Part Two: Behind the Bastards Q&A: 2026 Edition

Robert and Sophie continue to answer listener questions.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media welcome to buy the Bastards Q and a
special Happy New Year. I am Sophie Litterman and I'm
here with my business partner, Robert Evans.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Robert, how are you a you know, bracing for the
new year, getting ready to really take twenty twenty six on?

Speaker 3 (00:24):
You know?

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Somebody asked the last time you ate inside in Arby's?
Is that their lord of that or is that just
somebody else?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I don't know. I don't have a history with arby
I don't know you. As a kid, I loved Hardy's. Why.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
I think because Hardy's is Carls Junior, though, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I know they're owned by the same people, I swear
to God. As a kid, I felt like the curly
fries were different. Like that's what I loved about Hardy's
as a kid, because I was born in Saint Louis
and I have a couple of memories from there before
we moved to the farm in Oklahoma, and one of
them is eating at Hardy's and them having the best
curly fries and then they're not being hearties around and

(01:04):
I felt like, as a kid, all of the other
curly fries were inferior to Hardy's Curly Fries. Now, this
is like a six or a seven year old me,
So I'm not speaking up for modern hearties. I'm not
even speaking up for the quality of Hardy's Curly fries
back then I was a child. But I don't have
any Arby's lore is I guess where I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I have Arby's Anger because it was like one of
the last fast foods I ate before I stopped being
able to eat gluten, and it was terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
It was not good.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
I would have liked, you know, any almost anything else.
So fuck you Arby's. Unless you want to sponsor us,
then I love you.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, if you want to sponsor us Arby's, I'll tell
people never to eat any other food. I'll tell them
that their lettuce is killing them. You know, I'll spread
whatever lies you want. There's lead in fucking Chick fil A.
You know, I don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Of all the bastards you've covered, have any surprised you
by how awful they were? Uh?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, I mean that's definitely. I mean Georgia Tan would
be a great one where I wasn't aware of this person,
and then I read the summary that like, yeah, she
basically created modern adoption. But she was also really abusive
to kids. And I was like, okay, so this will
be pretty bad, and I was still shocked by how
bad it was.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Right, yeah, it is she. That story is fucked.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
And then you know the one episodes we just did
on the slave owner in Jamaica whose name is escaping
me right now, but the guy who kept like a
diary of all of the times he raped enslaved women.
I knew rape was a massive part of slavery. I've
known that for a long time. You know, in the
United States and everywhere else the slave trade was pratt

(02:48):
the Atlantic trade was and obviously every time people have
been able to enslave other people, sexual violence has been
a part of that. I was aware as a particular
aspect of the plantation system, all of all that stuff
like this was not But even so, the details and
the details of stuff like pickling, like rubbing pickle spices
into open wounds, making people shit in each other's mouths

(03:10):
as a form of punishment. The just what that said
about the mix of laziness and cruelty that was a
major driving force.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
It was these.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
People who were not respected elsewhere in society had in
a lot of cases kind of failed out of other
parts of society or just didn't weren't ever going to
fit in within like the high society back home. You
get this sense of both like frustration and this lazy

(03:41):
kind of cruelty where it's clearly like you were just
fucking around trying to like figure out what you can
get away with.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Like there's not even I don't know how.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
To describe it, but like it's it was upsetting to
me in a way that I kind of was surprised by,
like the boredom parent to a lot of the cruelty
in the slave the slave trade and in the way
slavery worked.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
That really did take me by surprise.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
That and I think for me the episodes that you
You've done a variety different episodes about this, but you know,
like the Elon School and the wilderness camps and survival
schools and just like that nobody, uh, nobody said, hey,
maybe like don't abuse those kids.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, And just how common child abuse is, you know.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
That. That's also like another thing that really wears on
me is how central abuse of children is in every
bad movement, bad political and cultural movement in certainly Western history,
and not to limit it just to the West, but

(04:52):
and and the fact that violence to the ability to
abuse children is the center of the conservative project today,
you know, it's a core pillar of fascism. Children are
the property of their parents. And so if kids become
aware of ideas that are uncomfortable to their parents, or
become inspired to be a kind of person that is

(05:14):
not in line with what their parents want them to be,
that's not an example of human beings being human beings.
That's a problem, right, That's like, that's an injustice that's
been done to that parent that they have to see
their child not become a carbon copy of them. And
the fact that so many people that that's like a

(05:35):
dominant political belief for a lot of the country, it's
upsetting and it's difficult because like, kids can't just be
independent people immediately, They can't just have the same rights
as an adult immediately because they don't understand the world.
We do, in fact, have to teach them things and

(05:55):
guide them. And that's going to mean sometimes saying no,
you can't do this thing you want because you can't
just have chocolate for every meal, you can't stay up
till two in the morning every night. You have school
to go, right, Like, there's there are things you have
to There's like discipline. Kids do need discipline. Kids need
to be punished. Sometimes you don't need to be hit,

(06:15):
but they need to like they That's the only way
I know of to make people understand the world they're
coming into. It's like you have to raise them, and
that means that you are going to be invested with
a degree of power over them. But I don't think
that that should translate to ownership, And I think the
fact that it so often does is like one of
the root evils of our society that makes fixing anything

(06:40):
major very difficult, because unless you fix the way children
are treated and educated and how we as a society
see like what we see the rights of a parent
as being, you can't fix a lot of the other problems.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Somebody asked a question. They asked me, They said, what
are you up to during the recording of an episode?
And then they want to know, like why it looks
like I'm messing on my phone. I'm following the script,
you guys scripts on my phone, following the script. We
use the different platforms. Also, like the camera is like

(07:17):
above my head, so I'd be looking up like this,
which is not great. So I'm just doing my job
my friends, believe it or not. That question has come
up many times in my DMS. Doing my job anyways, Robert,
do you have any Australian Bastards planned for the future?

Speaker 3 (07:38):
Uh, well, we did one.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, last year we did. We did do one late
in the year that I felt was a really strong
episode about the the island of Ghari and you know,
the bastardy inherent to that, and like the myth that
got spread about the brutality of the the natives that

(08:01):
was not really accurate or fair and how it led
to justified a lot of violence in days afterwards. And yeah, like,
there's definitely more Aussie's I want to cover. I am
not as knowledgeable about. There's two things that have pulled
me back from doing more in the past. Is number one,

(08:21):
I just don't know a lot about Australia, and number two,
the Dollop guys have done a lot of Australia episodes
and several times I found myself and obviously we have
overlap with the Dollop. There's some episodes I've covered first.
There's a number that they covered first. That's unavoidable. It
happens with lions led by donkeys. I don't It's not
a big deal, right, it's history. We're all allowed to

(08:41):
talk about history. But I try to avoid it happening
too much. And I have had several times where I'm like, oh,
this is an interesting Australian bastard and like, oh no, dollup,
guys just covered it. And a lot of times it's
recent enough that I'm like, well, I don't want to
just immediately, you know, hop onto the same thing, but like, yeah,
I do, I definitely will cover or Assy's please do

(09:02):
post on the subreddit. You know, I've been meaning for
a while to ask the moderators to have like a
stickied thread that's just episode suggestions. I do actually find
it really helpful when people suggest bastards, because like the
big effortful episodes, the bastards, I know, like Nixon. I
know I'm going to get to Nixon. I know it's
going to take a lot of time. I don't need

(09:23):
help with that, but it is really helpful when, like
periodically someone will just like, oh, here's an article that
leads me to like reading for ten hours about a
piece of shit, and then I can write an episode
about it, and it's something that happened to the news,
or it's something that like I don't need to do
as crazy an amount of research on I'm not reading
three books or whatever. I'm not spending four or five days,

(09:47):
you know, full time reading about this. I can do
my research in one or two work days and then
write the episode. It's really helpful when people suggest stuff
like that, so you know, if you've got some ausy
pieces of shit you want to hear about, so just them.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
We got the same question about bastards from Mexico. I'm
assuming it's the same answer.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, I will add I've been wanting to do the
Pancho Villa episodes for a while. I'm not fully certain
if I'll come down on him more in the bastard
or freedom fighter category. I think he's probably he's some
A and some B. I'm not super knowledgeable about him
yet other than like the broad strokes, but I've always
found that period of time interesting and wanted to report.
And it's also really important for like the evolution of

(10:30):
modern counterinsurgency tactics and doctrine, and just.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
Like armored doctrine.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Right, it's arguably like the first use of armored vehicles
in in combat, or at least one of it's on
the it's one of the one of the conflicts that's
sort of like you can make a case. So yeah,
I'm I'm interested in doing more Mexican bastards.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Sure, we're back.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Do you have a favorite bastard topic of twenty twenty five?
Was there somebody you covered or something you covered that
was your favorite?

Speaker 2 (11:14):
I mean in terms of what I've felt was like
the best work I did and the most useful things.
Because there was a really good article about the Zizians
that was in depth, but it didn't really it was
more an in depth article about their crimes as opposed
to how they got from A to B. You know,
how the belief system started, how ziz really evolved into

(11:36):
a cult leader, and how they wound up being what
they became, right, like, how they wound up believing all
the things, because you get even in that I believe
it was a wired piece that was very good or
rolling stone. It's in the episode, you know, I quote
I cited the sources and whatnot, But there was a
really good long form piece, but it's still a lot

(11:58):
of it came out as like, and here's what's a
crazy thing they believed.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
They believed you know this.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
About AI, right, or they believe this about you know,
like you would just kind of get the broad strokes
of like the game theory shit that they they believed about,
Like here's why you have to murder people in all
of these instances because otherwise this like cascading chain of
logic will happen. But you didn't get like a, here's

(12:25):
the thought process that led them to that? And I
thought that was really interesting. I thought that was the
most interesting part of the zizzy And story is how
you end up You start from like some fairly basic
logical arguments that lead you to this completely unhinged and
murderous worldview in a fairly short span of time, just

(12:48):
by never looking back or really questioning where your previous
conclusions have taken you. I found that really interesting and
so I was definitely like most satisfied with how those
episodes came together.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Which bastard, do you wish you'd spend more time on
Slash would revisit if you could m I mean, we
didn't finish Shimmler.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, we didn't finish Himler. There's more Himler to do.
There's always more, you know. It struck me this year
that I still have never done just like Hitler Hitler episodes. Yeah,
we've done a lot of Hitler episodes, but they're all
because there's so much to say about him. We've done
likely here's two parter on his sex life. Right, here's
like some weird facts that you don't know about the man.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Here's like some you know, a.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Two parter on his history with like drugs and substances. Right,
and he shows up as like the b character and
a lot of other bastardy stories. But I haven't just
done a here was Hitler's childhood, right, Here's here's here's
where he came from. And I, yeah, I should do that.
I'll make sure that happens in twenty twenty six. I
wish I could do more LRH episodes. I think I've

(13:55):
just covered everything Hubbard really did. I don't know that
there's that anything else to say about him, but I
do miss talking about him.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, you just missed that guy.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
He's your special boy, do you have a dream guest
on the podcast that we haven't had on yet.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
I mean, Paul F.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Tompkins is a dream guest and we'd have had him on.
I'm hoping to get him on. He gave us a
very nice shout out as Santa Claus on a podcast recently,
and I would love to have him back your future.
I just I'm always with Paul. I'm always. I really
not that all of our guests are great. I appreciate
everybody who comes on the show. With someone like Paul.
I really want to make sure it's like the perfect

(14:38):
episode for him. Yeah right, And so I'm very like
discriminating as to like what I want to.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Pitch in that regard.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
I there's some guys that like part of me thinks
would be a dream to have on that I know
it probably wouldn't be great.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Like to help me your heroes.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
I would just love to hang out with Werner Herzog
more than doing a podcast with him. If I had
the opportunity to do anything with Berner herzag would be
like cook an elaborate dinner together, try to like cook
with him, because I feel like that would be the
best way to like get to know that guy. He
could be a it could be a fun guest. I
don't know that that would actually is actually how that

(15:17):
would shake out.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
I want you to I want you to read a crazy,
crazy script to Shaquille O'Neil.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
I don't know much about shaq Shack. Why would Shack
be a good guest?

Speaker 1 (15:30):
Because he would? He would, because he would one hundred
percent would he's a good time, he'd be up for it.
Which historical era would you say, couldad's the most bastards
per capita?

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Hard to beat?

Speaker 2 (15:47):
The early twentieth century, late nineteenth early twentieth century. That's
like the from like eighteen fifty to nineteen fifty, we
are in just prime bastard teary. And I don't know
entirely if it's I'm sure a big chunk of it is,
just that that was the first era in which modern

(16:09):
historiography and modern journalism were really firing on all cylinders,
and so you had a lot of detail about all
of these pieces of shit, and a lot was explored
and investigated, and guys who in an earlier era might
not have been covered because while they were doing terrible things,
they weren't one of the big names have we know

(16:30):
about guys like Iikman, right, Whereas if Eikman is helping
to orchestrate a genocide in the sixteen hundreds, maybe we
don't get nearly as much about him, right. Maybe we
get his name a couple of times, but there's not
even agreement about like what he did. Just because of
how the media worked, we had a lot more detail.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
I know that's a big chunk of it.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
But I also just think it was also opportunity, Like
the technology was moving so fast and there was so
much political disruption option that there was an incredible amount
of opportunity for a bunch of people to seize and
grab positions of power and influence that they wouldn't have
had access to earlier or later in more settled times.

(17:14):
And you know, those are like the poem said, it's
those are the times of monsters, right, like that, that's when,
And we're unfortunately in a similar time now where I
don't know, I don't think I would say that there's
a higher percentage of bastards now than at any other
time in history, But they've never been so visible. There's

(17:34):
so many of them that have and because they are
running the entire media, ecosystem, not just like news outlets
and television and whatnot, but like social media, Like all
of the big social media apps are run by some
of the monsters who have tailored their algorithms to support
other of the monsters. So it's never been it's I

(17:55):
don't know if i'd say there's more bastards now than ever,
but it's never been so hard to avoid hearing from them. Right,
they have the biggest microphone that they've ever been given.
And also it's a time of you've had a bunch
of different governments over the last twenty years collapse or
reach you know, moments of near collapse. You have economic turmoil,

(18:16):
you have social turmoil, and a bunch of new technologies
that have given a lot of these assholes an opportunity
to get the one thing they want, which is power.
And they are all scrambling to position themselves as highly
as possible, and ideally they're trying to become a permanent overclass, right,
a permanent They're trying to make themselves into the new
aristocracy on a global scale. And that I think it's

(18:43):
had a tendency to activate a lot of people, including
a lot of people who maybe in a different era
wouldn't have been bastards like, not that they would have
been good people, but they wouldn't have had seen an
opportunity to reach out and grab in being a monster
to other people. Like I wonder in a different era,
if JK. Rowling, you know, has incredible success in the

(19:07):
early eighteen hundreds, right, she probably never gets known for
anything else it. You know, maybe people would have come
found her letters, you know, decades after her death and
been like, oh, she harbored some really bigoted views, you know,
but it would have been more like HP. Lovecraft right
where you've got this guy who people really like their writing,
they've become very popular, I mean Lovecraft was after his death.

(19:29):
But and then also, oh yeah, and they was like
super racist in like a lot of their private correspondence.
You can see some hints of it and some signs
of it in there in some of their stories, like
as opposed to what Rowling is, where this is not
just a person who wrote some books people liked and
also has some bigoted opinions that people became aware of later.
And oh you can kind of see bits of it

(19:50):
in her writing. No, this is a person who has
turned themselves into an activist and is dedicating their time
and their money to hurting a specific group of people
as much a she possibly can. A group of people
who have no like organized systemic power or wealth to
even begin, you know, fighting on at the level she
is fighting on in like financial terms, it simply doesn't exist.

(20:15):
And you know, what she's doing is deeply cruel and unhinged.
And I don't think something someone in her, someone would
have been like her, would have been in a position to.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
Do in an earlier era.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Right, Not that she would have been a better person,
She just wouldn't have made her bigotry everyone else's problem
to the extent that she can. And I think there's
a lot of that too. I think there's a lot
of guys and girls out there who are major figures
of shittiness to all of us that we know that
in a different era, they probably just would have kept
that shit to themselves.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Take a quick break.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
We're back, sure, and we're back.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Robert, has doing the show changed your views on anything?

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Hmmm?

Speaker 1 (21:04):
How could it not? Though? Like knowledge is knowledge is power.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
I guess like it depends on what you mean by
changed my views in like a fundamental sense. It hasn't
changed anything big in that. Coming into the show, I
thought it was probably a bad idea to give people power, uh,
And I felt like it's probably a bad idea to
give people huge amounts of money. And both of those

(21:31):
things put together damage people in ways that makes them
harmful to themselves and others. Right that, I came into
the show believing all that sure, and all of that
has only been reinforced. I believe it more strongly than
I did before. I think one of the things I
have come around on I have a much darker idea

(21:52):
of what needs to be done to people who are
trying to destroy civil society, trying to destroy the lives
of millions or billions of other people for their own
power and wealth.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
I am not a.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Rehabilitation person when it comes to those people. I am
not a forgive and forget. I'm not a reconcile person
like I am a. If anyone progressive or liberal takes
power again in this country, the responsible thing to do
is a reckoning, and a reckoning that will end very

(22:32):
badly for a decent number of people. Like A, I
am a believer in punishing the folks who are doing
this Right now, and I simply don't see any other
way that this country can move forward and have any
hope of a better future without going through a period
of extreme ugliness. And that is not something I really

(22:55):
believed in the same way prior to doing this. But
I have become convinced that one of the great I mean,
one of the great catastrophes of the twentieth century was
that we really botched the Nuremberg Trials. We botched a
lot of aspects of the peace after World War Two, right,
we did not punish nearly enough Nazis, and we didn't

(23:18):
punish them with the brutality that they deserved based on
what they had done. And as a result this, that's
the only thing I think might have made some of
the people sticking their heads up now so boldly less
willing to do that. Right, And the same thing is
true with like the Confederacy after the Civil War. We

(23:38):
should have hung a lot of those guys. I mean,
every elected leader in the Confederacy should have been hung,
and I think most of their military officers as well.
You know, I wouldn't I wouldn't have been against just
hanging all of the slave owners. Quite frankly, you know
by that point, and I think if we'd done that,

(23:59):
there wouldn't have been a law cause narrative. We wouldn't
be dealing with a lot of the problems that we're
having in the United States at this point now that
there wouldn't be other problems. Not that we'd be a utopia,
but I just don't think it's ethical to let people
who do stuff like that go live their lives peacefully afterwards.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
What do you have any gardening plans for twenty twenty six,
Anything you're excited to grow this year?

Speaker 3 (24:28):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Not really, I kind of half asked it. This year
on the gardening, I didn't grow nearly as many potatoes.
I just got kind of lazy and exhausted, I did.
I have a bunch of potatoes flowering in my front
yard right now that I didn't plant. They're just endemic
to the yard, which is nice. That's cool, Like I

(24:49):
just kind of have a permanent community of potatoes always growing,
so I'll grow more potatoes. I'm hoping I can really
get back and into the swing of things there and
grow more than I did last year. We're really trying
to reduce the size of our of our herd of

(25:09):
the sheep and goats this year, you know, giving some
to friends. Uh, it's time to harvest some of the
older ones.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Don't get rid of don't get rid of Sophie.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
There's just there's just more animals that I want to
be taking to get rid of him now. So I'm
trying to find places, uh me wants some of them
I'm going to keep. I want to keep like a
you know three.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Don't get rid of him.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
There's too many right now.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
But don't get rid of him. We've bonded.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
I don't know what I'll do with him, but we've bonded.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
Yeah, he's he's he's a good he's a good.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Good at his main job, which is making more goats.
So I may try to find someone who is looking
at starting a herd of their own, because he's he's
really he's hand trained, he's sweet. But I also may
just you know, keep him with a couple of weathers,
which are like males that have been castrated, and they

(26:08):
can just be a little community for a while.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
I don't know, I don't know what I'll do with them.
I am, I'm I am.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
This year was a real like half ass on all
of the guard I was just so tired and exhausted
after twenty twenty four, the election, my dad died. I
just I couldn't get my head around it to the
extent that I usually do. And I guess I'm waiting
to see. I don't fully know. Am I going to
like wind up half assing it again this year? Am

(26:36):
I going to get back into the swing of things?
I don't actually know, So we'll see what Robert does
in the new year.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
Sophie's gonna do some some spring gardening Sarah Sarah Marshall,
my friend Sarah Marshall, the legendary Sarah. Sarah's a very
very good gardener, and we are going to Uh, there's
a good, good, good spot of dirt at my house
that we're going to take advantage of, so we'll grow
some things.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Yeah, some goats.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
If you get rid of Sophie that go I will
be so butt hurt. Anyways, last question, what brought you
joy this year?

Speaker 3 (27:11):
Robert? Uh huh, great question.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
Your wonderful business partner.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
My wonderful business partner, Sophie brought me joy. I in general,
like I feel I have a lot of satisfaction in
what you and I have built here. And how many
of our friends have jobs and health insurance and you know,
can pay their mortgages or pay for kids or just
like live. I feel good that we've been able to

(27:44):
build basically like a little sanctuary for a small chunk
of like weirdos that I love, and I'm proud of that.
It's a good thing to be able to do. And
I'm proud of the fact that we actually delivered news
that I think is important to a million or so people,
and it seems to matter to a lot of folks.

(28:05):
We get a lot of messages from people talking about are.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
You talking about causes you talk about it could happen.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
Here, talk about all of our ship in general?

Speaker 1 (28:13):
A million? Yeah, that is it could happen to yourself
gets Oh.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, But I'm talking about in terms of actual people.
I think we probably have somewhere around a million, you know,
regular and semi regular listeners.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
I think it's more than that.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, I don't know, it's hard to tell with Internet numbers.
You know, how many were like, well over five hundred
million listens on behind the Bastards. How many people is there?
You know?

Speaker 1 (28:38):
What brought me joy was seeing you, And I mean
I was there, but you and prop doing that live
show we did.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
The live show was great.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
Yeah, yeah, you guys were great that night.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Raising all of that money for the bail fund. I
really felt good about. Yeah, me too, Yeah, yeah, I
just love I try not to do too many fundraisers
are asked. I mean, thankfully, you know, ads and stuff
we're support and we don't have to, you know, ask

(29:07):
fans for like money to keep the lights on. Not
that there's anything wrong with that. I've been misinterpreted in
the past is saying I think it's like immoral to
do a Patreon not at all, how I feel it'll
be a very silly belief for me to hold. But
I do feel good about the fact that I try
to be like, really cautious about like when we do

(29:30):
fundraisers in for Who, And I'm really proud of the
fact that every time we do, we raise a lot
of money, often tens of thousands of dollars, and we
can do it in very short order, in a matter
of days or like a week, you know, sometimes less
our audience, I think, because we're fairly careful about when
we do it. Our audience, you guys, listeners always do

(29:51):
show up and I feel really good about that because
we were able to We've really helped a lot of
people doing that, and we've done it kind of with
a lot of intention because I do I have a
lot of respect for how hard it is to make
money and the amount of work people put into having
any and so I'm going to ask our listeners to donate.

(30:13):
I'm gonna be really careful about it because I do
respect that a lot, and I want to be, you.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
Know, respectful.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Any final thoughts, anyways, I feel good about that, huh.
Any final thoughts, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Hang in there, everybody, you know, you're the you're all
being All of us are being slammed face first with
like all of the worst, most hopeless news that can
be put in front of our faces every single day
and every single night.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
That is.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Just how life is right now. And it's miserable. Nobody
likes being bombarded with bad news at all times, and
it's it's it's meant to keep you angry and keep
you wanting to fight, and keep you on those apps
and like sharing and scrolling and raging. And I guess

(31:11):
what I want to and I know that you all
know this. We always talk everyone is always talking about
how bad social media is for your mental health, and
we all keep using it anyway, we all keep using
the phones anyway. And I'm not you know, I spent
an hour and a half this morning going between Reddit
and fucking Blue Sky. I'm not coming at this from
like a oh, I figured out how to you know,

(31:33):
cleanse my life of these things.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
And I'm not looking down.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
On people for not but try to keep in mind
when you feel like completely hopeless, everything's fucked, there's no
way to fix anything that like. You are feeling that
way because billions of dollars have been devoted, tens of
billions of dollars have been devoted to making you feel
that way because it's good for Mark Zuckerberg's bottom line,

(31:57):
good for the bottom line of a couple of other assholes.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
Right, And.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
While we all live in this muck and you can't
fully separate yourself from unless you have the money to
just like buy a homestead and the mountains and not
interact with the rest of the world, which most of
us don't. You have to keep in mind, no matter
how angry you get, no matter how justified the anger is,

(32:22):
no matter what real problems you're looking at that your
emotional state in that moment is not purely based on
the reality of what you're reading about, of what's happening
in the world. It is also the product of a
concerted effort to make you hopeless and enraged at all times.

(32:43):
So just keep that in mind.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Find people that like the same weird shit as you
and become friends with them.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yeah, that's what I did.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Sure, I love all you weirdos. You know who you are.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
I love about forty percent.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
To be on statistically speaking, Bye bye. Behind the Bastards
is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from
cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com or
check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is now
available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday and Friday.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Subscribe to our

Speaker 1 (33:25):
Channel YouTube dot com slash at Behind the Bastards.