A Book Episode (with Rush Limbaugh)

Robert is reunited with Katy Stoll and Cody Johnston for a book episode. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Oh man, it's Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the
worst people in all of history. That sometimes, boy, there's
a lot of books that I have to read for
this podcast, and that that is exhausting. So every now
and then we like to do a little bitty episode
that is easier because I don't have to read a book.

(00:26):
I just have to read a book, but in this case,
I get to read it live to my friends Katie
Stole and Cody Johnston More Slash even More News multiverse,
which is a lot like the Marvel multiverse, and that
Chris Evans is heavily involved in both. Yeah, it's the same.

(00:46):
They're part of the same universe, part of the same universe.
That's right, Cody, you are famously playing she Hulk uh
In in a new series of movies. Um, and Katie,
a lot of people don't know this Iron Man's stunt
doutble and in all of the original Iron Man for
the last twenty years. That's right. Um, sorry that that

(01:10):
dried up for you, Yeah it does. It is a
shame that there's no more Iron Man roles. But I
have a feeling we're all gonna do fine in this
new career. We have in which we're going to be
reading a very special book by Rush Limbaugh titled Rush
Revere and the Brave Pilgrims. Wait so wait a second. Wait,

(01:32):
fuck you man, hold on when you when you show
me this book, I didn't realize he wrote it. I
mean bizarre like fan fiction that you know. I'm like, no,
look at this, Look at this cover. I want you
to look at this fucking cover. Stare into its novel
kind of between this person and their horse. Yeah, it's

(01:56):
You've got like a bigheaded caricature drawing of Rush Limbaugh
in colonial garb and his horse. And I know because
I've read a couple of reviews of this that's his sidekick.
He's a talking horse boy. The plot of these stories,
as far as I have learned from reviews. I haven't
read the book yet, but I've read some reviews, is that, uh,

(02:17):
Rush Revere is like is like a history teacher at
a public school and he goes back in time to
teach kids the history of the United States of America.
This isn't amazing. Yeah, I mean, these are number one
New York Times best selling books. And one of the
things there's a lot of liar like what I hate

(02:37):
about them is that they're they're really quality printing jobs,
Like people talked about that in the reviews, but like no,
like look at this, look at like beautiful illustrations like
these are this. It's a really well photos put together book,
well but feeling book, Like I hate all of the

(02:58):
resources that clearly went into making this very well put
together book on an aesthetic level. And then look at
this fucking back cover, Like it's like Rush Limbaugh an
actual picture of him, like standing and smiling. I mean,
we need he's wearing. He's wearing a fucking leather je
He looks like the substitute teacher who like comes in

(03:19):
in a leather jacket with a helmet and like tells
you he's ridden a motorcycle to work. But then like
later in the day, one of the kids makes fun
of his name and he just like slaps the kid,
and then you have to have like a meeting with
the principle about how he's not going to be allowed
to because, to borrow a phrase from Cody, it's very
weekend dad. It's very weekend dad. And then I think
the thing that we have um failed to to describe

(03:44):
for our listeners is that the cover the Paul Revere
and the horse, it is Rush Limbaugh's face on Paul
Revere's body, if I'm not mistaken, right, So it certainly is. Yeah,
no doubt that that um cherub like face with a
jaunty pilgrim hat and talking horse apparently do your time's
best seller A. So I got this in the mail.

(04:09):
I did not purchase this book. I got this in
the mail with this card, which is covered in a
bunch of obscure wounds in a drawing of cathulu Um
and inside the card, I'm gonna read this. It's from
Kimberly and Thor. My husband and I are huge fans
of the show. We have learned so much and also
died inside from how shitty humanity can be. We were
at a thrift store recently and saw this book amongst

(04:31):
the hard back copies of individual books and knew it
was perfect for you. In the gang Um and then
she says, the author's note had me in stitches. So
I feel like we have to start, and first off,
Kimberly and Thor, I want to I want to thank you.
It's so thoughtful. We haven't even read the bookyet, and
I know you nailed it with the hammer of thor.

(04:53):
I might instead of saying thank you, say for thank you,
like like a mix of fuck you and thank you,
thank you if thank you? Yeah? Um, interestingly, so this
is in the Brave Pilgrims. Okay, so we've got it.
Starts off. We've got a drawing of the Mayflower that,
as far as I can tell, is pretty pretty and
pretty accurate drawings, little notes that seems fine. A note

(05:18):
from the author. We live in the greatest country on Earth,
the United States of America. But what makes it so great?
Why do some call the United States and mirape? How
did we become such a tremendous country in such a
short period of time. I'm gonna answer that. For your
Russian the answer is genocide. Several genocides, one of which

(05:39):
was an enslaving genocide. Yeah. Um, so that's good. But
he does not, he says. Instead of after that saying genocide,
he says, after all, the United States is less than
two hundred and fifty years old. I want to try
and help you understand what American exceptionalism and greatness is
all about. It does not mean that we Americans are
better than anyone else. It doesn't mean that that is

(06:03):
that is literally what we said, because he's like, it
doesn't mean that there's anything different to us as human
beings or that we've never faced problems. American exceptionalism and
greatness means that America is special because it is different
from all other countries. It's different. It's you're not saying that,
say it's not special because we're inherently better. We're just

(06:24):
different in a way that's exceptional. And that's not saying
that we're better. We're just exceptionally different. We're exceptionally it's
like a special difference that is like above are not,
We're just more exceptional. The Roman Empire practiced chattel slavery
on a massive scale, and the Mongolians carried out a

(06:44):
series of horrific genocides in order to colonize large areas
of land. But those are different than what the United
States did because the people spoke different languages. See, they
were speaking like Latin and whatever, and we did that
stuff when we while speaking English, which means it's fine,

(07:06):
it's okay, it's good that we did. That's what makes
us special is that we spoke English. The words, the words,
the words that the words more or less. But yeah,
absolutely the same meanings but different words. Different Yeah, different sounds,
that's all. So I'm going to continue with Rush here.

(07:26):
It is a land built on true freedom and individual liberty,
and it defends both around the world. So there's another
I have notes on this one as well. Um, I
might refer people to our episodes on the CIA or
on Henry Kissinger and all of the different times that
the United States. But Rush was a big fan of
all of the democracies we overthrew because they were they
were generally left wing. Um, I don't know, this is

(07:49):
what's what's kind of One of the things I read
when I was prepping for this was a Chicago Tribune
review of this book, um, which I might pull up
for a second, but basically the author was like, yeah,
Rush Limbaugh is like a right wing idealogue. But the
book's actually fine. It doesn't have, you know, much that's
objectionable in the history is okay, and it's like a
pretty good children's book. And like, as soon as reading it,

(08:11):
what I think is dangerous about this is that Rush
is obviously doing this to groom children, right, Like, that's
the reason you write a book like this is to
like children left towards full of groomers. Well, we can
talk about the age of women that rush Limbaugh tend
to do approach, but um, he's attempting to like inculcaid

(08:32):
kids with his ideas, and he's doing it, I think,
pretty intelligently. And the fact that a guy who I
think is probably more or less disinterest at the Chicago
Tribune could read this and be like, well, this isn't
very political is evidence of how politicized to the right
our history education is. Because like one of the things
that guy I have to bring up, the Chicago Trip
being an article because there's a quote from it. Uh,

(08:54):
that is I think like emblematic of kind of the
some of the things that most Americans just tend to
kind of like accept as red and uh that I
found kind of like unsettling. Um, here's the exact line.
Russia's political viewpoints certainly shows up, but less than you
might expect. He even defines American exceptionalism in a matter

(09:17):
unlikely to offend Rachel matt Out, which I guess you
might be right because she might not be offended, but
also she just she just made a statement about how
she likes hanging out with Tucker Carlson. Again, there's a
lot to say. I missed that. Yeah, she loves running
into him. He's they're all nice people to each other,
people to each other exactly. Yeah, um, which is for

(09:39):
all of his flaws. One of the things I like
about I'll always like about Jon Stewart is he does
not pretend to like people like Tucker Carlson. Yeah. But
but anyway, why because it's good for money, because they're
all basically whatever whatever as as anyway, Um, the role

(10:01):
of the United States is to encourage individuals to be
the best that they can be, to try to improve
their lives, to reach their goals, and make their dreams
come true. In most parts of the world, dreams never
become more than dreams. In the United States, they've become
true every day. There are So I had a friend
with a dream of dying, Well it was a nightmare,

(10:22):
but it was a nightmare of dying from lack of
affordable insulin. And then they did that's a dream, a
nightmare that came true. That could think, Cody. That couldn't
have happened. Do you think that would have happened in Denmark?
Do you think people are dying from lack of insulin
in Denmark. That is a dream that will not come
true in Denmark. Those are those are specifically American dreams, right,

(10:45):
American dream that is the exceptional American dream the world. Katie.
I know you like poetry. You must have read A
Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes, which is a poet about
how dreams only come true in America. If I'm remembering
it properly. Yeah, that's that's exactly right, Roberts. That's what

(11:07):
was getting on about. We are a page into this book. No,
this is a note from the author. Forward is kind
of ghost. I hope that. I hope it talks about
like his titles, like I was thinking about, like Limball Revere. Os.

(11:30):
I would completely change my opinion on this book if
he'd had the courage to call his character Limball Revere. Wow,
that was a lot of hits right in a row there.
All right, I'm gonna continue. The sad reality is that
since the beginning of time, most citizens of the world

(11:51):
have not been free. I wonder I wonder some sort
of where they weren't free free people in them? Is he?
Are you going to elaborate on the ways in Whish
people weren't free in your book. No, I don't think
they're going to. For hundreds and thousands of years, many

(12:12):
people in other civilizations and countries were serving to their kings,
leaders and governments. Now, I guess it's true that the
first four of the five first presidents being slaveholders means
they didn't have servants, they had slaves, And he does not.
He does not list slaves on here, So maybe that
a search fine like upload this'sf and then I'm sure

(12:36):
there's a kindle version, but I'm not going to pay
for it. Um, we're reading this again. I have to
say it was an author a very well printed book.
I hate how high quality the printing of this book is,
um because it's like, also, like are the pages aged
or is that just like what it looks like? No? No, no,
that's just what it looks like. It's they did a
pretty nice for like the year. Um, it's very recent

(13:00):
because I can as a conservative like kid when I
was like nine or ten, I can imagine having getting
this book from a family member or something, and like
two because there's two books in this and this this
is a collection. It's an anthology first to Rush Revere novels.
Oh oh, how nice for him. Yeah. So we're talking

(13:24):
about the people who, for thousands of years, We're certain
if you look up the adventures of the category is
adventure series gathered dren this idea of like, oh I
need a new adventure novels by Rush Limbaugh. I mean
there's like there's like he got through like seven of

(13:45):
these before finally. Yeah. Yeah. Um. So we're talking about
the people who, for thousands of years were servants to
their king's leaders in government. It didn't matter how hard
these people work to improve their lives, because their lives
were not their own. Imagine that. What a horror. They
often feared for their lives and could not get out

(14:08):
from under a ruling class no matter how this guy. Yes,
this is inconceivable to an American living in bondage to
a ruling class that responds with violence anytime you try
to get out from under them. Something we can't comprehend here.
There's an unfathomable situation. Is this still the author's note? Yes,

(14:31):
this is still the author's note. We're barely making it
sentenced by sentence. Many of these people lived and continue
to live in extreme poverty, with no clean water, limited food,
and none of the luxuries that we often take for granted.
Many citizens in the world were punished, sometimes severely, for
having their own ideas, beliefs, and hopes for a better future.
The United States of America is unique because it is

(14:54):
the exception to all. This country is the first country
ever to be founded on the principle that all human
beings are created as free people. The founders of this
phenomenal country believe that all people were born to be
free as into Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I'm just circling back to what you've already mentioned. This

(15:14):
article a pretty accurate description. The author's note is completely false.
It's all it's all lies, But these are also he is.
What he's doing successfully here is he is reframing his
specific line of right wing bullshit, which most centrists dislike Russia.

(15:36):
Limbaugh is not a guy who had a big listenership
of centrists, and he's reframing it in a way that
is very familiar to anyone who had an American grade
school education, and thus is like pretty inoffensive, um because
people are kind of used to hearing it written. This way, like,
I can see how people who were not regular listeners
of the Russia Limbaugh Show could read that. I don't

(15:57):
think any of them would buy it because I what
I will say, and this kind of mitigates the danger
of this book. The only people who are going to
see Rush Limball in a book's cover and buy it
for their kids or right wingers. But I can see
how some like kind of centrist book reviewer could read
this big Oh, it's actually not that bad because like
he's not he's he's saying like he's saying what is right? Yes, well,

(16:20):
and it's just like this is yeah, it's it's it's cool.
It's cool that he's he's he's doing this. Um uh yeah.
I mean then there's also there's some like weird Thatcher
right here stuff here, America is a place where the
individual person serves himself and his family, not the king
or ruling class or government, which is like Margaret Thatcher's
big things like we don't have a society. There's no

(16:41):
such thing as society. Their individuals and their families, right.
And this is like a very central conservative idea, in
part because conservatism rests heavily on the atomization of the
individual from other individuals, and like the best way to
do that is to separate people into this false idea
of a nuclear family that's like the building block of
civilization as opposed to communities of people like engaging with

(17:04):
each other for mutual benefit with in support, which is
like what what where things actually happened. But if you
get everyone atomized into this like no, you you and
your family are plotting like plot looking thinking because what
he talks about here when people have the freedom to
look for a better future, what he means is that
you as an individual have a freedom to try and
earn a better future for your family, but you, as

(17:25):
a person who is part of a collective, as part
of a class, don't have any like that is not
part of the conservative vision of freedom, which is part
of why like they love ship like the suburbs, because
when you live in the fucking burbs, you are inherently
separated from people who don't live there, right, Like you're atomized,
that's anyway, even in the suburbs, you're on a smaller,

(17:47):
like smaller level, you're separated from all your neighbors too.
Yeah yeah, yeah, um, this book on the Pilgrims is
part of the great tale how the United States came
to be. The Pilgrims came to our shores more than
a century and a half before our country was established
in seventeen seventy six. But there are reasons for coming
to the New World. Helped to sow the seeds of
our nation. The story of the Pilgrims and their arrival
in the New World has been taught for hundreds of years,

(18:08):
and then that time, the story has been tweaked and
changed by people, to the point that it is often misunderstood.
I want you to know the real story. Okay, yeah,
And I bet all of our listeners want to know
the real story. But you know what they want to
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(18:32):
primary sponsor for this week is my favorite sponsor, which
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(18:53):
just nuke them, you know, yeah, nuke the Great Lakes.
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(19:23):
the worst thing. Robert's accused me. All right, okay, so
a wow. So I was just praising the construction of
this book, and most of like the illustrations are pretty
well put in this one. This one is not. This
one's not great. It I'm looking it's it is a

(19:44):
very crude photoshop of like a ruddy faced pill addict
Rush Limbaugh's head on a colonial body chip jab it's
from and in his head he's got a little map
and it says it's listing like the northeast coast. It's
got like Newfoundland, Cape Cod, New England, Virginia. But instead

(20:04):
of spelling Plymouth, right, I want you to see, Cody,
can you read out how he's spelled Plymouth or can
you see it's all reversed. It's all gonna be reversed
on the thing. He l I M O T H
Wait wait yeah yeah, buddy, Because nobody cared that much

(20:26):
about the facts. They wanted to make this look enticing
to kids, and I think it does. Again, it's a color,
but yeah, yeah, it's bad. It's bad. Nobody read it
and Karen yeah no, I mean it was a New
York Times bestseller. These were all number one on the
best seller list when they dropped. Yeah, but nobody cares,
we hope. Yeah, I mean they're like, well, I mean,

(20:49):
I can't speak for this book. I don't know the details,
but a lot of these books, especially somebody like Russia Limbaugh,
will buy them in bulk. Yes, that it is unclear year.
I mean again, Rush was on every day when I
was a kid, so like a lot of people worshiped
this dudeen and fourteen is a little bit past his
his best of date, but he was still influential. I mean,

(21:11):
I don't really know. I can't obviously, because of things
like that, because of how like effect of the Right
is at gaming the New York Times bestseller list, I
cannot tell you how actually influential these books were. But
I mean I I just as a kid who listened
to him almost every day for years and years, I
do feel like there's a pretty decent chance there's a

(21:34):
lot of kids who were like because if you were
nine or ten back when this book came out, you're
eighteen or nineteen right now. We gotta have some listeners
that have read these books because like for middle schoolers
and stuff. So yeah, I'm thinkary ten to twelve, thirteen,
fourteen maybe is kind of like the age for this,
maybe like nine to twelve something like that. But I

(21:54):
kind of suspect there's a lot of like Graper types
who encountered these books when they were kids. Um, we'll see,
we'll see. Um. Yeah, I'm trying to find the because
they have usually in the New York Times on their
best seller list, they have a little icon next to
books on the list to indicate if a lot of
them have been bought in bulk, because they know that

(22:15):
that's one of the one of the they probably didn't
have that they probably didn't have it back then. I
do need to I need to note real quick, sorry,
the jib jab photo of him inside the book that
you showed us the express the face the face of him,
and you can confirm this for me if you could.
It's the same photo from the cover his head um

(22:36):
and it's the same head from the second and third
book cover as well. Yeah, I think they just keep
sticking and they just pop it on, which is inconsequential,
but you know, yeah, it's a big detail. So the
book opens with our character Rush Revere on the deck
of the Mayflower like vomiting over the side, or trying

(22:56):
not to vomit. He's like sick and queasy. He's just
telepo ordered to the year sixteen twenty and only been
on the boat a little while. I tell you, when
I think of Russia, Limba, I assume he's vomiting. I'm
also I have to say, that is the only believable
way to introduce the story. Now, the best way, the most,

(23:19):
the most believable way for this to open is if
he starts off vomiting, then guzzles down another three or
four ox eyes and starts weekly masturbating to like a
forty year old sports illustrated magazine. That's that's really the
intro to Rush that the most Well, we'll see what
happens next. I guess um this was not my first

(23:39):
encounter with someone from the past. Although I was feeling
extremely queasy. I tipped my hat and introduced myself while
trying not to fall over. I'm not a saint or
a separate that. The guy has asked him, like, we
should throw all you whatever. I'm rush Revere, I said,
I'm a history teacher from the twenty first century. I've
come to the twenty fourth century. Blimey, you're mad, the
whole lot of you. You think I care if you

(24:00):
make it to New England? The sailor laughed. So this
is a sailor who doesn't care about the people who
are on the Mayflower because they're all religious extremists, which, yeah,
I guess fair um, So okay, he pukes on this guy.
He probably didn't even write it, but that's not really terrible. Well,
it's all terrible. So he pukes on this sailor, and

(24:21):
the sailor threatens to beat him up, and so he
runs to his horse, who was named Liberty for help. Now, Cody,
I know you have a lot of questions the books
about to answer them. Now, look, I know what you're thinking,
what's a horse doing on the deck of a Mayflower
in the middle of a storm? Tross, good question. The
truth is, my Liberty is no ordinary horse, all right?

(24:42):
And then I actually I'm going to be honest. The
surf and stuff, YadA, YadA, YadA. The guy's threatening. Okay,
so this dude is coming after him, and he finds
his horse, and his horse says, I hope you can fly,
and okay, oh yes, one can talk, yes, oh yes,
and he can talk, writes Rush, I told you who

(25:02):
wasn't an ordinary horse. Before the man could even turn
around to see who had spoken, Liberty kicked his hind
legs and sent the sailors sailing high into the eye.
And then he fell into the air, and then he
fell into a web of nets. Perfect shot. Liberty said,
you appeared in the nick of time, I said, starting
to feel sick again. Leaping into the mayflower in the
middle of a storm wasn't my idea, Liberty said, speaking

(25:22):
very fast. Yes, I can leap to different times in
American history, but I'm not. Okay, So the horse is
the time, you know. Look, he's at least getting to
the point here. Yeah, he's also very hungry, which I'm
not going to read all of that. That's apparently the
thing which the horse, Yeah, hungry for pills. This is
the first book, Yes, Cody, I know, like it's you know,

(25:45):
it's customary recommend it's a good idea to like start
in the middle of your action, you know, like it's
and like, this is a really bad way to start
this book. It is. So one of the things is
the horse as because he gets so sick, takes him
act to modern day America. So there's there's well, in
order to travel through time, the horse has to say

(26:06):
a catch phrase. There's two different ones. I think there's
to get back to the modern time, it has to
say rush rush, rushing from history. And then I'm guessing too,
history is the other way it works. But yeah, that's
the prologue. Now we're in chapter one where he's back
at his job as a high school or middle school.
Yeah yeah, middle school. Yep, yep. Um the school bell rings, YadA, YadA.

(26:31):
Principle Sherman also comes into the class. Um. Oh boy.
I wonder if Sherman is going to be the bad
guy because Sherman beat the Confederacy. I don't know. We'll
see if this principle winds up sucking um on the
principle of Manchester Middle School was not a small man.
If the door frame were any smaller, the principal would
have to duck his head and twist his way into

(26:51):
the classroom. I stood outside in the hallway as the
door closed, but watched in her hair of the door,
small window. Everyone meaning, please take your seats, said the
principal with authority. He stood at the front of the classroom,
hands at his sides while his eyes scanned the desks
and chairs. I have an important announcement. The room went silent.
It was apparent that the principal Sherman, did not tolerate disrespect.

(27:13):
I have some unfortunate news, he said, Your teacher, Miss Borrington,
needed some extra time away from the academy to help
care for a sick family member in the academy. Nobody
calls him a middle school. The academy, Um, okay, whatever. Anyway,
he's introducing his substance wealth insurance and if nurses were covered,
she wouldn't have to take time off from school. But

(27:33):
doesn't rush, I think people should take time off and
like I would want this, like teachers and stuff. And
he does not explain this. He just calls it a
middle school. But the fact that he says it's an
academy and the principal announces that they have only the
best teachers here I think this is a fancy private
school for rich kids. Only the best teachers. Yes, only
the very best of teachers. Um, the exceptional teachers, I

(27:56):
would say, actually an exceptional Wow. So there's exceptional. There's
like a whole diet tribe in here about the name
Rush and how it's not a weird name. Um. So
he comes in and he like writes his name on
the school board or on the chalkboard before I even
and then like a girl, raises her hand after he
writes his name on the chalkboard. Before I had a
chance to even call on her, she asked, your first

(28:18):
name is Rush. That's weird, and why are you dressed
like that? She said, I could tell that this student
was all business. If there were a pecking order in
this class, she would probably be at the top of
the food chain. My seating charge and replied, thank you, Elizabeth.
Do you go by Liz? She rolled her eyes and
nearly grunted. No, unlike some people, I have a real name.
It's Elizabeth. It's a lovely name if you like four syllables,

(28:38):
I said, rate winking. If you must know, my real
name is Rusty. But when I was your age, my
favorite class was history. In fact, I found myself rushing
to history class every day I had it, and when
rushed from my home, rushed down the street and rushed
through the school until it was sitting. Eventually my teacher
started calling me Rush and it's stuck. Is this a

(28:59):
true story from his that's not his actual Rush. His
given name is Rush. Yes, that's his actual given Hudson Limbaugh.
Yes names Hudson. Yeah, yeah, I love that. That's yeah,
the third Rush Hudson Limba, the third Yes, Rusty, Yeah,

(29:20):
it's that. It's fucking unbelievable. Like, first off, absolutely not
nobody's backstory, Like like, but you guys were so horrified.
I would say, well, I, Katie, I thought you were
trying to slander the number one achievement in American artistic history,
the film Hudson Hawk, which I will not stand for, no, no, no, no,

(29:44):
Bruce Willis is greatest, name only contribution to civilization, the
film Hudson Hawk. Um, we're talking. I'm gonna let it slide,
but watch Hudson Hawk people, Um, great film. So yeah.
He then explains why he's dressed. Apparently he's dressed obviously
the way he's dressed in the gym chip clip art

(30:07):
on the cover as like a colonial dude. So he
explains that, um, can you anyone guess who I am dressed?
As students raise their hands, they guess George Washington. Good guests,
but no, however, I am dressed as someone who fought
in the same revolutionary war. Is George Washington? And they
assuredly knew each other. Are you Thomas Jefferson asked another student? Sure. No, however,
another good guess, YadA, YadA, YadA. He's paid. They keep saying,

(30:31):
more white men because they can't tell the difference. Yes, yes,
it's fucking Paul Revere. Um. So he has he has
fucking interactions with these school children, which, boy, we just
don't need to talk about that. Um okay. Then he
brings his horse into class Liberty. Um, yeah, I don't

(30:53):
think we're ever going to explain how he got the horse.
I'm sure at some point we're going to learn where
the horse came from. Um, but yeah, it'll be like
through like somebody asking where do you get the horse?
And he'll explain it. And I don't mean that all
the girls, all the kids horse except for a girl
named Freedom. Well I did I did once to go
to a school where kids road there. School. Um, but

(31:17):
that was it was for a bit. Yeah, it was
for a bit. Um. Okay, so let's let's move past
this school section, because boy, we just don't need this
goes on for pages. They're just talking get to the history.
What the heck, we don't need any of this. Um,

(31:38):
so Jesus God. Okay. Finally, finally, uh, he takes a
bunch of kids with him into the past. Uh. Yeah,
they go rush, rush, rushing to history. I don't I
don't think about that. I think all I think Actually,
I assume all children and their parents consent to go

(32:00):
back in time if the teacher can time trap if asked. Yeah, yeah,
that that actually does seem fair. The magic school bus, right, guys,
thank god, we're cutting that. We're just we're just canceling
for that one. Um. The trip through the time portal
was like jumping through a hoop. Instantaneously we landed in Holland.

(32:23):
I quickly surveyed the geography and discovered we were in
a field not far from the Dutch port of Delf shopping. Thankfully,
we were alone, so he doesn't get to decide where
he's going he just hops on the horse and then
like pops over to somewhere sometime. Yeah, he's in fucking
I guess Holland, because that's where they set off from
the he's looking for pilgrim well, Puritans, Um right, right, okay,

(32:47):
oh good, and now he's whitewashing the Puritans. This is great. Um.
The woman turned in my direction, but didn't stop walking.
She stared at me as if I were some strange
animal at a zoo. She quickly replied, if you're looking
for Puritans, you found us. These the Puritans. I had
always amag sin the Pilgrims in clothing that was black, white,
and gray. However, these people wore clothing that was dye
in every color of the rainbow. A yellow shirt, blue britches,

(33:07):
green stockings, a red dress, a purple knitted stocking cap.
I was certainly mistaken to think that I knew what
the Pilgrims were every day. It was time to get
my class involved. Class, I said, these are the real Pilgrims.
I pointed the lens of my smartphone towards the large
group that had gathered. I guess they're watching it through
his phone or some ship. I'm sorry, he is not
taking into account how irresponsible this is to just all

(33:32):
of these children in a different time. I mean, you
could drastically change the events of history. I mean that
would be the best case scenario, right, if they somehow
got these people killed and so they didn't colonize the North. Yeah. Yeah,
give him a few more years to to get ready. Um,
all right, so we're learning about the fucking Pilgrims, and boy,
I just do not want to, absolutely do not want to,

(33:55):
because I know there's some weird socialism shaming coming uh
in the part about the actual colony and uh that
they make and yeah, so let's let's let's skip forward
to that a bit here. Um. Boy, this this has
been like ten pages of him talking about how cool
the Puritans are, um because they separated from the Church
of England, um, and how they really just loved liberty

(34:18):
as opposed to being weird religious extremists who wanted to
be able to oppress people without being having to live
under anyone else's rules. Um. Anyway, I guess it makes
sense that he would want to whitewash them for that, right. Um. Yeah,
So he travels back into the present, into the classroom
to talk to the kids about what they've learned, and

(34:39):
then Principal Sherman walks in, Um, yeah, and it's it's
it's a whole thing. Uh uh Um. The Principle demands
an explanation because he's heard some weird shit. Uh an explanation,
I stalled, well, yes, of course, I realized that Principle
Sherman would eventually find a yellow wooden shoe outside the
classroom windows, so I began. We were discuss the Pilgrims

(35:00):
and how they left England to escape religious persecution and
settled in Holland along the journey to the New World.
I brought a wooden Dutch shoe from my trip to
the Netherlands as a bit of show and tell, and
Principal Sherman interrupted me and said, pointing, you mean, like
the one that's broken and splintered on the floor here.
I had forgotten about that one. Yes, and apparently wooden
shoes are not very sturdy. Principle Sherman walked over to
the window and saw the second shoe lying on the

(35:20):
grass near a big oak tree, and yet that one
looks just fine. I joined him at the window and said, um, okay,
so this is all very boring, boring, boring, It's very
boring and bad. Uh that's okay. They're surprisingly more random

(35:42):
classroom bullshit and discussion of Puritans in here than there
is actual narrative action going on why this was an
adventure series. There getting okay, but we it looks like
we're going to get some explanation here. So he has
this kid, Tommy, who's like the little it in the
class um starts like bagging on him for his horse.

(36:04):
Um and yeah, okay, so do um okay. Here's him
explaining this is the explanation for how the horse can
travel through time. It appears that lightning may have struck
Liberty and created a supernatural phenomenon or a time portal
that thrust him forward in time to our day. The
electrical properties that charged through his body and the vortex

(36:25):
that sent him to the future changed him physically and mentally.
He can not only talk and disappear, but he's also
I paused, trying to formulate the right words Freedom finished
my sentence and said a time machine. Tommy said, confused,
Did I miss something? Did you just say time machine?
He's more like a time portal, I said, to clarify,
he has the ability to momentarily open a time door
anywhere in history, well more specifically, anything that touches American history.

(36:49):
Tommy started laughing, Okay, this is a joke. I'm onto you.
This is some TV reality TV show called The Biggest
Bozo Who Believes? And where the cameras been? Looking around
the room. He then looked back at Freedom and back
at me. But the US were dead serious. You believe
this guy, Tommy asked Freedom, sticking his thumb out at
Wait a second, wait, wait, wait what I thought the

(37:11):
horse was named Liberty, the horses Liberty. Freedom is the
girl in the class who likes rush. Oh my god,
come on, I didn't catch that, Cody. You didn't catch that.
Oh yeah, but maybe I skipped ahead a little much.
But yes, Freedom is the girl who's immediately on board
his weird ass bullshit. That's great, Cody. It's called subtext.

(37:35):
It's called subtext. Okay, Cody, I know that. You don't.
It's called you are You aren't You aren't. You aren't
an author like me, so you don't understand the complexities
of literature. But when you want to say that a
character you name her Liberty, and then people or Freedom.

(37:55):
I forget which, but either way, people know they're a
good I do see it subliminal, it's exactly exactly. It's like, um,
it's like, I don't know if I say it's like
Nietzsche enough people probably haven't read Netzsche that they'll just
assume that I'm not lying. So it's like, say, it's
like Nietzsche. Yeah, No, it's like you fucking name your

(38:19):
character Shepherd or whatever. Yeah, exactly exactly. You name your
character Shepherd because he's hot and he focks like a stallion.
That's that's why you would do that. As an ally's
very wuly. So you know it's probably time for another advert.
Let's just do let's just get the funk out of
your Rush we're back. Um. So Freedom tries to convince

(38:50):
Tommy that Rush isn't lying about his time traveling. Tommy
is the hero of this story. Also, like Rush just
say magic, Oh boy, something's going on here. Yeah. I
love that he's he's now like he's he is in
the text of his book sweatily defending the time travel
mechanism that he's written into it. Also, Rush just have

(39:13):
this substitute teacher be an inventor. Who made like you know,
he can also have a talking horse sidekick. Why is
the horse have to be that's just sweaty and stupid,
and it causes all of these questions that could be
answered by saying I built a time machine and I
made my horse smart. Because you know what, if you
established that this character is an inventor who's built a

(39:35):
time machine, all believe that he has a talking horse
that he sites. It's fine, It's fine. That is not
going to be my problem with your work. If you
do it, that wouldn't be complicated. And that he was
struck by lightning, and so he can only travel through
American history. But he also just traveled to Holland. So again,

(39:57):
does it just mean that, like where is the I
go there? Right? Because the people who were in Hollands,
some of them later went to the Northeast, but none
of them ever lived in the United States. But it
was like American. But does that mean that, like you
could go back to ancient Rome because the founding fathers
based a lot of our republic on the way the
Romans did things like you go back to Africa? Right,

(40:20):
you know, could you travel back to when like the
Portuguese first started exploring slaves from Africa, because that's as
much a part of the history of this country as
the landing on Plymouth. Um. Not explained by Rush Limbaugh.
But he doesn't like the birthplace of Christopher Columbus and
just like hang out there, like, yeah, is he going
like Genoa? Yeah? That is all this is all part

(40:42):
of American history. Is he, for example, going back further
than the sixteen hundreds to like, you know, indigital like
to co Kia right in like modern day like Missouri,
Illinois area, and like talking, you know, I'm guessing he's not.
I mean you probably like can you go to like
fucking Greece because you talk about democracy? Like right, yeah,
are you? Are you going to China? Because they invented

(41:04):
gunpowder and played a crucial role in the colonization of
North America. Um, none of this will be answered. That's
all decided by the horse. So Tommy and Freedom and
Rush continue their argument. Hey, I might be crazy, but
I'm not that crazy, Okay, Tommy said. He got up
from his desk and started pacing the floor. He took
off his baseball cap and combed his fingers through his

(41:27):
blonde hair. He sighed, I have to think about this
for a minute. We probably shouldn't show them the other
thing I can do, should we? I mean, he seems
a little freaked out right now, Liberty said no, I
said firmly. I took a deep breath. I need to
finish our story. I believe the lightning creed at the
time portal to the modern day. Tommy put his sorry, sorry.

(41:50):
Arguing about the lightning this is like again, just say magic,
and we're just say magic, God, magic science. It's fine,
but also anything yet very fancy academy. That kid cannot
wear a baseball cap inside. No, no, there are in
sufferable uniform, yes exactly, and again probably not horses a

(42:10):
loud inside either, but we'll let it slide. Also like
it's a talking horse, Yeah, it is a talking motherfuckers.
Mr Ed, that's the one not talking. Yes it is.
It's one of the two famous horses that can talk,
you know. The other one is Liberty. He keeps. This

(42:36):
is now like two pages of arguing with this child
about the lightning handle not arguing, I think a room
full of children. Tommy put his baseball cap back on
and said, okay, okay, maybe it is possible I mean,
I don't think the lightning hit him directly. Technically, a
direct hit would have killed him, But I guess there's

(42:58):
a possibility that several bolts of what is where is it?
Electrostatic prism and the possitive and negative charge carriers, combined
with the acoustic shock waves create him some kind of
time hole. But ce Liberty, what is the conversation they're having?
This is a history adventure. It's because it's not even

(43:22):
like he figured it out and he's like like an
explanation for it. It's just like a character guessing, yeah,
it's way, and we're just we're now explaining how like
Liberty when they came for the future met Rush and
like how shocking the world was. This is my point.
There's a fucking book in the past with his magic horse,

(43:46):
and then do this like whole sequence like show him
meeting the horse. Yeah, it's like, we're not going to
do that. Um yeah, we're absolutely not going to do that.
We have an illustration on this next page. It again,
this is all just Liberty explaining how they met. Um boy,
there doesn't seem to be any explanation for this at all.

(44:08):
There's just a picture of him holding a modern day
I see can with an American flag that says too
if by tea underneath it. I don't know why that
was put in here. What's happening on the page opposite
from it? Like he's talking liberty and liberty are talking
about fucking how he met his fucking horse, right, how

(44:30):
his horse came through time? What page are we on
right now in the book? My god, my god, if
I bought this, you bought this book. So we go
children something, presumably, and so far it's just been nonsense.
So far we have learned that the Puritans were just
a bunch of nice people who wanted religious freedom as
opposed to thought. And we have had spent pages talking

(44:56):
about how lightning strikes could conceivably give horse the ability
to time travel. That is, that is the primary fact
dump we've gotten so far. Dress code at this academy. Yeah,
it's uh. They're talking about when football happened, because Tommy's
a football player, even though he knows a lot about lightning.

(45:17):
That's a boy. This is just this is just ridiculous.
We don't need we don't know. And when does the
history start? That's a great question. Oh good, So Tommy
gets on the horse. Now we've got a picture of
Tommy riding back in time on the horse. So I'm
in a cause that's what happens in the pages I've skipped.
He's sitting in relation to the other Yeah, so they

(45:42):
are trying to land undetected on the Mayflower. The time
portal opened just as it did momentsary. What do you
do with all the other kids, Katie, You're gonna have
some open questions about this because I am not going
through every fucking page of this stupid yea makes sense, Okay,
the picture doesn't explain. Therefore, I cannot tell you I am.

(46:04):
We're not gonna be hitting every plot point here. The
time portal opened just as it did moments earlier. As
clearly as possible, I pronounced each word, September six, Plymouth, England,
the launching of the Mayflower. I had found given that
giving the exact date, location a name of the historical
event event helped liberty get us to where we needed.
Of course, like you don't need to, I understand why

(46:25):
you would do that in any way. The sensation of
jumping grew time was always the same. The rush of
air sent goose bumps over my body. The hair on
my arms stood on end, and for a second, it
feels like it does when you're swinging backwards on the sciata.
YadA YadA. Um. Okay, so they're like, it does it
does sound like he's coming. Like, never use the word

(46:46):
rush unless you're referring to your character. Yeah. So they
have liberty go into stealth mode and pretend not to
be a talking horse so they can sneak on the Mayflower,
which is easy because some of the pilgrims had second thoughts. Um.
One of the pilgrims, he's William Bradford, who he met
in Holland, remembers him and says, Rush Revere, it does

(47:07):
my heart good to see you again. And is this
the person you were waiting for in Holland? He smiled
affectionately while straightening Tommy's brown leather hat. Yes, this is Tommy,
I said, as I put my arm around Tommy's shoulder.
His parents are gone, so be caring for him on
this voyage. It's a pleasure to meet you, Tommy, Bradford said,
as he reached out his hand to Tommy, who shook it.
William turned back to me and said let's talk some

(47:28):
more after the ship set sale, the captain is very
eager to leave. Okay, boring, get get some plic domain.
We got like four pages of public domain photos of
the fucking Mayflower, like drawings of it and ships. Your
question about Tommy, I mean, we're not going to have
an answer for it. But it's Tommy just wearing two

(47:50):
thousand thirteen. No, no, no, he's dressed. They gave, they gave,
they found clothes for him. I'm gonna I am. I
Am going to fill in a blank here and say,
Rush Revere traveled forward in time, found a pilgrim child,
separated from his family, cut his throat with a straight razor,
and took the clothing from him. Makes sense, Yeah, it's
a little a little bit of a This is also
an Assassin's Creed. Uh, just like half of the chapters

(48:17):
are like really boring, but about aliens and something Rush
limbine his hoodie running speaking of by the way, speaking
of fiction stories that did not need to explain things
as much as they wound up doing, Assassin's Creed made
the same mistake as the Rushed Revere novels. Nobody needed
any of that. You don't need that section at all.

(48:38):
People just want to murder folks in different time periods.
You don't need to do a whole thing like that's
not necessary. I wasn't confused. I didn't have questions. It's
like if the Grand Theft Auto series like added as
very sweaty, like whole fucking series of missions about how
you're like a time traveling, superpowered person and that's why
you never die in the car, Like, we don't. We

(49:00):
don't need that. No, no, that's necessary. So I'm here. Yeah,
I'm not here for the sorry, yeah, not not here
for the lore. Um okay. So Puritan's Boy just a
lot more Puritans traveling on a boat. Um, with most
of this is not history. It appears to be like
them encountering random people. And like there's like three pages

(49:24):
where Tommy meets a pilgrim kid who has a puppy
and they talk about puppies. They talk about how uncomfortable
boats are, which I don't. Yeah, it's it's great. Um,
this is this is a ship book, guys, this is
a real ship is really bad, like not like as
a history book and as an adventure book. Yeah yes,

(49:45):
and just like a children I mean like does he ever?
What is he? What am I supposed to learn from this?
What am I? You're not supposed to learn anything from this?
And look, I'm not going to keep digging through this.
But there is one thing I wanted to hit um
that I read when I was reading reviews of this. No,
it's kind of about some of the weird politics. Um,

(50:08):
and so I think we'll close on that. But I
would be doing I would be doing a disservice if
I didn't like bring it up. Um yeah, uh here
we go. Oh boy, um uh this this is a
different review than the one I've read, but I have
to read it. This is from a review that some
like homeschooling Mom wrote, I think reading the series has

(50:29):
given us a nice break from traditional schooling. My kids
automatically preferred it over textbooks are looking at encyclopedias. They
were drawn into the story of rush Revere at the
middle school he teaches in his students. They like that
there was time travel involved. Um yeah. Although she says
she she had a hard time getting into the series
when it came to the history in the books, that
narrative narrative did tend to get a bit bookish. On

(50:51):
one hand, we got to know many of the real
characters that shaped America, YadA YadA. On the other hand,
the series the characters would sometimes seem to go on
a rant, spending a good time amount of time explaining
historical events and facts a bit unnaturally through chunks of dialogue.
That's because all of the bits where he's explaining history
read like fucking uh like Wikipedia pages that were just
like copied. And she doesn't like the part where you're

(51:12):
teaching your children something. Well, yeah, I mean I think
because it's bad writing, like give her that it's it's
not yeah, it sounds like interested in like learning that much. Yeah,
and it's poorly written, and it's it's a it's bad.
It's a bad book series. Um but yeah. So like

(51:33):
one of the there there's a because it's Rush Limbaugh,
there's like a weird bit of uh anti collectivist ship
in here. I'm gonna read from that Chicago Tribune article
anyway or again. Limbaugh, like other conservatives, seizes upon the
Pilgrim story is an example that of the terrible things
that can happen when people pool their resources in a
collectivist manner. The author seems particularly offended by the idea

(51:55):
of a common house at Plymouth. To him, the Pilgrims suffered,
suffered from the fulls of commonism, and survived only by
belatedly injecting individualism and free enterprise into their settlement. And
like the basis of this is that they used to
have the Pilgrims had common ownership of like food and
fields and stuff when they came and eventually like decided

(52:16):
to give families their own land, and that caused people
to produce more corn or something. And this is all
bits of history that that people take out and politicize.
But yeah, so he's he's, he's there's definitely pieces of
this that he takes out for his lesson, But I
think most of this is basically him writing this weird,
sweaty sci fi story about a middle school teacher and

(52:36):
occasionally like cribbing and rewriting chunks of Wikipedia pages and
like throwing them into the mouths of historical figures like
William Bradford info dump about the most boring aspects of history. Um, anyway,
that's that's that's the book. It's this sweaty mix of
propaganda and horse lightning debates. Um, I mean, I'm thrilled
that you invited us to participate in this. Did you

(52:59):
all learn something I learned about liberty and the people that? Yeah?
That the characters? Um, yeah, Tommy, I hope he doesn't
change his mind and think I don't think he does,
because Tommy, Tommy is the one who provided us with
our our scientific explanation for the time travel that we

(53:21):
absolutely needed. Yeah, otherwise where would we be right now? Yeah?
Otherwise where would we be right now? Well, you know
where we are right now is at the point in
the episode where y'all plug your mother fucking plug doubles. Yeah,
we got stuff to plug. Um, check out our YouTube
channel somewhere news. Do that we got get out three

(53:43):
hour episode about Jordan. Do you do have a three
hour episode about Jordan Peterson? Um? So check that out.
Go spend three hours with Jordan Peterson, just like those
doctors in Russia who who many days with him while
he such conscious after they weren't allowed to do that,
going going cold turkey on Penzo's and think nothing's fine,

(54:08):
He's great. He doesn't. If you take if you look
at a picture of him from two thousand seventeen and
a picture of him from this year, it doesn't look
like he's lost seventy pounds and also his mind and
not at all. Yeah, he doesn't look like he's aged
twenty five years in the last three. It doesn't look
at all like he picked up the wrong grail. Yeah,

(54:30):
there's there's nothing unsettling about his tendency to periodically cry
at random moments. Very fine, but but that is one
of them. Anyway, Thanks, I love you all. Like Rush
Revere loves his horse, everyone isn't a girl his lightning horse.

(55:03):
I mean, there's no opened up a portal with the lightning.
There's only one line I can responsibly end on which
I'm glad he's dead. I continue to be glad he
step if it weren't for everything else he would deserve
to die for writing this book and book two and
three and four, and from all of the like seven

(55:24):
or five. How are many? There's too many of them, Robert.
Sometimes you really surprised me, and I know what we're
gonna say, and it gives me just the most reaction. Look,
I'm glad he's dead, and I'll go ahead and say it,
you know, hunt down the illustrator from this book, figure
out who did the jib Jab and take him down Jab.

(55:48):
I'm not sure which one, but it's one of them. God, alright,
We're done by. Behind the Bastards is a production of
cool Zone Media. For more from cool zone Media, visit
our website cool zone media dot com, or check us
out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

(56:08):
wherever you get your podcasts.