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[00:00:12] I've always wanted bees. In Berkeley, there was a place called Lawrence Hall of Science and they had bees and they always kind of scared me but in a way that fear fascination. And so moving into a house in Portland, I thought, ah, I should just get bees. So I did. I don't know. I don't fixate on it the way some people really get into the minutiae.
[00:00:40] And check levels of temperature and humidity and all that. And I just kind of, I put them out and steal their honey once a year.
[00:00:52] I don't know. Maybe it's because of what's happened to the global population, but I don't know. Colonies seem kind of fragile.
[00:00:59] Yeah. Yeah. Um, I used to eat bees next to my neighbors and he uses pesticides and so they kept dying. And then finally I moved it, um, to the
[00:01:10] other side of the yard and they, I've had this hive for about four years now.
[00:01:14] What's the process of starting one? You said you get a queen. Is that basically it?
[00:01:21] Well, there are different ways. Yeah. You can, um, what this high, I used to buy them. So I'd buy a nuke and you get about 3 million bees and one queen. And then you put them in and let them do their thing.
[00:01:36] Do they mail that to you or do you like go to a place and pick it up?
[00:01:40] It was a bee store.
[00:01:41] Oh, of course there's a bee store in Portland.
[00:01:45] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:01:45] It has a fancy name. Yeah. But this, this hive, I was just about to dissemble the hive and then it's called it, it worked as a trap hive. So a new, um, swarm just kind of found it and moved in and they've, they've been really good. And it's a real mellow hive. The personality varies on the queen. And this one just happens to be, I don't know, really, really nice. So that's good. I don't know.
[00:02:11] I don't take it that seriously, but I, I do like it. Um, it's a hobby, casual hobby.
[00:02:17] What do you mean that personality varies?
[00:02:21] Um, some hives are real protective and so you get near them and they start dive bombing you and attacking you and other hives are really friendly. So you can walk right up and, um, kind of make little changes or check them out and they don't, um, they don't get upset with you.
[00:02:38] So like I used to, on some hives, I had to smoke them and that, that makes them think that there's a fire or something.
[00:02:45] So they eat a bunch of their honey and kind of get fat and lazy and, and because they're so stoned out, you can then, you know, do whatever you want to them.
[00:02:55] Um, but this hive, I don't bother. I just opened them up and they're just like, Oh, okay. And, um, yeah, there's some of them are real hostile and they just don't like people.
[00:03:06] And other ones are, um, just sort of, and, and supposedly they'll recognize your face.
[00:03:12] So if you kind of go up and deal with them, they at some point think that you're okay as a entity and don't attack you.
[00:03:22] Aren't you wearing the suit though?
[00:03:25] Yeah. Yeah. I usually put on a suit. Um, they can recognize your face through the suit.
[00:03:30] Yeah. Mostly I did that for the Kickstarter to be funny, but yeah, I think they can recognize you through the suit. I don't know. I mean, this is just,
[00:03:41] I pick up little tidbits through reels or Twitter or Tik TOK or Kit Kat or whatever.
[00:03:49] You've learned about the practice of beekeeping through Tik TOK.
[00:03:54] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You talk about it and then the AI hears you and starts feeding you, um, things to buy.
[00:04:04] It's always been fascinating to me. I mean, we, I, we, I think we talked about this, um, but I, I moved.
[00:04:11] I've, I've left the city.
[00:04:14] Yeah. That's hard to imagine. Yeah.
[00:04:16] I don't have a big backyard like you. I got a little like patio and I'm just, I'm trying to like figure out all of these are, I think kind of out of the question as are chickens right now, just given a spatial constraints of where I am.
[00:04:28] But, um, there, there are a lot of things that, you know, that I've thought about over the years and just the things that you just can't do in an apartment setting.
[00:04:40] Yeah. Yeah. These would be tough. You know, they don't take a lot of room as long as you, if you kind of aim them outward, they would, you could probably, you know, a few feet or something.
[00:04:55] Um, I, what's funny is I had them kind of near this path at the back door of my, to my backyard.
[00:05:05] And then I thought, Oh, I'll move them further away from the walkway.
[00:05:10] And I did that. I moved them over about two feet.
[00:05:12] And now instead of flying forward and up and out, now they fly straight by moving them further away from the walkway.
[00:05:23] Now their arc goes right in the walkway.
[00:05:25] So now walking through, I have to duck every time.
[00:05:30] Maybe that's why they got used to me.
[00:05:32] Oh, here comes that.
[00:05:33] Doing the limbo with the bees.
[00:05:35] Yeah.
[00:05:36] Yeah. I, I honestly, I, I couldn't do it because I have an HOA and I feel like.
[00:05:41] Yeah.
[00:05:41] This is a new thing that I, this is a thing that I've, again, that I've never dealt with.
[00:05:45] I figured for me, it was maybe a nice middle ground between, you know, rent, renting a place and not going like full.
[00:05:54] Like I, you know, I, I don't have to mow the lawn, which is nice.
[00:05:58] Oh, wow. Yeah.
[00:05:59] I don't have to do snow removal, but it, it's also, I don't know.
[00:06:03] Did you ever watch parks and recreation?
[00:06:05] Oh yeah.
[00:06:06] You remember they used to do the town hall meetings and people would just complain about their inanities?
[00:06:12] Yeah.
[00:06:13] But even weirder is I, I used to have, um, a TMCM.com and I had all, whatever, I still have it as a URL, but I had all the mail for any TMCM filter into a general mailbox.
[00:06:27] And so I started getting the mail from a HOA, a woman who was complaining about children who were drawing, uh, making chalk drawings on the sidewalks out front.
[00:06:39] Were they of swastikas?
[00:06:41] Like, no, I know.
[00:06:44] Right.
[00:06:44] Like that I could understand.
[00:06:45] Uh, but yeah, I, I, I, I had a, I corresponded with her for about a year.
[00:06:53] I would write her back saying how the children needed to be punished.
[00:06:58] Um, and it's a shame we can't beat them anymore, but I'll try to put them in jail.
[00:07:03] I'll send the police.
[00:07:03] I mean, I just like strung her along and we had, you got a year out of that.
[00:07:07] Yeah, I did.
[00:07:08] I baited her.
[00:07:09] I, it was a fine line to walk of like, you know, I'm going to scare them.
[00:07:13] I have a gun.
[00:07:14] I'm going to scare them.
[00:07:15] Eventually she caught on.
[00:07:17] I think, um, she stopped writing, but it was fun to just mess with her.
[00:07:23] That's my one HOA experience.
[00:07:25] So far it's been okay, but you know, I'll, I'll, I'll see like the bylines will pop up and there is one like, um, there's a limit of two pets per household, which again, I'm fine.
[00:07:37] It's just, it's just sort of like strange restrictions.
[00:07:40] And then you start to wonder like what has happened in the past, you know, was, was there, there must've been like a hoarder in the, in the right community.
[00:07:50] Any rule is the result of somebody going too far.
[00:07:55] How many rabbits do you have?
[00:07:57] I mean, this is another thing.
[00:07:58] This is exactly what I'm talking about is I was like, Oh, I have space now.
[00:08:02] You know, maybe I can get her a friend.
[00:08:06] Like there's just, there's just things that I can do.
[00:08:09] And honestly, I think our, uh, we're mutual friends with Joe garden, right?
[00:08:15] You know, Joe?
[00:08:15] Yeah.
[00:08:16] Yeah.
[00:08:16] Yeah.
[00:08:16] Oh my God.
[00:08:17] He's a great guy.
[00:08:18] Yeah.
[00:08:18] So Joe, Joe lives like 20 minutes North of me in Saugerties.
[00:08:24] So I went in, you know, I've been up here for a few weeks and then I went and saw him and he was saying, cause he, he moved up to your years ago and he was saying it was a really difficult transition.
[00:08:35] Cause you know, he would be like social in the city and then you would come up here and there's not a lot going on.
[00:08:40] And I said, you know, I haven't had any of that.
[00:08:44] And I think it's all a product of just how miserable the pandemic was that I just like, are you know, I like, I already like prepped myself to stop socializing and stuff.
[00:08:56] And it, it was a really, it was a bad, you know, it was bad to go through that in a, in a one bedroom apartment in Queens.
[00:09:05] Yeah.
[00:09:06] Yeah.
[00:09:06] I can see that.
[00:09:09] Yeah.
[00:09:10] There were parts of the pandemic that I really enjoyed.
[00:09:14] You could say that now.
[00:09:15] Yeah.
[00:09:16] I mean, even at the time I was like, you know, this is kind of like, I don't, I like these submarine movies.
[00:09:21] I don't, maybe I'm a late in homosexual or something, but I love the like Das Boat.
[00:09:26] And, um, the classics.
[00:09:28] What is that?
[00:09:29] The, yeah, the one, um, run silent, run deep, like any submarine movie I'm all in.
[00:09:34] And so there was an aspect of the submarine movie in the pandemic.
[00:09:40] Um, I, oh, like the claustrophobia.
[00:09:44] The claustrophobia, lack of connection to other people.
[00:09:51] Um, every time I'd go out, you'd have, you know, you'd suit up with gloves.
[00:09:56] And mask.
[00:09:58] And, you know, it was like a weird, you don't want to, you, you want to go to the bathroom
[00:10:03] before you go out because, you know, God forbid you have to use the bathroom.
[00:10:08] Um.
[00:10:09] Cause you're wearing the beekeeper suit in the grocery store.
[00:10:12] You got to zip that all the way down.
[00:10:16] I kind of, I kind of like that.
[00:10:18] It was like, it was like a role playing or something.
[00:10:21] I don't know.
[00:10:22] It was quiet and, you know, and, and you have, I mean, you're obviously a social person, but,
[00:10:27] you know, you, you've got a pretty solitary job.
[00:10:30] Yeah.
[00:10:31] Yeah.
[00:10:31] It was, yeah.
[00:10:32] It's surreal.
[00:10:32] And then, and then too, I was like, I'm going to learn French and, and the piano, like that
[00:10:38] piano playing I did in the, in the movie.
[00:10:40] That's I, I, I started at the pandemic.
[00:10:43] I knew nothing and I just wanted to learn how to read music.
[00:10:47] And so I, I started with, you know, three blind mice and I just taught myself.
[00:10:55] That was Joplin, right?
[00:10:57] Yeah.
[00:10:57] Yeah.
[00:10:58] A little Joplin.
[00:10:58] Yeah.
[00:10:59] Yeah.
[00:11:00] I'm not good.
[00:11:02] A lot of us said the, we were going to do these sorts of things and just had trouble
[00:11:05] committing and, and, you know, and for me, probably like a lot of other people, health
[00:11:10] stuff and generalized depression and things like that made it, made it difficult to follow
[00:11:15] through.
[00:11:15] So I'm actually impressed that you like committed and saw these things through.
[00:11:21] Yeah.
[00:11:21] I don't know.
[00:11:23] Maybe it was acute depression rather than, um, I don't know, but yeah, it's nice.
[00:11:29] I come out the other end.
[00:11:30] It's like the matrix, you know, you plug in and you know, I, I know karate.
[00:11:35] Yeah.
[00:11:35] Flute in French and play the piano.
[00:11:38] Right.
[00:11:38] Badly.
[00:11:39] I mean, there's caveats abound.
[00:11:42] Maybe this is, this is revealing too much personal information, but you are very active
[00:11:47] on Duolingo.
[00:11:48] Oh, you're like a, you're like a rock star over there.
[00:11:53] Partly because I've got, um, I've got some addiction issues and I've moved all my, you
[00:12:01] know, uh, battle Royale or whatever that, you know, some of the other dumb video games.
[00:12:05] It's just now I'll just, um, fixate on, uh, French.
[00:12:11] They gamified it in a way so I can put my gambling addictions into that.
[00:12:16] I mean, thankfully I don't have like, you know, my alcoholism is managed, you know, and
[00:12:21] I don't have like crack or speed or something.
[00:12:24] I'm sure I would love speed if I ever did it, but, um, no, it's all Duolingo.
[00:12:29] I focused, um, addiction into, into that.
[00:12:33] That's an important part of like just getting older and maturing is like, is recognizing
[00:12:38] these things in yourself and finding productive ways to channel them into something.
[00:12:43] Yeah.
[00:12:43] Yeah.
[00:12:44] And it's funny cause I did that cartoon of, uh, years ago that you can't escape addiction,
[00:12:49] choose yours carefully.
[00:12:51] And, and then, um, it's like, oh yeah, that's, I'll just focus addiction into this.
[00:12:58] Um, I don't know.
[00:13:01] Yeah.
[00:13:01] It's, it's nice.
[00:13:02] It's, um, yeah.
[00:13:04] Duolingo piano.
[00:13:07] I don't know.
[00:13:08] Better than what was that?
[00:13:10] Battle Royale?
[00:13:10] Grand Royale.
[00:13:12] Um, not Fortnite, but the other one.
[00:13:15] Yeah.
[00:13:16] Right.
[00:13:16] It's some dumb.
[00:13:17] Yeah.
[00:13:18] But all of our, all of our, um, you know, Einstein's are designing these, uh, endorphin
[00:13:26] games.
[00:13:27] So they last about three minutes and they give you a little hit of an endorphin, this
[00:13:31] illusion of accomplishment.
[00:13:34] And yeah, it's, it's, it's addictive as hell.
[00:13:37] I feel sorry for kids that are getting imprinted with these, um, things early and we're going
[00:13:46] to have to teach them like, Hey, you've got to this, you've got to channel these impulses
[00:13:50] into these other places.
[00:13:52] What would the equivalent have been in the past?
[00:13:55] I mean, I guess it's just sort of just plopping kids in front of the television.
[00:14:00] Yeah.
[00:14:00] That was, they called that a great social experiment.
[00:14:04] Um, I remember hearing a lot of people saying how that was going to ruin everything.
[00:14:09] They might not have been wrong.
[00:14:11] Yeah.
[00:14:12] So I'm pretty sure they were right.
[00:14:15] Yeah.
[00:14:17] Yeah.
[00:14:18] It's interesting.
[00:14:20] Yeah.
[00:14:20] Uh, so, but you are, you became a gamer or like a casual gamer.
[00:14:27] Yeah.
[00:14:27] The, the little phone games.
[00:14:29] Um, yeah, you'd sit and draw for two minutes and then reward yourself with a little battle
[00:14:36] royale game and then, um, go back to drawing for another hour and say, okay, I'm going to
[00:14:41] draw and then I'll get another endorphin hit.
[00:14:45] Um, and then now I just say, okay, I'm going to draw for an hour and then I'll do a French
[00:14:52] lesson.
[00:14:53] Most of what you're doing these days, it's, it's like the, the New Yorker cartoons.
[00:14:57] It's, you know, it's, it's, it's single panel.
[00:15:00] It's, it's shorter things, but you still draw in these like hour long blocks.
[00:15:07] Yes.
[00:15:08] Um, and then I am working, I'm working on two things, um, that I haven't even really talked
[00:15:15] about.
[00:15:16] One of them is I'm working on a book about my dad.
[00:15:18] Um, and I finally settled on a, on a title that I'm really happy with.
[00:15:25] Um, so that I'm working on.
[00:15:29] Uh, and then, um, and then the opera too much coffee man opera comic book.
[00:15:36] So it's, I had the comic and then did an opera based on the comic and now I'm doing a, um,
[00:15:42] comic based on the opera.
[00:15:43] So it's, I'm taking the libretto and, um, that'll be a neat little project.
[00:15:51] Um, yeah.
[00:15:54] So yeah, I'm still, I'm still sitting, writing and drawing and those are real, like you really
[00:15:59] have to get into a liminal space of, um, spacing out where it's just another reality.
[00:16:07] I mean, the New Yorker that must've kept you alive for the past decade or so.
[00:16:12] Right.
[00:16:12] I mean, and, and that's allowed you, you know, and that's given you the freedom to be able
[00:16:16] to, to do these things.
[00:16:18] It's especially in, in comics, you know, if you do find a way where you're able to eke out
[00:16:25] a living doing it, it's oftentimes it is finding these sorts of things.
[00:16:29] Um, the steady jobs, you know, I, it's funny.
[00:16:32] I was like, Oh, I'll go read Shannon's Wikipedia page.
[00:16:35] You know, we've known each other for like 20 years, but I'll go, you just, and I, and there's
[00:16:39] a funny little anecdote on there about the, uh, too much coffee man converse ad and how
[00:16:47] basically that you bought a computer with that and started the website.
[00:16:52] Yeah.
[00:16:53] Yeah.
[00:16:53] Yeah.
[00:16:54] It's yeah.
[00:16:55] That's about right.
[00:16:56] Um, yeah, I think that was like 93, 92, something like that.
[00:17:02] Um, yeah.
[00:17:03] And then, well, during COVID I did, I did some educational comics.
[00:17:07] Uh, there was a disability group and they, um, down syndrome kids, they were, uh, educating.
[00:17:15] And so a lot of them lost their support networks during, during COVID because their, their social
[00:17:23] lives are, um, really important.
[00:17:25] And then all of a sudden they lose that connection and it's, um, profoundly disturbing to somebody
[00:17:32] with down syndrome.
[00:17:34] And so doing comic books is a way to reach them and say, Hey, it's okay.
[00:17:38] And give a bit like the world isn't ending, right?
[00:17:42] This is not, uh, the apocalypse.
[00:17:45] Like we will get through this.
[00:17:47] There are people who love you.
[00:17:49] They're on yours.
[00:17:49] So I did, I did a bunch of comics for them.
[00:17:52] Um, and that was, that was really nice.
[00:17:55] Really everybody involved with those organizations is just well-intentioned.
[00:18:01] And I, it was, it was a real privilege to be able to do that.
[00:18:06] Um, but that was through COVID.
[00:18:07] I, that was a living through there.
[00:18:09] Yeah.
[00:18:10] The, the New Yorker has been really great.
[00:18:13] And then collecting the stuff into little books too.
[00:18:16] So I was able to do the, I thought you'd be funnier book and other ones.
[00:18:21] And Gilbert Shelton, who did, um, uh, the fabulous freak brothers.
[00:18:28] Uh, uh, he turned, like he was a big influence on me through high school, what comics were.
[00:18:35] And then in college, after college, I moved to Texas and I'm hanging out with my uncle and
[00:18:41] I've got to go to France and he goes, Oh, when you go to France, take these photos and
[00:18:46] give it to my friend Gilbert and here's his number and all that.
[00:18:49] And I like Gilbert, Gilbert Shelton, friend of the family.
[00:18:55] So I saw him in Paris and had coffee and gave him these, um, photos, uh, that my uncle
[00:19:03] had of them.
[00:19:04] Um, and he said, when you do comics, always like first do it for the newspaper, then collect
[00:19:11] it in the comic book.
[00:19:13] And then, oh, I might have to run, get my battery.
[00:19:16] Um, and then collect it into books.
[00:19:18] He says, always make two or three times, never put it down until you've made money off
[00:19:23] at three times.
[00:19:25] So I, I took it to heart.
[00:19:28] How did your uncle know Gilbert?
[00:19:30] How does your uncle know Gilbert Shelton?
[00:19:32] Um, in Austin, Texas, my uncle ran the Vulcan gas company, which was a music venue like the
[00:19:39] hate Ashbury kind of thing, but in, in Texas.
[00:19:44] And so Gilbert was the house cartoonist basically.
[00:19:51] Yeah.
[00:19:51] It was, which, which explains why we had it around my house when I was a kid.
[00:19:56] I think when I was out there in Portland last year, I think we, I think you might've mentioned
[00:20:01] that you were kind of exploring the possibility of doing this book on your dad.
[00:20:05] Um, but I, I don't know.
[00:20:07] I don't know that we talked about it much more than that.
[00:20:09] I mean, are you at a point right now where you're comfortable discussing it?
[00:20:13] Yeah, sure.
[00:20:14] I don't, yeah.
[00:20:14] I'm a terrible magician.
[00:20:16] I mean, I'll, my favorite thing is like, here's the rabbit and here's the false bottom
[00:20:21] in the hat of how it works.
[00:20:23] Yeah.
[00:20:24] Originally, like I, I was, I had a working title of Huey Newton was my landlord.
[00:20:29] Um, Huey Newton was one of the leaders of the black Panther party and I rented a house from
[00:20:35] him when I was in college.
[00:20:37] And so I thought that, I mean, it's just a funny anti-establishment guy.
[00:20:41] Yeah.
[00:20:42] Being a landlord.
[00:20:43] And I, I liked all the ironies, you know, middle-class white boy renting from a radical
[00:20:49] leftist.
[00:20:50] This was in Berkeley?
[00:20:51] In Berkeley.
[00:20:52] Yeah.
[00:20:52] Of course.
[00:20:53] But, but it, it, it's a hard sell like that.
[00:20:56] Um, yeah, nobody really wants that book.
[00:21:00] Um, why is that?
[00:21:01] Do you think?
[00:21:02] Uh, cause I'm a white guy and what is a white guy have to say about the black Panthers?
[00:21:07] Um, and, and a lot, what a buddy of mine told me that any book on the black Panthers, it's
[00:21:18] either very pro black Panther or very anti black Panther, you know, pro revolutionary, anti
[00:21:23] revolutionary.
[00:21:23] And there's nothing.
[00:21:24] And my humor and, and my take on everything is things are complicated and nuanced and ambiguous,
[00:21:32] morally ambiguous, socially ambiguous.
[00:21:34] And I've mixed feelings about everything pretty much.
[00:21:38] You're a pragmatist.
[00:21:42] I, yeah.
[00:21:47] Was, was it, was it a, was it a funny book?
[00:21:51] Yeah.
[00:21:52] Yeah.
[00:21:52] I think it's funny.
[00:21:53] I mean, um, yeah, it's hilarious.
[00:21:55] I mean, like I, I see my stepdad and, um, and I tell it, you know, I'm talking about
[00:22:05] renting this place and yeah.
[00:22:07] Oh, it's great.
[00:22:07] You know, and then Frederica Newton comes and collects the rent after we've had a party
[00:22:12] and she yells at us for throwing a party.
[00:22:14] And he's like, Frederica Newton.
[00:22:15] Why is that name so familiar?
[00:22:17] And he pauses it because she's not married to Huey Newton.
[00:22:23] Is she?
[00:22:23] I'm like, yeah, yeah.
[00:22:24] Yeah.
[00:22:25] What's the big deal?
[00:22:26] And he goes, pay your rent on time.
[00:22:28] Whatever you do.
[00:22:31] You didn't know who Huey Newton was at the time or his reputation.
[00:22:34] We had no idea.
[00:22:35] We had no idea.
[00:22:36] Yeah.
[00:22:37] We're, I mean, I was an idiot.
[00:22:38] I mean, I still am, but I was even.
[00:22:40] But he's like one of the main dudes.
[00:22:44] I should have known.
[00:22:45] I just did not make the connection.
[00:22:47] Um, yeah, he's one of the main dudes.
[00:22:49] Yeah.
[00:22:50] And I'm reading his books now and it's like, holy crap.
[00:22:54] What an intellectual that guy was.
[00:22:56] What an amazing mind he had.
[00:22:58] He did not rise to the top of the Black Panther Party by happenstance.
[00:23:04] Um, yeah, it's, it's a, it's interesting, but he would drive up and park in his Lincoln
[00:23:12] Continental facing the wrong way with the engine running while Frederica would come up and collect
[00:23:17] the rent and, and he was a big, scary guy.
[00:23:22] Um, it's interesting, but that's, there's ambiguity there.
[00:23:27] And like the Black Panthers, like they did all these food programs and they helped out
[00:23:32] and they brought, um, it's a complicated thing.
[00:23:35] And then they also killed witnesses for trials and, and did jury intimidation.
[00:23:42] And also, I mean, they did a lot of horrible, they did great things and horrible, it's complicated.
[00:23:47] Um, so yeah, it's funny.
[00:23:49] I think the only way to look at it is kind of like, you know, it's ironic, funny, but yeah,
[00:23:57] that's, it's, it's not, I can't sell that because it's not, there's no singular.
[00:24:05] Stroke that says, you know, there's no, um, hook or, you know, it's, it's like, here's a
[00:24:12] complicated nuanced story that you should check out.
[00:24:16] And it sounds like a sitcom.
[00:24:18] Yeah.
[00:24:20] Yeah.
[00:24:21] Maybe like get a life or something.
[00:24:23] Um, yeah, yeah, it was, it is funny.
[00:24:28] I mean, I think, but so yeah, I'm focusing more on my dad and some of that stuff.
[00:24:34] Um, and I think that'll be good.
[00:24:38] He, he had a commune.
[00:24:40] Um, and so my experiences relating to a commune, I think might be easier for a white boy to sell.
[00:24:49] I'm going to include the black Panther stuff in there for sure.
[00:24:53] But, um, old hippies are easier to make fun of without pissing off as many people.
[00:25:01] He had a commune.
[00:25:03] Yeah.
[00:25:05] What does that entail?
[00:25:07] Um, he bought a piece of the land.
[00:25:10] He was like a back to the land kind of one of those people.
[00:25:13] Yeah.
[00:25:14] Yeah.
[00:25:15] Back to the land.
[00:25:16] Moved, moved from Connecticut out West and took his inheritance and, and bought, um, 300 acres.
[00:25:23] And then lived opposite Lou Gottlieb who had star mountain.
[00:25:30] Um, Gottlieb was part of the limelighters and then, uh, Reagan was governor and they shut down Gottlieb's place.
[00:25:38] And Gottlieb told my dad, Hey, you should open up your land and, and, uh, turn it into a commune.
[00:25:45] And, um, he did, he turned it to open land policy.
[00:25:50] So anybody that wanted to could come and live there for free.
[00:25:55] And, and that ran until, and then Reagan shut it down.
[00:25:59] And then it kind of limped along for a while, uh, under the radar.
[00:26:04] And I went and lived there when I was in college.
[00:26:07] I dropped out for a year, lived with my dad and tried to get to know him.
[00:26:14] And it was interesting.
[00:26:17] So you weren't super close prior to that?
[00:26:21] Uh, not super close.
[00:26:23] No.
[00:26:24] Um, like we'd go up there, he would stay with us in Berkeley and I would go up at, you know,
[00:26:29] my mom would take us up there and we'd stay there sometimes.
[00:26:32] And so we had connections, um, you know, my, my whole life.
[00:26:39] And then, but when I, when I moved there and lived there, that's when I really made a concerted effort to try to connect with him.
[00:26:46] Um, and he, he then made a big show of saying, you know, when he died, he's going to give the land to my sisters and me.
[00:26:56] And it was going to be, he wanted it to continue, um, in the tradition of what he'd had.
[00:27:02] And, um, and then at some point as he declined in health, my sisters made a trust and kicked me off of it.
[00:27:13] And so that's the, that's the story that I sort of, uh, King Lear, um, um, but without the happy ending.
[00:27:22] When you say the tradition that he had, what do you mean by that?
[00:27:27] He, he wanted it to be still not open land, but still open ish.
[00:27:34] So there were still about, uh, two dozen people living there and he wanted it to be a cooperative kind of an open place,
[00:27:42] a place of love for there to be this heritage of, um, sixties.
[00:27:48] Some of the ideals of the sixties is what he professed.
[00:27:52] Um, but my sisters didn't feel that that was, um, they, they said in their rationalizations,
[00:27:59] they said that, um, the, uh, insurance was too much, that, that there could be a lawsuit and that, um, somebody might hurt themselves and sue.
[00:28:11] A lot of the, um, God, what was the, uh, Chicago?
[00:28:18] Was it the, yeah.
[00:28:20] Chicago 10, seven, seven, seven.
[00:28:23] The cockpit, yeah.
[00:28:25] I think a lot of them, like a lot of sort of the, like, activist college students became, like, went right wing.
[00:28:32] It's a weird transition.
[00:28:35] I'll never understand.
[00:28:37] I don't get it either.
[00:28:39] Um, I, uh, a friend of mine was, uh, one of the weathermen, um, and I went to Cuba with him and then he became right wing, went to Chicago and, and start became investment.
[00:28:55] Um, did investment stuff.
[00:28:58] Yeah.
[00:28:58] It was just, they all became like Chicago school people.
[00:29:01] Like the weird, like, yeah.
[00:29:02] What is weatherman?
[00:29:03] I don't know.
[00:29:04] Yeah.
[00:29:05] It's so strange.
[00:29:07] Yeah.
[00:29:07] I mean, I guess, I guess like, you know, the, the other routes, you know, you, you go, your dad's route, you know, you go back to the lands or you become like.
[00:29:15] Like a Silicon Valley psycho, which a lot of them did.
[00:29:19] Yeah.
[00:29:19] And that's what, yeah.
[00:29:21] My sister, uh, lived in San Francisco and was involved with the Silicon Valley people and was, yeah.
[00:29:32] Part of their, some of the.com booms and helped bring like Clinton in, um, to get funding using the Silicon Valley movie, integrating, you know, like that money, getting it to the,
[00:29:44] the Democrat party.
[00:29:46] And she said that when she met Clinton, uh, Bill Clinton, um, back in that day, um, she said she all of a sudden understood why he became president.
[00:29:57] She said his charisma was astounding.
[00:30:02] I had the same experience.
[00:30:03] I met him once.
[00:30:04] I had the same experience with him.
[00:30:06] Really?
[00:30:07] Yeah.
[00:30:07] This is validated.
[00:30:08] Yeah.
[00:30:09] Yes.
[00:30:09] The whole room disappears and it's like you are the only person in the universe for him.
[00:30:13] Yeah.
[00:30:14] I don't, I don't know.
[00:30:14] I, I, I, I don't know if I ever told you this, but so my sister was a, um, she, she interned for, uh, Hillary, um, you know, in the, the last like year of the white house term.
[00:30:27] And then when she became Senator and I got to meet bill, I, I went to, um, they were still, I don't know if they do this anymore.
[00:30:36] They were still doing the radio addresses.
[00:30:39] I think maybe Trump might've killed that.
[00:30:41] Um, and we, I, we got a picture with, with bill and it's my sister on one side and me on the other.
[00:30:46] And my, my memory of the whole thing was he was just standing behind me, rubbing my back just in circles.
[00:30:52] Wow.
[00:30:53] Yeah.
[00:30:54] Wow.
[00:30:56] That's a trip.
[00:30:57] It's like, you know, I, I heard, I heard somebody talking about a bomber recently or it's just like, it's like, yeah, like I, I get it.
[00:31:05] Like, I understand why this person was able to rise the ranks as quickly because you know, this is like a generational charisma.
[00:31:15] Yeah.
[00:31:16] Yeah.
[00:31:17] Yeah.
[00:31:18] Obama.
[00:31:19] Even now I see it's like, okay, that guy has charisma where it's just, it's breathtaking.
[00:31:25] Um, yeah, it's interesting.
[00:31:28] Cause I never really liked Kamala, but it feels like she's rising to the occasion where I feel like she's, she's become more attractive to me.
[00:31:37] Um, where I like listening to her now, whereas I didn't used to maybe it's, um, and I feel like she's, she's seen a role and she's stepping into it.
[00:31:48] And, and whereas Obama, I think he had it from years.
[00:31:52] I could tell.
[00:31:53] And same with bill.
[00:31:56] A friend of mine in Arkansas said, oh, we've got a governor here and I think he's going to be president.
[00:32:05] And we were just like, yeah, Arkansas, whatever.
[00:32:07] That was.
[00:32:11] But leave it to me to get things wrong too.
[00:32:13] Like I, you know,
[00:32:16] do you feel like you have to be up on politics for your job or is there just a, is it just kind of like the osmosis of being alive in 2024 that it's unavoidable?
[00:32:27] Ah, good question.
[00:32:29] Um, when the Trump stuff kicked in, I felt it was an obligation.
[00:32:38] And that's when I started doing the Trump books.
[00:32:42] And I was just shocked at what was happening.
[00:32:48] Cause I felt like he's a thief and a, um, a charlatan, a, you know, like a, a snake oil salesman.
[00:32:55] And I, I, I never liked him.
[00:32:57] I used to go to the gym and, and I'd be flipping channels on the little crappy TVs that they had.
[00:33:04] And, um, that dumb television show, the apprentice would come on.
[00:33:09] And I just couldn't even watch that.
[00:33:11] Um, it felt like I just didn't like the materialism and the superficiality of it.
[00:33:18] And I don't feel like he ever grew out of that.
[00:33:22] And that's when I was, when I did that first Trump book, the shit, my president says, um, I was about to do another collection of gag cartoons.
[00:33:35] And I felt like I was wasting my time and I, I wanted to do something that was political.
[00:33:41] You felt like just doing what you've been doing would be a waste of time because things have gotten so dire.
[00:33:49] Yeah.
[00:33:50] Yeah.
[00:33:50] Basically.
[00:33:50] I thought, yeah, I was, when he won, I thought there was no chance that he would win.
[00:33:57] And, um, and then it's like, well, I've got, I, I need to do something that will ensure, sure my place in the camp.
[00:34:04] So I don't want to wait in line to get into a camp.
[00:34:06] I want to be, you know, if, if he starts a camp, I should be one of the first in there.
[00:34:14] Yeah.
[00:34:14] It was horrifying.
[00:34:15] It was genuinely horrifying.
[00:34:16] How does that sort of change?
[00:34:17] Like, does that change your career?
[00:34:19] Does that change your kind of like interactions with people?
[00:34:22] Um, you know, obviously most folks know you through too much coffee, man, and then you've got the New Yorker stuff, but actually putting this political stuff out into the world.
[00:34:33] Right.
[00:34:34] You know, I don't know.
[00:34:35] I mean, I, I still feel like people can vote for who they want to.
[00:34:40] I feel like that's a, so I, I still, that's the foundation of democracy.
[00:34:44] You might even say, yeah.
[00:34:46] Yeah.
[00:34:47] And people vote for Trump and I, like, I hang out with people that vote, have voted for Trump and plan on voting for him again.
[00:34:55] Um, and I don't understand it, but, um, also it's like, man, you know, like that's your right.
[00:35:03] And I fought for that, right.
[00:35:04] Um, if you want to be an idiot, be an idiot.
[00:35:07] And I'll, that's not why I like him or don't like him.
[00:35:10] Um, and they, they, those people have, have also accepted me with the tenet of like, Hey, you're going to have these opinions that I don't agree with.
[00:35:21] And so, yeah, we'll have a beer together or whatever.
[00:35:24] Um, I, I don't know.
[00:35:28] I, I mean, too much coffee man was always political.
[00:35:31] Like even on the mini comics, I was, I was doing politics, uh, about, you know, anti-materialism.
[00:35:40] Um, um, even like the bullet hole issue that was to make fun of the, the materialism and the money grabs of other comic books.
[00:35:53] And so I don't feel like I've strayed very far.
[00:35:59] You know, I don't think I was radicalized.
[00:36:01] I think it's, it's, I I've had a pretty consistent metronome of, of anti-establishment, you know, which came from mad magazine.
[00:36:10] I mean, I think it's, you know, Bill Gaines, uh, taught me as a child to not trust the establishment.
[00:36:19] At least one of your parents was, was it back to the land hippie, which is, isn't that, isn't that kind of like ultimate anti-establishment?
[00:36:30] Yeah.
[00:36:31] And my uncle, yeah.
[00:36:33] Uh, you know, uh, old hippie, my aunt was at, uh, Woodstock.
[00:36:40] Um, yeah, she said she was selling, uh, or she worked one of the stands at Woodstock and she was selling orange juice until the acid kicked.
[00:36:49] And then she said that it was just too weird taking money from people.
[00:36:53] So she started giving orange juice out and money to people.
[00:36:56] Like that's what she was.
[00:36:58] So yeah, no, I, I come by it.
[00:37:00] Honestly.
[00:37:02] So it's fascinating to be like, you know, people who are from really kind of, you know, hippie or like leftist parents.
[00:37:07] Cause like there, there's a certain, to a certain extent, like rebelling is almost becoming like slightly more establishment.
[00:37:14] Right.
[00:37:16] Yes.
[00:37:17] And I've been thinking about this cause I don't think, um, yeah, I mean, yeah, the, the Michael Keaton, um, syndrome that's from that.
[00:37:29] Oh, what was that dumb TV show?
[00:37:31] Good family or something where the parents are hippies.
[00:37:35] And then the kid is, Oh, the Mike judge.
[00:37:38] Uh, no, no, no.
[00:37:39] The old, the old sitcom, um, happy family, good family.
[00:37:45] Um, on the family, Michael Keaton knows after that, but, uh, and then he has, um, uh, Parkinson's or something now.
[00:37:53] Um, the comedian, Michael J. Fox, family ties, family ties.
[00:37:59] Thank you.
[00:38:00] Michael Keaton was Batman.
[00:38:03] Uh, yes.
[00:38:04] Oh, but his name was Alex P Keaton.
[00:38:07] Alex.
[00:38:07] Yes.
[00:38:08] So I was just conflated.
[00:38:10] Yeah.
[00:38:10] Yeah.
[00:38:11] Yeah.
[00:38:11] That whole thing was just like height of like Reaganomics.
[00:38:15] Right.
[00:38:15] Cause he was like a big rate.
[00:38:16] Yes.
[00:38:17] Yeah.
[00:38:18] And I always thought that was kind of parody, but then I've heard it cited as like, Oh, that's the Keaton syndrome where the kid becomes conservative.
[00:38:27] Um, yeah, I've heard that.
[00:38:29] I, not a lot of my friends who are kids of hippies became conservative.
[00:38:37] Um, and we all hated Reagan at Berkeley high.
[00:38:42] I mean, it was, yeah, there was a few weirdos.
[00:38:49] Huh?
[00:38:50] You and I have talked a little bit about, um, Eric comic bus.
[00:38:54] Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:38:56] He did a, he did a back to the land issue of the zine years and years ago.
[00:39:02] Read that.
[00:39:03] I haven't read that one.
[00:39:04] Yeah.
[00:39:05] I just read the electric menorah recently.
[00:39:07] And that was so good.
[00:39:08] I haven't read it in years and years.
[00:39:10] I like, I might have it floating around somewhere, but like clearly that was something that was just hanging over Berkeley at the time.
[00:39:19] Yeah.
[00:39:20] Yeah, for sure.
[00:39:21] I mean, and that's one of the experiences.
[00:39:23] One of the bits that I want to write about is, uh, Jim Jones.
[00:39:27] Like my mom took us to see Jim Jones a couple of times.
[00:39:30] San Francisco guy.
[00:39:32] Yeah, he was.
[00:39:33] And then, and then Sacramento.
[00:39:35] And then obviously Guyana.
[00:39:39] And he was a big political figurehead and had a lot of power.
[00:39:44] Um, and my mom was like, oh, let's go.
[00:39:47] So I have, you know, firsthand memories of, of, um, Jim Jones, which is kind of a trip.
[00:39:53] This is a terrible, this is a terrible parallel to draw.
[00:39:57] But you'll hear people say, oh, you know, uh, Hitler got as big as he was because he was so charismatic.
[00:40:04] And then you'll watch him and it'll just be this little guy, you know, just like screaming in German and you want to understand it.
[00:40:10] And, um, I don't know.
[00:40:13] I, Jim Jones, I guess, to a certain extent, like must've had a tremendous amount of charisma if he was able to do what he did.
[00:40:20] He must've.
[00:40:22] Um, but I, the articles that I've read recently aren't blaming Hitler as much as the people around him.
[00:40:28] They said that he was a figure, not a figurehead because obviously he, you know, wasn't a figurehead, but he was enabled by these very intelligent.
[00:40:37] Sure.
[00:40:37] But he, but he held an audience is the point.
[00:40:40] And he had the rallies and all that.
[00:40:42] Yeah.
[00:40:43] A friend of mine said, I don't know, it was a few years ago.
[00:40:48] Um, a homeless guy, a friend of mine, um, uh, he's backwards, a cartoonist, actually.
[00:40:55] Um, he said that every election has been won since the Kennedy, Kennedy Nixon has been won by the person who's more entertaining.
[00:41:06] And that's why Trump won against Hillary.
[00:41:09] And it went consistently up until this recent one with, with Trump and Biden.
[00:41:16] Uh, but I think you, it's cynical to say the more entertaining person wins, but I think there was something.
[00:41:25] There's something fascinating about Hitler of entertainment and, um, and there's something fascinating about Trump and entertainment wise.
[00:41:34] I mean, not for me.
[00:41:35] I don't, I I'm repulsed by him, but I think that buffoonery and the clown aspect of him, people must, I think it resonates.
[00:41:47] I don't know.
[00:41:48] I mean, I, I've, I've, I've, I've put a lot of intellectual thought into it because I don't understand it emotionally.
[00:41:56] With a benefit of quite a bit of hindsight, like what, what's, I don't know.
[00:42:01] What's your sense of how the whole Jim Jones thing went down?
[00:42:04] I guess.
[00:42:08] I, that's a good question.
[00:42:10] I mean, we were never, my mom was never tempted to draw us in and I didn't really like it being there.
[00:42:18] It was loud and he was frenetic in a way where I didn't like him then either.
[00:42:25] And it was for my mom.
[00:42:28] She just has a curiosity about events.
[00:42:32] And so she just would fall into these things and places just out of serendipity.
[00:42:41] Like she saw Elvis when he played at her high school at the gym.
[00:42:45] Um, and she, I just weird things where, you know, she comes to San Francisco right before the hippies, um, kick in.
[00:42:55] And she's like a Forrest Gump character.
[00:42:59] Yeah.
[00:42:59] Yeah.
[00:42:59] In a weird way.
[00:43:00] She, yeah, she was hit by lightning of all things when she was in college.
[00:43:04] Um, so, you know, more power to her.
[00:43:07] But then every time I hear something like these expressions, like, like, oh, it's, you know, uh, as rare as being hit by lightning.
[00:43:16] It's like, well, my mom was hit by lightning.
[00:43:18] Drinking the Kool-Aid, like when people use that expression, I always just kind of, the hairs on the back of my head stand up, um, because of that.
[00:43:26] And then I was trying to explain that to a friend of mine, because I was talking about writing about this and trying to talk about the memories I had of, of that.
[00:43:35] And even now I have trouble, those documentaries about Jim Jones, I can't watch because I just think, yeah, I, all the people in my memory are probably dead.
[00:43:44] And they probably died horribly.
[00:43:46] Like, and this is, yeah, it's, it's chilling.
[00:43:49] And, um, and, and freaky.
[00:43:52] And I, and then my, my friend said, uh, does, yeah, do you know why there's, uh, not that many jokes about Jim Jones?
[00:44:01] And I was like, no, why?
[00:44:03] And he goes, that's because the punchlines are too long.
[00:44:07] It's a, it's a good, it's a good joke.
[00:44:09] It is a good joke.
[00:44:10] And I always felt bad for Kool-Aid because like, it wasn't, I think they got a raw deal because it wasn't actually Kool-Aid, right?
[00:44:16] The grape drink or, yeah.
[00:44:18] Yeah.
[00:44:18] Labor aid or something like that.
[00:44:20] So jealous too, because I remember there being a tub of it and just going and, and because we didn't have the sugar drinks at my mom, we, you know, we, she didn't have a sugar.
[00:44:31] We were too hippie style.
[00:44:33] And so I was just, I was like, oh yeah, I want to keep coming back here and getting more of this.
[00:44:38] This is the kind of thing that you only like find out talking to people who experienced this firsthand.
[00:44:43] Cause I didn't realize that, uh, I just thought that the whole Kool-Aid thing was, you know, um, a vessel for poison.
[00:44:52] I didn't realize that like, it was a part of their events just broadly.
[00:45:00] Um, I, you know, I don't think it was like a big part of it, but they just had a cooler, you know, like a, um, an urn, plastic urn of it and with little paper cups.
[00:45:11] And I just remember, I just kept going back for more of it.
[00:45:13] But I mean, I mean, that's, that's, that's a really fascinating detail and it's an especially fascinating detail.
[00:45:22] Like that must've hit you when you heard about how these, I mean, granted, a lot of them were shot, but how these people died at that you had actually drunk the Kool-Aid is wild.
[00:45:33] Yeah.
[00:45:34] Yeah.
[00:45:35] It's, it's yeah.
[00:45:36] It talk about your dark humor.
[00:45:37] Um, yeah, it didn't, I did not make that connection.
[00:45:43] When I first started hearing about it, uh, in, cause that was like high school, junior high, high school when all that, when the, you know, genocide went down murder.
[00:45:56] I mean, I wasn't genocide, but it was mass murder, um, mass suicide.
[00:46:01] Um, yeah, I don't, I just didn't, I was just like, Oh, I mean, when you're young too, like stuff happens and you're, you just kind of think, Oh, this is life.
[00:46:12] Like this is a normal, um, kind of thing.
[00:46:17] And it's not, it's just, it's just weird.
[00:46:20] It's not like crazy weird.
[00:46:23] And then in retrospect, like now I look back and go, Oh, this is crazy weird.
[00:46:27] Like that.
[00:46:29] I had that connection.
[00:46:31] And to me, like, that's a funny thing to write about and I can kind of make a little comic about it.
[00:46:38] And I think it, it stings as a story.
[00:46:41] Um, but it, I think it's a hard sell because I'm not.
[00:46:46] Yeah.
[00:46:47] I mean, I am going to tie it to Trump and I am going to tie it to.
[00:46:53] So opportunism and exploitation, um, and power.
[00:46:57] And so your question of, you know, how did he do this?
[00:47:00] And is it charisma?
[00:47:01] I think, I think, yeah, there's charisma.
[00:47:04] I think it's a combination.
[00:47:05] I mean, one, it was isolation.
[00:47:07] So you separate people from their network.
[00:47:12] So when they isolated, um, and then also just the power dynamic of him making promises of I, I have, I am the answer.
[00:47:23] Don't trust anybody but me.
[00:47:25] So there's an isolation.
[00:47:27] Um, and yeah, I don't know.
[00:47:32] I have not dug into the sociology books all that much on it.
[00:47:37] Um, with, with Jim Jones, but I mean, my stepdad was a big Hitler person.
[00:47:45] You know, he would.
[00:47:46] In what sense?
[00:47:48] He would say last night when I was watching the Nuremberg trials.
[00:47:52] Okay.
[00:47:53] Not like a fan of.
[00:47:54] No Jewish and fled and family were killed and all.
[00:47:59] And he would, he would teach me when I was a kid, he would say Jews would go to a Hitler rally.
[00:48:05] And Hitler would have such energy that the, the Jews would start seek highly along with the crowd.
[00:48:12] And I remember as a kid thinking, um, I will never be swayed the way those Jews were like that will never have.
[00:48:20] I will always distrust of a grand movement like this.
[00:48:26] Um, I don't know if I have been able to do that, but I do remember that.
[00:48:33] Yeah.
[00:48:33] He gave me Hitler as a cautionary tale when I was, when I was little and brought in.
[00:48:39] Yeah.
[00:48:40] We'd talk about his family that were, that were taken by Hitler.
[00:48:46] I was like, oh, okay.
[00:48:49] Um, yeah.
[00:48:51] Yeah.
[00:48:51] You bring up an interesting point and you know, my, my brain is just keeps, keeps going here.
[00:48:57] I was thinking about this.
[00:48:59] I was thinking about why all of a sudden all of these, uh, documentaries about cult leaders are like popular again.
[00:49:06] Right.
[00:49:07] There's been all those like Netflix series.
[00:49:09] Yeah.
[00:49:09] There's probably like a million think pieces about this, but to a certain extent, a lot of it is probably people trying to figure out things like QAnon, for example.
[00:49:16] Right.
[00:49:17] Like how people go down that road, draw those parallels.
[00:49:20] And, and, and you mentioned the isolation and I think that that's a really important and interesting point.
[00:49:25] And I think that relates directly to QAnon because there's, there's a self-selecting part of all of that, that ends up cutting you off from people.
[00:49:35] And the more cut off you are from your friends and family members, the deeper down that hole you go.
[00:49:41] Yeah.
[00:49:42] Yeah.
[00:49:42] Yeah.
[00:49:43] That's very, yeah.
[00:49:43] I think that's really true, which is partly why like I, a buddy of mine told me about, um, there's a rabbi that became friends with the son of, uh, one of the KKK people.
[00:49:57] I can't remember the names, but it was one of the major KKK grand dragons, whatever leaders.
[00:50:03] And then the son, like this rabbi started having discussions with the son who was kind of supposed to take over.
[00:50:13] And then over the course of time convinced him to that, that the KKK and racism and all these things were bad and became friends with him.
[00:50:23] Um, and, and had him renounce the KKK, but it took this rabbi a year to do that.
[00:50:31] But, but it's the opposite of isolation.
[00:50:33] And, you know, he, he created a connection, which is one reason why I think it's important to have friends that you don't agree with politically so that you can question your own beliefs, but then have them question their beliefs.
[00:50:47] But, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to contradict everything I just said, because as you're saying that it occurs to me also like the flip side of it though, is.
[00:50:58] That I think the rise of something like QAnon is also from people looking for connections because we are so isolated from one other.
[00:51:07] Certainly that really accelerated during the pandemic.
[00:51:11] And there is a sense of, as out there as it is, there's a sense of community that people are able to find.
[00:51:16] Yeah, that's, and that happened a lot with the radical groups in the sixties where, um, man, Toobin's book on, uh, the 70s liberation army, where basically Hearst had, she lost her family and then was given a family.
[00:51:36] And a lot that happened to a lot of people where they were alienated.
[00:51:40] And then they said, Hey, come join this radical leftist group or, and now it's come join this radical, you know, right wing group.
[00:51:48] Um, and it fills a need where they're not, there's something unfulfilled.
[00:51:53] And I think that happened a lot with the Jim Jones is that people had need of love and family.
[00:52:01] And he was preaching that and giving that, um, you know, until he wasn't, but yeah, I don't, I definitely don't have the answers.
[00:52:15] I don't know the names either, but I, I, I think I've heard that story before and, and that that's, we can end on this because I think we're at about an hour or anyway, but that that's, that's, that's a, that's a hopeful story, right?
[00:52:26] That's a story of somebody who is far down the rabbit hole who got pulled out.
[00:52:30] Now, obviously that took a tremendous amount of time and patience, but like maybe there's hope in stories like that.
[00:52:37] I think there is.
[00:52:39] I think there's incredible hope in that where it's, you know, but I, I, I also liked the song by, um, the specials where it's like, you know, your racist friend.
[00:52:49] And it's like when people are racist, like not being friends with them.
[00:52:54] So I, I have contradictory feelings.
[00:52:58] There are certain lines and, and this is, this is what's made it, you know, difficult.
[00:53:02] Now granted, like I, you know, well, you're, you're in Portland, but like, you know, I'm went to school in Santa Cruz and I'm from the Bay area and I live in New York now.
[00:53:11] I'm actually kind of out of my bubble now that I moved, now that I moved out of the city, it's interesting because there are Trump flags everywhere.
[00:53:16] But it's always, it's, I agree that it's very important to, you know, uh, have open lines of dialogue with people, you know, um, and certainly I think that.
[00:53:30] You know, having grown up in the Bay area, like in a very like racially and religiously diverse area, like that's, that informed, um, you know, my, the way that I go through the world in a positive way.
[00:53:42] But then at the same time, like there are certain things where it's like, oh, we're just like, I don't, this is irreconcilable.
[00:53:53] The things that you believe that make you feel this way, that it's really hard to be friends with you.
[00:53:59] Yeah, that's true.
[00:54:00] There are, there are some, um, friends of mine that I can't deal with anymore, um, that I've lost because of some of that.
[00:54:10] But my sisters, I don't talk to anymore because of, they kicked all the hippies off.
[00:54:16] They've, um, yeah, they're, I, I don't like what they've done.
[00:54:22] Although I guess it's more that they won't talk to me.
[00:54:29] There's no way they can continue to vilify me if I'm in their lives.
[00:54:33] So it's easier to vilify when you, until the book comes out.
[00:54:39] I'm going to have to picture life.
[00:54:41] So it won't be based on, um, yeah, it's, I don't know.
[00:54:46] The whole thing is pretty, I think it's funny, but, um, in a black humor sort of way.
[00:54:54] Yeah.
[00:54:54] Yeah.
[00:54:55] What the line is.
[00:54:56] I mean, that's, I, and I, I wish I had the answer for that.
[00:54:59] And yeah, maybe it's, uh, the, the smell test where it's like a fish.
[00:55:02] It's like, Hey, you know, when you see it, you know, when you need to end these friendships.
[00:55:07] Um, but I, I would like to believe that you can pull the KKK heir apparent, um, away from the KKK.
[00:55:16] I think that's that, if you can de-radicalize somebody like that, that's, that's, that is really hopeful.
[00:55:21] Cool.
[00:55:22] Cool.
[00:55:22] Cool.
