Christianity to be.
2:04:16
SPEAKER_00: Because if you actually read the Bible, it is full of...
2:04:22
SPEAKER_00: times of suffering, times of loss.
2:04:25
I mean,
2:04:25
you can look at it,
2:04:26
Job,
2:04:26
for example,
2:04:27
but I'm not even talking about Job.
2:04:28
I'm talking about the entire history of the nation of Israel
2:04:30
with how many times
2:04:32
SPEAKER_00: they were conquered and slaved,
2:04:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:04:35
SPEAKER_00: driven out and all of that.
2:04:37
SPEAKER_00: And you look at the suffering that Christ went through.
2:04:40
There's nothing in the Bible that says that this life is
2:04:42
supposed to be easy.
2:04:44
And there's like that disconnect that you get when you're at a
2:04:47
Protestant church where,
2:04:48
you
2:04:49
everything is carefree and everything is bright and shiny and
2:04:54
joyful and stuff.
2:04:55
SPEAKER_00: It's like,
2:04:56
SPEAKER_00: I get that there's a time for joy, but it feels irreverent.
2:05:01
SPEAKER_00: It feels like we're not doing this correctly.
2:05:03
SPEAKER_00: Like when we come into worship, we're not actually worshiping.
2:05:07
SPEAKER_00: We're making some noise, we're playing some music, and we're having fun.
2:05:12
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that Christianity can't be fun,
2:05:14
SPEAKER_00: but there's like something about it that just doesn't feel right.
2:05:19
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:05:20
SPEAKER_01: There's a lack of depth, you know.
2:05:22
yeah it's been it's been it's been machined it's been turned
2:05:26
into plug and play you
2:05:27
go to the place you it's it's door dash it's door dashed get
2:05:32
what you want order
2:05:33
what you want get what you specifically want and there's no and
2:05:38
you become a
2:05:38
christian there's no depth there's no depth it's grape juice
2:05:41
instead of wine
2:05:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they simplify it.
2:05:48
SPEAKER_00: They water it down.
2:05:49
SPEAKER_00: And that's not what we want.
2:05:50
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I want because I don't want it to be watered down.
2:05:54
SPEAKER_00: I want to struggle with things.
2:05:55
I want to have that challenge of trying to understand why
2:05:59
things are the way they are.
2:06:00
I want to have that challenge of having to give up things in my
2:06:03
life to become closer to God.
2:06:05
SPEAKER_03: I don't even think it's watered down.
2:06:08
Watered down implies that they knew what the original thing
2:06:10
wants to begin with.
2:06:12
SPEAKER_00: At some point they might have,
2:06:13
but it's been so diluted with modern contemporary culture that
2:06:18
it's just...
2:06:19
SPEAKER_00: And that's the real thing,
2:06:21
SPEAKER_00: though.
2:06:22
SPEAKER_00: When you think about it, every...
2:06:24
SPEAKER_00: correct me if I'm wrong,
2:06:25
SPEAKER_00: every priest in the Orthodox Church has had their hands,
2:06:28
SPEAKER_00: or has received that,
2:06:32
SPEAKER_00: is made by a priest by another priest,
2:06:34
SPEAKER_00: which you trace that lineage all the way back to the original apostles.
2:06:40
SPEAKER_00: So you're literally tapping into the source here.
2:06:44
SPEAKER_00: That lineage is unbroken.
2:06:47
SPEAKER_00: And there's something incredibly important
2:06:51
SPEAKER_00: awe-inspiring about it because you think to yourself,
2:06:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:06:54
SPEAKER_00: this isn't just,
2:06:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:06:55
just some people getting together and playing a guitar and
2:06:58
singing Kumbaya like in
2:07:00
SPEAKER_00: that movie,
2:07:00
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Revolution.
2:07:02
SPEAKER_00: This is, you know,
2:07:04
ancient there's something profound about that that it's
2:07:08
survived it's survived you
2:07:10
know persecution through but governments you know genocides all
2:07:16
that it's it's
2:07:16
survived all that and it's it's still here and it's still just
2:07:20
as potent as it was
2:07:22
2000 years ago and it's like that that you can't get that at
2:07:26
you know just sitting
2:07:27
there you know repeating whatever is on you know whatever's
2:07:31
most popular on
2:07:32
SPEAKER_00: phishing radio stations right now
2:07:33
SPEAKER_00: You don't get that same effect.
2:07:36
SPEAKER_03: Let's get our emotional high and go home.
2:07:38
SPEAKER_01: If you read the Orthodox Church,
2:07:40
SPEAKER_01: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity,
2:07:42
SPEAKER_01: also by Timothy Ware,
2:07:43
SPEAKER_01: he,
2:07:43
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:07:45
SPEAKER_01: the first few chapters,
2:07:46
SPEAKER_01: he talks about the Orthodox Church during the Soviet era.
2:07:51
SPEAKER_01: And the persecutions and everything that just,
2:07:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:07:56
the suffering and how they would hide and run services in
2:08:00
people's apartment blocks
2:08:02
SPEAKER_01: secretly in Prague and in different places in Eastern Europe.
2:08:07
And it reads a lot like the early Christians that were being
2:08:10
persecuted by the Romans.
2:08:12
And you say to yourself,
2:08:14
it's like,
2:08:14
this is a church that survived Stalin.
2:08:18
SPEAKER_01: This is a church that survived Stalin.
2:08:21
SPEAKER_01: you know, modernism.
2:08:22
SPEAKER_01: This is a church that... Survived the bond goals.
2:08:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:08:27
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, and...
2:08:30
SPEAKER_01: There's something there, right?
2:08:31
SPEAKER_01: There's something there that is missing in a lot of places.
2:08:34
SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, you know, we talk a lot about like men today.
2:08:39
SPEAKER_01: What's going on with our boys?
2:08:41
SPEAKER_01: What's going on with our men?
2:08:42
SPEAKER_01: Where are we?
2:08:43
Where's our – and we are – the biggest thing,
2:08:46
political stuff aside,
2:08:47
all that stuff is nothing.
2:08:49
SPEAKER_01: It's worthless.
2:08:50
SPEAKER_01: It's just ash in the wind.
2:08:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:08:52
The real issue is that we are facing an existential crisis of
2:08:56
just unhappiness and
2:08:58
SPEAKER_01: emptiness that so many of us face.
2:09:01
SPEAKER_01: And there's a hole in our soul somewhere, culturally and spiritually.
2:09:07
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know how to describe it.
2:09:10
And there's a yearning,
2:09:11
I think,
2:09:12
in so many people to fill that void and,
2:09:16
you know,
2:09:17
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
2:09:18
SPEAKER_01: It's rough and it's terrifying because the closer you get to religion,
2:09:23
SPEAKER_01: you said it yourself,
2:09:24
SPEAKER_01: you're afraid to go.
2:09:27
SPEAKER_01: We're afraid to go because we're fucked up.
2:09:30
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
2:09:32
We're afraid of two different things and I'll tell you what I'm
2:09:34
afraid of.
2:09:35
SPEAKER_01: One, I know I'm fucked up and I'm terrified of that.
2:09:39
SPEAKER_01: The other thing I'm afraid of is I'm afraid of it being lame.
2:09:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm afraid of it being
2:09:47
SPEAKER_01: Wanting something more,
2:09:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:09:50
SPEAKER_01: wanting that hole in my soul filled,
2:09:53
SPEAKER_01: but not getting it,
2:09:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:09:55
SPEAKER_01: and being disappointed.
2:09:57
But that is,
2:09:59
that's the wrong way to think about it,
2:10:01
I've realized over the last few years.
2:10:04
SPEAKER_01: Because in a way, it is going to be lame.
2:10:07
SPEAKER_01: Because it's not about that place you're going to, right?
2:10:11
SPEAKER_01: It's about you.
2:10:12
SPEAKER_01: It's going to be lame if you let it be lame, you know?
2:10:16
SPEAKER_01: It is a personal thing.
2:10:19
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
2:10:21
SPEAKER_01: The church,
2:10:22
SPEAKER_01: the congregation,
2:10:23
SPEAKER_01: the body is a tool,
2:10:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:10:26
SPEAKER_01: in the opening of that book,
2:10:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:10:29
SPEAKER_01: is the church gives us not a system,
2:10:33
SPEAKER_01: right,
2:10:34
SPEAKER_01: but a key,
2:10:35
SPEAKER_01: not a plan of God's city,
2:10:37
SPEAKER_01: but the means of entering it.
2:10:40
SPEAKER_01: And someone will lose his way because he has no plan.
2:10:43
SPEAKER_01: But all that he will see, he will see without a mediator.
2:10:45
SPEAKER_01: He will see it directly.
2:10:46
SPEAKER_01: It will be real for him.
2:10:48
While he who has studied only the plan risks remaining outside
2:10:52
and not really finding anything.
2:10:54
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
2:10:55
SPEAKER_01: So this is my father, Yorgos Florovsky.
2:10:59
SPEAKER_01: And he said that,
2:11:00
SPEAKER_01: and I think what he means by that is that guys like us,
2:11:04
SPEAKER_01: we tend to over-intellectualize stuff.
2:11:07
SPEAKER_01: You know,
2:11:07
SPEAKER_01: we tend to,
2:11:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:11:10
you have X and it's a bunch of trad cats and ortho bros and
2:11:13
stuff and Protestants
2:11:15
SPEAKER_01: arguing back and forth about,
2:11:16
SPEAKER_01: well,
2:11:17
SPEAKER_01: the Pope did this and blah,
2:11:18
SPEAKER_01: blah,
2:11:18
SPEAKER_01: blah,
2:11:18
SPEAKER_01: did this and stuff.
2:11:19
SPEAKER_01: And what are we talking about there?
2:11:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:11:21
SPEAKER_01: What are we talking?
2:11:22
SPEAKER_01: Would would Anatoly care about any of that stuff?
2:11:25
SPEAKER_00: No, no, of course not.
2:11:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you kind of see that in the movie, like you didn't care.
2:11:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, what is it?
2:11:32
There was that scene at the very beginning of the movie where
2:11:34
you have Father
2:11:34
Philaret and Father Job and like Father Job sneaks up on
2:11:38
Philaret as he's doing an icon.
2:11:41
And it's like they can afford to talk about that kind of stuff
2:11:44
because it's,
2:11:45
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:11:46
SPEAKER_00: you snuck up on me and scared me.
2:11:48
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, oh, I'll put some hooves on and you can blah, blah, blah.
2:11:51
SPEAKER_00: It's like,
2:11:51
SPEAKER_00: bro,
2:11:52
SPEAKER_00: that's...
2:11:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
2:11:54
SPEAKER_00: that's not to say that that's not part of their daily life and stuff,
2:11:57
SPEAKER_00: but like...
2:11:58
that there's a there's a difference in how they carry
2:12:01
themselves versus anatoly
2:12:03
right there's that you get that perception i mean even if you
2:12:06
know the orthodox
2:12:08
like the priest that i've seen and you know philaret and joe
2:12:11
both have this kind of
2:12:12
like um the beard the facial hair and all that stuff and like
2:12:16
father joe has like
2:12:17
really nice long hair i was like that that is actually my
2:12:20
favorite character in the
2:12:23
SPEAKER_01: in the movie
2:12:25
SPEAKER_01: Because he kind of represents the hardcore intellectual Christian.
2:12:33
SPEAKER_01: The one that is very judgmental and this is serious stuff, bro.
2:12:38
SPEAKER_01: He's the guy that would be posting on X about...
2:12:44
treaties and stuff and that type of stuff you know and he he
2:12:47
realized that he's
2:12:48
he's wrong you know he was wrong the whole time and he becomes
2:12:53
he's part of the
2:12:54
iconic scene on the boat at the end and i that's why i really i
2:12:58
saw myself a lot in
2:13:01
SPEAKER_01: that character
2:13:02
SPEAKER_00: I think that it's... You can talk about all the things.
2:13:08
I know that the Roman Catholics like to argue with the Orthodox
2:13:12
about the Great Schism,
2:13:14
SPEAKER_00: and they're like,
2:13:14
SPEAKER_00: oh,
2:13:14
SPEAKER_00: he's being schismatic,
2:13:16
SPEAKER_00: blah,
2:13:16
SPEAKER_00: blah,
2:13:16
SPEAKER_00: blah.
2:13:16
SPEAKER_00: I was like, bro, you guys came from the same lineage.
2:13:20
The only thing about it is that you guys are different on who
2:13:23
has what authority
2:13:24
SPEAKER_00: and what is okay or not okay to talk about,
2:13:27
SPEAKER_00: like the filioque or whatever.
2:13:29
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, do these things...
2:13:32
SPEAKER_00: Like you said, it's politics behavior.
2:13:35
SPEAKER_00: If you cut away all of that crap,
2:13:38
and you just focus on what you're actually trying to believe
2:13:41
and trying to strive
2:13:42
SPEAKER_00: towards and the kind of relationship you're trying to have with God,
2:13:45
SPEAKER_00: none of that shit matters.
2:13:47
SPEAKER_02: Right.
2:13:48
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's that.
2:13:52
And I think that's really the thing that I've been looking for
2:13:54
is it the church
2:13:56
SPEAKER_00: isn't the end all be all of it.
2:13:58
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a method in which you how you get there.
2:14:03
And if the church is constantly distracted by politics or by
2:14:07
social commentary or
2:14:08
SPEAKER_00: dogmatic arguments about things that have no impact on your faith.
2:14:12
You're getting distracted from the purpose of being there in
2:14:15
the first place.
2:14:16
SPEAKER_00: Right.
2:14:16
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
2:14:17
And so that's that's my big draw to Orthodox Christianity is
2:14:21
that it's it's I'm not
2:14:23
going there to necessarily make friends or to socialize or
2:14:27
anything like that.
2:14:27
I'm going there because I'm I'm searching for truth and I'm
2:14:30
searching for a path to
2:14:31
SPEAKER_00: God to get closer to him.
2:14:33
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
2:14:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to tell you something real fast.
2:14:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:14:36
So I I went to the Greek Orthodox Church in Ventura,
2:14:40
California,
2:14:41
when I lived there.
2:14:42
SPEAKER_01: But I haven't gone to a church in the last two years, right?
2:14:49
SPEAKER_01: When I first moved to South Carolina,
2:14:53
SPEAKER_01: and I moved here down,
2:14:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:14:55
SPEAKER_01: you live up north,
2:14:56
SPEAKER_01: so you know my area pretty well,
2:14:58
SPEAKER_01: right?
2:15:01
SPEAKER_01: It's not a very orthodox area, right?
2:15:03
SPEAKER_01: And I live in a,
2:15:04
SPEAKER_01: you live in a city,
2:15:05
SPEAKER_01: I live in a town,
2:15:07
SPEAKER_01: I guess,
2:15:07
SPEAKER_01: if you want to describe it that way.
2:15:09
SPEAKER_01: I live in the burbs, basically.
2:15:11
And one of the things that I was kind of sad about was that I
2:15:16
was just starting to
2:15:17
SPEAKER_01: go back to church.
2:15:18
SPEAKER_01: I was not attending regularly,
2:15:19
but I was doing my best and I was in communication with the
2:15:23
priest and we were
2:15:23
SPEAKER_01: talking a lot.
2:15:24
SPEAKER_01: I would email him all the time.
2:15:25
SPEAKER_01: Even when I was in Papua New Guinea a few years ago,
2:15:28
I sent him a bunch of emails and he replied and gave me all
2:15:30
these recommendations
2:15:31
SPEAKER_01: and stuff.
2:15:33
SPEAKER_01: And, like, I was like, hey, man, I'm trying my best to do it here.
2:15:36
SPEAKER_01: But,
2:15:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:15:37
SPEAKER_01: there's,
2:15:37
SPEAKER_01: I can't,
2:15:38
SPEAKER_01: I can't be a great orthodox guy by,
2:15:40
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:15:41
SPEAKER_01: doing the fasting when I'm out here,
2:15:42
SPEAKER_01: living off of coconuts and stuff.
2:15:45
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, don't be dumb.
2:15:47
SPEAKER_01: That's what he told me.
2:15:48
SPEAKER_01: He's like, come on, man, like, use common sense, right?
2:15:51
SPEAKER_01: Like, you're, we're not,
2:15:54
SPEAKER_01: You know,
2:15:54
SPEAKER_01: that's,
2:15:55
SPEAKER_01: that's a,
2:15:55
SPEAKER_01: that's a guideline for,
2:15:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:15:58
SPEAKER_01: an ideal situation,
2:16:00
SPEAKER_01: not when you're out in the middle of nowhere.
2:16:01
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:16:02
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, that's very logical.
2:16:04
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
2:16:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, and, uh,
2:16:10
So when I moved here,
2:16:12
I was kind of distraught because I kind of lost it.
2:16:14
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:16:15
SPEAKER_01: And my wife is a photographer.
2:16:17
SPEAKER_01: She's a commercial photographer.
2:16:19
SPEAKER_01: She does a lot of like businesses.
2:16:22
SPEAKER_01: She does like the marketing for all that kind of stuff.
2:16:25
SPEAKER_01: That's what her main focus in photography is.
2:16:28
SPEAKER_01: And she was always like,
2:16:30
looking for places she's also like an artistic photographer on
2:16:33
top of that too and
2:16:34
she's an amazing she does amazing work right almost like half
2:16:37
the businesses around
2:16:38
here like use here as for their like their pictures and stuff
2:16:43
but we were driving
2:16:45
kind of exploring our area and we're on the side of the road
2:16:49
and you know South
2:16:50
SPEAKER_01: Carolina is beautiful it's a gorgeous place right
2:16:53
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, oh, we pull over here.
2:16:55
This looks like a little meadow in between the Spanish moss
2:16:59
trees and stuff.
2:17:01
SPEAKER_01: And we pulled over.
2:17:03
SPEAKER_01: We pulled over in this kind of side of the road.
2:17:07
SPEAKER_01: You know how South Carolina is.
2:17:08
SPEAKER_01: Just random side of the road forest.
2:17:11
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, I want to take a picture of this place.
2:17:13
SPEAKER_01: The sun is shining through the Spanish moss.
2:17:16
SPEAKER_01: It looks amazing.
2:17:17
SPEAKER_01: She pulled out her camera.
2:17:19
SPEAKER_01: And...
2:17:20
SPEAKER_01: I look in a meadow and there's a Orthodox cross in the meadow.
2:17:27
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, what the fuck, right?
2:17:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is weird, right?
2:17:32
And I walk towards it and I know it's gotta be some kind of
2:17:35
weird like local thing
2:17:36
SPEAKER_01: that they have here,
2:17:37
SPEAKER_01: right?
2:17:37
And I look over here and it says future site of so-and-so
2:17:41
Orthodox Church.
2:17:42
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, no, no, you know?
2:17:45
It's so crazy because we were just having a conversation about
2:17:50
how we were
2:17:50
SPEAKER_01: disappointed that there wasn't an Orthodox Church in this area,
2:17:54
SPEAKER_01: right?
2:17:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:17:55
SPEAKER_01: And here I am.
2:17:56
It was just one of those things where it's like a simple miracle,
2:18:01
basically,
2:18:01
right?
2:18:02
SPEAKER_01: Like it was off the side of the road.
2:18:04
SPEAKER_01: You couldn't even see it from the road, you know?
2:18:07
And we just randomly stopped to take pictures of this sun
2:18:11
coming through the trees.
2:18:13
SPEAKER_01: Two days later, I am buying my house, right?
2:18:16
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:18:18
And part of buying a house,
2:18:20
you have to sign a bunch of stuff with the lawyer and everything.
2:18:23
SPEAKER_01: So I go to the legal office and I am sitting there.
2:18:26
The secretary or whatever brings me in and she's like,
2:18:31
oh,
2:18:31
so-and-so will be here in a minute.
2:18:33
SPEAKER_01: He's with a different client, whatever.
2:18:36
And I'm sitting in this guy's office and he's got all these
2:18:41
books on the wall.
2:18:42
SPEAKER_01: And immediately what catches my eye is he has an icon wall.
2:18:48
SPEAKER_01: This guy has a southern name.
2:18:51
SPEAKER_01: His name was basically like General Lee.
2:18:53
SPEAKER_01: I remember his name.
2:18:57
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like he was a Greek or some Russian dude or anything like that.
2:19:01
SPEAKER_01: This guy was Colonel Sanders.
2:19:06
SPEAKER_01: Southern guy.
2:19:07
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing.
2:19:08
SPEAKER_01: He's got an icon like Nook with Orthodox icons.
2:19:12
SPEAKER_01: He's got the Orthodox Bible, which by the way is a fantastic
2:19:17
version of the bible if you ever are interested in it i highly
2:19:19
recommend the
2:19:20
orthodox bible the annotated one it has some of the best
2:19:23
insights on in its
2:19:25
footnotes and stuff um but anyways uh it's sitting there and
2:19:31
he's got you know the
2:19:31
books i i recommended to you next to it and he's got a bunch of
2:19:34
like you know
2:19:35
SPEAKER_01: orthodox stuff and i was like whoa
2:19:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's two in a row, man, right?
2:19:38
SPEAKER_01: That's two in a row.
2:19:40
SPEAKER_01: And he comes in,
2:19:40
SPEAKER_01: and the first thing I go,
2:19:41
SPEAKER_01: hey,
2:19:42
SPEAKER_01: before we start this,
2:19:42
SPEAKER_01: I noticed that you have these Orthodox icons.
2:19:47
SPEAKER_01: Your name is not like,
2:19:48
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:19:49
SPEAKER_01: Anacoccus,
2:19:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:19:51
SPEAKER_01: Splendicotopia or anything like that,
2:19:53
SPEAKER_01: you know?
2:19:54
SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of out there.
2:19:56
SPEAKER_01: He's like, oh, yeah, I'm part of the American Orthodox Church here.
2:19:59
SPEAKER_01: we have a mission church and that kind of stuff.
2:20:01
SPEAKER_01: And we,
2:20:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:20:02
SPEAKER_01: we,
2:20:02
SPEAKER_01: we have a great little community and,
2:20:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:20:04
SPEAKER_01: he's like,
2:20:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh,
2:20:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:20:05
SPEAKER_01: you should come if you're interested.
2:20:06
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:20:08
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to admit you guys, I never went.
2:20:11
SPEAKER_01: I never went.
2:20:13
SPEAKER_01: All right.
2:20:14
It's been two and a half years now that I've lived here and
2:20:16
I've never went.
2:20:16
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:20:18
SPEAKER_01: I, I don't know.
2:20:18
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it is.
2:20:19
SPEAKER_01: I am, I'm incapable of doing it.
2:20:24
I've made excuses to myself constantly,
2:20:27
you know,
2:20:27
and I,
2:20:28
I just haven't,
2:20:28
I'm,
2:20:28
I'm,
2:20:30
SPEAKER_01: I guess I'm a coward, right?
2:20:32
SPEAKER_01: And I think I'm going to go this Sunday, man.
2:20:35
I was kind of thinking about doing the same thing with one of
2:20:38
the churches here
2:20:38
SPEAKER_00: because they're not super far away,
2:20:42
SPEAKER_00: but they're a pretty decent drive.
2:20:43
SPEAKER_00: But the problem with it is,
2:20:45
SPEAKER_00: and this is kind of the rub that I'm having right now,
2:20:47
SPEAKER_00: my truck's currently in the shop.
2:20:49
SPEAKER_00: I actually talked to the mechanic today and he said,
2:20:53
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
2:20:54
SPEAKER_00: we got to pull the engine apart and find out what's going on.
2:20:56
SPEAKER_00: I think it might be the camshaft and need some new lifters or something.
2:20:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
2:21:01
SPEAKER_00: How much is this going to cost me?
2:21:02
SPEAKER_00: He's like,
2:21:03
SPEAKER_00: it should be covered by a service contract,
2:21:05
SPEAKER_00: but you know,
2:21:05
SPEAKER_00: on the off chance that it doesn't,
2:21:07
SPEAKER_00: the labor is going to cost about $500.
2:21:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, go ahead and do it.
2:21:10
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know how that's going to work.
2:21:12
Isn't it kind of crazy that like shit happens right when you
2:21:16
want to do something like that?
2:21:17
yeah and i feel like that's kind of indicative that they're you
2:21:21
know and this is
2:21:23
this is so weird because there was a time when i would not say
2:21:25
something like this
2:21:26
because i wouldn't believe it but like there's those those
2:21:29
moments that you kind of
2:21:30
think well you know maybe the devil's trying to keep me from it
2:21:34
you know because
2:21:36
and then there's that that feeling because see the other thing
2:21:38
about keep you from
2:21:38
SPEAKER_00: it yeah
2:21:41
SPEAKER_00: But see, that's the thing though.
2:21:42
Like,
2:21:43
so I just came off a seven day stretch at work and I earned a
2:21:47
lot of money.
2:21:48
And that means I can actually afford to pay the cost of labor
2:21:52
if that ends up being
2:21:53
SPEAKER_00: the cost that I have to pay.
2:21:55
And I have another seven day stretch lined up next week,
2:21:58
which is going to suck.
2:21:59
SPEAKER_00: But at the other hand,
2:22:01
it's kind of nice because I actually know I'm going to have
2:22:03
some money left over to
2:22:04
SPEAKER_00: do with this stuff.
2:22:05
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to be able to handle my bills.
2:22:07
SPEAKER_00: But I'm like...
2:22:10
What are the odds that all these things could happen at the
2:22:13
exact same moments?
2:22:14
SPEAKER_00: And,
2:22:15
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:22:16
SPEAKER_00: yes,
2:22:16
it could be that I'm not able to go to the church and sit in
2:22:23
and do all that stuff.
2:22:24
But there are other things that have happened in the past week
2:22:28
and that are going
2:22:29
SPEAKER_00: to happen,
2:22:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure,
2:22:30
SPEAKER_00: that...
2:22:32
SPEAKER_00: just happened to be falling the right way.
2:22:34
SPEAKER_00: And I've actually become more cognizant of that as time has gone on.
2:22:38
SPEAKER_00: And it's like,
2:22:38
SPEAKER_00: there's this,
2:22:39
this eternal struggle that I have in my brain where I'm
2:22:41
thinking to myself,
2:22:42
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:22:43
SPEAKER_00: what are the odds of this actually happening?
2:22:45
And then,
2:22:46
you know,
2:22:46
it happens and you're like,
2:22:47
is,
2:22:47
but is it a coincidence?
2:22:49
SPEAKER_00: Cause like you said,
2:22:50
SPEAKER_00: we tend to over,
2:22:51
SPEAKER_00: over intellectualize things and try to make excuses for stuff.
2:22:54
SPEAKER_00: And it's like,
2:22:57
It's a constant struggle to try and get your brain to stop
2:23:01
thinking about it so
2:23:02
SPEAKER_00: much and just accept it for what it is.
2:23:04
SPEAKER_00: It is a literal miracle.
2:23:05
You found the future site of this church,
2:23:07
and then you found the guy that is part of that.
2:23:11
SPEAKER_01: Completely like on a fluke.
2:23:15
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
2:23:16
SPEAKER_01: It was just...
2:23:18
and i i say i don't think i've ever told anybody this story
2:23:21
because i felt like it
2:23:22
was stupid if i told anybody this story you know like he's the
2:23:24
truth but waits yeah
2:23:28
yeah yeah i make i make excuses i don't know how much you guys
2:23:30
love tolstoy
2:23:31
SPEAKER_03: especially alex yeah
2:23:33
i'm more of a dostoesky guy but i mean come on man like i sit
2:23:38
here and i make
2:23:38
excuses you know i mean yeah and i i will sit online and i will
2:23:43
argue with people
2:23:44
online about this kind of stuff you know and then sunday comes
2:23:48
and i don't do it
2:23:50
SPEAKER_01: right yeah you know and it's like why
2:23:56
SPEAKER_01: Why am I, it's like, it's like my body's incapable of doing it.
2:24:02
SPEAKER_01: It's like, I don't sleep in every day.
2:24:04
SPEAKER_01: I wake up at like 6am every day, but Sundays I'll wake up at 10.
2:24:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:24:09
SPEAKER_01: and it's just what the,
2:24:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:24:12
SPEAKER_01: what's going on,
2:24:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:24:13
SPEAKER_01: like what,
2:24:14
SPEAKER_01: it's like a block.
2:24:15
SPEAKER_01: It's like a mental spiritual block that I have.
2:24:18
SPEAKER_01: And even talking about it right now and like,
2:24:21
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:24:21
SPEAKER_01: now I'm,
2:24:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm,
2:24:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm,
2:24:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm committed,
2:24:23
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:24:24
I'm putting it out to the world that I am going to go to church
2:24:26
on Sunday.
2:24:27
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:24:28
Unless the,
2:24:28
unless my car explodes,
2:24:30
you know,
2:24:30
I will find a way to make it.
2:24:32
SPEAKER_01: All right.
2:24:32
SPEAKER_03: You got feet, boy.
2:24:33
SPEAKER_03: You got feet, boy.
2:24:34
i'm gonna go and you know what i'm not work you crawl there i'm
2:24:37
not gonna expect
2:24:38
anything amazing i'm not gonna expect just you know the heavens
2:24:43
to open up and me
2:24:43
to be welcomed by angels or anything like that i'm just gonna
2:24:47
go you know and i i'm
2:24:50
SPEAKER_01: gonna go just as a
2:24:54
eternal faithless sinner you know and it's i'm just going to do
2:24:58
it uh this is my
2:24:59
this is my uh official um i'm not even going to talk about it
2:25:02
on the next podcast
2:25:03
okay because i don't want to be that guy all right i don't want
2:25:05
to be the guy
2:25:05
that's like no no you know you know i don't want to be a
2:25:09
pharisee man you know um
2:25:11
exactly but i because we're talking about this today i i'm
2:25:14
gonna do it i'm just
2:25:15
SPEAKER_01: gonna go i'm gonna like i feel like uh
2:25:19
SPEAKER_01: a step in the proper direction.
2:25:21
I'm going to send an email tomorrow to that church and I'm
2:25:23
going to be like,
2:25:24
SPEAKER_01: Hey,
2:25:24
SPEAKER_01: I want to come.
2:25:27
SPEAKER_01: Give me your address, please.
2:25:28
I think I'm going to do the same thing with the church that
2:25:31
I've been looking at
2:25:32
SPEAKER_00: doing too,
2:25:32
SPEAKER_00: because even if I can't go this Sunday,
2:25:34
SPEAKER_00: it doesn't mean it's opening a dialogue because it,
2:25:40
SPEAKER_00: I think that's really been the biggest thing is just doing,
2:25:42
SPEAKER_00: like you said,
2:25:43
just getting up and doing it and actually trying to put an
2:25:46
effort into doing it and,
2:25:47
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:25:49
because it is a struggle it is a you're trying to do the thing
2:25:55
that you want to do
2:25:55
but you end up hating romans 7 what is it romans chapter 7
2:25:59
verse 15 something like
2:26:01
that paul says something like that you know i don't do what i
2:26:05
want or what i want
2:26:06
SPEAKER_00: to do but what i do do i hate or something to that effect
2:26:10
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:26:11
SPEAKER_00: Being human is annoying.
2:26:14
SPEAKER_01: It is.
2:26:15
SPEAKER_03: It really is.
2:26:17
SPEAKER_01: It's a sickness, man.
2:26:18
SPEAKER_01: I really want to do this.
2:26:20
SPEAKER_03: Nah, I don't want to do this.
2:26:22
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to do it.
2:26:23
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:26:26
SPEAKER_01: And if I had a great, great sin of mine, that would define me.
2:26:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean, okay, I got like lust, pride, I got all those.
2:26:36
But one of the ones I see the worst in myself is just this idleness,
2:26:41
this...
2:26:42
is on we where i i i enjoy my stagnant comfort you know i i
2:26:48
don't like to change i
2:26:50
don't like to i don't like to challenge myself into doing stuff
2:26:55
you know i'm even
2:26:55
this podcast i started because my wife bought me a microphone
2:26:58
you know i was
2:26:59
talking about it for years and she's like shut up here's a
2:27:01
microphone record a
2:27:03
SPEAKER_01: podcast
2:27:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, I would never would have done it on my own.
2:27:06
SPEAKER_01: I never would have pushed myself to do it because that's,
2:27:09
SPEAKER_01: that's my,
2:27:10
SPEAKER_01: that's my failure,
2:27:11
SPEAKER_01: you know?
2:27:12
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it.
2:27:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna, I'm gonna try.
2:27:16
SPEAKER_01: And I just, I do, you know, when it comes to,
2:27:21
SPEAKER_01: talking about Orthodoxy and stuff,
2:27:23
SPEAKER_01: I always want to thank Alexander Helene because he,
2:27:29
SPEAKER_01: many,
2:27:30
SPEAKER_01: many long,
2:27:31
SPEAKER_01: long,
2:27:31
SPEAKER_01: long conversations with him over the years about that.
2:27:34
SPEAKER_01: And he's a, he's a,
2:27:36
SPEAKER_01: He's a very devout believer and a very intelligent believer.
2:27:42
SPEAKER_01: And having somebody like him who is intelligent and he is,
2:27:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:27:48
SPEAKER_01: well-read and he's a great writer and him kind of like...
2:27:54
Talking me through it was a fantastic thing that I'm thankful
2:28:00
for the internet and
2:28:01
SPEAKER_01: my connections with people on the internet.
2:28:05
SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
2:28:06
I am going to call it a night right now because it's getting
2:28:10
well close to nine o'clock.
2:28:12
SPEAKER_01: I think we had a great conversation.
2:28:14
We started off talking of the world and then we talked about
2:28:18
the real stuff that matters.
2:28:21
The profane and the sacred all in one place in the Black Eyed
2:28:25
Social Club.
2:28:26
right and i i'm i'm very i'm very glad you watched that movie
2:28:31
isaiah and i'm i'm
2:28:32
like i think i think we should like i think like i want to
2:28:35
share that movie with as
2:28:36
many people as possible you know i'll check it out we could
2:28:38
talk about it again
2:28:39
next week right i might i might end up like writing of a review
2:28:43
of it or like an
2:28:44
SPEAKER_00: impromptu review of it for my uh i think you should man
2:28:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
2:28:49
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm going to do that because that'll be...
2:28:51
SPEAKER_00: I still have a lot of thoughts about it.
2:28:54
I think as far as the actual storytelling aspect of it is what
2:28:57
really kind of drew
2:28:58
SPEAKER_00: me in because I was like,
2:28:59
SPEAKER_00: there's no exposition to this.
2:29:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm basically along for the ride at this point.
2:29:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm not...
2:29:02
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know if he's for real or not,
2:29:05
SPEAKER_00: but everything he's doing is...
2:29:07
SPEAKER_00: Like I said,
2:29:08
SPEAKER_00: he was very offbeat and I was like,
2:29:09
SPEAKER_00: is he...
2:29:11
i'll put it this way amazon listed it as a comedy and i'm like
2:29:15
there's nothing
2:29:16
funny about this guy yeah i saw that too i was like that
2:29:19
doesn't seem correct that
2:29:20
is not correct that is not correct i didn't realize that that
2:29:24
is ridiculous because
2:29:25
it is there's nothing comedic about that movie like there's
2:29:29
there's a couple of
2:29:30
like little entertaining moments here and there like you know
2:29:33
the burned log and
2:29:34
SPEAKER_00: you know him putting a little boat little
2:29:36
boat made of trash in the water but like in he's a jokester and
2:29:40
stuff but like this
2:29:41
is not like a slapstick comedy or is like you know throwing
2:29:44
holy water at people
2:29:45
and fighting you know demons literal you know physical demons
2:29:50
with his bare hands
2:29:51
or anything like this isn't like that kind of stuff this is
2:29:53
it's a much more um i
2:29:57
guess subdued but you know very contemplative sort of movie but
2:30:02
i'm like it's not a
2:30:02
SPEAKER_00: comedy but
2:30:05
what did you think about the demon possession i think i agree
2:30:10
with you i think
2:30:10
because the western movies tend to like overemphasize you know
2:30:15
the like they're
2:30:16
frothing and screaming and wailing and stuff like that the
2:30:20
thing that kind of
2:30:20
caught me off guard and when they first introduced the girl i
2:30:24
was like there's
2:30:26
something that i write about her and i was like my first
2:30:28
thought was demonic
2:30:29
SPEAKER_00: possession
2:30:30
but then the one thing that kind of unsettled me was when they
2:30:34
were having that
2:30:34
SPEAKER_00: call and response thing,
2:30:35
when they were coming to the Island where he was like shouting
2:30:39
and she was shouting
2:30:40
SPEAKER_00: back and you could see how excited she was to see him.
2:30:42
SPEAKER_00: And it's like,
2:30:44
SPEAKER_00: there's some,
2:30:46
SPEAKER_00: there was actually something really unnerving about it because she was,
2:30:49
SPEAKER_00: she is acting extremely happy to see him.
2:30:52
SPEAKER_00: And it's like,
2:30:54
what is going on like what what kind of confrontation are they
2:30:57
about to have and
2:31:00
most of the you know you think about like the exorcist and
2:31:03
things like that where
2:31:03
they're having you know pulling up crucifixes and you know uh
2:31:07
repeating the the
2:31:08
jesus prayer over and over again which is what he did but he
2:31:10
didn't actually put
2:31:11
hands on her at any point during that exorcism he just made the
2:31:15
sign of the cross
2:31:15
SPEAKER_00: kept praying and
2:31:20
her reactions to it like she wouldn't get out of the boat she
2:31:24
laughed yeah it's
2:31:26
terrifying to think about because it's like that's the kind of
2:31:29
stuff that you would
2:31:30
expect to see that's the kind of stuff you do see in some
2:31:33
people when I was working
2:31:35
in 911 I used to have people like that who were having mental
2:31:38
patients who would
2:31:39
SPEAKER_00: call and they would
2:31:40
be completely beside themselves they would go from one moment
2:31:43
they'd be crying to
2:31:44
you know laughing their heads off and ranting and raving and
2:31:47
it's like okay what am
2:31:49
i dealing with here and you know that it it definitely struck a
2:31:54
chord with me i'll
2:31:55
put it that way right because you watch it you're like i've
2:31:57
known that girl i've
2:32:00
SPEAKER_01: witnessed this and i've felt odd about some people and
2:32:04
SPEAKER_01: you know, that acted that way.
2:32:06
SPEAKER_01: And now like,
2:32:07
SPEAKER_01: you're like,
2:32:07
SPEAKER_01: whoa,
2:32:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:32:08
SPEAKER_01: you're like,
2:32:09
SPEAKER_01: okay,
2:32:10
SPEAKER_01: like deep down,
2:32:12
SPEAKER_01: I knew there was something wrong with these people.
2:32:14
SPEAKER_01: And maybe I was, maybe I was right, you know, and it's, it's pretty wild.
2:32:19
SPEAKER_01: There's, there's a book, right, that I recommend.
2:32:23
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we often say,
2:32:26
SPEAKER_01: There's no good Christian fiction or whatever, right?
2:32:29
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is, well, have you read Dostoevsky, right?
2:32:33
SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
2:32:33
SPEAKER_01: if you're into Christianity and you have not read The Brothers Karamazov,
2:32:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
2:32:38
SPEAKER_01: you can't say that there's no good Christian,
2:32:40
SPEAKER_01: right?
2:32:40
SPEAKER_01: Because the greatest novel of all time is a Christian novel.
2:32:43
SPEAKER_01: But we know there's no good contemporary Christian work.
2:32:46
SPEAKER_01: And there is another novel that's very similar in theme to the island.
2:32:52
SPEAKER_01: And it's called Laurus.
2:32:54
SPEAKER_01: And it's by Eugene Onikin.
2:32:57
SPEAKER_01: He's a Ukrainian writer.
2:33:00
SPEAKER_01: And it's a contemporary novel written maybe four or five years ago.
2:33:04
SPEAKER_01: And it is a novel about a holy fool, about a man.
2:33:09
SPEAKER_01: He's medieval,
2:33:10
but the novel basically plays with time in a Christian way to
2:33:15
where while he's
2:33:16
SPEAKER_01: walking through places and stuff,
2:33:18
he'll come across something that's obviously described as a
2:33:21
Coca-Cola can or
2:33:22
SPEAKER_01: something like that.
2:33:23
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
2:33:24
SPEAKER_01: It plays fast and loose with time and space and that kind of stuff.
2:33:28
But the gist of the novel is that he basically had – like he
2:33:36
slept with a girl and
2:33:39
SPEAKER_01: got her pregnant and she died in sin without marrying her.
2:33:42
SPEAKER_01: And he basically –
2:33:44
SPEAKER_01: Through his actions, he damned her, you know.
2:33:47
And he spends the rest of his life in penance for this,
2:33:52
you know,
2:33:53
in repentance for this.
2:33:55
SPEAKER_01: And he travels through monasteries and all over Russia.
2:33:59
SPEAKER_01: And he even goes down to, like, Serbia and stuff.
2:34:02
SPEAKER_01: He's just all over the middle, the medieval kind of world.
2:34:05
SPEAKER_01: And it's just this very fascinating book where it's very...
2:34:10
meta-modern and contemporary but it's very orthodox in its
2:34:15
nature and it's it's a
2:34:16
really good book it's a difficult book but i i do recommend
2:34:18
that um and the other
2:34:20
movie i i want to recommend and this is a this is not an
2:34:24
orthodox movie at all it's
2:34:26
my favorite movie of all time it's called uh the great beauty
2:34:32
and the great beauty
2:34:33
SPEAKER_01: is an italian film from maybe like
2:34:36
SPEAKER_01: 10 years ago.
2:34:36
SPEAKER_01: It's a, it's in the 21st century, but, and it's,
2:34:42
SPEAKER_01: and won a bunch of awards, uh, cans and all that stuff.
2:34:45
SPEAKER_01: And it's, it's pretty well known in the film kind of world.
2:34:48
SPEAKER_01: Um,
2:34:49
SPEAKER_01: but the movie is about a 60 year old man who is like,
2:34:54
SPEAKER_01: he,
2:34:54
SPEAKER_01: he,
2:34:54
SPEAKER_01: he's the baller,
2:34:55
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:34:55
SPEAKER_01: he's like the,
2:34:56
SPEAKER_01: the cool guy in Rome.
2:34:58
SPEAKER_01: He writes for a literary review.
2:35:01
SPEAKER_01: He's sleeping with women.
2:35:02
SPEAKER_01: He's, he's, he's just, his name is Jeb.
2:35:04
He's just,
2:35:05
you know,
2:35:05
just,
2:35:06
he's like this baller,
2:35:07
you know,
2:35:08
and everybody loves him.
2:35:08
SPEAKER_01: He has this amazing, like cultural life.
2:35:11
SPEAKER_01: Um,
2:35:12
and the movie starts off with him at his 60th birthday and
2:35:16
there's this great party
2:35:18
going around him and there's like dancers and like cages and
2:35:21
stuff and like all
2:35:22
these people getting drunk and being lewd to each other and
2:35:25
they're all rich and
2:35:25
they have a lot of money and they're on a on a rooftop in rome
2:35:28
overlooking like the
2:35:29
coliseum it's just this beautiful like scene and the movie just
2:35:33
stops and like it
2:35:34
just everything just freezes you know and then it goes into his
2:35:37
face and he's just
2:35:37
SPEAKER_01: like
2:35:39
i hate my life you know like he has no nothing and he spends
2:35:44
this whole movie kind
2:35:45
of trying to find out what's missing you know and and the
2:35:48
reason i bring it up is
2:35:49
SPEAKER_01: because when it's a fantastic movie i recommend everybody watch but
2:35:54
SPEAKER_01: At one point,
2:35:55
SPEAKER_01: he is like at a garden party and there's like an archbishop or,
2:35:59
SPEAKER_01: oh no,
2:35:59
SPEAKER_01: a cardinal,
2:36:00
SPEAKER_01: a Roman Catholic cardinal.
2:36:02
SPEAKER_01: And he's like yearning to ask these questions from this cardinal.
2:36:05
SPEAKER_01: And he goes up to this dude and he's like, hey, Father, blah, blah, blah.
2:36:09
SPEAKER_01: And the guy blows him off.
2:36:10
SPEAKER_01: The guy is like,
2:36:12
he would rather talk to the women about his like rabbit recipe
2:36:15
and how he cooks
2:36:16
like quail or something like that than actually answer like
2:36:20
this existential
2:36:21
SPEAKER_01: question the main character is having.
2:36:23
SPEAKER_01: And he's kind of like, fuck, dude walks away.
2:36:26
SPEAKER_01: He gets distracted by some women and goes to party.
2:36:29
And later in the movie,
2:36:31
he comes across through the kind of the story,
2:36:35
this saint.
2:36:37
SPEAKER_01: She's not a saint yet, but they're talking about sanctifying her.
2:36:42
SPEAKER_01: She's this old, like 100-year-old woman.
2:36:44
SPEAKER_01: She's missing all her teeth.
2:36:46
SPEAKER_01: And she's one of these like Mother Teresa types,
2:36:48
SPEAKER_01: like,
2:36:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:36:49
SPEAKER_01: and she's like feeble,
2:36:51
SPEAKER_01: crippled.
2:36:51
SPEAKER_01: Her eyes are covered in cataracts and all this stuff.
2:36:55
SPEAKER_01: And,
2:36:55
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:36:57
SPEAKER_01: she's got her little like mouthpiece that's like,
2:36:59
SPEAKER_01: oh,
2:36:59
SPEAKER_01: Mother So-and-so does this and that.
2:37:02
SPEAKER_01: Either way,
2:37:02
all this stuff happens and there's this awkward dinner scene
2:37:04
where all these
2:37:06
SPEAKER_01: profiteers and stuff are trying to invite her to all these places.
2:37:10
SPEAKER_01: And she kind of disappears.
2:37:11
SPEAKER_01: And later he's sitting on his balcony by himself and she comes out.
2:37:16
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden she's very lucid.
2:37:20
SPEAKER_01: She has all these birds, all these flamingos around her.
2:37:24
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:37:24
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, she's like talking to these flamingos.
2:37:27
And he's like,
2:37:28
you know,
2:37:28
they're like,
2:37:29
oh,
2:37:29
they're going south or whatever.
2:37:30
SPEAKER_01: They're traveling or whatever.
2:37:31
SPEAKER_01: But they come to, they always speak to me.
2:37:33
SPEAKER_01: And she's very lucid.
2:37:34
And she looks at him and she goes,
2:37:35
Jeb,
2:37:37
why haven't you written another book?
2:37:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, why haven't you written another book?
2:37:45
SPEAKER_01: And that like unlocks the whole movie, you know?
2:37:48
Like he realizes that like everything he's done has been
2:37:52
superficial and he hasn't
2:37:54
SPEAKER_01: truly followed what he was meant to do in life.
2:37:58
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
2:37:59
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:38:00
SPEAKER_01: And it's just this like simple like scene that is like,
2:38:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:38:04
SPEAKER_01: you watch it and you're like,
2:38:05
SPEAKER_01: I tear up when I watch it because it's so perfect.
2:38:08
SPEAKER_01: Like, why didn't you go to church?
2:38:10
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
2:38:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:38:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:38:13
why didn't you like why are you why are you just waiting around
2:38:17
why are you
2:38:18
searching for answers instead of just doing you know and it's
2:38:22
like this crazy like
2:38:23
you know because he was in over intellectualizing his plight
2:38:28
you know he was stuck
2:38:29
in this existential walking around rome and being a depressed
2:38:32
mope and that kind of
2:38:33
SPEAKER_01: stuff and really like
2:38:36
SPEAKER_01: it was always with him the whole time,
2:38:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:38:38
SPEAKER_01: and it's just a beautiful movie and I highly recommend it to everybody.
2:38:41
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know why that movie always like,
2:38:44
SPEAKER_01: I think I've watched it like 10 times since I discovered it.
2:38:49
SPEAKER_01: And I love every time I watch it, I get something new out of it.
2:38:51
SPEAKER_01: And it's called The Great Beauty by Paul Sorrentino.
2:38:55
SPEAKER_01: But anyways, guys, thank you once again, Isaiah.
2:38:59
SPEAKER_01: You're always welcome to come on.
2:39:00
SPEAKER_01: And Fisto, awesome.
2:39:03
I look forward every week to hearing about what awesome stuff
2:39:07
you teach at school.
2:39:09
SPEAKER_03: Well, this week, like I said, Russia.
2:39:12
SPEAKER_03: Next week, next couple of weeks, we're going to do Animal Farm.
2:39:15
SPEAKER_03: So we're going to see how that goes.
2:39:16
SPEAKER_01: Did you decide – remember the question I asked?
2:39:19
SPEAKER_01: Did you decide on who's the Anarch?
2:39:25
SPEAKER_03: Crap.
2:39:25
SPEAKER_03: Remind me of the question again.
2:39:27
SPEAKER_03: Like, out of all the animals, who would be younger as Anarch?
2:39:31
SPEAKER_03: Oh, not yet.
2:39:31
SPEAKER_03: Not yet.
2:39:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm still voting for the cat, but –
2:39:35
SPEAKER_03: I mean, the cat's kind of obvious, but I'll let you know.
2:39:38
SPEAKER_03: You know what?
2:39:38
SPEAKER_03: Even better, I'll see what the kids say.
2:39:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's a good idea.
2:39:42
SPEAKER_03: Hey, guys, so we're going to discuss the Anarch real quick.
2:39:44
SPEAKER_03: Bonus points if you figure out who it is.
2:39:46
SPEAKER_01: Who it is in the book, right?
2:39:48
SPEAKER_03: Oh, no, not Anarchist.
2:39:50
SPEAKER_03: The Anarch.
2:39:52
SPEAKER_01: So let's go on a side quest about Jünger for a bit.
2:39:54
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, seven hours later.
2:39:56
SPEAKER_03: Oh, no, I have to say it.
2:39:58
SPEAKER_03: Cyberpunk and Jünger, it's the two things that pop up every week.
2:40:03
right but um yeah so i'm looking for it i want to i want
2:40:07
people's opinions like who
2:40:08
is the anarch in animal farm the cat is the obvious one i think
2:40:12
if there was like a
2:40:13
raven or a crow it would be the obvious one because i think
2:40:16
that the raven is more
2:40:18
symbolic of i just i just can't wait to terrify the children of
2:40:22
of communism right
2:40:24
SPEAKER_03: you should and just make them be like be like
2:40:27
SPEAKER_03: Welcome to Free Helicopter Rides 101.
2:40:30
SPEAKER_01: I read that book on the bus.
2:40:32
SPEAKER_01: I think it was 10th grade when it was given to me.
2:40:34
SPEAKER_03: Can't wait.
2:40:34
SPEAKER_01: And I read it on the bus home.
2:40:36
I started reading it,
2:40:37
and then I sat on the bus,
2:40:38
and I got home,
2:40:38
and I just finished it.
2:40:39
SPEAKER_01: Quick one.
2:40:40
SPEAKER_01: Quick little guy.
2:40:41
SPEAKER_01: It's a great little book, yeah.
2:40:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man.
2:40:43
SPEAKER_03: All right.
2:40:43
SPEAKER_01: All right, guys.
2:40:44
SPEAKER_01: Good night.
2:40:45
SPEAKER_01: I will quote – well,
2:40:47
SPEAKER_01: first of all,
2:40:48
SPEAKER_01: if you are a listener and you've enjoyed our conversation,
2:40:50
SPEAKER_01: please like,
2:40:51
SPEAKER_01: share,
2:40:52
SPEAKER_01: subscribe.
2:40:52
SPEAKER_01: All right?
2:40:53
SPEAKER_01: Like always, we've got great stuff coming up.
2:40:55
SPEAKER_01: Every week I think our episodes just get better and better and better.
2:40:59
And that's not saying anything bad about our past episodes
2:41:02
because they're all
2:41:03
SPEAKER_01: great and every guest is great.
2:41:06
SPEAKER_01: Next week we have –
2:41:08
SPEAKER_01: the return of noah reimer who's returned to substakistan and i
2:41:15
SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk a lot about literature on that one.
2:41:16
SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about criticism and cultural criticism,
2:41:19
SPEAKER_01: and he's got a lot of interesting things to say.
2:41:21
SPEAKER_01: So if you guys are interested in him,
2:41:22
I would go back to like episode two or three where he first
2:41:25
came on and listened to him,
2:41:27
SPEAKER_01: and he's going to update us.
2:41:28
SPEAKER_01: He disappeared.
2:41:29
He went out into the desert,
2:41:31
and then he disappeared off the internet,
2:41:33
and he finally returned.
2:41:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's a good thing.
2:41:36
Yeah,
2:41:37
I don't know if that's a good thing,
2:41:38
but he's an interesting guy and a great writer.
2:41:41
SPEAKER_01: I hope we're all doomed.
2:41:42
SPEAKER_01: And then the week after that,
2:41:45
SPEAKER_01: we're going to have probably my favorite person ever to join us,
2:41:50
SPEAKER_01: who's joined us like a million times,
2:41:52
SPEAKER_01: is the amazing Lisa Kuznack is going to come back.
2:41:57
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to talk about her new novel, which I'm about to start.
2:42:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:42:02
I'm going to start reading her book probably tonight,
2:42:05
and I'm going to do a review on it.
2:42:07
And if it sucks,
2:42:08
Lisa,
2:42:08
I'm going to tell you it sucks because I'm a man of truth.
2:42:13
But we're going to talk about science fiction and fantasy and
2:42:17
the kind of stuff she's into.
2:42:18
SPEAKER_01: We're probably going to go over that.
2:42:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to go over her book and all her new plans.
2:42:23
SPEAKER_01: Man, that girl writes.
2:42:25
SPEAKER_01: She writes a lot.
2:42:26
SPEAKER_01: I wish I could write as much as she does.
2:42:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that would be fun.
2:42:30
SPEAKER_01: But she's also one of the most interesting people we have on here.
2:42:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, come on.
2:42:35
SPEAKER_01: And that's in spite of being a Canadian.
2:42:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, like she can't help where she was born.
2:42:41
SPEAKER_01: So we're not going to judge her, you know.
2:42:44
SPEAKER_03: What is better?
2:42:45
SPEAKER_03: What is better to be born American or to be Canadian?
2:42:50
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:42:51
SPEAKER_01: We've got to convince her to move down, down into the promised land.
2:42:55
SPEAKER_01: We might not have to.
2:42:56
SPEAKER_03: She might end up joining, but that's a whole separate.
2:42:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:42:59
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we'll touch on that subject.
2:43:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that'll be fun.
2:43:02
But no,
2:43:02
we can't because her government's going to arrest her if she
2:43:04
says anything.
2:43:05
you know whatever and frank it for real right we're gonna have
2:43:09
to hide her in our i
2:43:10
don't have a basement do you have basements in florida because
2:43:12
we don't have
2:43:12
basements in florida no because we live in a swamp oh come on
2:43:17
come on right i know
2:43:18
i know i know no man we don't have to hide them in basements we
2:43:21
don't have to hide
2:43:21
them in attics we we we hide them behind a wall of machine gun
2:43:25
fire right that's
2:43:25
how we work in that's how we work in florida i mean you you
2:43:28
know how it is out here
2:43:29
SPEAKER_01: you you stick your finger in the grass and it's wet because we live in
2:43:32
SPEAKER_01: like below sea level.
2:43:34
SPEAKER_03: You're literally walking on a, on a giant water mattress.
2:43:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:43:37
SPEAKER_01: It's all squishy all the time.
2:43:39
SPEAKER_01: Every grass is just squishy.
2:43:42
SPEAKER_01: So to end, to end the episode with some more keynote quotes, all right.
2:43:47
The ending of that song is to those who go to bed,
2:43:50
good dreams and good night.
2:43:52
SPEAKER_01: Talk to you guys next week.