WEBVTT
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What's up?
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It's your person, it's Jack Lila coming to you from this echoey chamber with what?
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A new microphone.
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A new microphone, a new microphone.
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Dancing, dancing, dancing with my new microphone.
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I don't know that I figured it out.
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I think I have.
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I think it's working.
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It's um from online BH.
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I didn't do a whole lot of research, just looked it up and I bought something.
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And as you know, I bought the wrong connection and whatever.
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So I had to.
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I was all like, tech, I had to do a return.
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They sent it to me.
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BH was lovely.
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It ended up being very easy.
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You don't care.
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I don't care.
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No one cares.
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And yet, here we are back at it, several weeks away.
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It's been August.
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I took some time off from the podcast.
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And I hope you took some time off from the labors of your life and were able to savor.
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Savor love.
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I hope you were able to savor love.
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I say that without a hint of glibness in my heart.
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I say that wholeheartedly.
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Oh, what a time, what a time, what a weird time it's been this year, this whole summer.
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Weird summer in America.
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It's it feels like a waiting time, but also like time is is going by quickly.
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The past two months have flown.
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The past two months have flown.
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Did you miss me?
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I missed you.
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I did miss you.
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I did miss you.
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I really enjoyed the rhythm that we had gotten into.
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I really enjoyed the rhythm that we had gotten into.
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Um I enjoy the feedback.
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I'd love to get a little text.
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Keep texting me if you're texting me.
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And I love to feel connected to you all.
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And I do feel like we need the connection.
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I do feel like we need we need this.
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We need this.
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We need the bitter old lady brigade, as it were.
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I've been listening to a lot of Race Chaser.
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It's I it's a podcast I'm a fan of.
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I've been a fan of it for a long time.
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I've listened to it for years and years and years, and so I started listening to the coverage from the beginning.
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Well, season two.
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I skipped season one.
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I don't know why, but I started with season two, and so I've been listening up to their recaps of Drag Race.
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Now I'm in season seven.
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And you know, it's funny and it's a hoot, but it's also weird because they're recapping something that happened in the past, and now I'm listening to it as a product of the past.
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So it was like 2019.
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So I was locked in 2019 for a while, 2019 vibes.
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I think I mentioned that last time.
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And you know, they made all these references to things going on at that time, and it made me nostalgic.
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It made me very nostalgic for 2019, sort of the pre-COVID stuff.
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Seemed like a simpler time, seemed like a more optimistic time, seemed like a better time.
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I did miss that.
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Did I miss that part of my life?
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I guess so.
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It was kind of a simpler time.
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It was a time where I would go to work and come home and yeah, listen to Race Chaser and sort of go on about my little day.
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Pitter patter, just put her around, little me.
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Little me doing God knows what.
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God knows what.
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No, I was writing a book.
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I was working on a novel manuscript.
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The novel didn't sell, but I did get an agent.
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It was just a simpler time.
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It was a simpler time, a more depressed time, probably, but sometimes the simpler times are.
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Anyway, then, you know, they went into COVID and all this social justice, Black Lives Matter stuff they started.
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You like the tenor changed.
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Oh, it was interesting listening to Willem talk on Race Chaser in 2019, and he was very like cancel culture conscious.
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He was like, Oh, can I say that?
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Can we say that now?
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Can we still say that?
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And then that tone really shifts in 2020 to more kind of deferential.
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I think I'm s they're still in 2021 now, so it's still kind of the COVID moment.
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They're talking about the world opening up and all that kind of stuff.
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It's just fun.
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It's a bit of nostalgia, it's a bit of a look back.
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It's a bit of a look back, but already the 2021 stuff, there's some cultural references in there that I didn't realize were that long ago.
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Because 2021 was five years ago, but it's some stuff that feels like a marker of the current moment.
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As I say that, I can't think of one.
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I can't think of a single thing that made me feel that way.
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Did I write anything down?
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Let's see.
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I was so excited to record this, I didn't even like glance at my notes.
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What's in my notes?
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Did I make any race chaser notes?
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What did I say?
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Nope, I just put race chaser.
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Race chaser! It's up at the top.
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Um, so you know that's the vibe, kind of August.
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I've been writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing.
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Actually, no, I'm more in editing.
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I got 50,000 words of my sci-fi book 433 Eros.
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It's the working title.
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It's the name of An Asteroid.
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433 Eros.
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And you know it's all about love.
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So what I'm should I tell people what it's about?
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Should it tell people?
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I don't know.
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Am I gonna get like scooped or something by the two people who listen to this?
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Um, no, what is it about?
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It's what I'm telling people, log line is it's about gay for pay drone pilots in the near future.
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Well, not that near, maybe not that near.
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It's about gay for pay drone pilots.
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So there's a lot of like, is this love?
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Is this sex?
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Sex and love and violence and mediated violence and weird attachments, drone pilot PTSD.
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You know, drone pilots fall in love kind of with their subjects near, but they become kind of weirdly bonded with them.
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It's weird writing this book because I think the reality of the drone pilot program is actually weirder than the sci-fi thing.
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Because you because you can write about the reality in a sci-fi context.
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Like I can take all that stuff, like about drone pilots kind of becoming enamored and obsessed with the people that they have to kill.
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And you put that in a sci-fi book and you think, oh, it's fiction, that's fiction.
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But really, no, it's real.
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And I've been reading, or I have now months ago, read some of the accounts, autobiographies, memoirs, stuff like that, and then reports about the drone pilot program, and they're so strange.
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They're so so so so so strange.
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Because they do kind of fall in love with these people that they're tracking for months, months, and months.
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The drone pilots fall in love with them, and when they kill them, at least the accounts of the people who are writing these books, the drone pilots are so firmly, they're they have such firm convictions that they're doing the right thing, that they're killing bad guys.
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And it's happening over there, you know, they're killing people in Syria and they have to die.
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And if there's uh casualties, that's just what happens in war.
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Um, but then on another level, they also develop these weird bonds and attachments, so they get this horrible PTSD from things where you know they have to go to work at their nine to five, basically, in like a you know, a mall, basically, and shoot up some kid's soccer party, and then they go home and pick up their kids from soccer practice.
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And you know, intellectually they think they're doing the right thing, but I think part of them knows that they're doing something horrible.
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And the the like the rationale in all these books for the drone pilot program for all these attacks is so flimsy.
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Like it really is just like people in Iraq and Syria are just harboring bad guys.
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They just the bad guys who are out to get America because they're bad.
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You know, there's not a lot of probing of like, well, why why is somebody out to get America?
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Why are they resentful of America?
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Is it just because they're just innately programmed that way to just hate America for no reason?
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Hmm, why why?
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Why would you dedicate your life to violence against a country just for no reason?
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You know, why would they endanger not only their own lives but their families' lives and everybody they know?
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It's just arbitrary?
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They there's no reason why they would do this.
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It's you know, there's no probing of that.
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So these these drum pilots come across as very stupid.
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And I realize that the ones who are writing these books are are selected to do it to make propaganda, but I don't get the sense that there's like, I don't know, a widespread um post-reflection or self-insight about what these military people are doing.
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I think I think the more I learn about the military, even less sympathetic I get to them.
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You know, I think there's this like idea that some people join the military because it'll pay for college or you know, pay off student loans, or or whatever.
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They don't have other opportunities, and so they're forced into it.
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So, you know, you don't hate the soldier, you hate the system.
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But these soldiers are not very sympathetic.
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It's it's a lot of people choosing to do something that they don't have to do.
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You know, they're not conscripted to do it.
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There's no draft, they're not forced to do it, so they are choosing to do this.
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You could choose to do other things.
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There are other paths available.
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So I'm really in this whole process become even less sympathetic.
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It's the American military, which obviously sucks, but I think it it the system sucks, but I also kind of think the people in it suck.
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Um and hopefully Pete Buttig um never becomes president.
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Hopefully, we just nobody uh just elects these military people who are who are just horrible.
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Who are horrible people?
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Um how about that?
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That's up top.
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That's about up top.
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What else do I have in my notes?
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So much has happened, you guys.
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So much has happened, but yet not that much has really happened.
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I feel like I'm going a mile a minute.
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I'm just going a mile a minute, and I hope the audio quality is good.
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What am I reading, you ask?
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I'm reading Hog.
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I'm reading Hog by Samuel Delaney.
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And boy, oh boy, I'm slapping my thighs because there's so much to unpack.
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Hear that?
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It's me clapping.
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So I think we're gonna talk about hog.
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We can talk about it today.
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We're gonna have to talk about it in the future.
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I'm maybe a third of the way in.
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I do get the sense it's gonna be a bit repetitive.
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Whew, what what an experience.
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Um, so I'm reading Hog now, and what did I read earlier this summer?
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Oh, the um bum bum bum.
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I gotta walk.
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My brain shuts off.
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Um what did I read earlier this summer?
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We talked all about it.
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Um, the the book with the prostitution sluts, Dennis Cooper.
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Dennis Cooper the Sluts.
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Now, Samuel Delaney.
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If you don't know Samuel Delaney, you should.
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But at one point I didn't either.
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So he became known as a sci-fi author.
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And I've read a couple of his books now.
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Uh just a couple weeks ago I read Nova, which one of his was one of his early sci-fi hits.
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We've talked about it.
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They kind of like sketchy.
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I have thoughts.
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I have thoughts there too.
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So maybe we start there with Samuel Delaney.
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He was a pulp fiction writer, science fiction.
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He started when he was like in his early 20s.
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Um I think you know, wrote to make money.
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He kind of from what it sounds like, he he churned out some of the science fiction stuff and made a lot of money off it, got won prizes.
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The early stuff is not great.
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It's not super well crafted.
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It's not super well crafted, it is really imaginative.
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There's a lot going on.
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Like Nova, there's a lot about tarot in Nova, which is kind of weird.
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Like in the future, I guess, in the future, as he envisions it, people take tarot really seriously.
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Um that's weird, that's new, but you know, there's a lot of like different things.
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They do plug in to do work.
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He does think through he does think through societies that aren't like techno-optimistic wonderful and are sort of more ambiguous.
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I think that's one of his um more like admirable contributions.
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So in Nova, anyway, so in Nova, there's um it's the future from Earth, and people are what are they?
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Cyborg studs.
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Cyborg studs.
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So they have little jacks in their bodies that so they can hook into machines and have a sort of cybernetic consciousness and control machines and do jobs there.
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And he talks about, or the narrator, whatever people describe in the book, how this changed society, because now there's a whole now laborers can go anywhere and do anything and just be cyborg since they sort of just drift and flit throughout the universe, throughout the human societies, throughout the universe.
00:14:26.639 --> 00:14:35.600
Anyway, so that it the plot of the book kind of is ooky kooky, whatever, kind of falls apart.
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No, it doesn't fall apart in Nova.
00:14:38.080 --> 00:14:46.559
It's like two young rich guys antagonizing each other and competing, which isn't super compelling.
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You don't really, you don't really care about these two young rich guys.
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And the sort of like elite society as it's drawn isn't really that compelling.
00:14:56.240 --> 00:15:06.159
But he does like think through what are the codes of the society, what are the different what are the different parts of it, not in like a fantasy way.
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It doesn't feel fantasy coded, it feels more uh like a political political novel somehow, I don't know.
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Um, but more invested in in realism than fantasy.
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Um so I appreciate that.
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Appreciate it.
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I think it's good, or it's super influential.
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Everybody references Nova, so it's one of those sci-fi books you gotta read.
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And I think the thing that I was thinking about pulp fiction and like his work, Samuel Delaney's work, it's like the individual works are not amazing.
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The individual works have or are you know have different parts and it's sort of weak and they're sketchy, and there's like sketchy I mean is in like things are sketched in, but they they don't seem fully fleshed out, and there's ideas that are aren't super developed.
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So you know they feel incomplete, but I think taken as a whole, or taken as part of a series, that's when the pulp fiction that's when the value of it more.
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So it's like it's not about individual masterworks, it's like it's not and it's not about a genre so much as it is about sort of or a series, what about a collection, and oo, a corpus comes together to say something and become impressive.
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Like not, I don't know, or I've yet to read a single Samuelney sci-fi book that I feel like is like a real masterpiece, or I would put up there as like, you know, 10 favorite books or whatever.
00:16:53.519 --> 00:17:05.519
But I do feel like he's one of my favorite authors already because of bits and pieces of his different books.
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If that makes sense.
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Does that make sense?
00:17:09.759 --> 00:17:16.400
So it's less about a single work and it's more about a body of work, I guess.
00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:23.279
But it's and it's not even like it's like, oh, he did a lot of like okay things.
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It's you know, there are themes in the books that interrelate, and you can see how something gets developed here and and developed over there.
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Oh, there's a fire somewhere.
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I can see some smoke.
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I can see some smoke, hope everyone's okay.
00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:41.920
Doesn't look like a lot of smoke.
00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:45.119
Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
00:17:45.200 --> 00:18:02.319
It was just something I was thinking about with pulp fiction, and something that maybe I'm a bit nostalgic for is being a writer and having that flexibility to experiment, to play, to come to this place to play as a writer.
00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:13.200
Whereas now it feels like everything is so marketable or so or so niche.
00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:14.720
I don't know.
00:18:15.279 --> 00:18:24.480
I guess it's it's it's always a trap to look back with nostalgia, but um that is something I'm enjoying about reading some of that pulp fiction.
00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:32.400
Is that I I get to put less pressure on each individual book and just sort of take it in, let it all wash over me.
00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:34.160
Let it wash over me.
00:18:35.359 --> 00:18:36.640
Um, all right.
00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:38.480
That's that's that.
00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:40.559
Hog.
00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:42.240
Hog.
00:18:42.960 --> 00:18:45.279
Hog, hog, hog.
00:18:47.519 --> 00:18:50.799
Weird, weird book.
00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:52.400
Difficult book.
00:18:52.960 --> 00:18:55.359
Unpublishable book for decades.
00:18:55.680 --> 00:19:01.359
So hog, if you don't know, in some circles is really highly regarded.
00:19:01.599 --> 00:19:03.519
I think more now.
00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:09.359
But it was unpublishable for a long time because it's ostensibly porn.
00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:11.920
Ostensibly.
00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:13.759
Ostensibly- Oh, we gotta unpack.
00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:14.880
Oh, we gotta unpack.
00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:16.799
It's ostensibly porn.
00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:23.839
So I think in a superficial level it's porn, but it's violent rape porn.
00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:30.319
Rape, incest, porn.
00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:42.960
So reading it is a weird experience because it is written like a pornographic story with rape and incest.
00:19:43.039 --> 00:19:59.920
The main character is this character, Hogg, H-O-G-G, and he is a rapist for hire, and goes around and rapes women for hire.
00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:07.839
Men hire him, it's only been men so far, who have hired him to go and rape women that they want to get revenge on.
00:20:08.319 --> 00:20:27.680
So obviously, we're already in uh uh unusual territory for for a book, and then for it to be a porn book, to be reading a porn book about rape uh uh uh uh of women, okay.
00:20:27.839 --> 00:20:31.680
So we're in territory, we we see where there are red flags.
00:20:31.920 --> 00:20:36.799
We see where there are red flags, and we see why the book wasn't published for decades.
00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:46.880
I guess they it was rejected even by the guy who published or re-issued, you know, Marquis de Sade and published Lolita.
00:20:47.599 --> 00:20:50.160
I said Hog was the one book he would not do.
00:20:51.359 --> 00:21:12.160
Okay, so is it rate porn ostensibly, but where it gets a little more complicated, or maybe a lot more complicated, is it's also gay porn, and it's like filth gay porn.
00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:31.680
So a hog doesn't bathe ever and doesn't it seems use a toilet, so he just peas himself and shits himself, and so the he's just filthy and disgusting.
00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:39.359
So the like the other character maybe like the main character, maybe not the is he the narrator?
00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:41.279
No, he's not the narrator, it's not first person.
00:21:41.359 --> 00:21:42.799
No, it is first person.
00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:44.720
It is first person.
00:21:44.799 --> 00:21:54.160
So the first person narrator is a young guy who seems like a stand in for the author.
00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:59.599
But really, what I'm I'm basing that off of is that he's a white passing black man.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:09.039
Young white passing black man, so uh that doesn't need to be Samuel Delaney, though that is, I think, also Samuel Delaney.
00:22:09.119 --> 00:22:17.759
Anyway, so it's first person, and this young guy, gay.
00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:20.400
Well, I don't know if he do he ever says he's gay.
00:22:20.640 --> 00:22:32.720
This young guy is becomes the sexual possession of Hog and follows him around and is his like sexual plaything.
00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:37.279
So Hog fucks him, he sucks Hog.
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:42.720
Hog sticks his fingers, his toes into the narrator's mouth.
00:22:43.039 --> 00:22:56.400
Hog has a group of other rapists that he he uses that he hires to go and like gangbang women, and they all use this young man boy question mark.
00:22:56.640 --> 00:23:00.799
I think 17 maybe boy.
00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:05.680
Um and use him sexually.
00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:12.480
The boy is only too happy to do all these things, and it's all filthy, ridiculous.
00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:19.119
You know, he's like he's he's he's smelling the shit on someone's dick.
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:32.079
He's uh trying to uh drink all the piss that he can, but it's it's falling out of his mouth and running all over him and onto the boots, and it's all porn.
00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:34.400
It's all porn, it's like filth porn.
00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:41.279
Basically, whatever you can think of uh being bad is in there.
00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:46.880
It doesn't seem like there's limits um to what it is.
00:23:48.000 --> 00:24:21.359
Uh I mean the opening chapter is the young boy is working as essentially like a sex slave in the basement of this house for this other boy who's also um using his sister as a sex slave, and like the dad comes down and fucks the girl, and the narrator sucks him off, and then a group of guys come and gang bang blah blah blah.
00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:24.079
It's all woof.
00:24:24.319 --> 00:24:26.480
It's all woof and it's all porn.
00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:38.799
So it's a weird experience of reading it because there's titillating aspects to it, but it's also horrible.
00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:50.880
And that's I think the the weirdness of the experience of reading it is the disgust, the mixing of disgust and arousal.
00:24:51.279 --> 00:25:03.759
And I think that's part of what starts to take it out of the register of just pure porn and starts to be more about an investigation, is that pretentious?
00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:15.039
An investigation of what people of uh of sex and violence in America, and of how nasty it can be.
00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:17.200
Of how nasty it be- then there's passages.
00:25:17.359 --> 00:25:23.920
There's passages that make it a little clearer where someone says something, which I'm gonna dig up.
00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:25.680
Okay, this is Hogg.
00:25:25.759 --> 00:25:31.519
This is Hogg talking to another boy about um being a rapist for hire.
00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:34.000
It's a good profession, boy, Hogg said.
00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:36.960
Like the man says, ain't nothing you can do in this world today.
00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:45.440
Go to the pictures, buy some food, or even throw away the package to come in, throw away the package at coming, that don't bring somebody closer to hurt.
00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:50.400
At least this way you know that you ain't making your money by making them pictures or packages.
00:25:50.640 --> 00:25:54.000
And when you're hurting somebody, you're hurting them.
00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:56.799
You look them right in the eye and do it.
00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:02.400
You can't very well fuck somebody without looking them in the eye unless, Hog chuckled, you do it doggy style.
00:26:02.720 --> 00:26:07.359
Even so, you ain't dropping no bombs on 500 people you ain't never seen.
00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:13.119
You ain't signing no papers that's gonna put a thousand people who ain't never heard your name out of a house and a job.
00:26:13.359 --> 00:26:22.000
You ain't enjoying no benefits that come down the pike three years after you finish with hurting folks you didn't even know existed, much less you was hurting them.
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:34.240
And you can look at any TV newscast or listen to any radio report, even if it's about something you just done, and I had that happen to me three times now, and no, you got more sense of duty than they do.
00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:39.440
Okay, so that's sort of a thesis statement, I think, of the book.
00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:44.400
Which is how I would assume you're supposed to read it.
00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:48.160
You know, Samon Delaney, judging from the sci-fi stuff, is not afraid to be didactic.
00:26:48.319 --> 00:26:56.400
He's not afraid to tell you exactly in a sort of very, you know, sci-fi super analytical nerd kind of way.
00:26:56.480 --> 00:26:59.279
Like the way this society works is that it's built up XYZ.
00:26:59.359 --> 00:27:00.480
You know, he will tell you.
00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:04.319
He's not, he's he's afraid he's not afraid to tell and not show.
00:27:04.559 --> 00:27:15.599
So I I do think you can take that a bit on on face value of of what the of what they do.
00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:18.079
Okay, something else that Hogg says.
00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:21.680
Because people don't even want to see shit like that happen.
00:27:21.759 --> 00:27:26.880
I mean, they'd be happier pretending it didn't even happen, but you're gonna see enough of the kind of stuff I usually do.
00:27:29.359 --> 00:27:29.519
Yeah.
00:27:29.839 --> 00:27:39.759
This is okay, this is after a scene where, okay, yeah, Hogg causes like a disgusting scene in a diner and like shits himself or whatever on peas and blah, blah, blah.
00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:40.880
It's like disgusting.
00:27:41.039 --> 00:27:42.480
And he just walks out.
00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:47.119
And then he says he's gonna go, he's gonna clean himself off and go back in.
00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:49.680
And I look at him and say with a big grin, what you mean?
00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:56.160
I was hauling crates of peaches yesterday down near Chattahoochee, and they'd go away just as happy because people don't even want to see shit like that happen.
00:27:56.240 --> 00:27:58.000
I mean, they'd be happy pretending it didn't even happen.
00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:18.799
Yeah, so it's about violence in America, but how America's so fucked up and destroys people is so horrible to people, and enjoys it, and there's pleasure in it, and that's the pleasure of America is dropping bombs on people.
00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:39.599
Like what are they saying, dropping bombs and killing 500 people, or being so detached from the violence that results from what you do, the the destruction that results from what you do, you know, the destruction that results from buying, you know, new shirts that are made in a horrible factory, and you're destroying the environment and blah blah blah.
00:28:39.759 --> 00:28:43.359
You know, all the horrible crap that's underpinning American society.
00:28:44.799 --> 00:29:02.720
And so this book, the book is it you're reading this book, it's porn and disgusting porn, and it's sort of like being forced to look at the shit that America does, being disgusted with America, disgusted with American violence.
00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:07.599
I you know, I I that's I sense the idea.
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:18.799
That's I sense the idea, and what I appreciate about it, what I appreciate about it is that it doesn't do it in a way that wraps it up in a box and kind of makes you feel better.
00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:22.799
In the way that I would say 2666.
00:29:22.960 --> 00:29:29.119
2666 has that passage, the long passage, it's like the litany of the femicides in Mexico.
00:29:29.359 --> 00:29:33.839
And I think you read that and you sort of get through it and you sort of abstract it and you intellectualize it.
00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:37.519
And I don't think it really, at least to me, it wasn't really disturbing.
00:29:37.599 --> 00:29:42.400
I think you read it as an aesthetic exercise.
00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:48.480
You know, you read it as art, that you say, okay, wow, that was profound.
00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:52.640
And wow, this book is formally so interesting and so amazing.
00:29:53.039 --> 00:30:08.799
And then you go home and you congratulate yourself for being an intellectual and reading an intellectually challenging book, and then you know, being aware of the femicides in Mexico, and you probably feel great as an American that you are so smart and liberal and wow, what a good citizen.
00:30:09.119 --> 00:30:12.160
This hog, I don't think, lets you off the hook like that.
00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:13.759
I think it's disturbing.
00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:16.960
I think it fucks you up to like your core.
00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:26.960
It makes you so aware of of just like fearful, it's just it's a disturbing, it's a disturbing freaking read.
00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:29.039
The sluts.
00:30:30.799 --> 00:30:32.480
The sluts, I think, is similar.
00:30:32.559 --> 00:30:34.000
I think the sluts is similar.
00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:35.279
I think the sluts is similar.
00:30:35.359 --> 00:30:36.319
I think the sluts is similar.
00:30:36.400 --> 00:30:37.440
I think the sluts is similar.
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:39.759
Is the sluts more sophisticated?
00:30:40.160 --> 00:30:46.160
I mean, formally, it's definitely formally more sophisticated with you know the message board and everything.
00:30:46.559 --> 00:31:02.480
But hog is like oh, just the brutality of it and the way that parts of it are arousing or or tittle, like there are gay porn aspects of it that it's like, oh yeah, like you know, the gangbang, whatever.
00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:14.640
So it does connect, I think, to make me at least be more aware of the kind of violence of sexuality, and like we're just questioning more, like, what the heck are we doing?
00:31:14.720 --> 00:31:16.079
What are gay guys doing?
00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:32.160
Like the weird, the weird way that gay guys go about with their sexuality and and sex, it's just like what's going on, and then so many, it's not just gay guys having weird, fucked up sexuality.
00:31:32.720 --> 00:31:36.079
Short isn't straight guys, and I think people well beyond that.
00:31:36.240 --> 00:31:38.000
Ghlaine Maxwell.
00:31:39.119 --> 00:31:43.759
Um, I don't know.
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:44.640
I don't know.
00:31:44.720 --> 00:31:45.680
That's a ramble.
00:31:45.839 --> 00:31:48.960
That's a ramble, but that's what we're on.
00:31:49.119 --> 00:31:49.839
That's what we're on.
00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:50.799
We're on hog.
00:31:51.920 --> 00:31:58.960
Also, you can really see how this is connecting to two gay for pay drone pilots.
00:31:59.039 --> 00:32:09.359
So that's you can see why it's on the brain, what's happening there, what I'm thinking about, violence and pleasure in America and technology, and technology.
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:12.559
So that's what I'm thinking about.
00:32:12.880 --> 00:32:13.839
That's what I'm thinking about.
00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:14.640
Light stuff.
00:32:14.799 --> 00:32:16.559
Light stuff, no, it's not, it's heavy stuff.
00:32:16.640 --> 00:32:17.680
I'm not gonna be glib.
00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:22.079
So I'm taking breaks and I'm planting, and I need to see people.
00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:25.920
I'm still upstate, but I'm gonna come back down to New York City in a couple weeks.
00:32:26.079 --> 00:32:26.799
Are you ready?
00:32:26.960 --> 00:32:29.039
New York, are you ready for me?
00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:30.720
I guess I'm looking forward.
00:32:31.039 --> 00:32:32.000
No, I'm not looking forward to that.
00:32:32.079 --> 00:32:32.720
I'm not gonna lie.
00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:33.680
I'm not looking forward to that.
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:35.920
I'm thinking about buying a place up here.
00:32:36.319 --> 00:32:38.640
An inexpensive place up here.
00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:45.440
So that I could come up the rest of the year more, but I don't think I could do it full time.
00:32:47.519 --> 00:32:48.480
It's the people.
00:32:48.640 --> 00:32:50.960
It's the people that I need to be back in New York for.
00:32:51.519 --> 00:32:52.400
But do I?
00:32:52.559 --> 00:32:53.279
I don't know.
00:32:53.519 --> 00:32:54.079
I don't know.
00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:55.359
We're open-ended right now.
00:32:55.440 --> 00:32:56.480
We're open-ended to the world.
00:32:56.640 --> 00:32:58.400
Biggest thing is just finishing this book.
00:32:58.640 --> 00:33:00.640
Biggest thing is finishing this book.
00:33:00.799 --> 00:33:08.720
I mean, one thing that I saw online that I was like, oh gosh, I don't want to go back.
00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:13.759
Ma NYC, the hairstyling, the hairstylist place, Ma NYC.
00:33:14.079 --> 00:33:16.079
I don't know if you've seen it or if you're aware of it.
00:33:16.240 --> 00:33:23.680
It's you know, upscale gay guy, hairstylist salon not far from where I live in little Italy.
00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:33.200
I recognize the guys who run it from the gym, from the Soho Equinox with Anthony, etc.
00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:42.319
Just going through that Instagram of my NYC, which first of all, most of it is like shirtless gay guys.
00:33:43.359 --> 00:33:49.359
Which I I love that this is out there marketing themselves as just like shirtless gay guy thirst traps.
00:33:49.519 --> 00:34:10.159
But they're all sort of like it's all that kind of like um gay guy or like the male pout, sort of like, oh, sort of like a mock seriousness about it, or sort of a thoughtfulness about not mock, they think it's sort of like a seriousness that they're being very like serious and tasteful, almost with thoughtful with the thirst trap.
00:34:10.239 --> 00:34:16.559
You know, it's like they have to repress the eroticism of it, repress the sex about it, and just be like, oh, it's fashion, it's fashion.
00:34:16.639 --> 00:34:25.199
And it's like, and of course the haircuts are all the 18 going on 38, gay guy aesthetic, where it's all just like zhuzed up supercuts.
00:34:25.360 --> 00:34:32.800
You know, everybody sort of looks like they went to the mall and then just ran their hands through their hair a little bit to like muss it up.
00:34:33.280 --> 00:34:34.880
Love it, love everything about it.
00:34:35.039 --> 00:34:41.280
Gay guys never change, gay guys never change, never grow up, stay like this forever.
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:44.159
No, that's me being glib.
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:44.800
I don't know.
00:34:44.960 --> 00:34:51.519
Um that's not making me excited to go back, but I am kind of obsessed.
00:34:51.679 --> 00:34:52.960
I'm obsessed.
00:34:53.440 --> 00:34:55.599
There's a few different things that it makes me think of.
00:34:55.679 --> 00:34:57.119
It makes me think of Choice of Awn.
00:34:57.679 --> 00:34:59.039
It makes me think of Choice of Von.
00:34:59.119 --> 00:35:01.920
We can go there first and then get back to the gay guys more generally.
00:35:02.079 --> 00:35:06.960
Choice of Awn, you know, came up in my 2019 nostalgia.
00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:10.400
Choice of Von just released a new song.
00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:11.519
What is it?
00:35:11.599 --> 00:35:18.320
It's about women and um how much he loves women, how much he admires women.
00:35:18.639 --> 00:35:19.039
Sure.
00:35:19.280 --> 00:35:30.960
Troy Savon 31, in his 30s now, still giving, still giving Power Twink, very much featured on the Mott NYC website, if not literally, at least in spirit.
00:35:31.440 --> 00:35:34.800
You know, a supercut's haircut that's just must up mused up.
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:38.960
The outfits, the outfits are all glam 18-year-olds.
00:35:39.119 --> 00:35:51.039
You know, every every 30-something gay guy is there just chasing some idea of what it would have been to have been hot and sexy when you were 15.
00:35:52.000 --> 00:36:00.400
Um not even hot and sexy, but sexually active, I guess, when you were 15, in a in a way of some power.
00:36:00.559 --> 00:36:21.199
I don't know, because I think many gay guys were sexually active when they were 15, but maybe didn't feel empowered about it, and now they want to be, you know, the hot guy in gym class seems to be, seems to be the aesthetic regime right now of the downtown gay guys and the choice of on gay guys.
00:36:21.679 --> 00:36:27.360
Uh and you know, I think it's a little boring, I think it's a little underwhelming, no offense.
00:36:27.519 --> 00:36:34.639
But no, in my 2019 nostalgia dump, I was I pulled up old Troy Savon albums that I actually really liked.
00:36:34.719 --> 00:36:36.639
I really enjoy the pop music.
00:36:37.039 --> 00:36:38.960
I really enjoyed his old albums.
00:36:39.039 --> 00:36:53.519
Um, I thought it was really good, and I was really listening to them until I realized that he was, you know, I think he's a white South African who his family fled fled South Africa after the end of apartheid and moved to Australia.
00:36:54.800 --> 00:36:57.920
Um, and now, you know, he lives in America.
00:36:58.079 --> 00:37:05.280
So he's sort of like the colonial, a colonial trifecta, lots of colonial, colonial power there.
00:37:05.679 --> 00:37:11.599
So I don't know that he's like a figure that needs like valorization.
00:37:11.679 --> 00:37:24.000
I think you know he's benefited from from a lot of valorizing systems in his life, no offense to him, nor, you know, it's just the way it is.
00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:30.960
Um and the new music is just is is not doing it for me.
00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:35.119
And I do feel like, okay, taking it to more gay guys more generally.
00:37:36.800 --> 00:37:37.679
Here's the thing.
00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:38.960
Here's the thing, gay guys.
00:37:39.119 --> 00:37:43.280
Here's the thing, especially in our 30s, in our 30s, and now you know of choice 31.
00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:44.960
Welcome, welcome.
00:37:45.199 --> 00:37:46.719
I'm about to leave my 30s.
00:37:46.960 --> 00:37:54.800
Here's what I've learned, here's what I would impart, here's what I would say, here's what I would challenge the gay guys.
00:37:55.599 --> 00:37:59.519
As you leave, you know, the narcissistic 20s behind.
00:37:59.599 --> 00:38:06.239
I feel like 20s, as they're conceived right now, are a time to be selfish and kind of lost and narcissistic.
00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:10.800
You care about yourself, you have your fun, you sow your oats, blah, blah, blah.
00:38:11.920 --> 00:38:17.599
30s is a transition into adulthood, ostensibly, for people.
00:38:17.760 --> 00:38:21.039
The question is, what is adulthood for gay guys?
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:28.800
And this is where I feel like a lot of gay guys are getting lost is it just it comes with more money.
00:38:29.039 --> 00:38:45.199
So you start, you know, buying the expensive clothes, getting, you know, a$500 haircut from my NYC, I don't know how much it costs there, and you know, buying$500 jeans that look like you know, whatever, they're ambercrombie jeans from from however long ago.
00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:48.639
And you know, you live that fantasy.
00:38:48.719 --> 00:38:51.199
You have the money and the resources to live that fantasy.
00:38:51.360 --> 00:38:55.920
You get the peptides, you get the gym membership, you know, you do all that stuff.
00:38:56.400 --> 00:38:57.199
What was that?
00:38:57.360 --> 00:38:58.400
I heard a noise.
00:38:58.639 --> 00:39:01.039
Um someone's trying to tell me to stop, probably.
00:39:01.199 --> 00:39:04.320
Um and then to what end?
00:39:04.480 --> 00:39:05.679
To what end is what I'm saying.
00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:08.719
You do that in your 30s, fine, fine, if that's what you want to do.
00:39:08.880 --> 00:39:10.239
What are you gonna do in your 40s?
00:39:10.320 --> 00:39:13.280
What are you gonna do in your 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s?
00:39:13.360 --> 00:39:16.960
You know, what are you gonna do for the rest of your century?
00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:18.800
What are you setting up?
00:39:19.199 --> 00:39:20.320
What are we setting up?
00:39:20.480 --> 00:39:28.559
The thing with gay guys, you're not having kids, most of us, most of us are not having kids, most of us aren't even settling down into a long-term relationship.
00:39:28.639 --> 00:39:30.159
We know we're flitting from this to that.
00:39:30.239 --> 00:39:33.280
From the obligations, what are our obligations?
00:39:33.519 --> 00:39:35.519
Kids take up so much time.
00:39:35.760 --> 00:39:40.320
Kids take up so much time and money and resources if you have them.
00:39:40.639 --> 00:39:42.239
So that's what straight people are doing.
00:39:42.400 --> 00:39:43.519
You'll just speak broadly.
00:39:43.679 --> 00:39:47.119
Straight people are doing the kids, and that's where their energies go.
00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:57.760
So they sort of get the 30s and 40s off a bit because they have to spend it all, spend every single moment, basically, focused on the kids and raising them.
00:39:58.400 --> 00:40:01.360
You still have to care about them in the in your 50s, 60s, whatever.
00:40:01.599 --> 00:40:06.960
But then, you know, they get their 50s, so they've raised their kids, so they can start breathing, they can retire.
00:40:07.199 --> 00:40:14.880
50s, 60s become the retirement, the reward, and 70s, 80s is where they start guiding with the grandkids, the next generation.
00:40:14.960 --> 00:40:16.480
There's much more of like a script.
00:40:16.639 --> 00:40:19.599
This is a new revelation, but there's much more of a script for straight people.
00:40:20.480 --> 00:40:27.199
I'm not saying that's great, I'm not saying that's what we should be doing, or that's somehow better, but there is something to occupy the time.
00:40:27.599 --> 00:40:28.639
That's the thing to me.
00:40:28.800 --> 00:40:30.800
Occupy the time and the resources.
00:40:31.119 --> 00:40:41.119
Okay, guys, don't have anything necessarily to occupy the time and the resources, so we end up spending the time, the resources to like look like Troy Savon or whatever.
00:40:41.199 --> 00:40:41.840
You know what it is?
00:40:41.920 --> 00:40:45.119
You like we're 38 going in 18.
00:40:45.199 --> 00:40:45.920
That aesthetic.
00:40:46.079 --> 00:40:50.320
We spend that time doing that, which is a waste of time, which is a waste of time.
00:40:50.639 --> 00:40:53.760
We're not in a narcissistic 20s anymore.
00:40:54.400 --> 00:41:06.320
You need, we need to use that time to shepherd society, to shepherd the next generation in the same way that you know straight people are doing with biological children or you know, nuclear families or whatever.
00:41:06.559 --> 00:41:07.519
We can still do that.
00:41:07.679 --> 00:41:15.760
We can still keep shepherding society and nourishing the next generation, maybe not with biological nuclear families, but in other ways.
00:41:15.840 --> 00:41:17.280
And I think there's a responsibility.
00:41:17.440 --> 00:41:19.519
And I know that some of my gay guys out there are doing that.
00:41:19.599 --> 00:41:24.719
I know that some of them are involved in political organizations, social organizations, volunteering, this, that, and the other.
00:41:25.039 --> 00:41:26.559
That is great.
00:41:26.800 --> 00:41:30.000
I also know that a lot of us are not doing that, right?
00:41:30.320 --> 00:41:40.079
And so we gotta start doing, I think, more of that, more of an obligation to use this time and this energy and resources not to not to go to my NYC.
00:41:40.239 --> 00:41:41.679
Not to go to Mot NYC.
00:41:41.920 --> 00:41:43.199
Soapbox, that's me.
00:41:43.280 --> 00:41:44.880
That's my soapbox.
00:41:45.679 --> 00:41:46.960
That's my soapbox.
00:41:47.039 --> 00:41:53.119
And here's where this is kind of going though, is like the aesthetics of that.
00:41:54.480 --> 00:41:57.039
Gay guy aesthetics right now just seems so boring.
00:41:57.119 --> 00:42:12.800
And I've talked about this before where it's like, yeah, guys, we're supposed to be, you know, the visionaries and the artists, and challenging and subverting and and all this kind of stuff, and being the frisson, you know, the frisson, the freakish frisson of society.
00:42:13.199 --> 00:42:14.880
And we're not there.
00:42:15.039 --> 00:42:19.519
We're not there now at this moment in time, you know.
00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:22.320
But we need to get back there.
00:42:22.639 --> 00:42:26.960
We need to get back there, and I think that's part of what we gotta be doing with our resources.
00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:28.000
That's a way to do it.
00:42:28.079 --> 00:42:31.280
It doesn't have to be, you know, volunteering and political and whatever.
00:42:31.599 --> 00:42:47.119
Just advancing, advancing the aesthetics of society so they stop valorizing violence and imperialism and whatever, and they can start opening up better paths.
00:42:47.280 --> 00:42:48.320
That's what we can be doing.
00:42:48.400 --> 00:42:49.280
It can be aesthetic.
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:55.280
We can still be aesthetic little animals, as so many of us like to be, but just pushing a little further.
00:42:55.599 --> 00:42:56.960
Further, further.
00:42:57.199 --> 00:43:01.679
Not the nostalgia, not the nostalgia for an 18-year-old.
00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:08.000
That's what I think it needs to go further behind and keep moving forward.
00:43:08.159 --> 00:43:09.920
We gotta keep moving forward.
00:43:12.960 --> 00:43:14.000
Keep moving forward?
00:43:14.159 --> 00:43:19.039
I don't know what that I don't know what that means, but we gotta we just gotta be the little freakish little freaks.
00:43:19.199 --> 00:43:26.960
We gotta be these freakish little freaks and opening up opening up new possibilities, keeping keeping keeping things fresh.
00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:30.159
New, potentially better.
00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:34.159
Oh, just looking at my list.
00:43:35.679 --> 00:43:36.719
There's things, okay.
00:43:36.800 --> 00:43:39.840
So what am I what am I really speaking out against?
00:43:40.559 --> 00:43:42.480
Interview magazine, interview magazine.
00:43:42.559 --> 00:43:45.599
That we uh uh that's gay guy culture that's just like circling the drain.
00:43:45.760 --> 00:43:49.599
Interview magazine, 30 whatever years ago, used to be fresh.
00:43:49.760 --> 00:43:52.239
I think it used to be more new, I think there used to be more going on.
00:43:52.400 --> 00:43:57.360
Now it's just like it's it's the it's the Jordan Firstman aesthetic.
00:43:57.440 --> 00:43:59.119
I there's a lot of Courtney Love comeback.
00:43:59.280 --> 00:44:13.519
It's just like Lot of like this is so boring and so old and so dated and so safe and like not meeting the moment where people are so aware of like American genocide and we're gonna talk about like Courtney Love.
00:44:13.599 --> 00:44:14.719
Like you you know what I mean?
00:44:14.880 --> 00:44:16.719
Like we have to move forward.
00:44:16.880 --> 00:44:19.280
Just the interview magazine, just shut it down.
00:44:19.519 --> 00:44:20.880
Defund interview magazine.
00:44:20.960 --> 00:44:22.800
Abolish interview magazine.
00:44:23.519 --> 00:44:24.239
It's over.
00:44:24.400 --> 00:44:25.760
That's the gay guy culture.
00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:28.559
We just need to, we need to, we need to let it go.
00:44:28.800 --> 00:44:29.760
We need to let it go.
00:44:29.840 --> 00:44:31.920
It's really not taking us further.
00:44:33.519 --> 00:44:35.679
It's really not taking us further.
00:44:36.480 --> 00:44:40.800
I have a whole other thing about melodrama that I don't think I don't think fits.
00:44:40.880 --> 00:44:42.000
I don't think we want to attack it on.
00:44:42.079 --> 00:44:43.039
I think we've talked about enough.
00:44:43.280 --> 00:44:44.960
I think we've talked about enough today.
00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:49.119
Gay guys, hog, gay guys.
00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:52.239
This is really a podcast about gay guys, isn't it?
00:44:52.880 --> 00:44:54.400
That's sort of the broader theme.
00:44:54.639 --> 00:44:55.920
That's one of our themes.
00:44:56.159 --> 00:44:58.639
One of our themes in this podcast is gay guys.
00:44:58.880 --> 00:45:01.039
One of the themes that we keep returning to.
00:45:01.280 --> 00:45:08.079
One of the themes you you that's continually present in your work is the gay guy.
00:45:08.880 --> 00:45:10.480
How how did that come about?
00:45:10.639 --> 00:45:13.599
What when was what was your first interaction with the gay guy?
00:45:13.679 --> 00:45:21.039
You know, the gay guy as as an archetype, as as as a character in society and social.
00:45:21.519 --> 00:45:22.000
This is me.
00:45:22.159 --> 00:45:31.280
This is me on a different podcast that I'll one day have where I take myself insufferably seriously and get a MacArthur Genius Award.
00:45:31.840 --> 00:45:33.519
Um, no, not a MacArthur.
00:45:33.760 --> 00:45:37.920
I would be getting something from the kitchen.
00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:48.159
I'd be getting a residency at the kitchen to develop three new pieces that address um my life.
00:45:48.320 --> 00:45:49.920
Yeah, that are that are about my life.
00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:58.559
Three new pieces about my life, loosely, loosely based on my upbringing, on my upbringing in rural California.
00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:07.679
And I use movements, I use humor, and I use sociopathy.
00:46:07.920 --> 00:46:08.239
No.
00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:26.159
Movement humor, and an uncanny ability to distill the phrases and gestures that encapsulate the American experience in the 21st century.
00:46:26.480 --> 00:46:30.079
My guest today is John Milton Friedman.
00:46:30.239 --> 00:46:34.159
No, um is Jack Baldwin Morley.
00:46:34.960 --> 00:46:36.239
Jack, welcome.
00:46:36.480 --> 00:46:37.440
Thank you so much.
00:46:37.679 --> 00:46:39.280
It's a pleasure to be here.
00:46:40.239 --> 00:46:41.599
It's a pleasure to be here.
00:46:41.760 --> 00:46:53.119
I love culture and taking money from wealthy donors to produce things that sound important, but don't challenge the status quo in any way whatsoever.
00:46:53.840 --> 00:46:59.280
That's my mo to make money and feel good about myself.
00:47:00.159 --> 00:47:02.320
I'm an artist.
00:47:02.800 --> 00:47:03.840
This is my oo.
00:47:04.159 --> 00:47:04.960
This is my output.
00:47:05.119 --> 00:47:06.239
Recurring themes.
00:47:06.480 --> 00:47:07.679
Recurring theme in your work.
00:47:07.760 --> 00:47:12.400
And then there's a sub-theme within the gay guy theme, which is the bitchy gay guy.
00:47:12.639 --> 00:47:14.079
Tell me more about that.
00:47:15.519 --> 00:47:18.880
Um, to be insufferable.
00:47:19.119 --> 00:47:24.480
To be insufferable in America is is is a luxury.
00:47:25.280 --> 00:47:26.320
I think this is it.
00:47:26.480 --> 00:47:27.280
I think this is it.
00:47:27.440 --> 00:47:28.639
I don't like this.
00:47:28.960 --> 00:47:30.400
I don't like this.
00:47:31.280 --> 00:47:34.320
I don't like this podcast.
00:00:00.880 --> 00:00:02.080
What's up?
00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:11.279
It's your person, it's Jack Lila coming to you from this echoey chamber with what?
00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:14.080
A new microphone.
00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:18.000
A new microphone, a new microphone.
00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:20.960
Dancing, dancing, dancing with my new microphone.
00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:22.800
I don't know that I figured it out.
00:00:22.879 --> 00:00:23.839
I think I have.
00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:25.519
I think it's working.
00:00:26.239 --> 00:00:31.600
It's um from online BH.
00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:36.399
I didn't do a whole lot of research, just looked it up and I bought something.
00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:42.079
And as you know, I bought the wrong connection and whatever.
00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:42.880
So I had to.
00:00:43.039 --> 00:00:45.200
I was all like, tech, I had to do a return.
00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:45.920
They sent it to me.
00:00:46.079 --> 00:00:47.439
BH was lovely.
00:00:47.679 --> 00:00:49.520
It ended up being very easy.
00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:50.880
You don't care.
00:00:51.119 --> 00:00:52.320
I don't care.
00:00:52.640 --> 00:00:53.840
No one cares.
00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:59.679
And yet, here we are back at it, several weeks away.
00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:01.200
It's been August.
00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:04.159
I took some time off from the podcast.
00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:13.920
And I hope you took some time off from the labors of your life and were able to savor.
00:01:14.799 --> 00:01:15.760
Savor love.
00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:18.799
I hope you were able to savor love.
00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:23.200
I say that without a hint of glibness in my heart.
00:01:23.599 --> 00:01:26.719
I say that wholeheartedly.
00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:34.159
Oh, what a time, what a time, what a weird time it's been this year, this whole summer.
00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:36.480
Weird summer in America.
00:01:36.719 --> 00:01:41.840
It's it feels like a waiting time, but also like time is is going by quickly.
00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:43.840
The past two months have flown.
00:01:44.079 --> 00:01:45.439
The past two months have flown.
00:01:45.519 --> 00:01:46.719
Did you miss me?
00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:48.560
I missed you.
00:01:48.879 --> 00:01:49.920
I did miss you.
00:01:50.079 --> 00:01:50.719
I did miss you.
00:01:50.799 --> 00:01:53.120
I really enjoyed the rhythm that we had gotten into.
00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:56.159
I really enjoyed the rhythm that we had gotten into.
00:01:56.959 --> 00:02:01.760
Um I enjoy the feedback.
00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:03.280
I'd love to get a little text.
00:02:03.439 --> 00:02:05.680
Keep texting me if you're texting me.
00:02:06.159 --> 00:02:08.479
And I love to feel connected to you all.
00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:10.080
And I do feel like we need the connection.
00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:13.840
I do feel like we need we need this.
00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:14.719
We need this.
00:02:14.879 --> 00:02:18.319
We need the bitter old lady brigade, as it were.
00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:22.879
I've been listening to a lot of Race Chaser.
00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:26.319
It's I it's a podcast I'm a fan of.
00:02:26.479 --> 00:02:27.840
I've been a fan of it for a long time.
00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:33.199
I've listened to it for years and years and years, and so I started listening to the coverage from the beginning.
00:02:33.439 --> 00:02:34.319
Well, season two.
00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:35.439
I skipped season one.
00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:41.520
I don't know why, but I started with season two, and so I've been listening up to their recaps of Drag Race.
00:02:41.840 --> 00:02:44.000
Now I'm in season seven.
00:02:44.879 --> 00:02:59.039
And you know, it's funny and it's a hoot, but it's also weird because they're recapping something that happened in the past, and now I'm listening to it as a product of the past.
00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:00.319
So it was like 2019.
00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:03.599
So I was locked in 2019 for a while, 2019 vibes.
00:03:03.919 --> 00:03:05.680
I think I mentioned that last time.
00:03:06.319 --> 00:03:11.680
And you know, they made all these references to things going on at that time, and it made me nostalgic.
00:03:11.759 --> 00:03:17.280
It made me very nostalgic for 2019, sort of the pre-COVID stuff.
00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:23.120
Seemed like a simpler time, seemed like a more optimistic time, seemed like a better time.
00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:24.639
I did miss that.
00:03:24.800 --> 00:03:26.000
Did I miss that part of my life?
00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:26.639
I guess so.
00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:28.240
It was kind of a simpler time.
00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:38.800
It was a time where I would go to work and come home and yeah, listen to Race Chaser and sort of go on about my little day.
00:03:39.120 --> 00:03:42.080
Pitter patter, just put her around, little me.
00:03:42.479 --> 00:03:44.000
Little me doing God knows what.
00:03:44.319 --> 00:03:45.199
God knows what.
00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:46.400
No, I was writing a book.
00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:48.319
I was working on a novel manuscript.
00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:50.719
The novel didn't sell, but I did get an agent.
00:03:50.800 --> 00:03:52.319
It was just a simpler time.
00:03:53.039 --> 00:03:57.840
It was a simpler time, a more depressed time, probably, but sometimes the simpler times are.
00:03:57.919 --> 00:04:05.520
Anyway, then, you know, they went into COVID and all this social justice, Black Lives Matter stuff they started.
00:04:05.599 --> 00:04:07.039
You like the tenor changed.
00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:17.519
Oh, it was interesting listening to Willem talk on Race Chaser in 2019, and he was very like cancel culture conscious.
00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:18.720
He was like, Oh, can I say that?
00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:19.360
Can we say that now?
00:04:19.439 --> 00:04:20.079
Can we still say that?
00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:27.600
And then that tone really shifts in 2020 to more kind of deferential.
00:04:27.839 --> 00:04:32.399
I think I'm s they're still in 2021 now, so it's still kind of the COVID moment.
00:04:32.560 --> 00:04:36.240
They're talking about the world opening up and all that kind of stuff.
00:04:36.879 --> 00:04:37.839
It's just fun.
00:04:38.639 --> 00:04:41.199
It's a bit of nostalgia, it's a bit of a look back.
00:04:41.439 --> 00:04:49.040
It's a bit of a look back, but already the 2021 stuff, there's some cultural references in there that I didn't realize were that long ago.
00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:54.959
Because 2021 was five years ago, but it's some stuff that feels like a marker of the current moment.
00:04:55.199 --> 00:04:57.199
As I say that, I can't think of one.
00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:01.600
I can't think of a single thing that made me feel that way.
00:05:01.759 --> 00:05:03.040
Did I write anything down?
00:05:03.199 --> 00:05:04.079
Let's see.
00:05:04.319 --> 00:05:08.560
I was so excited to record this, I didn't even like glance at my notes.
00:05:09.199 --> 00:05:10.639
What's in my notes?
00:05:10.959 --> 00:05:13.279
Did I make any race chaser notes?
00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:14.959
What did I say?
00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:17.040
Nope, I just put race chaser.
00:05:17.279 --> 00:05:19.759
Race chaser! It's up at the top.
00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:24.879
Um, so you know that's the vibe, kind of August.
00:05:25.199 --> 00:05:27.759
I've been writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing.
00:05:27.839 --> 00:05:29.519
Actually, no, I'm more in editing.
00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:35.759
I got 50,000 words of my sci-fi book 433 Eros.
00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:37.600
It's the working title.
00:05:37.680 --> 00:05:40.000
It's the name of An Asteroid.
00:05:40.240 --> 00:05:41.519
433 Eros.
00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:44.800
And you know it's all about love.
00:05:45.199 --> 00:05:48.319
So what I'm should I tell people what it's about?
00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:49.519
Should it tell people?
00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:49.920
I don't know.
00:05:50.079 --> 00:05:54.800
Am I gonna get like scooped or something by the two people who listen to this?
00:05:54.959 --> 00:05:56.720
Um, no, what is it about?
00:05:56.879 --> 00:06:04.160
It's what I'm telling people, log line is it's about gay for pay drone pilots in the near future.
00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:06.240
Well, not that near, maybe not that near.
00:06:06.399 --> 00:06:09.120
It's about gay for pay drone pilots.
00:06:10.879 --> 00:06:14.720
So there's a lot of like, is this love?
00:06:14.879 --> 00:06:15.759
Is this sex?
00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:25.199
Sex and love and violence and mediated violence and weird attachments, drone pilot PTSD.
00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:33.040
You know, drone pilots fall in love kind of with their subjects near, but they become kind of weirdly bonded with them.
00:06:33.199 --> 00:06:43.199
It's weird writing this book because I think the reality of the drone pilot program is actually weirder than the sci-fi thing.
00:06:43.279 --> 00:06:45.839
Because you because you can write about the reality in a sci-fi context.
00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:53.199
Like I can take all that stuff, like about drone pilots kind of becoming enamored and obsessed with the people that they have to kill.
00:06:53.360 --> 00:06:56.560
And you put that in a sci-fi book and you think, oh, it's fiction, that's fiction.
00:06:56.720 --> 00:06:57.759
But really, no, it's real.
00:06:57.839 --> 00:07:09.600
And I've been reading, or I have now months ago, read some of the accounts, autobiographies, memoirs, stuff like that, and then reports about the drone pilot program, and they're so strange.
00:07:09.759 --> 00:07:11.839
They're so so so so so strange.
00:07:12.160 --> 00:07:17.839
Because they do kind of fall in love with these people that they're tracking for months, months, and months.
00:07:18.079 --> 00:07:38.480
The drone pilots fall in love with them, and when they kill them, at least the accounts of the people who are writing these books, the drone pilots are so firmly, they're they have such firm convictions that they're doing the right thing, that they're killing bad guys.
00:07:39.120 --> 00:07:43.439
And it's happening over there, you know, they're killing people in Syria and they have to die.
00:07:43.519 --> 00:07:47.519
And if there's uh casualties, that's just what happens in war.
00:07:48.560 --> 00:08:11.600
Um, but then on another level, they also develop these weird bonds and attachments, so they get this horrible PTSD from things where you know they have to go to work at their nine to five, basically, in like a you know, a mall, basically, and shoot up some kid's soccer party, and then they go home and pick up their kids from soccer practice.
00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:21.199
And you know, intellectually they think they're doing the right thing, but I think part of them knows that they're doing something horrible.
00:08:21.439 --> 00:08:30.720
And the the like the rationale in all these books for the drone pilot program for all these attacks is so flimsy.
00:08:30.959 --> 00:08:38.000
Like it really is just like people in Iraq and Syria are just harboring bad guys.
00:08:38.159 --> 00:08:41.759
They just the bad guys who are out to get America because they're bad.
00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:47.519
You know, there's not a lot of probing of like, well, why why is somebody out to get America?
00:08:47.679 --> 00:08:50.320
Why are they resentful of America?
00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:56.559
Is it just because they're just innately programmed that way to just hate America for no reason?
00:08:56.720 --> 00:08:57.840
Hmm, why why?
00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:04.399
Why would you dedicate your life to violence against a country just for no reason?
00:09:04.559 --> 00:09:09.919
You know, why would they endanger not only their own lives but their families' lives and everybody they know?
00:09:10.960 --> 00:09:12.399
It's just arbitrary?
00:09:12.559 --> 00:09:15.519
They there's no reason why they would do this.
00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:17.759
It's you know, there's no probing of that.
00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:21.600
So these these drum pilots come across as very stupid.
00:09:22.159 --> 00:09:40.399
And I realize that the ones who are writing these books are are selected to do it to make propaganda, but I don't get the sense that there's like, I don't know, a widespread um post-reflection or self-insight about what these military people are doing.
00:09:40.559 --> 00:09:47.679
I think I think the more I learn about the military, even less sympathetic I get to them.
00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:56.240
You know, I think there's this like idea that some people join the military because it'll pay for college or you know, pay off student loans, or or whatever.
00:09:56.399 --> 00:09:58.799
They don't have other opportunities, and so they're forced into it.
00:09:58.879 --> 00:10:01.600
So, you know, you don't hate the soldier, you hate the system.
00:10:02.879 --> 00:10:05.919
But these soldiers are not very sympathetic.
00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:10.960
It's it's a lot of people choosing to do something that they don't have to do.
00:10:11.120 --> 00:10:13.200
You know, they're not conscripted to do it.
00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:17.200
There's no draft, they're not forced to do it, so they are choosing to do this.
00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:20.320
You could choose to do other things.
00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:22.240
There are other paths available.
00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:26.639
So I'm really in this whole process become even less sympathetic.
00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:33.919
It's the American military, which obviously sucks, but I think it it the system sucks, but I also kind of think the people in it suck.
00:10:34.159 --> 00:10:41.440
Um and hopefully Pete Buttig um never becomes president.
00:10:41.600 --> 00:10:48.159
Hopefully, we just nobody uh just elects these military people who are who are just horrible.
00:10:48.399 --> 00:10:49.919
Who are horrible people?
00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:52.159
Um how about that?
00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:53.200
That's up top.
00:10:53.440 --> 00:10:54.399
That's about up top.
00:10:54.559 --> 00:10:55.840
What else do I have in my notes?
00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:57.759
So much has happened, you guys.
00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:02.000
So much has happened, but yet not that much has really happened.
00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:04.799
I feel like I'm going a mile a minute.
00:11:04.960 --> 00:11:07.679
I'm just going a mile a minute, and I hope the audio quality is good.
00:11:07.919 --> 00:11:09.600
What am I reading, you ask?
00:11:09.759 --> 00:11:11.759
I'm reading Hog.
00:11:12.960 --> 00:11:15.919
I'm reading Hog by Samuel Delaney.
00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:21.759
And boy, oh boy, I'm slapping my thighs because there's so much to unpack.
00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:23.600
Hear that?
00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:25.200
It's me clapping.
00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:28.399
So I think we're gonna talk about hog.
00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:30.080
We can talk about it today.
00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:31.840
We're gonna have to talk about it in the future.
00:11:31.919 --> 00:11:34.639
I'm maybe a third of the way in.
00:11:35.039 --> 00:11:38.879
I do get the sense it's gonna be a bit repetitive.
00:11:39.919 --> 00:11:42.480
Whew, what what an experience.
00:11:42.720 --> 00:11:48.480
Um, so I'm reading Hog now, and what did I read earlier this summer?
00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:51.759
Oh, the um bum bum bum.
00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:52.879
I gotta walk.
00:11:53.440 --> 00:11:54.720
My brain shuts off.
00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:57.679
Um what did I read earlier this summer?
00:11:57.759 --> 00:11:59.039
We talked all about it.
00:11:59.279 --> 00:12:04.720
Um, the the book with the prostitution sluts, Dennis Cooper.
00:12:04.960 --> 00:12:06.480
Dennis Cooper the Sluts.
00:12:08.559 --> 00:12:10.000
Now, Samuel Delaney.
00:12:10.080 --> 00:12:12.960
If you don't know Samuel Delaney, you should.
00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:14.879
But at one point I didn't either.
00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:18.879
So he became known as a sci-fi author.
00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:21.120
And I've read a couple of his books now.
00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:26.960
Uh just a couple weeks ago I read Nova, which one of his was one of his early sci-fi hits.
00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:27.759
We've talked about it.
00:12:27.840 --> 00:12:29.360
They kind of like sketchy.
00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:31.120
I have thoughts.
00:12:31.279 --> 00:12:32.399
I have thoughts there too.
00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:35.200
So maybe we start there with Samuel Delaney.
00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:38.559
He was a pulp fiction writer, science fiction.
00:12:38.799 --> 00:12:42.080
He started when he was like in his early 20s.
00:12:42.639 --> 00:12:45.840
Um I think you know, wrote to make money.
00:12:45.919 --> 00:12:53.200
He kind of from what it sounds like, he he churned out some of the science fiction stuff and made a lot of money off it, got won prizes.
00:12:53.279 --> 00:12:54.639
The early stuff is not great.
00:12:54.720 --> 00:12:56.799
It's not super well crafted.
00:12:57.039 --> 00:13:00.159
It's not super well crafted, it is really imaginative.
00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:01.519
There's a lot going on.
00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:06.559
Like Nova, there's a lot about tarot in Nova, which is kind of weird.
00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:11.919
Like in the future, I guess, in the future, as he envisions it, people take tarot really seriously.
00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:20.240
Um that's weird, that's new, but you know, there's a lot of like different things.
00:13:20.399 --> 00:13:22.799
They do plug in to do work.
00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:35.120
He does think through he does think through societies that aren't like techno-optimistic wonderful and are sort of more ambiguous.
00:13:35.279 --> 00:13:42.960
I think that's one of his um more like admirable contributions.
00:13:43.440 --> 00:13:54.799
So in Nova, anyway, so in Nova, there's um it's the future from Earth, and people are what are they?
00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:56.159
Cyborg studs.
00:13:56.320 --> 00:13:57.519
Cyborg studs.
00:13:57.679 --> 00:14:07.360
So they have little jacks in their bodies that so they can hook into machines and have a sort of cybernetic consciousness and control machines and do jobs there.
00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:26.480
And he talks about, or the narrator, whatever people describe in the book, how this changed society, because now there's a whole now laborers can go anywhere and do anything and just be cyborg since they sort of just drift and flit throughout the universe, throughout the human societies, throughout the universe.
00:14:26.639 --> 00:14:35.600
Anyway, so that it the plot of the book kind of is ooky kooky, whatever, kind of falls apart.
00:14:35.759 --> 00:14:37.840
No, it doesn't fall apart in Nova.
00:14:38.080 --> 00:14:46.559
It's like two young rich guys antagonizing each other and competing, which isn't super compelling.
00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:50.240
You don't really, you don't really care about these two young rich guys.
00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:56.159
And the sort of like elite society as it's drawn isn't really that compelling.
00:14:56.240 --> 00:15:06.159
But he does like think through what are the codes of the society, what are the different what are the different parts of it, not in like a fantasy way.
00:15:06.320 --> 00:15:16.879
It doesn't feel fantasy coded, it feels more uh like a political political novel somehow, I don't know.
00:15:17.120 --> 00:15:21.519
Um, but more invested in in realism than fantasy.
00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:24.960
Um so I appreciate that.
00:15:25.200 --> 00:15:25.840
Appreciate it.
00:15:25.919 --> 00:15:28.879
I think it's good, or it's super influential.
00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:33.759
Everybody references Nova, so it's one of those sci-fi books you gotta read.
00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:47.600
And I think the thing that I was thinking about pulp fiction and like his work, Samuel Delaney's work, it's like the individual works are not amazing.
00:15:47.840 --> 00:16:02.159
The individual works have or are you know have different parts and it's sort of weak and they're sketchy, and there's like sketchy I mean is in like things are sketched in, but they they don't seem fully fleshed out, and there's ideas that are aren't super developed.
00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:19.360
So you know they feel incomplete, but I think taken as a whole, or taken as part of a series, that's when the pulp fiction that's when the value of it more.
00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:38.240
So it's like it's not about individual masterworks, it's like it's not and it's not about a genre so much as it is about sort of or a series, what about a collection, and oo, a corpus comes together to say something and become impressive.
00:16:38.399 --> 00:16:52.399
Like not, I don't know, or I've yet to read a single Samuelney sci-fi book that I feel like is like a real masterpiece, or I would put up there as like, you know, 10 favorite books or whatever.
00:16:53.519 --> 00:17:05.519
But I do feel like he's one of my favorite authors already because of bits and pieces of his different books.
00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:07.519
If that makes sense.
00:17:07.759 --> 00:17:09.039
Does that make sense?
00:17:09.759 --> 00:17:16.400
So it's less about a single work and it's more about a body of work, I guess.
00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:23.279
But it's and it's not even like it's like, oh, he did a lot of like okay things.
00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:34.000
It's you know, there are themes in the books that interrelate, and you can see how something gets developed here and and developed over there.
00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:35.359
Oh, there's a fire somewhere.
00:17:35.440 --> 00:17:36.480
I can see some smoke.
00:17:38.799 --> 00:17:40.559
I can see some smoke, hope everyone's okay.
00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:41.920
Doesn't look like a lot of smoke.
00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:45.119
Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
00:17:45.200 --> 00:18:02.319
It was just something I was thinking about with pulp fiction, and something that maybe I'm a bit nostalgic for is being a writer and having that flexibility to experiment, to play, to come to this place to play as a writer.
00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:13.200
Whereas now it feels like everything is so marketable or so or so niche.
00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:14.720
I don't know.
00:18:15.279 --> 00:18:24.480
I guess it's it's it's always a trap to look back with nostalgia, but um that is something I'm enjoying about reading some of that pulp fiction.
00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:32.400
Is that I I get to put less pressure on each individual book and just sort of take it in, let it all wash over me.
00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:34.160
Let it wash over me.
00:18:35.359 --> 00:18:36.640
Um, all right.
00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:38.480
That's that's that.
00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:40.559
Hog.
00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:42.240
Hog.
00:18:42.960 --> 00:18:45.279
Hog, hog, hog.
00:18:47.519 --> 00:18:50.799
Weird, weird book.
00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:52.400
Difficult book.
00:18:52.960 --> 00:18:55.359
Unpublishable book for decades.
00:18:55.680 --> 00:19:01.359
So hog, if you don't know, in some circles is really highly regarded.
00:19:01.599 --> 00:19:03.519
I think more now.
00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:09.359
But it was unpublishable for a long time because it's ostensibly porn.
00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:11.920
Ostensibly.
00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:13.759
Ostensibly- Oh, we gotta unpack.
00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:14.880
Oh, we gotta unpack.
00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:16.799
It's ostensibly porn.
00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:23.839
So I think in a superficial level it's porn, but it's violent rape porn.
00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:30.319
Rape, incest, porn.
00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:42.960
So reading it is a weird experience because it is written like a pornographic story with rape and incest.
00:19:43.039 --> 00:19:59.920
The main character is this character, Hogg, H-O-G-G, and he is a rapist for hire, and goes around and rapes women for hire.
00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:07.839
Men hire him, it's only been men so far, who have hired him to go and rape women that they want to get revenge on.
00:20:08.319 --> 00:20:27.680
So obviously, we're already in uh uh unusual territory for for a book, and then for it to be a porn book, to be reading a porn book about rape uh uh uh uh of women, okay.
00:20:27.839 --> 00:20:31.680
So we're in territory, we we see where there are red flags.
00:20:31.920 --> 00:20:36.799
We see where there are red flags, and we see why the book wasn't published for decades.
00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:46.880
I guess they it was rejected even by the guy who published or re-issued, you know, Marquis de Sade and published Lolita.
00:20:47.599 --> 00:20:50.160
I said Hog was the one book he would not do.
00:20:51.359 --> 00:21:12.160
Okay, so is it rate porn ostensibly, but where it gets a little more complicated, or maybe a lot more complicated, is it's also gay porn, and it's like filth gay porn.
00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:31.680
So a hog doesn't bathe ever and doesn't it seems use a toilet, so he just peas himself and shits himself, and so the he's just filthy and disgusting.
00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:39.359
So the like the other character maybe like the main character, maybe not the is he the narrator?
00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:41.279
No, he's not the narrator, it's not first person.
00:21:41.359 --> 00:21:42.799
No, it is first person.
00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:44.720
It is first person.
00:21:44.799 --> 00:21:54.160
So the first person narrator is a young guy who seems like a stand in for the author.
00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:59.599
But really, what I'm I'm basing that off of is that he's a white passing black man.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:09.039
Young white passing black man, so uh that doesn't need to be Samuel Delaney, though that is, I think, also Samuel Delaney.
00:22:09.119 --> 00:22:17.759
Anyway, so it's first person, and this young guy, gay.
00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:20.400
Well, I don't know if he do he ever says he's gay.
00:22:20.640 --> 00:22:32.720
This young guy is becomes the sexual possession of Hog and follows him around and is his like sexual plaything.
00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:37.279
So Hog fucks him, he sucks Hog.
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:42.720
Hog sticks his fingers, his toes into the narrator's mouth.
00:22:43.039 --> 00:22:56.400
Hog has a group of other rapists that he he uses that he hires to go and like gangbang women, and they all use this young man boy question mark.
00:22:56.640 --> 00:23:00.799
I think 17 maybe boy.
00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:05.680
Um and use him sexually.
00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:12.480
The boy is only too happy to do all these things, and it's all filthy, ridiculous.
00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:19.119
You know, he's like he's he's he's smelling the shit on someone's dick.
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:32.079
He's uh trying to uh drink all the piss that he can, but it's it's falling out of his mouth and running all over him and onto the boots, and it's all porn.
00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:34.400
It's all porn, it's like filth porn.
00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:41.279
Basically, whatever you can think of uh being bad is in there.
00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:46.880
It doesn't seem like there's limits um to what it is.
00:23:48.000 --> 00:24:21.359
Uh I mean the opening chapter is the young boy is working as essentially like a sex slave in the basement of this house for this other boy who's also um using his sister as a sex slave, and like the dad comes down and fucks the girl, and the narrator sucks him off, and then a group of guys come and gang bang blah blah blah.
00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:24.079
It's all woof.
00:24:24.319 --> 00:24:26.480
It's all woof and it's all porn.
00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:38.799
So it's a weird experience of reading it because there's titillating aspects to it, but it's also horrible.
00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:50.880
And that's I think the the weirdness of the experience of reading it is the disgust, the mixing of disgust and arousal.
00:24:51.279 --> 00:25:03.759
And I think that's part of what starts to take it out of the register of just pure porn and starts to be more about an investigation, is that pretentious?
00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:15.039
An investigation of what people of uh of sex and violence in America, and of how nasty it can be.
00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:17.200
Of how nasty it be- then there's passages.
00:25:17.359 --> 00:25:23.920
There's passages that make it a little clearer where someone says something, which I'm gonna dig up.
00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:25.680
Okay, this is Hogg.
00:25:25.759 --> 00:25:31.519
This is Hogg talking to another boy about um being a rapist for hire.
00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:34.000
It's a good profession, boy, Hogg said.
00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:36.960
Like the man says, ain't nothing you can do in this world today.
00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:45.440
Go to the pictures, buy some food, or even throw away the package to come in, throw away the package at coming, that don't bring somebody closer to hurt.
00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:50.400
At least this way you know that you ain't making your money by making them pictures or packages.
00:25:50.640 --> 00:25:54.000
And when you're hurting somebody, you're hurting them.
00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:56.799
You look them right in the eye and do it.
00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:02.400
You can't very well fuck somebody without looking them in the eye unless, Hog chuckled, you do it doggy style.
00:26:02.720 --> 00:26:07.359
Even so, you ain't dropping no bombs on 500 people you ain't never seen.
00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:13.119
You ain't signing no papers that's gonna put a thousand people who ain't never heard your name out of a house and a job.
00:26:13.359 --> 00:26:22.000
You ain't enjoying no benefits that come down the pike three years after you finish with hurting folks you didn't even know existed, much less you was hurting them.
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:34.240
And you can look at any TV newscast or listen to any radio report, even if it's about something you just done, and I had that happen to me three times now, and no, you got more sense of duty than they do.
00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:39.440
Okay, so that's sort of a thesis statement, I think, of the book.
00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:44.400
Which is how I would assume you're supposed to read it.
00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:48.160
You know, Samon Delaney, judging from the sci-fi stuff, is not afraid to be didactic.
00:26:48.319 --> 00:26:56.400
He's not afraid to tell you exactly in a sort of very, you know, sci-fi super analytical nerd kind of way.
00:26:56.480 --> 00:26:59.279
Like the way this society works is that it's built up XYZ.
00:26:59.359 --> 00:27:00.480
You know, he will tell you.
00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:04.319
He's not, he's he's afraid he's not afraid to tell and not show.
00:27:04.559 --> 00:27:15.599
So I I do think you can take that a bit on on face value of of what the of what they do.
00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:18.079
Okay, something else that Hogg says.
00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:21.680
Because people don't even want to see shit like that happen.
00:27:21.759 --> 00:27:26.880
I mean, they'd be happier pretending it didn't even happen, but you're gonna see enough of the kind of stuff I usually do.
00:27:29.359 --> 00:27:29.519
Yeah.
00:27:29.839 --> 00:27:39.759
This is okay, this is after a scene where, okay, yeah, Hogg causes like a disgusting scene in a diner and like shits himself or whatever on peas and blah, blah, blah.
00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:40.880
It's like disgusting.
00:27:41.039 --> 00:27:42.480
And he just walks out.
00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:47.119
And then he says he's gonna go, he's gonna clean himself off and go back in.
00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:49.680
And I look at him and say with a big grin, what you mean?
00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:56.160
I was hauling crates of peaches yesterday down near Chattahoochee, and they'd go away just as happy because people don't even want to see shit like that happen.
00:27:56.240 --> 00:27:58.000
I mean, they'd be happy pretending it didn't even happen.
00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:18.799
Yeah, so it's about violence in America, but how America's so fucked up and destroys people is so horrible to people, and enjoys it, and there's pleasure in it, and that's the pleasure of America is dropping bombs on people.
00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:39.599
Like what are they saying, dropping bombs and killing 500 people, or being so detached from the violence that results from what you do, the the destruction that results from what you do, you know, the destruction that results from buying, you know, new shirts that are made in a horrible factory, and you're destroying the environment and blah blah blah.
00:28:39.759 --> 00:28:43.359
You know, all the horrible crap that's underpinning American society.
00:28:44.799 --> 00:29:02.720
And so this book, the book is it you're reading this book, it's porn and disgusting porn, and it's sort of like being forced to look at the shit that America does, being disgusted with America, disgusted with American violence.
00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:07.599
I you know, I I that's I sense the idea.
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:18.799
That's I sense the idea, and what I appreciate about it, what I appreciate about it is that it doesn't do it in a way that wraps it up in a box and kind of makes you feel better.
00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:22.799
In the way that I would say 2666.
00:29:22.960 --> 00:29:29.119
2666 has that passage, the long passage, it's like the litany of the femicides in Mexico.
00:29:29.359 --> 00:29:33.839
And I think you read that and you sort of get through it and you sort of abstract it and you intellectualize it.
00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:37.519
And I don't think it really, at least to me, it wasn't really disturbing.
00:29:37.599 --> 00:29:42.400
I think you read it as an aesthetic exercise.
00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:48.480
You know, you read it as art, that you say, okay, wow, that was profound.
00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:52.640
And wow, this book is formally so interesting and so amazing.
00:29:53.039 --> 00:30:08.799
And then you go home and you congratulate yourself for being an intellectual and reading an intellectually challenging book, and then you know, being aware of the femicides in Mexico, and you probably feel great as an American that you are so smart and liberal and wow, what a good citizen.
00:30:09.119 --> 00:30:12.160
This hog, I don't think, lets you off the hook like that.
00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:13.759
I think it's disturbing.
00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:16.960
I think it fucks you up to like your core.
00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:26.960
It makes you so aware of of just like fearful, it's just it's a disturbing, it's a disturbing freaking read.
00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:29.039
The sluts.
00:30:30.799 --> 00:30:32.480
The sluts, I think, is similar.
00:30:32.559 --> 00:30:34.000
I think the sluts is similar.
00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:35.279
I think the sluts is similar.
00:30:35.359 --> 00:30:36.319
I think the sluts is similar.
00:30:36.400 --> 00:30:37.440
I think the sluts is similar.
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:39.759
Is the sluts more sophisticated?
00:30:40.160 --> 00:30:46.160
I mean, formally, it's definitely formally more sophisticated with you know the message board and everything.
00:30:46.559 --> 00:31:02.480
But hog is like oh, just the brutality of it and the way that parts of it are arousing or or tittle, like there are gay porn aspects of it that it's like, oh yeah, like you know, the gangbang, whatever.
00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:14.640
So it does connect, I think, to make me at least be more aware of the kind of violence of sexuality, and like we're just questioning more, like, what the heck are we doing?
00:31:14.720 --> 00:31:16.079
What are gay guys doing?
00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:32.160
Like the weird, the weird way that gay guys go about with their sexuality and and sex, it's just like what's going on, and then so many, it's not just gay guys having weird, fucked up sexuality.
00:31:32.720 --> 00:31:36.079
Short isn't straight guys, and I think people well beyond that.
00:31:36.240 --> 00:31:38.000
Ghlaine Maxwell.
00:31:39.119 --> 00:31:43.759
Um, I don't know.
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:44.640
I don't know.
00:31:44.720 --> 00:31:45.680
That's a ramble.
00:31:45.839 --> 00:31:48.960
That's a ramble, but that's what we're on.
00:31:49.119 --> 00:31:49.839
That's what we're on.
00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:50.799
We're on hog.
00:31:51.920 --> 00:31:58.960
Also, you can really see how this is connecting to two gay for pay drone pilots.
00:31:59.039 --> 00:32:09.359
So that's you can see why it's on the brain, what's happening there, what I'm thinking about, violence and pleasure in America and technology, and technology.
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:12.559
So that's what I'm thinking about.
00:32:12.880 --> 00:32:13.839
That's what I'm thinking about.
00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:14.640
Light stuff.
00:32:14.799 --> 00:32:16.559
Light stuff, no, it's not, it's heavy stuff.
00:32:16.640 --> 00:32:17.680
I'm not gonna be glib.
00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:22.079
So I'm taking breaks and I'm planting, and I need to see people.
00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:25.920
I'm still upstate, but I'm gonna come back down to New York City in a couple weeks.
00:32:26.079 --> 00:32:26.799
Are you ready?
00:32:26.960 --> 00:32:29.039
New York, are you ready for me?
00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:30.720
I guess I'm looking forward.
00:32:31.039 --> 00:32:32.000
No, I'm not looking forward to that.
00:32:32.079 --> 00:32:32.720
I'm not gonna lie.
00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:33.680
I'm not looking forward to that.
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:35.920
I'm thinking about buying a place up here.
00:32:36.319 --> 00:32:38.640
An inexpensive place up here.
00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:45.440
So that I could come up the rest of the year more, but I don't think I could do it full time.
00:32:47.519 --> 00:32:48.480
It's the people.
00:32:48.640 --> 00:32:50.960
It's the people that I need to be back in New York for.
00:32:51.519 --> 00:32:52.400
But do I?
00:32:52.559 --> 00:32:53.279
I don't know.
00:32:53.519 --> 00:32:54.079
I don't know.
00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:55.359
We're open-ended right now.
00:32:55.440 --> 00:32:56.480
We're open-ended to the world.
00:32:56.640 --> 00:32:58.400
Biggest thing is just finishing this book.
00:32:58.640 --> 00:33:00.640
Biggest thing is finishing this book.
00:33:00.799 --> 00:33:08.720
I mean, one thing that I saw online that I was like, oh gosh, I don't want to go back.
00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:13.759
Ma NYC, the hairstyling, the hairstylist place, Ma NYC.
00:33:14.079 --> 00:33:16.079
I don't know if you've seen it or if you're aware of it.
00:33:16.240 --> 00:33:23.680
It's you know, upscale gay guy, hairstylist salon not far from where I live in little Italy.
00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:33.200
I recognize the guys who run it from the gym, from the Soho Equinox with Anthony, etc.
00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:42.319
Just going through that Instagram of my NYC, which first of all, most of it is like shirtless gay guys.
00:33:43.359 --> 00:33:49.359
Which I I love that this is out there marketing themselves as just like shirtless gay guy thirst traps.
00:33:49.519 --> 00:34:10.159
But they're all sort of like it's all that kind of like um gay guy or like the male pout, sort of like, oh, sort of like a mock seriousness about it, or sort of a thoughtfulness about not mock, they think it's sort of like a seriousness that they're being very like serious and tasteful, almost with thoughtful with the thirst trap.
00:34:10.239 --> 00:34:16.559
You know, it's like they have to repress the eroticism of it, repress the sex about it, and just be like, oh, it's fashion, it's fashion.
00:34:16.639 --> 00:34:25.199
And it's like, and of course the haircuts are all the 18 going on 38, gay guy aesthetic, where it's all just like zhuzed up supercuts.
00:34:25.360 --> 00:34:32.800
You know, everybody sort of looks like they went to the mall and then just ran their hands through their hair a little bit to like muss it up.
00:34:33.280 --> 00:34:34.880
Love it, love everything about it.
00:34:35.039 --> 00:34:41.280
Gay guys never change, gay guys never change, never grow up, stay like this forever.
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:44.159
No, that's me being glib.
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:44.800
I don't know.
00:34:44.960 --> 00:34:51.519
Um that's not making me excited to go back, but I am kind of obsessed.
00:34:51.679 --> 00:34:52.960
I'm obsessed.
00:34:53.440 --> 00:34:55.599
There's a few different things that it makes me think of.
00:34:55.679 --> 00:34:57.119
It makes me think of Choice of Awn.
00:34:57.679 --> 00:34:59.039
It makes me think of Choice of Von.
00:34:59.119 --> 00:35:01.920
We can go there first and then get back to the gay guys more generally.
00:35:02.079 --> 00:35:06.960
Choice of Awn, you know, came up in my 2019 nostalgia.
00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:10.400
Choice of Von just released a new song.
00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:11.519
What is it?
00:35:11.599 --> 00:35:18.320
It's about women and um how much he loves women, how much he admires women.
00:35:18.639 --> 00:35:19.039
Sure.
00:35:19.280 --> 00:35:30.960
Troy Savon 31, in his 30s now, still giving, still giving Power Twink, very much featured on the Mott NYC website, if not literally, at least in spirit.
00:35:31.440 --> 00:35:34.800
You know, a supercut's haircut that's just must up mused up.
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:38.960
The outfits, the outfits are all glam 18-year-olds.
00:35:39.119 --> 00:35:51.039
You know, every every 30-something gay guy is there just chasing some idea of what it would have been to have been hot and sexy when you were 15.
00:35:52.000 --> 00:36:00.400
Um not even hot and sexy, but sexually active, I guess, when you were 15, in a in a way of some power.
00:36:00.559 --> 00:36:21.199
I don't know, because I think many gay guys were sexually active when they were 15, but maybe didn't feel empowered about it, and now they want to be, you know, the hot guy in gym class seems to be, seems to be the aesthetic regime right now of the downtown gay guys and the choice of on gay guys.
00:36:21.679 --> 00:36:27.360
Uh and you know, I think it's a little boring, I think it's a little underwhelming, no offense.
00:36:27.519 --> 00:36:34.639
But no, in my 2019 nostalgia dump, I was I pulled up old Troy Savon albums that I actually really liked.
00:36:34.719 --> 00:36:36.639
I really enjoy the pop music.
00:36:37.039 --> 00:36:38.960
I really enjoyed his old albums.
00:36:39.039 --> 00:36:53.519
Um, I thought it was really good, and I was really listening to them until I realized that he was, you know, I think he's a white South African who his family fled fled South Africa after the end of apartheid and moved to Australia.
00:36:54.800 --> 00:36:57.920
Um, and now, you know, he lives in America.
00:36:58.079 --> 00:37:05.280
So he's sort of like the colonial, a colonial trifecta, lots of colonial, colonial power there.
00:37:05.679 --> 00:37:11.599
So I don't know that he's like a figure that needs like valorization.
00:37:11.679 --> 00:37:24.000
I think you know he's benefited from from a lot of valorizing systems in his life, no offense to him, nor, you know, it's just the way it is.
00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:30.960
Um and the new music is just is is not doing it for me.
00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:35.119
And I do feel like, okay, taking it to more gay guys more generally.
00:37:36.800 --> 00:37:37.679
Here's the thing.
00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:38.960
Here's the thing, gay guys.
00:37:39.119 --> 00:37:43.280
Here's the thing, especially in our 30s, in our 30s, and now you know of choice 31.
00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:44.960
Welcome, welcome.
00:37:45.199 --> 00:37:46.719
I'm about to leave my 30s.
00:37:46.960 --> 00:37:54.800
Here's what I've learned, here's what I would impart, here's what I would say, here's what I would challenge the gay guys.
00:37:55.599 --> 00:37:59.519
As you leave, you know, the narcissistic 20s behind.
00:37:59.599 --> 00:38:06.239
I feel like 20s, as they're conceived right now, are a time to be selfish and kind of lost and narcissistic.
00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:10.800
You care about yourself, you have your fun, you sow your oats, blah, blah, blah.
00:38:11.920 --> 00:38:17.599
30s is a transition into adulthood, ostensibly, for people.
00:38:17.760 --> 00:38:21.039
The question is, what is adulthood for gay guys?
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:28.800
And this is where I feel like a lot of gay guys are getting lost is it just it comes with more money.
00:38:29.039 --> 00:38:45.199
So you start, you know, buying the expensive clothes, getting, you know, a$500 haircut from my NYC, I don't know how much it costs there, and you know, buying$500 jeans that look like you know, whatever, they're ambercrombie jeans from from however long ago.
00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:48.639
And you know, you live that fantasy.
00:38:48.719 --> 00:38:51.199
You have the money and the resources to live that fantasy.
00:38:51.360 --> 00:38:55.920
You get the peptides, you get the gym membership, you know, you do all that stuff.
00:38:56.400 --> 00:38:57.199
What was that?
00:38:57.360 --> 00:38:58.400
I heard a noise.
00:38:58.639 --> 00:39:01.039
Um someone's trying to tell me to stop, probably.
00:39:01.199 --> 00:39:04.320
Um and then to what end?
00:39:04.480 --> 00:39:05.679
To what end is what I'm saying.
00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:08.719
You do that in your 30s, fine, fine, if that's what you want to do.
00:39:08.880 --> 00:39:10.239
What are you gonna do in your 40s?
00:39:10.320 --> 00:39:13.280
What are you gonna do in your 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s?
00:39:13.360 --> 00:39:16.960
You know, what are you gonna do for the rest of your century?
00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:18.800
What are you setting up?
00:39:19.199 --> 00:39:20.320
What are we setting up?
00:39:20.480 --> 00:39:28.559
The thing with gay guys, you're not having kids, most of us, most of us are not having kids, most of us aren't even settling down into a long-term relationship.
00:39:28.639 --> 00:39:30.159
We know we're flitting from this to that.
00:39:30.239 --> 00:39:33.280
From the obligations, what are our obligations?
00:39:33.519 --> 00:39:35.519
Kids take up so much time.
00:39:35.760 --> 00:39:40.320
Kids take up so much time and money and resources if you have them.
00:39:40.639 --> 00:39:42.239
So that's what straight people are doing.
00:39:42.400 --> 00:39:43.519
You'll just speak broadly.
00:39:43.679 --> 00:39:47.119
Straight people are doing the kids, and that's where their energies go.
00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:57.760
So they sort of get the 30s and 40s off a bit because they have to spend it all, spend every single moment, basically, focused on the kids and raising them.
00:39:58.400 --> 00:40:01.360
You still have to care about them in the in your 50s, 60s, whatever.
00:40:01.599 --> 00:40:06.960
But then, you know, they get their 50s, so they've raised their kids, so they can start breathing, they can retire.
00:40:07.199 --> 00:40:14.880
50s, 60s become the retirement, the reward, and 70s, 80s is where they start guiding with the grandkids, the next generation.
00:40:14.960 --> 00:40:16.480
There's much more of like a script.
00:40:16.639 --> 00:40:19.599
This is a new revelation, but there's much more of a script for straight people.
00:40:20.480 --> 00:40:27.199
I'm not saying that's great, I'm not saying that's what we should be doing, or that's somehow better, but there is something to occupy the time.
00:40:27.599 --> 00:40:28.639
That's the thing to me.
00:40:28.800 --> 00:40:30.800
Occupy the time and the resources.
00:40:31.119 --> 00:40:41.119
Okay, guys, don't have anything necessarily to occupy the time and the resources, so we end up spending the time, the resources to like look like Troy Savon or whatever.
00:40:41.199 --> 00:40:41.840
You know what it is?
00:40:41.920 --> 00:40:45.119
You like we're 38 going in 18.
00:40:45.199 --> 00:40:45.920
That aesthetic.
00:40:46.079 --> 00:40:50.320
We spend that time doing that, which is a waste of time, which is a waste of time.
00:40:50.639 --> 00:40:53.760
We're not in a narcissistic 20s anymore.
00:40:54.400 --> 00:41:06.320
You need, we need to use that time to shepherd society, to shepherd the next generation in the same way that you know straight people are doing with biological children or you know, nuclear families or whatever.
00:41:06.559 --> 00:41:07.519
We can still do that.
00:41:07.679 --> 00:41:15.760
We can still keep shepherding society and nourishing the next generation, maybe not with biological nuclear families, but in other ways.
00:41:15.840 --> 00:41:17.280
And I think there's a responsibility.
00:41:17.440 --> 00:41:19.519
And I know that some of my gay guys out there are doing that.
00:41:19.599 --> 00:41:24.719
I know that some of them are involved in political organizations, social organizations, volunteering, this, that, and the other.
00:41:25.039 --> 00:41:26.559
That is great.
00:41:26.800 --> 00:41:30.000
I also know that a lot of us are not doing that, right?
00:41:30.320 --> 00:41:40.079
And so we gotta start doing, I think, more of that, more of an obligation to use this time and this energy and resources not to not to go to my NYC.
00:41:40.239 --> 00:41:41.679
Not to go to Mot NYC.
00:41:41.920 --> 00:41:43.199
Soapbox, that's me.
00:41:43.280 --> 00:41:44.880
That's my soapbox.
00:41:45.679 --> 00:41:46.960
That's my soapbox.
00:41:47.039 --> 00:41:53.119
And here's where this is kind of going though, is like the aesthetics of that.
00:41:54.480 --> 00:41:57.039
Gay guy aesthetics right now just seems so boring.
00:41:57.119 --> 00:42:12.800
And I've talked about this before where it's like, yeah, guys, we're supposed to be, you know, the visionaries and the artists, and challenging and subverting and and all this kind of stuff, and being the frisson, you know, the frisson, the freakish frisson of society.
00:42:13.199 --> 00:42:14.880
And we're not there.
00:42:15.039 --> 00:42:19.519
We're not there now at this moment in time, you know.
00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:22.320
But we need to get back there.
00:42:22.639 --> 00:42:26.960
We need to get back there, and I think that's part of what we gotta be doing with our resources.
00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:28.000
That's a way to do it.
00:42:28.079 --> 00:42:31.280
It doesn't have to be, you know, volunteering and political and whatever.
00:42:31.599 --> 00:42:47.119
Just advancing, advancing the aesthetics of society so they stop valorizing violence and imperialism and whatever, and they can start opening up better paths.
00:42:47.280 --> 00:42:48.320
That's what we can be doing.
00:42:48.400 --> 00:42:49.280
It can be aesthetic.
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:55.280
We can still be aesthetic little animals, as so many of us like to be, but just pushing a little further.
00:42:55.599 --> 00:42:56.960
Further, further.
00:42:57.199 --> 00:43:01.679
Not the nostalgia, not the nostalgia for an 18-year-old.
00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:08.000
That's what I think it needs to go further behind and keep moving forward.
00:43:08.159 --> 00:43:09.920
We gotta keep moving forward.
00:43:12.960 --> 00:43:14.000
Keep moving forward?
00:43:14.159 --> 00:43:19.039
I don't know what that I don't know what that means, but we gotta we just gotta be the little freakish little freaks.
00:43:19.199 --> 00:43:26.960
We gotta be these freakish little freaks and opening up opening up new possibilities, keeping keeping keeping things fresh.
00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:30.159
New, potentially better.
00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:34.159
Oh, just looking at my list.
00:43:35.679 --> 00:43:36.719
There's things, okay.
00:43:36.800 --> 00:43:39.840
So what am I what am I really speaking out against?
00:43:40.559 --> 00:43:42.480
Interview magazine, interview magazine.
00:43:42.559 --> 00:43:45.599
That we uh uh that's gay guy culture that's just like circling the drain.
00:43:45.760 --> 00:43:49.599
Interview magazine, 30 whatever years ago, used to be fresh.
00:43:49.760 --> 00:43:52.239
I think it used to be more new, I think there used to be more going on.
00:43:52.400 --> 00:43:57.360
Now it's just like it's it's the it's the Jordan Firstman aesthetic.
00:43:57.440 --> 00:43:59.119
I there's a lot of Courtney Love comeback.
00:43:59.280 --> 00:44:13.519
It's just like Lot of like this is so boring and so old and so dated and so safe and like not meeting the moment where people are so aware of like American genocide and we're gonna talk about like Courtney Love.
00:44:13.599 --> 00:44:14.719
Like you you know what I mean?
00:44:14.880 --> 00:44:16.719
Like we have to move forward.
00:44:16.880 --> 00:44:19.280
Just the interview magazine, just shut it down.
00:44:19.519 --> 00:44:20.880
Defund interview magazine.
00:44:20.960 --> 00:44:22.800
Abolish interview magazine.
00:44:23.519 --> 00:44:24.239
It's over.
00:44:24.400 --> 00:44:25.760
That's the gay guy culture.
00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:28.559
We just need to, we need to, we need to let it go.
00:44:28.800 --> 00:44:29.760
We need to let it go.
00:44:29.840 --> 00:44:31.920
It's really not taking us further.
00:44:33.519 --> 00:44:35.679
It's really not taking us further.
00:44:36.480 --> 00:44:40.800
I have a whole other thing about melodrama that I don't think I don't think fits.
00:44:40.880 --> 00:44:42.000
I don't think we want to attack it on.
00:44:42.079 --> 00:44:43.039
I think we've talked about enough.
00:44:43.280 --> 00:44:44.960
I think we've talked about enough today.
00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:49.119
Gay guys, hog, gay guys.
00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:52.239
This is really a podcast about gay guys, isn't it?
00:44:52.880 --> 00:44:54.400
That's sort of the broader theme.
00:44:54.639 --> 00:44:55.920
That's one of our themes.
00:44:56.159 --> 00:44:58.639
One of our themes in this podcast is gay guys.
00:44:58.880 --> 00:45:01.039
One of the themes that we keep returning to.
00:45:01.280 --> 00:45:08.079
One of the themes you you that's continually present in your work is the gay guy.
00:45:08.880 --> 00:45:10.480
How how did that come about?
00:45:10.639 --> 00:45:13.599
What when was what was your first interaction with the gay guy?
00:45:13.679 --> 00:45:21.039
You know, the gay guy as as an archetype, as as as a character in society and social.
00:45:21.519 --> 00:45:22.000
This is me.
00:45:22.159 --> 00:45:31.280
This is me on a different podcast that I'll one day have where I take myself insufferably seriously and get a MacArthur Genius Award.
00:45:31.840 --> 00:45:33.519
Um, no, not a MacArthur.
00:45:33.760 --> 00:45:37.920
I would be getting something from the kitchen.
00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:48.159
I'd be getting a residency at the kitchen to develop three new pieces that address um my life.
00:45:48.320 --> 00:45:49.920
Yeah, that are that are about my life.
00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:58.559
Three new pieces about my life, loosely, loosely based on my upbringing, on my upbringing in rural California.
00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:07.679
And I use movements, I use humor, and I use sociopathy.
00:46:07.920 --> 00:46:08.239
No.
00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:26.159
Movement humor, and an uncanny ability to distill the phrases and gestures that encapsulate the American experience in the 21st century.
00:46:26.480 --> 00:46:30.079
My guest today is John Milton Friedman.
00:46:30.239 --> 00:46:34.159
No, um is Jack Baldwin Morley.
00:46:34.960 --> 00:46:36.239
Jack, welcome.
00:46:36.480 --> 00:46:37.440
Thank you so much.
00:46:37.679 --> 00:46:39.280
It's a pleasure to be here.
00:46:40.239 --> 00:46:41.599
It's a pleasure to be here.
00:46:41.760 --> 00:46:53.119
I love culture and taking money from wealthy donors to produce things that sound important, but don't challenge the status quo in any way whatsoever.
00:46:53.840 --> 00:46:59.280
That's my mo to make money and feel good about myself.
00:47:00.159 --> 00:47:02.320
I'm an artist.
00:47:02.800 --> 00:47:03.840
This is my oo.
00:47:04.159 --> 00:47:04.960
This is my output.
00:47:05.119 --> 00:47:06.239
Recurring themes.
00:47:06.480 --> 00:47:07.679
Recurring theme in your work.
00:47:07.760 --> 00:47:12.400
And then there's a sub-theme within the gay guy theme, which is the bitchy gay guy.
00:47:12.639 --> 00:47:14.079
Tell me more about that.
00:47:15.519 --> 00:47:18.880
Um, to be insufferable.
00:47:19.119 --> 00:47:24.480
To be insufferable in America is is is a luxury.
00:47:25.280 --> 00:47:26.320
I think this is it.
00:47:26.480 --> 00:47:27.280
I think this is it.
00:47:27.440 --> 00:47:28.639
I don't like this.
00:47:28.960 --> 00:47:30.400
I don't like this.
00:47:31.280 --> 00:47:34.320
I don't like this podcast.
