Dissecting the American Retail Slum

<v Speaker 1>Welcome to the crime Pace. My body doesn't pocket. I'm sorry,
<v Speaker 1>I was just feeling a music there for a minute.
<v Speaker 1>Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers Chinese Rocks originally written by
<v Speaker 1>Dde Ramon, so I believe. Anyway, today we've got a
<v Speaker 1>very special episode for you. We're talking with a crime
<v Speaker 1>Pace field correspondent who just returned from Florida to talk
<v Speaker 1>about the American phenomenon known as the car slam. Now
<v Speaker 1>this is also this phenomenon is also apparently mimicked in
<v Speaker 1>a very few certain localities in Mexico, many localities in Canada,
<v Speaker 1>a couple other first world localities. I've seen this kind
<v Speaker 1>of garbage in Australia as well. Europe. There's not really
<v Speaker 1>enough land for it, but but it is. It's an
<v Speaker 1>amazing phenomenon from an anthropological standpoint, It's just it is
<v Speaker 1>so soul crushing, it crushing and depressing that we thought
<v Speaker 1>we would give it a closer look, especially from someone
<v Speaker 1>who's never I can stop talking in that fucking whitewashed
<v Speaker 1>news caster voice for now, I guess, especially from someone
<v Speaker 1>who's never experienced before Will has never been to the
<v Speaker 1>sun Sun Belt. Okay, our crime Pace Field correspondent will
<v Speaker 1>will Dorin. He's never been to the sun Belt before,
<v Speaker 1>so this was the first time he's actually spent any
<v Speaker 1>grandiose amount of time. I wouldn't say grandiose. It was
<v Speaker 1>only a few days, but that's a lot of time
<v Speaker 1>to spend in Florida car slums. Okay, but this is
<v Speaker 1>the first time he spent you know, he lives in
<v Speaker 1>Chicago's he doesn't even own a car. He's spent his
<v Speaker 1>whole life living in a city, and now he goes
<v Speaker 1>down to this spot, you know, to the lower the
<v Speaker 1>sun Belt, the lower latitude the United States, which is
<v Speaker 1>dependent on air conditioning and driving and completely eradicates most
<v Speaker 1>natural or native plant landscapes within the metro area. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>and is now coming for the farmland that used to
<v Speaker 1>exist in these places. Uh, don't think about There's no
<v Speaker 1>sense in thinking about water shortage issues in places like
<v Speaker 1>Texas or Arizona, those parts of the Sunbelt, because that's
<v Speaker 1>not you know, we're just kind of like a short
<v Speaker 1>term burn everything, short term gain, long term loss, burn
<v Speaker 1>everything down, cash out the bank empty that you know,
<v Speaker 1>cashing the chips mentality, economic mentality. But either way, this
<v Speaker 1>is this was new to him, So this was and
<v Speaker 1>I thought it was. I've been, you know, seeing it
<v Speaker 1>for a while now, so I was. I was enchanted
<v Speaker 1>when he called me for emotional support the other day
<v Speaker 1>to talk about his experiences. He was fucking blown away.
<v Speaker 1>And I said, I got you, buddy, this is you know,
<v Speaker 1>I've got extensive experience with this kind of shit. I'd
<v Speaker 1>be happy to talk to you about it. And so
<v Speaker 1>that that's what that's what I did. So, uh then
<v Speaker 1>I figured I would just go into it, you know,
<v Speaker 1>break it down. So if you live in any of
<v Speaker 1>these places, don't feel bad. There's ways out. You just
<v Speaker 1>have to make sure you're staying away from things like
<v Speaker 1>excessive video game playing, booze, smoking too much weed. Those
<v Speaker 1>things will make you. They will fucking draw energy out
<v Speaker 1>of you. Okay. The thing you want to, you know,
<v Speaker 1>immerse yourself in is is art, in science, in nature
<v Speaker 1>quote unquote. I don't even like the word nature because
<v Speaker 1>it's just the real world. Okay, uh, but you know
<v Speaker 1>what I mean right there. So there's an answer. You
<v Speaker 1>just art, science, learning nature meant the exercise and finding
<v Speaker 1>a way to get some physical activity in these places
<v Speaker 1>without having to go to a fucking gym and rot
<v Speaker 1>and listen to bad you know, bad techno or pop music,
<v Speaker 1>whatever shit they play in there, and smell it an
<v Speaker 1>off gassing plastic, you know. So maybe I don't I
<v Speaker 1>don't know. Maybe you could find an irrigation, an irrigation
<v Speaker 1>or drainage canal, or a power line he's meant to
<v Speaker 1>go jog on or something. But you could still be healthy.
<v Speaker 1>My point is, you could still be healthy, but you
<v Speaker 1>live in these anti cultural car and retail slums. So
<v Speaker 1>don't despair. There's a way out, Okay. You just got
<v Speaker 1>to make sure you stay on You stay on point.
<v Speaker 1>That's all. So anywhere we're gonna get into it, we're
<v Speaker 1>gonna reach out to our field correspondent and talk about
<v Speaker 1>the all American phenomenon, okay, because this is where it originated,
<v Speaker 1>all right, just like hot dogs that hot dog. I
<v Speaker 1>don't think hot dogs Regina here. But you need to
<v Speaker 1>catch my point, okay, And this is so, this is
<v Speaker 1>the all American carum, car slum, the all American phenomenon
<v Speaker 1>of the car and retail slum, okay, and the lawn
<v Speaker 1>in between the fucking twelve lane roads, the driving being
<v Speaker 1>trapped in a car, forced car ownership, all that fun stuff.
<v Speaker 1>All right, anybody who doesn't know what this is. If
<v Speaker 1>you're listening and we have some listeners from Australia, from Europe, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>maybe some residents of New York City, you know, who
<v Speaker 1>will be unfamiliar with this, this will be a real
<v Speaker 1>eye opener for you. And so I'm happy to present
<v Speaker 1>this turd on a paper plate for you so you
<v Speaker 1>can listen to it and dissect this landscape, probably the
<v Speaker 1>ugliest landscape in the first world. Here we go, Hi,
<v Speaker 1>and welcome to the Crime Pays Field Correspondent session, where
<v Speaker 1>we are in the field with our Crime Pays correspondent
<v Speaker 1>Will Dorn, who just returned from America's sun Belt. Now,
<v Speaker 1>for those of you who don't know, America's sun Belt
<v Speaker 1>is a very spiritually depraved region in the lower latitude
<v Speaker 1>United States, basically stretching from southern Florida up through Atlanta,
<v Speaker 1>west through Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth, Phoenix through
<v Speaker 1>to Los Angeles. And it's basically one big car slum.
<v Speaker 1>And as the human tumor, as we like to call
<v Speaker 1>it here on Crime Pays that's a trademark term, grows
<v Speaker 1>is the huge and tumor grows.
<v Speaker 2>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>It's basically going to become one continuous metropolitan area, similar
<v Speaker 1>to the Bama the Boston to Atlanta metropolitan area. And
<v Speaker 1>i Will grew up in Chicago. He gets around predominantly
<v Speaker 1>by public transportation and bike and doesn't even own a car.
<v Speaker 1>Though he can drive, he just chooses not to. And
<v Speaker 1>this was very shocking for him. So we are here
<v Speaker 1>to talk with him about his experiences and probably one
<v Speaker 1>of the most terrible and ugliest landscapes in the first world.
<v Speaker 1>Will are you there, I'm here, Yeah, so tell us
<v Speaker 1>will tell us what you saw? You're back in Chicago, now,
<v Speaker 1>I bet that feels nice. What did you see in Florida?
<v Speaker 2>Oh? Man, I mean, it's just it reminds me of
<v Speaker 2>where my grandma lived in oak Park or in Yeah
<v Speaker 2>or oak Brook, rather like it's just the same house
<v Speaker 2>kind of over and over all these developments, not dense
<v Speaker 2>lawns everywhere, you know, like these big arterial streets that
<v Speaker 2>are just jammed up with traffic with just just the
<v Speaker 2>worst Ruby Tuesdays and Starbucks and and publics and I
<v Speaker 2>don't know, man, it was just some of the most
<v Speaker 2>depressing soul crushing environments I've ever been to. And the
<v Speaker 2>weather was so nice. I mean, it's just.
<v Speaker 1>The weather's really nice down her in a lower latitude US.
<v Speaker 1>That's true. Yeah, And what did you.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, especially in the winter, this is this is
<v Speaker 2>when it should be, you know, really enjoyable. And there's
<v Speaker 2>no one outside. Everyone's just in their car and I
<v Speaker 2>don't even know where they're going, you know, they're just
<v Speaker 2>going from place to place.
<v Speaker 1>Now, you were down there, what were you? You were
<v Speaker 1>visiting family down there?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's right. My so, my girlfriend's parents live in
<v Speaker 2>a town called Claremont, and it's you know, it's it's
<v Speaker 2>just like a housing development, I guess. Or it's one
<v Speaker 2>of many down there.
<v Speaker 1>Probably didn't even exist, I don't know, forty years ago,
<v Speaker 1>thirty years ago.
<v Speaker 2>It didn't exist, fifteen years ago. It's brand new. And
<v Speaker 2>everything's brand new. I mean there's literally nothing that's There's
<v Speaker 2>this one someone built a folly there in the fifties.
<v Speaker 2>That's like a tower. It's called the Citrus Tower, but
<v Speaker 2>it's got to be the oldest thing around there. Everything
<v Speaker 2>else is just just brand new, low density developments. They
<v Speaker 2>used to live next door to an Orange grove, which
<v Speaker 2>I'm sure is like its own kind of ecological disaster. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>but like, but they they just clear cut all those
<v Speaker 2>they're all down. Oh and that's the crazy thing too.
<v Speaker 2>When they put in these new developments, they take out
<v Speaker 2>all the trees, even all the old trees and stuff.
<v Speaker 1>You got to get rid of all that stuff.
<v Speaker 2>It's in a way I don't get do you know
<v Speaker 2>why they do that? I mean, I don't you like
<v Speaker 2>living in a place where there's a little bit of shade.
<v Speaker 1>No, this is will This is a This is a
<v Speaker 1>culture that has no respect for any thing that could
<v Speaker 1>be considered nature or the living world. It's just in
<v Speaker 1>the way, there's no use for it. It's the you know,
<v Speaker 1>the only purpose to land. The only purpose for land
<v Speaker 1>use is either agriculture, which is now done somewhere else,
<v Speaker 1>maybe China, Okay, maybe you know, lots of importing, thanks
<v Speaker 1>thanks NAFTA Global trade uh. And the only purpose for
<v Speaker 1>land use is for is for driving and shopping. And
<v Speaker 1>you need a spot to you know, to house employees.
<v Speaker 1>But that's gonna be obsolete soon too due to AI.
<v Speaker 1>So I don't even know where where they're thinking. Most
<v Speaker 1>people are gonna get money anymore. It truly is dystopic.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, there's no this is a this is a
<v Speaker 1>type of infrastructure that makes obsolete the purposes of going outside.
<v Speaker 1>You're just going outside to travel from one building to
<v Speaker 1>another because it's so fucking hot most of the year
<v Speaker 1>and it's completely dependent on AC and you know, the
<v Speaker 1>good thing about Florida is probably most of it will
<v Speaker 1>be destroyed at some point or underwater. There's there's multiple hurricanes.
<v Speaker 1>Hurricane frequency goes up as temper worms because these you know,
<v Speaker 1>the energy for these hurricanes is driven by hot, warmer
<v Speaker 1>ocean water. You know, I was in the ocean off
<v Speaker 1>the coast of Miami, UH last year, and it felt
<v Speaker 1>like being in a vata of urine. You know, it
<v Speaker 1>was literally it was warmer than urine. It was like
<v Speaker 1>one hundred degrees water temperature. So will this is this
<v Speaker 1>is a landscape that didn't exist, could not have existed until,
<v Speaker 1>you know, fifty years ago. You know, humans spent most
<v Speaker 1>of our our recent history outside interacting with land and
<v Speaker 1>plants and animals, and now we live in these you know,
<v Speaker 1>led the fluorescent light, the fucking boxes and then take
<v Speaker 1>getting another box to drive to another box. You know,
<v Speaker 1>So this is I just I.
<v Speaker 2>Don't get it's so joyless. I don't know where the
<v Speaker 2>humanity is.
<v Speaker 1>It's oh, it's hell. Yeah, it's hell. And it's what
<v Speaker 1>do you mean community, like interacting with people or what?
<v Speaker 2>Well, I mean that that, but I mean like like ecologically,
<v Speaker 2>it's an interesting part of Florida. It's on a it's
<v Speaker 2>the highest point of it where we were outside of
<v Speaker 2>Orlando there, and it's it's like, you know, like a
<v Speaker 2>big limestone shell. So they got sinkholes and stuff going
<v Speaker 2>on there.
<v Speaker 1>You know.
<v Speaker 2>It just it just breaks my heart because I would
<v Speaker 2>like to see it, you know, one hundred years ago,
<v Speaker 2>you know, and explore, you know, but but they just
<v Speaker 2>made it look like like no play, there's no there there.
<v Speaker 1>You know, there's just there's nothing. It's just it could
<v Speaker 1>be anywhere. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. It's a
<v Speaker 1>I think there was actually a Dead Kennedy song. This
<v Speaker 1>could be anywhere, but anyway. Yes, Well, it's it's exciting
<v Speaker 1>for me to hear this from me because you sound
<v Speaker 1>so so fresh faced and innocent, whereas I've been experiencing
<v Speaker 1>this hell and trying to philosophically digest it for I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, fifteen years, probably since I first started going
<v Speaker 1>to desert areas in the sun Belt, and then I
<v Speaker 1>would have to pass through places like Phoenix, and I
<v Speaker 1>I thought, this is, this is what hell would be
<v Speaker 1>like for me. I'm surrounded by people mostly pigs, no offense.
<v Speaker 2>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And you know, especially a place like Phoenix, like it's
<v Speaker 1>like a it's like a botox cesspool, giant parking lot.
<v Speaker 1>You know, it's it's a really horrible place for me.
<v Speaker 1>For people that like being outside and looking at plants
<v Speaker 1>and and you know, feel a sense of freedom from that,
<v Speaker 1>it's the antithesis of that. And for you someone who
<v Speaker 1>enjoys cities, specifically walkable cities, because I like cities too,
<v Speaker 1>I think with cities, when done right, are the only
<v Speaker 1>hope for humanity, for human culture and progress and advancement.
<v Speaker 1>This is why when these these you know, rural folk
<v Speaker 1>are just shitting on cities all the times. You just
<v Speaker 1>haven't been to a good one. And you probably have
<v Speaker 1>some social issues where you're afraid of people or whatever
<v Speaker 1>and you haven't really dealt with yet. I get that
<v Speaker 1>you grow up in a load density area, but but
<v Speaker 1>you're gonna have to get over that at some point.
<v Speaker 1>Cities can be really great. But you know, for you,
<v Speaker 1>for someone who likes cities, I'm sure it's terrible because
<v Speaker 1>it's it's the antithesis of city. It's the antithesis of place.
<v Speaker 1>There is no culture, there's no regional culture that's specific
<v Speaker 1>to that place. It's all garbage.
<v Speaker 2>Well, like you know, you know, I know you're not
<v Speaker 2>a city guy, but I you know, it's like the
<v Speaker 2>exit the existence of a city. Though. You want to
<v Speaker 2>have all that humanity in a dense place so that
<v Speaker 2>you can preserve nature, so that we can go out
<v Speaker 2>there and visit exactly know, and visit the rest of
<v Speaker 2>the world. But but these places they've created it somehow
<v Speaker 2>has the worst of being in the country and the
<v Speaker 2>worst of being in the city. There's there's there's people, people,
<v Speaker 2>there's too many cars, and yet there's no there's no
<v Speaker 2>no nature everything that that that should be there, you know,
<v Speaker 2>like her parents are talking about, there's less and less
<v Speaker 2>birds every single year, you know. And and they they
<v Speaker 2>got to go down there, that's where that's where the
<v Speaker 2>birds go down to winter in Florida. But they they
<v Speaker 2>scraped the ear of everything that sustains them, you know, And.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, they can't use the crape myrtles. They can't use
<v Speaker 1>the crape myrtles in the parking lots outside the fucking
<v Speaker 1>Loubi's or the raws dress for less. It's yeah, there's
<v Speaker 1>no habitat and that's what that's what blows the minds
<v Speaker 1>of people. There's no connection. People are so disconnected. And
<v Speaker 1>I'm not shitting in anyone who chooses to live for
<v Speaker 1>people don't know better. And this is all that's offered
<v Speaker 1>in the area. There is no alternative, you know. But
<v Speaker 1>it's crazy. I mean, you talk to kids.
<v Speaker 2>Like it doesn't It makes me sad for them.
<v Speaker 1>You know. It's horrible, it's tragic. It's the American tragedy.
<v Speaker 1>We've we've taken we had too much land and we
<v Speaker 1>didn't know what to do with it, and we've we've
<v Speaker 1>used it for the absolute dumbest shit. But I you know,
<v Speaker 1>I don't I don't implore people to despair who live
<v Speaker 1>in these places. I I implore them to just figure
<v Speaker 1>out a way to philosophically deal with the depression is
<v Speaker 1>not the answer, you know, this is all this will
<v Speaker 1>be gone. That's how I take it, you know, reach
<v Speaker 1>some existentialist philosophy, read some fucking nihilism. Embrace it, remember
<v Speaker 1>what you love and what gives you hope. But you
<v Speaker 1>have to kind of live like a fucking madman. You know,
<v Speaker 1>you have to admit, you have to. You're living in
<v Speaker 1>a place that you know is poison and you're but
<v Speaker 1>you're finding a way to not sweep it under the rug,
<v Speaker 1>but to deal with it in laughter, you know, like,
<v Speaker 1>which requires a mild degree of insanity. But it could
<v Speaker 1>be a positive thing. You can make it positive, you know.
<v Speaker 2>I like, but even as a crass like capitalist, these
<v Speaker 2>places are totally unsustainable. You know, they got to build
<v Speaker 2>infrastructure for all this. It's it's all gonna be just
<v Speaker 2>a suburban ghetto in thirty years when they're not shiny
<v Speaker 2>and new.
<v Speaker 1>You know what I mean. Are you saying it's a
<v Speaker 1>Ponzi scheme? Are you saying the suburban sprawls a Ponzi scheme?
<v Speaker 2>I know, who could ever think a land speculation scheme
<v Speaker 2>in Florida. They've only been doing that for a century
<v Speaker 2>and a half. But I can't believe they continue to
<v Speaker 2>do it. It's just it's it's breathtaking and its stupidity
<v Speaker 2>and monstrosity.
<v Speaker 1>I think I think most people there, I think most
<v Speaker 1>of the investors and developers and leaders there know that
<v Speaker 1>it's going to be gone soon and so this is
<v Speaker 1>all just a short term empty the bank, cash in
<v Speaker 1>the chips, you know, uh, fuck all the holes until
<v Speaker 1>it's done and that's you know, and just and then
<v Speaker 1>just it's get rid of it. I don't, I don't,
<v Speaker 1>but I don't understand. What really surprises me is I
<v Speaker 1>see people who live in these places getting defensive about it,
<v Speaker 1>and which like they get pride about it.
<v Speaker 2>Some of them, especially what act do you hear them like?
<v Speaker 1>There's no logical they can't. I mean, anyone who's seen
<v Speaker 1>what like what a pleasant life can be like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>where you have public space that doesn't require shopping, and
<v Speaker 1>you've got places to go outside and look at other
<v Speaker 1>life forms. I mean, I don't understand how people can't
<v Speaker 1>enjoy quote nature. I'm calling it nature because I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I hate that word, but I don't know what else
<v Speaker 1>to call it. For lay people the living world I
<v Speaker 1>call I mean, I don't understand people who don't appreciate
<v Speaker 1>that that's what we fucking evolved with, you know, for
<v Speaker 1>hundreds of thousands of years. I don't understand how people
<v Speaker 1>can not care about it and be so disconnected and
<v Speaker 1>think that it doesn't matter. But these places don't have
<v Speaker 1>The only nature that's left is what's able to exist
<v Speaker 1>on the margins of this garbage, you know, like in
<v Speaker 1>a drainage ditch or a power line esement there on
<v Speaker 1>the margins of the agriculture. But now all the agriculture
<v Speaker 1>is getting scraped away. So these marginal spaces where you know,
<v Speaker 1>snakes and cool lizards and birds and whatever fucking plants
<v Speaker 1>could you know, could could survive the original land scraping
<v Speaker 1>one hundred fifty hundred years ago, fifty years ago. That's
<v Speaker 1>those places are all getting destroyed now too, because they
<v Speaker 1>take everything when they build a fucking housing slum. And
<v Speaker 1>then the kids that grow up in these places have nowhere.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, there's you don't get to be a kid.
<v Speaker 1>You're stuck inside, you're on fucking TikTok in video games.
<v Speaker 1>There's no purpose to going outside, and it's hot as
<v Speaker 1>fuck most of the time, and so and the other
<v Speaker 1>thing that drives me nuts here. So if you need exercise,
<v Speaker 1>because everyone still wants to look good, right, because we're
<v Speaker 1>you know, primates, trying to fucking whatever. If everyone's still
<v Speaker 1>trying to look good. So what you do You go
<v Speaker 1>to the gym where you're inhaling plastic off gassing and
<v Speaker 1>in there with other slobs listening the horrible music. It's
<v Speaker 1>not like a gym is not that's not like a
<v Speaker 1>good way. It's it's a it's a necessity in some places,
<v Speaker 1>but it's not the preferred way to get physical activity
<v Speaker 1>or exercise. If you live in a place where there's
<v Speaker 1>public transit and walking, you're getting exercise, you're burning calories
<v Speaker 1>just by existing. But not in the car slum, you're
<v Speaker 1>trapped in a car. The only walking you do is
<v Speaker 1>through the parking lot.
<v Speaker 2>I saw I saw commercial down there. I couldn't believe
<v Speaker 2>it was real, that it wasn't like an SNL send
<v Speaker 2>up or something. But it was two people. It was
<v Speaker 2>a commercial for a cars and it was two people
<v Speaker 2>talking about talking about why they're to buy this forward truck.
<v Speaker 2>And uh, the one the guy goes, he goes. You know,
<v Speaker 2>I drive to work every day and I hate my job.
<v Speaker 2>He goes, but driving to work is the best part
<v Speaker 2>of my day. And I was like, oh.
<v Speaker 1>God, Can you fucking imagine can you fucking imagine it?
<v Speaker 2>That's the tack they're using the cell cars, like people
<v Speaker 2>relate to that, like you know, I mean, going going
<v Speaker 2>to work isn't my favorite part of the day, but
<v Speaker 2>I ride my bike five miles to work, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>at least my blood's moving a little bit, and and
<v Speaker 2>you know, when I get there, even during the winter,
<v Speaker 2>I'm warm already.
<v Speaker 1>But also also when you're getting fucking physical activity, after
<v Speaker 1>ten minutes, you get dop dopamine and serotonin being released.
<v Speaker 1>That's a that's an that's an adaptive benefit, that's a
<v Speaker 1>that's a result of evolution. So it keeps us moving,
<v Speaker 1>you know. So when we're fucking evolved hunting and chasing
<v Speaker 1>things or foraging food whatever, that kept us wanting to
<v Speaker 1>do it. You know, it's this idea of like I'm
<v Speaker 1>just gonna go to the jim and run on the
<v Speaker 1>treadmill and listen to this horrible techno music they play
<v Speaker 1>in here, and hopefully hope that like people check me out.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I'm gonna go lift weights. So now I
<v Speaker 1>got those fucking chicken legs, but I'm all jacked up
<v Speaker 1>up top. I mean it's it's horrible. It's a horrible life.
<v Speaker 1>And then you think about you mix this with the
<v Speaker 1>culture of heavy religion, in this case Christianity, right, because
<v Speaker 1>in the Sun Belt especially, there's a lot of deranged,
<v Speaker 1>especially the Baptist shit, like the really you know, the
<v Speaker 1>fucking intense evangelical Jesus is the only reason. You live
<v Speaker 1>in a make believe world made by people. There's no reality.
<v Speaker 1>You have no awareness of how the ground beneath your
<v Speaker 1>feet was formed, how you came to be, natural selection, evolution,
<v Speaker 1>how old the earth is, what any of the life
<v Speaker 1>forms are around you. It's a fucking you're you're living
<v Speaker 1>in a pod, You're living in a matrix. It's fucking
<v Speaker 1>unreal that this is.
<v Speaker 2>You know, Joe, you sound like you need a spa
<v Speaker 2>day and maybe, you know, like a health ty. You know,
<v Speaker 2>maybe they'll get your head right.
<v Speaker 1>That's what I think about these like these kids, like
<v Speaker 1>if you live in if you grow up in a
<v Speaker 1>place like that, why not do drugs? Why not just yeah,
<v Speaker 1>why not just smoke your life away, smoke yourself into
<v Speaker 1>a comba every night and smoke weeds so you can escape,
<v Speaker 1>you know, at least that's gonna be more sustainable than alcohol.
<v Speaker 1>The alcohol is really important though, especially in many of
<v Speaker 1>these Southern stakes, because alcohol numbs you from feeling any
<v Speaker 1>of this. I mean, your life can be miserable, but
<v Speaker 1>you can just drown yourself in booze. You don't have
<v Speaker 1>to really deal with it, and then your life span
<v Speaker 1>is gonna be, you know, twenty years shorter probably anyway.
<v Speaker 1>You might get the UIs along the way, but you're
<v Speaker 1>gonna you know, you're you're basically numbing yourself and shortening
<v Speaker 1>your lifespan so you don't have to deal with this
<v Speaker 1>kind of life some more so, I would just implore
<v Speaker 1>people to drop out, start riding fucking freight ranks, become
<v Speaker 1>a bum more pleasant, to spray your shit under a
<v Speaker 1>bridge and then hop on a fucking box car and
<v Speaker 1>ride around town, you know, occasionally doing minor stints in
<v Speaker 1>jail for misdemeanors. Not to participate in this shit, right, Yeah, it's.
<v Speaker 2>Better than you know. I mean that they get you
<v Speaker 2>in a loop there too, because if you do drink,
<v Speaker 2>you know, you got to drive ten to ten miles
<v Speaker 2>away to where you can drink, and then you get it.
<v Speaker 2>You get a dewey on the way back right, and
<v Speaker 2>then you're in You're in a car cereal loop, you know.
<v Speaker 2>So you owe money in your car, you owe money
<v Speaker 2>to your lawyer for the Dewey. You can't live anywhere,
<v Speaker 2>that's that you can't that you cannot drive to. I
<v Speaker 2>mean it's just they and there's no bus, you know,
<v Speaker 2>there's no train. So they've just got you in this
<v Speaker 2>this debt and depression cycle. You know, it's would.
<v Speaker 1>You would you you wouldn't bike in any of these areas?
<v Speaker 1>Would you just explain to us what the what the
<v Speaker 1>sun Belt road infrastructure looks like?
<v Speaker 2>Good lord, So I saw a couple like bike lanes,
<v Speaker 2>and you know it's it's you know, we say in
<v Speaker 2>the biking community, paints and protection. It's just a painted lane,
<v Speaker 2>no ballards, no curbs along a fifty mile an hour road.
<v Speaker 2>And and as a biscuse, I can tell you at
<v Speaker 2>least in Chicago any given day, a third of people
<v Speaker 2>are looking at their phone. And you smell weed everywhere too,
<v Speaker 2>And I don't think that's different down in Florida. So
<v Speaker 2>you've got distracted drivers. Cars are getting bigger and bigger.
<v Speaker 2>These electric cars weigh eight thousand pounds you know, they
<v Speaker 2>might not even feel you if they run into you
<v Speaker 2>down there. I would never bite down there, except on
<v Speaker 2>the sidewalks.
<v Speaker 1>Well, was that I both the road over a bug? Right?
<v Speaker 2>Was that a turtle?
<v Speaker 1>You know?
<v Speaker 2>Fuck it, we're on the way to the liquor store.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's this speed limit on somebody'se fucking just municipal
<v Speaker 1>roads is insane. And in Texas we have the Frontage Road.
<v Speaker 1>It's a one way frontage road that's about five lanes,
<v Speaker 1>and the speed limits seventy. It's about the you know,
<v Speaker 1>maybe it's fifty, but everybody goes seventy or eighty, and
<v Speaker 1>everyone drives like a pig, like they're just riding your
<v Speaker 1>ass to get to the red light that's two hundred
<v Speaker 1>feet in front of you. I mean, this whole this
<v Speaker 1>infrastructure encourages pig behavior. It encourages slob behavior. It's why
<v Speaker 1>when Europeans or someone else sees Americans, you know, behaving
<v Speaker 1>in a certain way, and we do have a reputation
<v Speaker 1>as pigs and slobs. They you know, this is why.
<v Speaker 1>It's we are doing our patriotic duty by being pigs
<v Speaker 1>and slabs. We're doing what this is what society produces
<v Speaker 1>garbage in garbage. Oh, you've got a infrastructure like this.
<v Speaker 1>This is the type of person and it's not even
<v Speaker 1>their fault because they're not thinking about who they are,
<v Speaker 1>and no one's got any insight in these places, right,
<v Speaker 1>They're just products of their environment. And so this is
<v Speaker 1>you know, this is where it comes from. This explains
<v Speaker 1>the American mentality. Now you're in a city like Chicago,
<v Speaker 1>which is very old, it's got you know, the blocks
<v Speaker 1>were already built before all this miserable shit was mainly
<v Speaker 1>created in the fifties and sixties, so there's only so
<v Speaker 1>much they could do. I was amazed that people drive
<v Speaker 1>in Chicago. I mean, it's a it's fucking horrible driving
<v Speaker 1>in Chicago. Parking is a pain in the ass, takes
<v Speaker 1>longer to get work.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, everyone I work with drives, you know, and they
<v Speaker 2>you know, they always they're always offered me rides and
<v Speaker 2>you know, it's it's too cold. But if you know,
<v Speaker 2>if you take a ride to where I live, I
<v Speaker 2>can get there much faster biking, you know, and it's
<v Speaker 2>more enjoyable. I mean, it's you are putting your your
<v Speaker 2>life of risk a little bit, you know, with the
<v Speaker 2>distracted driving and everything like that. But you know, have
<v Speaker 2>you've been doing it for long enough you kind of.
<v Speaker 1>I used to look up the rhythm. I used to
<v Speaker 1>love bike. I didn't even own a car until I
<v Speaker 1>was like twenty five. I used to love I got
<v Speaker 1>in a bike when I was like twenty and I
<v Speaker 1>was like, this is fucking great. It's free. It feels amazing.
<v Speaker 1>I would smoke weed and then bike to Milwaukee from
<v Speaker 1>Chicago along that Lakefront trail, and that was when I
<v Speaker 1>first realized, like, wow, this feels good. It's like addictive.
<v Speaker 1>This is the closest you can get to flying, like
<v Speaker 1>feeling that breeze in your hair. You know.
<v Speaker 2>But and I don't get why the libertarians don't like it.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it doesn't require a license, you know, you
<v Speaker 2>gotta be individual.
<v Speaker 1>They lean right, and it's oil company propaganda, and they
<v Speaker 1>probably since they lean right, they're probably you know, it's
<v Speaker 1>the meathead mentality, is that like biking is for pussy's
<v Speaker 1>I think, you know, it's just this kind of anti
<v Speaker 1>intellectual more of this anti intellectual you know, yunkhead brutish shit.
<v Speaker 1>It's crazy though, did you did you ever see that
<v Speaker 1>guy Joey love that Puerto Rican bike messenger. I ever
<v Speaker 1>tell you about him in Chicago? Is he still around?
<v Speaker 1>I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>I gotta I gotta look him up. That's a good question.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. He used to bike with the full hockey regelia
<v Speaker 1>and a football him and he'd take those Neon zip
<v Speaker 1>ties and tie him through his ship, you know, so
<v Speaker 1>that like if anyone hit him, he would completely fuck
<v Speaker 1>up their car, you know. Yeah, it was shoulder pads
<v Speaker 1>and shipped too. Was great. It's kind of what you
<v Speaker 1>gotta done. You gotta do here, you know, But I can't.
<v Speaker 1>You can't. For me. It's hard because I get I
<v Speaker 1>get mad. I've spent a lifetime full of you know,
<v Speaker 1>hate for authority and very you know, salty. But and
<v Speaker 1>so I'm trying to dial that down. And that's why
<v Speaker 1>I think the nihilism approach was very important. You know,
<v Speaker 1>nihilism will also praying that all this shit collapses at
<v Speaker 1>some point, you know, if it doesn't remedy itself. And
<v Speaker 1>I don't think I don't think it's going to. I
<v Speaker 1>can't see anything that would be bad for the economy
<v Speaker 1>that we've created.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, right, Like, and what is the economy?
<v Speaker 1>Is it?
<v Speaker 2>People? No, it's something else.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's make believe. It's make it's make believe.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's it's uh. And they can be constructed
<v Speaker 1>on different things. But you know, that's the way I
<v Speaker 1>used to say that stop humanity should all. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I still do, but it's I meant stop humanity from
<v Speaker 1>taking over the world. But I would always get these
<v Speaker 1>comments from these you know, like fucking twenty five social
<v Speaker 1>just twenty five year old social justic kids, be like,
<v Speaker 1>it's it's capitalism, it's not humanity, Like, okay, well, but
<v Speaker 1>humanity invented capitalism. This is the current state. The dominant
<v Speaker 1>number of humans do this. It's second. I mean, first off,
<v Speaker 1>it's a joke, but second, you know, this is where
<v Speaker 1>do we go? For me? Like, there's no better system
<v Speaker 1>that we have right now than anybody's invented that I
<v Speaker 1>can point to, you know, I mean there could be there,
<v Speaker 1>There certainly could be. I could think of some, but
<v Speaker 1>but it's it's an anthropocentric mentality. That's the Capitalism is
<v Speaker 1>anthropost centrism. Capitalism is fucking pure poison, especially when you've
<v Speaker 1>deregulated it to the fact like we have.
<v Speaker 2>But it's gonna be a fun four years, you know, deregulation.
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna be it's gonna be Reagan two point oh,
<v Speaker 1>it's gonna be I don't think, you know, you hear
<v Speaker 1>people being like, he's got to bring back the constat trash.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's gonna be Reagan two point oh. But
<v Speaker 1>it's gonna be good for the eventual collapse of the
<v Speaker 1>United States. Like the dumber you make people, the richer
<v Speaker 1>you make the one percent, the more inequality. There's probably
<v Speaker 1>gonna be a couple more CEO whackings, you know, or attempts.
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna be massive civil unrest will probably be like
<v Speaker 1>South Africa at some point, like razor wire on all
<v Speaker 1>the you know, rich people living in these compounds with
<v Speaker 1>razor wire and stuff. But uh, you know, I'm I'm
<v Speaker 1>really sad for the extinctions. Will. Probably this sounds really negative. Will,
<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry. I didn't mean to implicate you on this,
<v Speaker 1>but you negative. I'm really sad for the for the
<v Speaker 1>extinctions that are probably coming. It's why it's important to
<v Speaker 1>document it all now and preserve it as much as
<v Speaker 1>you can. Learned to grow it and everything.
<v Speaker 2>But but yeah, it's the people responsible are never the
<v Speaker 2>ones that face the consequences at all. The people that
<v Speaker 2>get hurt are you know, the little people.
<v Speaker 1>They've got enough wealth to insulate themselves from any of
<v Speaker 1>the consequences of their actions. You know, I think that
<v Speaker 1>the hope is in educating people on what you know,
<v Speaker 1>these motherfuckers are doing, uh, and the foolishness of it all,
<v Speaker 1>and how we can provide an antidote, like what would?
<v Speaker 1>What would? I couldn't believe the this was this was
<v Speaker 1>not maybe so loud, but I certainly saw markings of it.
<v Speaker 1>But like the right wing response to the fifteen Minute City,
<v Speaker 1>they were like that, this sounds like authority, This sounds
<v Speaker 1>like tyranny, This is tyrannical. I was like, it sounds
<v Speaker 1>tyrannical to be forced to own a car and not
<v Speaker 1>be able to do what you've evolved to do, which
<v Speaker 1>is walk outside. You can't fucking walk anywhere. You're trapped
<v Speaker 1>in a bubble. You might as well be on Mars. Like,
<v Speaker 1>that doesn't sound like tyringy to you. You're forced to
<v Speaker 1>own this thing that takes so much fucking healthy you know,
<v Speaker 1>car insurance payments, you know, the fucking money. It's such
<v Speaker 1>a huge industry, that all the fucking maintenance, the oil changes,
<v Speaker 1>the fuel, the fucking you're forced to do this shit
<v Speaker 1>like you have no alternative.
<v Speaker 2>Have you ever gotten into uh you know, like uh,
<v Speaker 2>you know, a kerfuffle on the road. People aren't happy
<v Speaker 2>that are driving, They're not happy there. I've seen the
<v Speaker 2>angriest people.
<v Speaker 1>It's it.
<v Speaker 2>It it'll take like really nice people and make them
<v Speaker 2>furious and say things that you couldn't believe that that
<v Speaker 2>little old lady said.
<v Speaker 1>You know, it's something that's a primate brain. It's crazy.
<v Speaker 1>It's fucking crazy.
<v Speaker 2>But maybe that's all part of the right wing outrage engine,
<v Speaker 2>you know, is that they there, there's there's you know,
<v Speaker 2>I guess you get energy from being furious all the time.
<v Speaker 2>You know, that's a certain kind of energy you get.
<v Speaker 1>Well if everybody's mad all the time though too, and
<v Speaker 1>there's I mean there's plenty on the left that are
<v Speaker 1>mad all the time as well. True, but you know,
<v Speaker 1>if if if people are mad all the time, then
<v Speaker 1>that's good for the oligarchy and it keeps people distracted.
<v Speaker 1>And you know, it's uh, it's I mean, it's crazy.
<v Speaker 1>It's crazy that it's like that, and it's It's also
<v Speaker 1>good for the algorithms. It keeps them focused on ship,
<v Speaker 1>that keeps them mad, and it keeps them paying attention.
<v Speaker 1>And then you sneak ads in. You know, it's a
<v Speaker 1>it's the way to be. It's and no one's am
<v Speaker 1>into it. It's like I see left and right doing
<v Speaker 1>it all the fucking same. Uh. What we need is
<v Speaker 1>for left and right to come together, you know, and
<v Speaker 1>point out how fuck this is, and that they're being
<v Speaker 1>deprived of things that humans evolved to do, which is
<v Speaker 1>bond with land and other life forms and spend time outside,
<v Speaker 1>you know, not be forced to get your exercise with fucking.
<v Speaker 2>Gym, with with the with the at least a little
<v Speaker 2>bit optimism and to blow a little smoke up your
<v Speaker 2>ass is that your crime pace is very popular at
<v Speaker 2>the uh the bougie school where I work with the
<v Speaker 2>high school students, Well they got into it through Chancosaurus,
<v Speaker 2>but now they're now they're into crime pace. So you know,
<v Speaker 2>that gives me great hope, you know, because you know
<v Speaker 2>a lot of those people will have real power, you know,
<v Speaker 2>be making decisions going forward, you know, and just I
<v Speaker 2>hope they remember, Oh god, I hope they do better.
<v Speaker 2>Than you know, than our generation, of the generations before.
<v Speaker 1>But well they're there. I mean that's nice to hear
<v Speaker 1>because you know, I grew up being bullied by rich kids.
<v Speaker 1>There's a fucking plant check group dominated by rich kids
<v Speaker 1>that fucking hate me. But but but it's no one
<v Speaker 1>listens to them anyway. But anyway, but there, you know,
<v Speaker 1>these people are in northern latitudes. This is a this
<v Speaker 1>is a sun belt issue. This is where the culture
<v Speaker 1>of the car slum is most dominant. It's most dominant
<v Speaker 1>in the the lower latitude US and I think parts
<v Speaker 1>of Mexico are trying to emulate this ship. You know,
<v Speaker 1>Mexico has a very materialistic culture, or can have in
<v Speaker 1>certain places, you know, very materialistic and wealth worshiping and
<v Speaker 1>class stratified, especially in the cities, not of course in
<v Speaker 1>like you know, indigenous indigenous mountain communities. But I don't see.
<v Speaker 1>And this is in Canada too. This is certainly there's garbage,
<v Speaker 1>Like I've seen Canadian landscapes like around Toronto that look
<v Speaker 1>as hideous as this sun belt shit. But it really
<v Speaker 1>takes changing the added you know, I think people associate
<v Speaker 1>cars with freedom, and if you're going on a road, trip.
<v Speaker 1>That makes sense, but there's no freedom in these car slums.
<v Speaker 1>It takes forever to get places, and they're so they're
<v Speaker 1>spread so far apart, you know, And I remember living
<v Speaker 1>in cities. You know, your fucking day would be filled
<v Speaker 1>with so much activity because everything's so dense, and you
<v Speaker 1>could bike everywhere. If you let a fulfilling life, you
<v Speaker 1>would bike to work and you'd stop at a fucking
<v Speaker 1>coffee shop, or you'd stop to get a fucking stop
<v Speaker 1>at a bakery, and there's people walking around, and there's
<v Speaker 1>you know, it's active, full fulfilling life. You don't get that.
<v Speaker 1>You're waiting at stoplights in this ship. You're sucking on
<v Speaker 1>the tailpipe emissions of the pig in front of you.
<v Speaker 1>You're disconnected from people. It's you know, if you see
<v Speaker 1>someone on a bike, if they're probably a poor person
<v Speaker 1>or someone some immigrant going to work, or somebody with
<v Speaker 1>the uy's right, and there's no I mean, there's not
<v Speaker 1>even bike lanes where I live. That's ridiculous, and you'd
<v Speaker 1>be mad to use to use them, you know. I mean.
<v Speaker 1>The the least they could do in these car slum
<v Speaker 1>shitholes is build I saw this in like college, Park,
<v Speaker 1>Maryland's build a trail, have like a bike trail in
<v Speaker 1>between two of the major roads, like you know how
<v Speaker 1>like major roads will be spaced the same direction, parallel,
<v Speaker 1>major roads spaced two miles apart, and then in between
<v Speaker 1>them you'd have a you know, only bike trail that
<v Speaker 1>you could get you know, used to get around, so
<v Speaker 1>that at least you've got the emissions on either side
<v Speaker 1>of you and the beautiful view of a highway. No no, no,
<v Speaker 1>the bike trail. No no, no. Like in College Park, the
<v Speaker 1>bike trail was surrounded by a green buffer zone. That's
<v Speaker 1>the other thing. There were no cars. It was really cool.
<v Speaker 1>It was a nice model. Yeah. I was like, this
<v Speaker 1>is amazing. Why don't and they just had it there
<v Speaker 1>because it's college kids probably, But you could use that
<v Speaker 1>as a model everyere Now. I don't expect that to
<v Speaker 1>happen because there's no way to make money off of it,
<v Speaker 1>and there's you know, biking is inherently you know, anti
<v Speaker 1>consumer because it doesn't require all of it.
<v Speaker 2>But is it though, Like you know, I like over here,
<v Speaker 2>you know, they've done studies here in Chicago where it's
<v Speaker 2>if you can walk or bike to the little shops
<v Speaker 2>and stuff. People spend money, you know, and it it
<v Speaker 2>takes a lot. People don't actually.
<v Speaker 1>But I'm saying the activity of biking doesn't require fuel
<v Speaker 1>and all changes and tires, and there's not a hole
<v Speaker 1>you're not driving this thing that requires three hundred dollars
<v Speaker 1>monthly payments, you know, like there's a whole such a
<v Speaker 1>huge economy built around car ownership, you know, because we
<v Speaker 1>don't make anything here anymore. It's all just tech garbage
<v Speaker 1>and service service economy and selling people subscriptions online like
<v Speaker 1>service you know, online service subscriptions and shit. So I
<v Speaker 1>don't know where do you see what do you think
<v Speaker 1>will happen? You? Where do you see this all going?
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I think we're doomed. But you know, I
<v Speaker 2>hopefully if we could frame you know, walking and biking
<v Speaker 2>as like rugged and individualistic, you know, if they could
<v Speaker 2>rebrand it somehow and not make it so politicized, you know,
<v Speaker 2>or politicize it in the way that that it's like
<v Speaker 2>you know this, you know what this is a little
<v Speaker 2>trick that doctors don't want you to know. If you
<v Speaker 2>walk in your.
<v Speaker 1>Stuff, it'll never happen. It'll never happen because especially the
<v Speaker 1>I think like the macho and this just plays into
<v Speaker 1>evolutionarily speaking, where humans come from, and especially where the
<v Speaker 1>roots of American culture is rooted in this this macho
<v Speaker 1>mouth breather. And you could be all that. You could
<v Speaker 1>be like macho and fucking what you know without having
<v Speaker 1>to and still be an intellectual. But that's not the
<v Speaker 1>American way. It's anti pragmancy. You can sell you can
<v Speaker 1>literally sell people poison as long as you tell them
<v Speaker 1>it makes them look tougher, at least men American men.
<v Speaker 1>You know, Yeah, you could sell them things that will
<v Speaker 1>kill them in twenty years off if you tell them
<v Speaker 1>it makes them look tougher. Just suck it up. This
<v Speaker 1>whole fucking culture, this anti intellectual culture. It's crazy. It's
<v Speaker 1>fucking wild that you know. This is why like environmentalism
<v Speaker 1>and climate change. You see these fucking chads online, they're
<v Speaker 1>like twenty five Joe Rogan Bros. Just parroting oil company
<v Speaker 1>propaganda because environmentalism and all this is seen as like
<v Speaker 1>a weak. It's it's crazy to me. It's it's such
<v Speaker 1>a like they're being hoodwinked, you know, I mean like.
<v Speaker 2>In kids too, you know, because I when we were
<v Speaker 2>in high school and stuff. We were like, maybe it
<v Speaker 2>was the music we were listening to and stuff, but
<v Speaker 2>we were anti corporate, you know, like anti all that stuff.
<v Speaker 2>And it just seems so, I don't know, anti young
<v Speaker 2>to be parroting the AstroTurf talking points of a fucking
<v Speaker 2>multinational conglomerate.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I mean you got to be a moron
<v Speaker 1>to do it. I think that's definitely part of you
<v Speaker 1>can't be like, you can't be thinking about you know,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, it's this whole repackaging of like conservatism
<v Speaker 1>is somehow rebellious. Is fucking wild to me, but that's
<v Speaker 1>what's been done. You've repackaged, you know, being a fucking
<v Speaker 1>seventy year old, angry white guy is somehow rebellious, and
<v Speaker 1>then you package it in a way that you get
<v Speaker 1>twenty five year old kids and twenty year old kids
<v Speaker 1>sucking it up and buying it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I had never seen this before, but it's this is
<v Speaker 1>the thing now, especially in Texas. It's fucking crazy. And
<v Speaker 1>then you try to argue with any of these fucks,
<v Speaker 1>they don't have shit to say, they could, you know,
<v Speaker 1>they fall apart and then probably just result the you know, uh,
<v Speaker 1>ad hominem attacks. I don't know, but I've never heard
<v Speaker 1>anything intelligent like I'm not I'm not. I'm certainly not
<v Speaker 1>one to just go with the crowd with my herd.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I'm gonna if someone's saying stupid shit, it's
<v Speaker 1>gonna feel weird and me, it's gonna feel icky to me.
<v Speaker 1>I can't go with it. That's why I couldn't, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I couldn't really end up standing around with all the
<v Speaker 1>fucking quote unquote woke social justice self flagellating white progressives.
<v Speaker 1>You know that I was around in the Bay Area,
<v Speaker 1>you know, like the fucking identitarians that kind of ruined leftism,
<v Speaker 1>ruined the American I couldn't. It just felt phony after
<v Speaker 1>a certain point.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there's there's there's joylessness in that too, you know.
<v Speaker 2>It's it's like I I think, I think that's you know,
<v Speaker 2>a big part of a big part of this whole,
<v Speaker 2>you know, like moving your body and being out there
<v Speaker 2>it brings me joy. And I think joy is an
<v Speaker 2>act of rebellion, especially when you're not when you're not
<v Speaker 2>paying for.
<v Speaker 1>Joy and genuine freedom. Yeah, that's why that's why I
<v Speaker 1>go to wild habitats. And try to fucking interact with
<v Speaker 1>other living organisms. Is because I get a sense of
<v Speaker 1>freedom for that. But my point is that you can
<v Speaker 1>manipulate anybody left or right by exploiting the traits of
<v Speaker 1>the human animal. And the traits of the human animal.
<v Speaker 1>The human primate is conformity, needing validation from peers, wanting
<v Speaker 1>to be our social dynamics, wanting to feel part of
<v Speaker 1>a group. No one wants to feel ostracized from the group,
<v Speaker 1>you know, they want They might feel ostracized from the
<v Speaker 1>large group, but they feel out, they feel part of
<v Speaker 1>another group, and so nobody wants that, you know. So
<v Speaker 1>that's why I like a lot of the these movements
<v Speaker 1>are held together by people that are afraid of what,
<v Speaker 1>you know, being fucking ostracized or shunned or shamed. But conversy,
<v Speaker 1>you can convince people to do shit that's bad for
<v Speaker 1>them as long as you validated somehow socially, you know,
<v Speaker 1>like live in a car slim and defend the car
<v Speaker 1>slum lifestyle, and be against biking and be against walking outside,
<v Speaker 1>and you know, and and defend the lawn and all
<v Speaker 1>this shit. Oh, this garbage, the the.
<v Speaker 2>The worst, the worst of all of it, I think,
<v Speaker 2>And this wasn't even in this was in Georgia. We
<v Speaker 2>stopped at a BUCkies, and uh, if you wanted to
<v Speaker 2>still the worst parts of all of American culture and
<v Speaker 2>the sun Belt and everything, it's right there at the BUCkies.
<v Speaker 2>It's like it's butts to nuts in there. It was
<v Speaker 2>so crowded. There's one hundred gas pumps. Everyone's being rude.
<v Speaker 2>There's no there's no you know. And then they're selling
<v Speaker 2>these like right wing like trinkets in there, you know,
<v Speaker 2>like mugs with uh with uh don't tread on Me flags,
<v Speaker 2>And I was just like, I mean, to their credit.
<v Speaker 2>I got a big iced tea there for ninety nine cents.
<v Speaker 2>That was quite good.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I've only been in one once, but it seems
<v Speaker 1>like a lovely place to witness like a road raide
<v Speaker 1>shooting or something, or like yet two large, you know,
<v Speaker 1>obese suburban men beating each other with pipes or something,
<v Speaker 1>you know, because somebody got that they took their place
<v Speaker 1>in line at the gas pump. That would be a
<v Speaker 1>wonderful thing to see at a BUCkies.
<v Speaker 2>It was upsetting. I'm my antidote today. I'm gonna go
<v Speaker 2>walk over and look at the lake. Go look at
<v Speaker 2>Lake Michigan and just meditate on that is.
<v Speaker 1>What's it like right there here on December twenty ninth.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, it's beautiful and there's not that many people down there.
<v Speaker 2>So I'm gonna go over to Montrose Beach and it's
<v Speaker 2>it's about thirty five forty right now, not too bad,
<v Speaker 2>but it's sunny.
<v Speaker 1>God, it's so much warmer than it's been for.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's it's real, man. The winners are getting warmer.
<v Speaker 2>And well, it's like the seasons have been pushed back,
<v Speaker 2>so like November is pretty warm now, and we get
<v Speaker 2>the winter more like December, January, February, but it's more
<v Speaker 2>like Seattle asque a lot of days, you know, it's
<v Speaker 2>kind of rainy and yeah, dreary, you know, but not
<v Speaker 2>the big not as many of the big snowstorms that
<v Speaker 2>we used to get.
<v Speaker 1>So but then then spring comes earlier too.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, this fan the spring is really nice. The summers.
<v Speaker 2>Summers are hotter now, a little bit hotter than they
<v Speaker 2>used to be.
<v Speaker 1>They got beavers, They got beavers at Montrose Beach.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a I I haven't seen him, No,
<v Speaker 2>my brother's seen him. Out there. He goes there all
<v Speaker 2>the he goes there every day, he goes to take
<v Speaker 2>a walk there. He lives right by the.
<v Speaker 1>It was a fucking river ouder in the Chicago River too,
<v Speaker 1>I guess. I know.
<v Speaker 2>Isn't that amazing that that the remediation efforts on the
<v Speaker 2>river are really I mean, I went kayaking in the
<v Speaker 2>Chicago River about fifteen years ago and it's stunk. And
<v Speaker 2>it's now they've got these like rafts of vegetation they've
<v Speaker 2>put in. They put in this whole river walk on
<v Speaker 2>the north side that it's it's like, I think they
<v Speaker 2>only had three species of fish there thirty years ago,
<v Speaker 2>and now there's dozens and dozens.
<v Speaker 1>So that's better.
<v Speaker 2>The more it gives you a little bit.
<v Speaker 1>Of hope, I want people to start doing doing what
<v Speaker 1>Urban Rivers is doing. I want like gorilla projects where
<v Speaker 1>they're creating floating habitat match on the Chicago River, just
<v Speaker 1>some fucking random group of kids or something that would
<v Speaker 1>be amazing.
<v Speaker 2>And they're doing that more around. There's a school right
<v Speaker 2>by here too, where the the kids have put in
<v Speaker 2>like a prairie garden. So it's all it's all, you know,
<v Speaker 2>because this where we are right now used to be dunes.
<v Speaker 2>We're on a ridge right here by the ancient lake
<v Speaker 2>shoreline where I live, and so it's like the perfect
<v Speaker 2>environment for prairie grasses, all kinds of cool flowers and stuff.
<v Speaker 2>And I think people are kind of wisen up to
<v Speaker 2>that and bringing that back. I mean, there's not a
<v Speaker 2>ton of you know, space for it, but but you know,
<v Speaker 2>every every little one you know, is something, and that's
<v Speaker 2>you know, like you've been to my folks and they've
<v Speaker 2>got a natural lawn and it's an oasis during during
<v Speaker 2>the summer. Everyone else's lawn is dead, and they've got
<v Speaker 2>there's dragonflies, there's butterflies, they've got lizards, they've got frogs,
<v Speaker 2>there's insects buzzing over it all the time. But just
<v Speaker 2>that little patch, and everyone else you know in the
<v Speaker 2>town are like, oh, is you're is that an abandoned
<v Speaker 2>house or you know whatever.
<v Speaker 1>I can't but see that needs to change too, Like
<v Speaker 1>that's part of the thing is changing culture. You need
<v Speaker 1>to change the culture by normalizing this shit. I can't
<v Speaker 1>there's no there's no point for a lawn. It's just
<v Speaker 1>a spot for a dog. This shit, I can't understand that.
<v Speaker 1>You know, you create a little ten foot by ten
<v Speaker 1>foot patch if you get enough property, you know, or
<v Speaker 1>you take them to the park, or if you're doing
<v Speaker 1>you know, playing fucking some sort of sport or something.
<v Speaker 1>But I can't imagine.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it just seems a point we got the kids,
<v Speaker 2>you know, or whatever. But you know, I mean, that
<v Speaker 2>was the thing. I mean, I told you down there,
<v Speaker 2>down there in Claremont, Florida, I took an hour and
<v Speaker 2>a half walk I saw. I saw two people walking.
<v Speaker 2>One of them was walking a little toy dog, a
<v Speaker 2>little a man walking a toy I think most people
<v Speaker 2>just walk to walk their dogs. And then I saw
<v Speaker 2>one kid playing basketball in their driveway. But but everyone else,
<v Speaker 2>all these all these perfectly manicured lawns. No one's doing shit.
<v Speaker 2>And this is the time of the year with seventy
<v Speaker 2>eight degrees, it was perfect.
<v Speaker 1>There's no point going outside though. What is there to see? Right,
<v Speaker 1>There's nothing to see, there's nothing to interact with. If
<v Speaker 1>you've got like a little patch of woodlands behind the house,
<v Speaker 1>it's well maintained and not filled with invasive species, you
<v Speaker 1>could have a trail back there. You can go walk
<v Speaker 1>through there there's trees, to look at bugs, to look
<v Speaker 1>at birds, to look at plants, there's But in these
<v Speaker 1>these fucking sun Belt communities, these car slums, there's nothing
<v Speaker 1>to look at. You can walk through a residential or
<v Speaker 1>you can walk through a strip mall, you know, and
<v Speaker 1>then risk getting killed by some you know, seventeen year
<v Speaker 1>old texting in a fucking Yukon or a Giant f
<v Speaker 1>one fifty and their dad's f one fifty. But and
<v Speaker 1>then look at the stores. Maybe I guess you go
<v Speaker 1>into Best Buy in Perus through shit you don't need.
<v Speaker 1>But that's that's life. There's no there's no, there's nothing
<v Speaker 1>to look at. It was like you're in a dense city.
<v Speaker 1>You can go to the park, there's cool little independent
<v Speaker 1>shops close together you can look at. You could just
<v Speaker 1>look at public life, you could people watch. But in
<v Speaker 1>these places it's nothing. I can't and you think about
<v Speaker 1>how many millions of people live in these places and
<v Speaker 1>live like this. And again, we're not faulting, I'm not
<v Speaker 1>shitting anybody. But it's it's all that's there. It's the
<v Speaker 1>only option. It's fucking crazy, it's so sad, it's such
<v Speaker 1>a fucking horrible way to live. And then you wonder, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>of course, I wonder why so many people are miserable
<v Speaker 1>and depressed and shooting up schools and there's nothing to
<v Speaker 1>live for are we live? We're in a no man's
<v Speaker 1>land in terms of human existence, Like the things like
<v Speaker 1>this landscape didn't exist before. It couldn't have existed before.
<v Speaker 1>We've created this completely artificial landscape and we're fucking lost
<v Speaker 1>in it. We don't know what to do. It's just
<v Speaker 1>shopping and working. There's nothing else, and going to the gym,
<v Speaker 1>you know, maybe, yeah, that's it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'm not going back for a while. I'll tell
<v Speaker 2>you that.
<v Speaker 1>I just thought it was that you called me for
<v Speaker 1>moral support when you were there, and I said, I
<v Speaker 1>got this. This is I think about this every day
<v Speaker 1>because I fucking live in a region like this. And
<v Speaker 1>then you see there's i mean, no one has any
<v Speaker 1>there's no awareness. There's so little aware. I mean, there
<v Speaker 1>are people, but it's such a microcosm. There's people that
<v Speaker 1>have an awareness of the wild places and the life
<v Speaker 1>forms around them, but they're very, very small, and there's
<v Speaker 1>not many places. There's like maybe a state park every
<v Speaker 1>twenty miles if that.
<v Speaker 2>It's Yeah, are young people gonna want to live live there.
<v Speaker 2>That's the other thing. I thought people were moving back
<v Speaker 2>to cities. I thought that was a trend. There are
<v Speaker 2>young people gonna want to like stay out there.
<v Speaker 1>Well you've got to You've got to dupe them into
<v Speaker 1>into it somehow with either religion, you know, which kind
<v Speaker 1>of tells you to stay the course and stay on
<v Speaker 1>this miserable life and ignore your anxiety and suffering and
<v Speaker 1>depression because God will fix it. Or you've got to
<v Speaker 1>sell them, you know, the daily grind kind of David Goggins,
<v Speaker 1>work hard, you know it, don't be a pussy type
<v Speaker 1>thing and you.
<v Speaker 2>Just grind, grindset mindset.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, life is supposed to to suck and there's nothing else, Like,
<v Speaker 1>how could you think that there's another way to live,
<v Speaker 1>you fucking pussy? Like that's what you sell them. And
<v Speaker 1>then they they do that, and uh, you know, and
<v Speaker 1>there's just life is still meaningless. But they feel that
<v Speaker 1>they maybe they have a nice truck or a you know,
<v Speaker 1>a trophy. Wy for maybe someone's you know, getting botox
<v Speaker 1>at age thirty because she doesn't want to wrinkle and
<v Speaker 1>so she looks really good. She puts a lot of
<v Speaker 1>energy into how she looks so that men find her
<v Speaker 1>attractive and then everyone's going to the gym. I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, this is just what I see. It's just
<v Speaker 1>what I I guess. I mean anthropologically what I'm looking at.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you live to impress other people, and you
<v Speaker 1>live to acquire status symbols. But there's no inter fulfillment.
<v Speaker 1>You know, there's nothing you're not getting like inter fulfillment
<v Speaker 1>from fucking making art or doing a painting, playing piano.
<v Speaker 1>I don't see a lot of art in these places. Certainly,
<v Speaker 1>I don't see a lot of music. I don't see
<v Speaker 1>a lot of creativity. There's no nature. You're not getting
<v Speaker 1>fulfillment from going out and feeling good looking at you know,
<v Speaker 1>living green things around you. So you've got to You've
<v Speaker 1>got to create meaning somewhere. Video games are very important
<v Speaker 1>in these landscapes too. Video games are a necessity.
<v Speaker 2>Have you ever have you ever like helped clean up
<v Speaker 2>a house when when someone's died, to like all this
<v Speaker 2>stuff that people collect their whole life there the next
<v Speaker 2>to kin just whip it all into a dumpster. You know,
<v Speaker 2>you take a couple of things and but this whole
<v Speaker 2>life of of gathering like shiny things like a magpie.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it all just gets whipped into a dumpster,
<v Speaker 2>right right.
<v Speaker 1>See, I would say, I would say, I would say
<v Speaker 1>life is meaningless, but you can add meaning to it
<v Speaker 1>and make it meaningful and nice, but you still die
<v Speaker 1>and turn to dust. And I'm okay with that. That's
<v Speaker 1>a nice You know, they've done enough psychedelics to be
<v Speaker 1>cool with becoming part of it.
<v Speaker 2>I think it's incumbent on on on you to create meaning,
<v Speaker 2>and I think it's hard to create meaning in in
<v Speaker 2>these kind of.
<v Speaker 1>You can't space, you know, you can't do anything. There's
<v Speaker 1>no there's no tools to there's.
<v Speaker 2>No cultural exchange. Everyone's living in in you know, like
<v Speaker 2>a fortress that has one ingress and one egress out
<v Speaker 2>of it. You don't even have people passing through biacks.
<v Speaker 1>Now you're in a matrix. You're in the matrix you
<v Speaker 1>don't and it's it's video games, the gym, a job
<v Speaker 1>that you mostly barely find tolerable or can only tolerate
<v Speaker 1>through drinking and smoking weed. And then it's it's lots
<v Speaker 1>of driving. There's no natural areas around you, and if
<v Speaker 1>they are, you know the forces that be are continuously
<v Speaker 1>trying to destroy them and take them. If they're not
<v Speaker 1>you know, already conserved or put into public land, they
<v Speaker 1>will be taken eventually because the tumor is not going
<v Speaker 1>to stop growing. Uh So that, yeah, there's no meaning.
<v Speaker 1>There's it's a meaningless life. That's why you know, drugs
<v Speaker 1>and what not become very appealing. Or religion. Religion, and again,
<v Speaker 1>like I said, is very important. Yeah, and impressing your
<v Speaker 1>primates like other primates around you, you know, trying to
<v Speaker 1>look good, have an expensive vehicle, very very bottom of
<v Speaker 1>the brain stem existence. There's no insight, there's no philosophy,
<v Speaker 1>there's no creativity, there's no search for a deeper truth
<v Speaker 1>or meaning. So that's what we have. And I'm in
<v Speaker 1>the lower of the United States especially. I think it's
<v Speaker 1>very great to talk about these things. Put it out
<v Speaker 1>there and just put this bloated carcass of this pig
<v Speaker 1>on the table for everyone to see, because I think
<v Speaker 1>about it all the time. And then you think about
<v Speaker 1>that this is what is going in when all the
<v Speaker 1>habitat gets cleared and destroyed and taken out, like especially
<v Speaker 1>in a place like Florida, like they're still doing this
<v Speaker 1>they just demolished some pine rocklands in Miami three or
<v Speaker 1>four years ago to put in a fucking Walmart.
<v Speaker 2>Well, if you if like what you know your listeners
<v Speaker 2>are living in that area, I would say, go to Orlando.
<v Speaker 2>Go to the Vietnamese neighborhood. It's very cool, like the
<v Speaker 2>food's awesome, nice peace people. It's like the neighborhood where
<v Speaker 2>you start seeing rainbow flag stickers and pro Palestine stickers.
<v Speaker 2>It was like, you know, it's like that's my little signal.
<v Speaker 2>It's like, oh, there's you know, this is going to
<v Speaker 2>be a more nurturing environment.
<v Speaker 1>For someone like theft style, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And then we went over to the low gardens
<v Speaker 2>there too, which is like, you know, it's like an
<v Speaker 2>old you know, some rich guy had a plantation out
<v Speaker 2>there and donated it, and so you can see some
<v Speaker 2>neat plants and stuff over there in the low gardens.
<v Speaker 2>So and we my my girlfriend is a rule follower,
<v Speaker 2>so we paid to get in, but it would be
<v Speaker 2>very easy to jump a fence to get into there
<v Speaker 2>for free.
<v Speaker 1>Of course, support them if you can, but if you're
<v Speaker 1>young and don't have much money, that's another option too.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, So I so around there's cool stuff. You
<v Speaker 2>know that. That's the thing about the States. You can
<v Speaker 2>find those little pockets where there's cool stuff and cool people.
<v Speaker 2>And so it's down there in Orlando. My my my
<v Speaker 2>girlfriend spent some time down there, so she found the
<v Speaker 2>cool spots. So you know, there is you can find
<v Speaker 2>the community, you can find little pocket.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, there's little pockets of hope. Right, yeah, don't listen
<v Speaker 1>to me. I'm not fucking I mean, thing is you
<v Speaker 1>what do you do? You're hopeful, Get on a box car,
<v Speaker 1>you know, spray your shit under a bridge, start traveling,
<v Speaker 1>leave town, you know, do a couple of minor stints
<v Speaker 1>in jail every now in a while, just as a
<v Speaker 1>byproduct of lifestyle. But you know where yours you are
<v Speaker 1>actually giving pragmatic and hopeful alternatives. I like that. That's good,
<v Speaker 1>thank you, because I failed. But seriously, I think there's
<v Speaker 1>ways again. Yeah, I think, you know, getting interacting with plants,
<v Speaker 1>finding out what was native in a spot, what the landscape,
<v Speaker 1>you know, little hints at what the landscape may have
<v Speaker 1>looked like two hundred years ago, the case of Florida,
<v Speaker 1>even eighty years ago, and start trying to find little
<v Speaker 1>you know, residual patches of that grow those things, plant
<v Speaker 1>them out, get involved with like public parks, create a
<v Speaker 1>native plant movement, something like that. Plants are always the
<v Speaker 1>fucking answer. The living world is always the answer. It's
<v Speaker 1>not just in the escape. It's the fucking answer to
<v Speaker 1>this garbage. If you interact with these things, it will
<v Speaker 1>humble you, will make you a more enlightened person. It
<v Speaker 1>will It's an antacote to the death cult. It's not
<v Speaker 1>just an escape.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and I think that's that's the thing. It's a
<v Speaker 2>death cult, right, like human humans are part we're part
<v Speaker 2>of nature, and we we coexisted with it. We we
<v Speaker 2>we live with it because we we are it, and
<v Speaker 2>you just kind of have to get back to that
<v Speaker 2>and away from this. I mean, it's just like any
<v Speaker 2>other death cult. There's been death cults throughout history when
<v Speaker 2>when people are hopeless they turn to stuff like that.
<v Speaker 2>But but you know, you've got to get back to that,
<v Speaker 2>you know, remembering that that you know, we are stewards
<v Speaker 2>of this, we are of this. You know, we're not separate,
<v Speaker 2>we're not aliens, we're not machines.
<v Speaker 1>Right. Yeah. The consumer death cult is is it's not
<v Speaker 1>going to last too long. It can't. I don't think
<v Speaker 1>there's no way that it can. It's going to burn
<v Speaker 1>itself out. It could expand a lot and grow a
<v Speaker 1>lot and turn more of the earth into an ashtray
<v Speaker 1>than it already has, but it's going to burn out eventually.
<v Speaker 1>And I think there's just I think it's just a
<v Speaker 1>miserable way to live, too. And I think once people,
<v Speaker 1>once people, once you wake people up to that that
<v Speaker 1>like this is you're miserable, like you are, like face it,
<v Speaker 1>you're this is a miserable way to live, and there's
<v Speaker 1>an alternative. Once people wake up to that, they can
<v Speaker 1>it becomes you know, there's there's a lot more hope.
<v Speaker 1>That's why I do what I do. You know, even
<v Speaker 1>though I'm not helpful, I think there is hope, and
<v Speaker 1>it I getting people to wake up to the living
<v Speaker 1>world is the most important thing to do it really,
<v Speaker 1>is it?
<v Speaker 2>Really?
<v Speaker 1>Even if you're not that into plants, you know, everybody
<v Speaker 1>can be a little bit into it and appreciate being
<v Speaker 1>around it. We need to stop seeing it is messy
<v Speaker 1>or you know that it needs to be hedged, or
<v Speaker 1>that the native plants are messy or they're you know,
<v Speaker 1>invite pests or whatever it's. Now you learn to live
<v Speaker 1>with it and steward it. Yeah, whatever your feelings may
<v Speaker 1>be on that word. But anyway, well, well, thank you
<v Speaker 1>so much for coming on to talk on a podcast
<v Speaker 1>about this. I think it's very important. I'm sorry. I
<v Speaker 1>know it must have been emotionally shocking for you and traumatizing,
<v Speaker 1>and it is for me to see this stuff, this
<v Speaker 1>single serving, single use, you know, blown out the spiritual landscape,
<v Speaker 1>but this void, this emptiness, but you know there's there's hope.
<v Speaker 1>That's the point. So anyway, we'll have a good ride
<v Speaker 1>rest of your you know time today on Mantras Beach
<v Speaker 1>and let me know if you see any any of
<v Speaker 1>a beaver, you know, they've been chewing on those fucking
<v Speaker 1>I think it's hackberries or whatever's out there, but you'll
<v Speaker 1>see like beaver gnawings, you know, closer to the lake.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's it's pretty amazing, you know. And they, you know,
<v Speaker 2>we've got the the the piping plover come to visit
<v Speaker 2>every summer now and they've become like celebrities, and I
<v Speaker 2>think that's you know there, if you want to twist that,
<v Speaker 2>you know, our perverted culture make make endangered bird celebrities
<v Speaker 2>that seem to work. They got left alone, you know,
<v Speaker 2>they they actually this is amazing. They were going to
<v Speaker 2>have a music fastiball on the beach and they move
<v Speaker 2>it because of the piping plovers. So that gives me
<v Speaker 2>great hope, because they they the plovers needed a place
<v Speaker 2>lay their eggs, and so they they actually shut down
<v Speaker 2>this huge portion of the beach. Uh, it's not for
<v Speaker 2>humans at all anymore. And Andy they strictly enforce it,
<v Speaker 2>and actually it gets enforced by the birders that are
<v Speaker 2>out there. Really cool.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you pick a species or two. I mean in
<v Speaker 1>fucking New Zealand, they got like some of their fungi
<v Speaker 1>species on the fucking currency. You know, you make these organisms.
<v Speaker 1>You pick a certain organism of plant or animal or
<v Speaker 1>bird or whatever the fuck, and you put it on
<v Speaker 1>the you know, you you put it and you inject
<v Speaker 1>it into the culture so that people are aware of it.
<v Speaker 1>They may not know plants, but everyone will know a
<v Speaker 1>certain bird in an area because they see the fucking
<v Speaker 1>logo everywhere and they see people talking about it, and
<v Speaker 1>they see it. Fucking informational kiosk at a park explaining
<v Speaker 1>the importance of this thing whatever, you know, and.
<v Speaker 2>It's a it's like a gateway drug into you know,
<v Speaker 2>waking up, you know about what you can do and
<v Speaker 2>what we could have, so you know there is there is,
<v Speaker 2>there is hope and and uh you're more hopeful than
<v Speaker 2>you let on too, so.
<v Speaker 1>I p well, thank you. Yeah see I think so too.
<v Speaker 1>But it's it's beneath the thick crust of spines and
<v Speaker 1>you know, caustic exodents. So well, thank you, will thank
<v Speaker 1>you so much. Until next time, our Crime pace field
<v Speaker 1>correspondent Will Dorn all right, thanks Joey cool Man