248: #248 The Revolutionary War featuring Dr. Ben Sawyer
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All aboard! I don't remember how to start. I don't remember how to start. Hello, folks, and hey, bear. Welcome to the Nate Land podcast. This is Aaron Weber alongside my good pal, my compadre, my friend, Brian Bates. All right. Dusty Slay and Nate are out this week, so I'll just pause for a few seconds to let you turn the episode off. All right.

Okay, that should be good. If you're still around, we've got a wonderful replacement. Smart enough, funny enough, and nice enough to fill both of their shoes. He is a longtime friend of Brian and I. First time on the podcast. Very funny stand-up comedian, history professor, all-around renaissance man. Please welcome to the podcast, for the very first time, Dr. Ben Sawyer. All right. Thanks, guys. It's good to be here with y'all. Dude, it's an exciting, exciting time. I think the first doctor we've had.

You're definitely the first. You're the first person with a postgraduate degree on this podcast. I can guarantee that. I'm glad you guys are easing into it. Don't get a real doctor yet. You know what I'm saying? Start with a historian. Yeah. How much of getting a doctorate is you wanted to be called doctor? Was that a big part of it? I think it was mostly that I failed being a high school teacher, so I had to figure out another way to teach. Okay. You had to get back into – you had to become a student again. Yeah.

Do you insist that people call you doctor? Do you ever do that? Do you ever go, guys, it's Dr. Ben? No, it's preposterous. Sometimes, I mean, there's been people I've hung out with at a cigar shop for years, and then they go, wow, you got a PhD? And I'm like, yeah, why didn't you tell me? I was like, it's not relevant to our relationship at all. What if I did tell you? Would you still talk to me? You probably shouldn't. It's a pretty fun little benefit, though. It's worth the extra years of schooling, I think. Yeah, you know, the bummer is there's a comic here in town, Dr. Ben. Yeah.

If you, Oh, he's a medical doctor too, right? Yeah. So he's like a real doctor. So he like trumps what you do. Yeah. Like in an emergency, you're worthless. Yeah. I mean, that's great. But if you wanted to know what happened before, you'd have to talk to me. That's right. I mean,

I mean, really. We can save you now, but what about before? The Road to Now. How about that? Exactly. Yeah. Oh, The Road to Now. Yeah, my podcast I did with Bob Crawford from the Averbrothers. You can't be plugging stuff. We've been here for 30 seconds. I brought it up. You're plugging your own podcast here. Come on. Well, we're excited to have you, man. We're going to talk about- What a great name for a podcast, by the way. I'm sorry to interrupt. The Road to Now is a solid podcast. I like names. It's not named after one person. No.

It's not all about them. I hate a podcast that's a monument to one guy. Yeah, exactly. In a studio that's a shrine to him. Yes. Nah, we get it. Dude, thank you for doing this. This will be fun. I want to plug a couple things before we get rolling here. A lot happened at Innateland, by the way. We had our big Ryman showcase the other night that was so much fun. Have we already talked about that? Well, we preemptively last week said you got a standing ovation. I think people knew we were lying, but...

Oh, we got that. We'll get into that here when we talk about our weekends. But a lot's happening in Nate Land. Steven Rogers, who was on the podcast, his special half of we dropped on the YouTube channel. It's getting great feedback. The view counts are climbing. Hop in now. Get in on the ground floor. Steven Rogers is so funny. You're going to be seeing him everywhere, but you can see him right now on the Nate Land YouTube. My special is still out there. Signature dish, Nick Thunes. And then this is a fun announcement. Steven Bargetzi.

Friend of the podcast, father of its namesake, is doing a one-hour special taping. He's taping a special. Tickets are on sale now. One-time only event. See Nate's dad do a full-hour special at the Franklin Theater here in Nashville, November 2nd.

Two shows, November 2nd. It seems like far away, but it's going to sell out quickly. So get those tickets now. There's new merch on NateBarguesi.com. We got a lot going on here. Go check out The Consumers. Don't make me come back there. Our other podcast, Let's Get Rolling Here, dude. Thank you again for joining, Ben. Sorry I trashed you for plugging stuff, and then I launched into a plug. That's all right. It's your show. It's actually Nate's show, but you were here first. Yeah. You deserve to be here as much as we do.

So what did you guys do? You want to hop into this weekend or what? Did you want to talk about the Ryman? Yeah. So we did. I got the hatch print here. This is one of the coolest parts about doing a show at the Ryman Auditorium is that they have a deal with hatch print. It's like the printing studio here in Nashville. And they do a poster for every show. So we've got a Nate Land Presents. You'll see this is mine, and I ripped it a little bit. Nate Land Presents.

Nate land presents good, clean, funny. Everybody on there. Yakov Smirnoff did a, did a spot on the show. Standing ovation. Murdered the guy killed and got a big standing, you know, and then, uh, Mia Jackson went up right after him. It did great too. I was like, I was, you know, you see somebody standing, you know, when you're like, Oh, who has to go up next? Right. And you're worried about it. But Mia went up there and did great. It was just solid show top to bottom, uh, beautifully hosted, uh,

And just to, I hosted it. Just if that wasn't clear. Just a good night. Thank you to everybody who came. I'm looking forward to a lot more things like this. So this was a very fun thing to get to do. Yeah, I'm still thinking about the following someone

You know, you're always worried about that. I mean, that's the story of my life almost every show I'm on. But I went to the day of the show. Yeah. Went to eat. Name drop here with John Chris, Derek Stroop, and Ryan Hamilton. Yeah. All funny guys. And we're all talking about comedy. And I said, you know, when you're on a showcase and you have a bad set.

you want to blame on the crowd. So you want everybody on this show to have a bad set. Right, right. I think that's common. They all said I was crazy. Like, no, that's not true. Like I'm selfish. I'm like, guys, you're lying to yourself.

if you have a bad set, you want the next. Well, just because you're selfish doesn't mean you're wrong. That is how. They're both right. Yeah, exactly. You're like, yeah, I know it's not good that I think that way. Yeah, exactly. If I bomb, I want everybody bombing. Yeah, because I want to blame it on the crowd and not me. Yeah, I want to do it. The show was a nightmare, not just my set. They all said I was crazy. Yeah. But anyway. I was on a show a couple years ago where.

There were like eight comics and all seven of us bombed up front. And by the seventh one, I was like feeling pretty secure. Yeah. And then the last guy went on and murdered and it was not fun. It's not fun. So I feel you, man. Yeah. I think I was on that show and I was not last.

You used to do a show over in East Nashville at a winery. Oh, yeah. Forever ago. Yeah. So many. So Ben's been a longtime fixture in the Nashville comedy scene. He's run all kinds of shows. And you have a show to Yazoo. You have a brewery show here that you run. And then you had a cigar show for a while. Yeah. Any place with a vice show.

Yeah. Ben would run a show there. Pretty much any place people just want to be doing something else, I'll show up with comics and kind of ruin their evening. Yeah, ruin their night. Ask them to be quiet, stop enjoying what they were doing. That's kind of my thing. Stand-up's great for that. Y'all trying to have fun tonight? Well...

That's the end of that. Turn those TVs off. What is that? Game seven of the finals? Turn it off? Yeah. I listened to Bill Burr recently talking about how he was surprised when he did Broadway and people liked him the first time he did it because he was just so used to the first few years you do something, everyone being upset when you show up.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I still feel that way. Yeah. At a comedy club where they, they know I'm performing. Let's get into our weekend. Yeah. What'd you get into? I felt that way this weekend. Uh,

Uh, no, I was in Detroit. I did Detroit house of comedy. Are you from there? No, no, no. I'm from North Carolina. Okay. But you went to school in Michigan. I went to Michigan state. Yeah. Ooh, Michigan state. Does your doctorate count less? Cause it's from Michigan state. Yeah, it does. Actually. You have to preface every time you go, Dr. Ben, but it's for Michigan state. So it's not that big. Yeah, I really do. I said, I should just asterix. And when I say it out loud, you can't hear it, but it's like a slight, you have to like lean on the valve. You can tell. Yeah.

I had never been to really spend any time in downtown Detroit. It's very nice. They've really revitalized that. I had this image that it was going to be dangerous. It didn't feel dangerous. You watched 8 Mile before you went? Yeah. You thought it was going to be that? Yeah, and it was a beautiful day. I wish the Tigers were home because, like you said, it is –

right down that club. And the hotel was right in the heart of it. You can see the baseball stadium from the club. Like it's the, it's a block away. And that park is awesome. It is so great. And the, uh, little Caesars arena where the red wings and the pistons play right next to it. So to come to a show with that comedy club, I really appreciate people who came. It is not easy. The parking next door was $45 to park. Yeah.

You got to really want to come down there. The Pistons were playing Friday night when I was there. Cat Williams was there Saturday night. Can you imagine paying $45 to park to see me? No, I can't. But...

You're like, how much just to park? Parking is 45 bucks. Tickets are buy one, get one. I know. Parking is four times more than the ticket to see the show. No, that's better. When I was down there, I used to go down to Detroit a lot, and it used to be the parking was cheaper, but it was mostly just paying a dude not to smash your windshield out whenever you got out of the eye line. You're paying the guy who would have done it, or you're paying the guy to protect your car? You're paying the guy to protect your car from him. Okay, yeah.

you got to show every lot of guy who like you'd park there. You'd be like, I think this is free. And he'd pop out and be like $10 to watch your car. And you'd look him in the eyes and be like, I know what you're going to do. Yeah. So you paid worth it. It's worth still $35 cheaper. Yeah, exactly. How are the shows though? Uh, the shows were fun, small crowds, but again, wrong with that. Uh,

You know, I get it. It's not an easy place to get to. Look, it's easy to perform in an arena for 20,000 people and just kind of perform that way. It's hard, and it's more meaningful, I think, to be in a room

with 30 people and give them a real experience. Yeah, I wish. You know what I mean? I'll take your word for it. I know the second part for you. I can dream. That's what I'm saying. I think the bar for ticket sales is artificially inflated by Nate being on the podcast. Yeah. That people need to know what the real world is like. But the people who came were so great. A lot of folks came out, met a lot of people.

Great people. They'd seen you there. Okay. And some people saw you in Grand Rapids. All right. Nice. We're taking over Michigan. That's a good haul too, man. I mean, those aren't close to each other. Must have really wanted to see one of you guys. Yeah. How far is Grand Rapids from Detroit? It's a couple hours, I think. Yeah. It's a hike. It's a hike. So yeah, you're right. They wanted to see one of us. Yeah. They probably just lived in Detroit.

good deal they live next to the clubs what you're saying well ben what have you been up to man oh man this weekend uh not a whole lot just kind of um going to you so you're you're teaching or you're you're a college professor yes i know you primarily as a comedian but it's fun to think about you in a classroom i know you're a very good teacher i can just what are you teaching what are you teaching right now what are your class right now i'm teaching nothing

Oh, that sounds like I've been on medical leave for a year. Are we going to bring that up? No, let's get into it.

My bad, my bad, my bad. Maybe vet the guest a little bit. No, it's all right. I knew about some of that. What were you teaching? Because we had some comics a few years ago that actually had you as a teacher, right? Really? So NTSU students who are coming to open mics and they're like, that's Dr. Ben. Matt Boyd. Remember Matt Boyd? Oh, yeah. Matt Boyd was in my class the first time that I ever taught.

Yeah, that's crazy. It was. What's your primary, is there a specialty that you have or a period of history that you... So my specialty is economic history, history of capitalism, communism, and things like that. Okay. I wish that's the word here. But my, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, I do too. But then I studied the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Russia. That's my geographic places. So what I teach at MTSU is I just teach the basic classes, the survey classes, U.S. History I and U.S. History II.

And nobody can quite figure out why I only want to teach those. They've offered me other classes, but I love teaching those classes. And it's the kind of thing where everybody has to take those classes to graduate. And I really, really love this place we live.

And I know, you know, going in there with the expectation that you have history majors is just going to fail. Right. Right. Like I don't like, I know some people who give a whole lot of books to read and I've just never thought that if you didn't enjoy something, making you just shoving more of it down, like when you were a kid and somebody like you like broccoli, you were like, no, you were like, what if you just ate like four barrels of it? Like, no. So it's kind of great to, to, it's a, I go in there every day feeling like it's a grind and it's a challenge because I,

you know i'm like the last person for a lot of these folks for a while is going to be explaining history and you just can't expect that you can't go in there and expect they care about it right they became aware they were alive like a few years earlier and since then they've mostly been thinking about pizza and stuff you know like you can't be like well what about 300 years ago they're like don't care so it's a fun challenge man and i also just love uh you know talking about why why democracy matters why you know we're fortunate and i think if you study history

I tell them, I'm like, I don't have any expectations for what you come away with from this class. I'm never here to tell you what to think. For goodness sakes, look at what my generation has done to this country and ask yourself, do I have the right to tell anybody what to do? I'm trying to teach you what I know so that you can save my son who's 10. There you go. But yeah, I just love it. It's a great opportunity to teach and to share what I love with other people. That's awesome. If you're not familiar with MTSU, Middle Tennessee State University, one of the most prestigious universities

academic universities in the country boasting such alumni as Brian Bates. Brian Bates. Yeah. Yeah, and now I'm also a visiting scholar over at Vanderbilt where... Well, just stick with him to your shoes. Yeah, well, you know, once you kind of move up, they... Yeah, yeah. Bates...

A visiting scholar. What does that mean? I mean, I guess I can guess. Well, you know, Bates, I think I said this earlier, but I remember listening to the early episodes and you guys trying to figure out what an adjunct professor was. And I thought, honestly, the theme for the show could just be come in and say, I am a master instructor of history at Middle Tennessee State University and visiting scholar at Vanderbilt. And then we could just spend two hours trying to explain to Nate what that meant. Exactly. Yeah.

But yeah, so it basically means that I co-direct a seminar series over there with speakers and have use of all their resources, which is very kind of them. So you're like an adjunct professor at Nateland right now. That's great. Why would you do that to me? I don't know. But I'm happy you're here, man. I'm happy you're here. Where was I? I was in Florida this weekend with Kathleen Madigan. Great shows. Last night, I did a little show with Brad Paisley here at Zany's. Yeah. The lineup was...

Me, Henry Cho, Kevin Nealon, hosted by Brad Paisley. All three of those guys have been on Nate Land. It was basically a Nate Land showcase. I'm trying to get Brad Paisley on here at some point. But it was a great night. Great cause. Great everything. Just one of those kind of fun nights, man. We watched the end of the Masters on Brad Paisley's tour bus. Wow. With Kevin Nealon. And I'm sitting across from Kevin Nealon, who I think of...

Like he was a happy Gilmore and I'm watching the masters and I just want him to be like, send the ball home, send it home. It was just a bizarre moment for me. And then you got Henry was Henry on there. Henry's on there. He knows all those guys. He knows all of them. It was a really fun way to watch the end of that. And it was a crazy masters too. I don't know if you watched it, Ben, but it came down to a playoff at the end. Rory McIlroy got the win. Um,

If you're around people that are passionate about stuff, it's fun to watch it with them. I got a buddy, Connor Larson, who's super into UFC. And if you watch UFC with him, it's the most fun thing in the world. By myself, I don't know what's going on. I don't really care. But it was kind of like that with the Masters. But anyway, it's official. I look in the mirror and I see gray hairs. Life is starting to end.

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Fun weekend. Excited you're here, Ben. Let's get into these comments. Let's get into it, I think. Let's do it. You want to read them? No, you're doing a great job. Are you sure? Do you want me to? Why don't we split it up? I'll do page one. You do page two. Okay. We've never done that before, but I think Nate and Dusty are gone. It's time to take chances on this podcast. Exactly.

Ryan, oh, comments come from Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Apple Podcast Reviews, and Nateland at natepargetzi.com. Ben, feel free to weigh in on these too, by the way. And first comment comes from Ryan Clark. As a good Catholic, I chose to give up chips for Lent. Well, that's quite a sacrifice, Ryan. He didn't pick a flavor, dude. What did you give up, Aaron? I gave up, you know what? I gave up making comments like that, so I'm sorry about that, Ryan. Yep.

As a good Catholic, I chose to give up chips for Lent. I love chips in all forms, so this has been a challenge. There you go. My work recently put out a bowl of Cheetos for a snack, which spurred a debate amongst myself and my coworkers. Are Cheetos a chip?

Easter is quickly approaching, so I'm choosing to ask the greatest minds I know. Can I indulge with Cheetos or would that break my Lenten commitment? Wow. We've got a professor on to help with this. Yeah, I think if you're looking for some type of scientific definition of a chip –

Cheetos probably doesn't fit that, but deep down, you know that's a chip. Deep down, you know that's part of what you're talking about, right? It comes in a bag. It's got the same texture to it, basically. I think Cheetos is a chip if we're going at just the spirit of it, which I think is what Atlanta is all about. Hmm.

Yeah. I mean, I would just wait till Sunday and you can eat as much as you want. Yeah. I feel like if somebody, you went to a party and somebody was like, Hey man, if you want some chips, they're on the table over there. You wouldn't walk back and be like, uh, you didn't mention that there were Cheetos. Yeah, exactly. Like, I don't see any chips. I see Cheetos. What is that about?

Yeah, I guess you're right. What about Bugles? Same thing. Bugles? I think it's all... Bates? Yeah. I like a good Bugle bag, all right? Bates was going to give it up for Lent. He goes, I can't do without the Bugles. I'm a Bugle boy, all right? I guess Bugle, not technically a chip, but it's like, what are we talking about? Yeah, what are we talking about? It's in the same... It's right next to it in the aisle.

At Kroger. Like, it's a chip. And you kind of know what you're doing. Yeah. And if you want to approach Lent as looking for loopholes and things like that, that might defeat the whole purpose of it, Ryan. Is a chip about its shape? I mean, is it just how flat? Does it have to be a certain, like, does it have to be flat? I mean, are we going to, like, get into this? Does it have to be a potato? No.

Well, if you do that, a lot of these things don't qualify because they don't have real potatoes in it. Yeah. You remember Greg Warren told us they had to stop calling Pringles chips because they didn't have enough potatoes to meet the qualifications. That's right. But we know that it's a chip, so a Pringles counts, right? That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Ryan, but I admire you either way, man. Best of luck and happy Holy Week.

Zach Bennett. Aaron mentioned that he noticed he never uses his smartphone in his dreams. Since that time, I've been keeping track of my dreams and neither do I. Once or twice, I've dreamed about having a smartphone, but then the device fails or breaks and I just move on without it. I think Aaron may be onto something with this theory. How about that? You ever notice that, Ben? Do you have dreams? Yeah. Okay. Do I have dreams? Well, we know what you do for a living. You can't have many. Yeah.

They've been crushed, but yeah. But I was just thinking when you're – I never dream about watching TV or looking at a phone. That's interesting. Even though that's probably a bulk of my life is looking at one of those things. And I bet – I wonder if I were in a car crash and my life flashed before my eyes, how much of that would be like Breaking Bad because –

I've seen the whole show like five times. That's a pretty good percentage of my life. That's probably why he had a car crash. That's what I'm going to say. Because I'm watching while I'm driving. Yeah. I remember you used to sit with, you used to sit a laptop on the front seat of your van, didn't you? No, don't say that. Come on, man. That's not true. I set a laptop up.

I know you used to hold an Xbox controller with the steering wheel. Come on, dude. I'm a safe driver, man. But it's just, it's curious. It's an interesting thing. Keep track of that. Let me know if you look at your phone in your dream. Okay? Matt Duvall, a not-so-funny story about the Jim Joyce blown call. I called him James Joyce on the podcast. People didn't like that. Yeah, I saw that. But I, this is what I said, is I respect umpires. I'm going to call them by their full name. Yeah.

Not so funny story about the Jim Joyce blown call. My buddy's uncle, who lives in Toledo, one hour from Detroit, has the same name as the umpire. And after the blown call, people started calling him with death threats. He even ended up changing his voicemail message for a bit, explaining he wasn't the umpire to try and head things off. That's...

I mean, that's funny now in retrospect. I bet that was crazy at the time. Yeah. That's so crazy. It's also ironic that they're mad at him for getting something inaccurate, yet they're not really checking which Jim Joyce they're going after. That's true. Yeah.

That's true. They made a bad call as well. Yeah. How about that? They should have a forgiveness thing the next day. That's why you have a professor on. They notice these things. Yep. Joe Clark, planting trees in the median and next to off ramps is a, all caps, super dumb idea. I wish Dusty was here. The whole point is to have a space with nothing in it in case you lose control and go off the highway. Planting dozens of rigid objects rooted in the ground would put a noticeable increase in highway deaths.

It's an excellent point, Joe Clark. I did not think about that at all. Ben, we were talking about how we wanted to

We wanted to plant some more trees. Dusty thought it would be a good idea. Some of this, like the median on the interstate. Someone suggested it. Oh, okay. It was a comment. Yeah. Yeah. Why aren't there fruit trees like on the side of the road all over the place? And we thought that sounds like a good idea. Joe Clark just reminded us why they don't. Yeah. I'd much rather there'd be nothing in between me and the other side. So when I lose control, I can hit another car. Oh,

Okay, I'm back. I'm back. I mean, that's a good point counterpoint here. How often does this guy lose control of his car? That's what I want to know. I think it happens. I wouldn't want to. You would venture all the way across the interstate median to the other side. That's how bad.

But you made it to the trees in the middle. You might as well keep going. I don't think my car is powerful enough to get across that grass. That's what would save you. My car is just so weak. Get that van back, dude. I need the van back. I'd love it back. Brandon Lifeheat. Lafette? Brandon Lifeheat. Is that how you would say it? Leaf height? Leaf height. Leaf height. Leaf heat. Brandon.

In addition to CO2 issues with crops in the medium, the amount of wildlife that causes car accidents would skyrocket. Enormous safety risk. Okay, I'm back to the other side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense, too. You'd have, what, owls and squirrels and things running up into those trees. Yeah. Deer. Deer. I mean, deer anyway, but you wouldn't be able to spot them as far as the trees. Deer in the trees.

Well, they're going to hang out in the trees. Okay. Not in the canopy, but they hang out amongst the trees. They're in forests. Don't act like they hang around trees. They do. In East Nashville, they're already in the road anyway. Yeah, that's true. They are everywhere. I almost hit one the other night. Andrew Kahn. I think the NICU and ICU debate has more to do with it being four or three letters. Oh, this is interesting. Okay.

Four letters, we make it a new word, such as NASA. Three letters, we just say the letters, such as FBI or CIA. Let me think about that. That's why we call it the USA and not USSA.

I'd never thought about that. I can't think of a three-letter acronym where we say it as a word. NCAA. NCAA. We don't call it. You say that out loud. NACA. Come on. Okay. All right. That's very funny. I've never thought about that before. I'm still thinking and trying to think of one. I can't think of one.

We're talking about, you call it the NICU, which is neonatal intensive care unit. But the intensive care unit, they don't call it the IQ. I think it just got IQ sounds bad. IQ does sound. Yeah. Sounds like they just put the gross space. Oh, we got to put you in the IQ. All right, Brian, you take over. Okay. Cameron Ramsey.

A couple weeks ago, my roommate signed up to be an Uber driver. His first drive was a couple that called an Uber because the husband was having a heart attack. It was much cheaper to call an Uber than take an ambulance, so my roommate's first ever drive for Uber was taking a man to the hospital while he was having a heart attack in his car. As a former Uber driver, yeah, I never had that happen. I was trying to think of anything. Have you ever had a crazy trip like that? Have you ever had somebody...

No. I had a pretty sure a lady of the night. I picked her up. A lady of the night. Did you take her to the movie house? Where'd you pick her up from? A hotel. Oh, from a hotel. Yeah, and then I took her to another hotel. Did you really? Oh my God, Brad. I'm a trafficker.

I mean, I can't promise that's what she was, but there were some signs there. I'm a trafficker. Yeah, how often are you Ubering from one hotel to another hotel? And she stopped on the way. She had to stop at a bank and make a deposit. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, this is definitely what it was. Yeah, but... Yeah, but it's not your point. It's not your job to judge what people are doing. No, not exactly. It's your job to facilitate it. The furthest drive I ever had. I'm an accessory, too. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I just added myself. The longest drive I ever had, not that you guys asked, but was to Clarksville. That's a hike. That's about an hour. Yeah. Is that a pretty good payday for you? Yeah. I'm trying to think of what an Uber to Clarksville. It's probably, what, 500 bucks? No. It's nothing like that. How much? It was...

Maybe 50 or 60, something like that. 50 bucks? Maybe more. Yeah, you got fleeced. It's $500. It'd be cheaper to take an ambulance. I just took it in Spokane. I called the ambulance on myself. I went to the ER. He does this once a week. It was three or four blocks, maybe half a mile. Ambulance ride, 3,800 bucks.

Take that ambulance. Now, insurance covers a lot of it, but that's what it costs. $3,800. I should be an ambulance driver. I know. You should, man. Well, it sounds like you could have been. The right person called you. Yeah, exactly. You ever have somebody throw up in your car, Brian?

No, I had a drunk guy leave his phone in my car once. Okay. I never drove for Uber a ton, but... Would you go pick up on Broadway on Friday and Saturday nights? So that's the danger zone. That's where things happen. A lot of drunk people. Yeah. I remember... I think now people tip pretty well with Uber.

Well, I think Uber riding, this is not a knock on your age. It's just a new thing where I don't even think back then there was like the percentage would come up for tipping. No, no. See, now you can just hit 20%, 15%. Yeah, I didn't get tipped a lot when I drove for Uber. And they take so much of the total payout. So I think now people make more money driving for Uber than they did back then.

Yeah. I'd be curious to, to see that. Did you play, you have music blasting in the car? I would try to, uh, profile the person. Yeah. I have a joke where I say that, but I would try to do that as well. I try to match the energy of what, if they wanted to talk, I would try to talk back that same level. If they were quiet, I would be quiet. Okay. But they're leading the dance.

Yeah, I would let them lead. I try to get a feel for what I think they do. Yesterday morning, I had a scheduled Uber, 5 a.m. in my hotel, and the guy wants to talk. I just brought up that. I'm like, dude. What about the guy going to Clarksville? It was a woman. She did not speak English. Okay. It's ideal. Yeah.

She had a doctor's appointment. She was pregnant, had a doctor's appointment in downtown Nashville, and I drove her home. I like when it says, you're a Uber driver, a Lyft driver, it's hard of hearing. And you're like, that's what I'm talking about. And then I see him, and I don't think this guy's deaf. I think they just put that on there. There's a lot of them. If they don't speak English very well, or if they just don't want to talk to people. Either way, I respect it. Oh, sorry. I forgot I'm reading them now. Seth Mondragon? What a name.

Mondragon. Mondragon. I was wondering if you guys ever come up with a joke and then think, how did I not come up with that one sooner? Hmm. I look at other people's jokes and think, why didn't I think of that? It's the wrong episode to ask that question. So.

I hear jokes all the time and think, I wish I had thought of that before they did. Yeah. Because everything's just for the taking. It's like, I'll hear it all the time. You just hear a joke. That was, anybody could have made that observation.

And somebody else did it. Yeah, it's so good. I remember when you started, Ben, I felt like the first time I ever saw you was at the Comedy Bar. Does that sound right? No. Bates, I moved here in 2013. Bates, you've known him for over a decade. You were the first person I'd ever met that performed at Zany's. That was a big deal back then.

And I remember you came over to some show. It's not a big deal to know him now. Some show up the street. Yeah. And now it's kind of washed over me. Stalled out. It's kind of like caffeine. When I was a kid, it was a big deal. Now it's kind of like I need it. I don't need you, Bates. Anyway, that was a bad analogy. But yeah, I remember like meeting you because you came over and did some show up the street after you'd walked off stage. And I was like, wow.

and you know it was what was that man it was some place called that's cool I think Chad Rodden was running a show down there yeah there were like more comics in there than there were people watching you know it was in those days there was no chance to get on stage you know I got the location wrong but I do remember that and I remember you like uh

you have smart jokes oh thank you and not particularly funny but they're smart i appreciate that i appreciate that's what that's what my wife used to say i'd get off stage and be like it wasn't that good she goes yeah but they were listening yeah like yeah that's what they do that's how you bomb you gotta listen to do that too

Yeah. I always respected you would do like, we'd be in some dive bar and you're up there talking about Grover Cleveland or something. And we're like, dude, we don't know. None of us know what you're talking about, but you do, you find a way to make it funny. It's fun to watch. Thank you. It's not the same old stuff is what I appreciate. Thank you. Let me ask you this on the back of,

that uh do you guys ever come up with a joke that you feel like so good that somebody else must have written that joke and you just heard it yeah yeah and then it usually is the case yeah sometimes i don't even want to google i'm like i really like this joke but i know if i google five comics about it ignorance is bliss yeah yeah it can be it's a good question so we'll table that one and ask dusty and nate because i think that's who you're asking

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Last week we had a debate about whether you can have coffee in church. I actually listened. I heard that. That's an interesting debate. I am pro-coffee in church buildings. Studies have shown that holding a warm beverage can influence how you perceive and interact with other people. More generous, caring, trustworthy, etc. Oh, more generous. That's what it is. Ah. Yeah, yeah. Works for the church. Or she. Get that offering. Yeah. Play it around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold something warm. Yeah. Yeah.

I just don't know if I believe holding a warm drink will make you give more money to people. Yeah, we talked about this recently. Didn't we? I'm remembering now. It was a study that showed people react to people differently, more warmly. Did we do an episode on temperature?

Or feel or touch. Touch. Touch. We did an episode on touch. Yep. Where we talked about this. That's right. I don't remember how I reacted to it that episode. I'm telling you how I'm reacting to it right now. Well, we didn't talk about. Sounds like nonsense. Yeah, we didn't talk about generosity then. I think Dusty covered sounds like nonsense for you. So you didn't have to. Okay, that's right. Any study, Nate or Dusty are going to shut down. Well, I'll just say keep on going with it. You know where all the drinks are warm? Okay. Anyway.

That's a good joke. I wish I'd have thought of it. Colton Benji? Ben Gay. Colton Ben Gay. Benji. Bungie. They made the game Halo. You ever play Halo? No. It's the best game. Halo 2 is the best game ever made. All right. Colton.

I remember during a college class, I couldn't stop laughing at the worst time, and I had to force myself to think of something sad to calm down. I usually think of someone who has passed. I know, grim, but it works. Has there ever been a moment where you found yourself laughing when you shouldn't be? If so, do you have a go-to method or thought that helps you stop? I think about Aaron's act. I put on Aaron's special on my phone. I usually start crying.

Your special just hit 400,000 views, by the way. Did it? Yeah. That's a great special. I like that. Are the comments getting mean? Just the ones I find. Just about two-thirds of them. Different accounts. Just from all your alter egos on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah, this is anything. I remember school. It's anywhere you're not supposed to laugh. Do you have this in your class? Which I guess is the question. But church, sitting at church, me and my siblings. Yeah. Some of the laughs we had there. I mean, it was...

painful holding it in and then school somebody just like a, I hate to be crass, but like just a fart at the right time is, it's tough to beat. It's tough to be, it's still to this day. Maybe I'll outgrow that. I have no idea, but it's, it can be very funny.

The fact that you're not supposed to be laughing makes you laugh that much more. Yeah. I'm just trying to think as someone who teaches history and there's pretty dark moments, like the worst possible time. I'm just thinking, going through my mind and thinking like, where in my class would be the worst possible time? What do you think the worst day in history is? The worst day in history? Some human suffering. What do you think? The worst day of all time. I want the date. The date. Yes. You got a time machine you're trying to get back. Good gracious. World history. World history, dude.

I mean, probably when the asteroid hit the dinosaurs. Yeah, probably. That was probably it. Let me get on the calendar for that one. It was definitely BC. I'm not sure. All right, it's a tough question. We'll come back to it. Yeah. Those are the kind of history questions I'll be asking, so just get ready for it. That's good. Oh, I keep forgetting. Brandon Howe, fourth grade teacher here. Now, that's a real educator. Fourth grade. Yep. The story from Brian's childhood. I'm just kidding.

You don't have to get as much of an education, but they work real hard. They work way harder. I mean, you're teaching adults. These kids need to have their hands held. Look, my son is in fourth grade right now, and I just want to say this right now to be clear. I respect primary school teachers so much more. You know what you can't do? What's that? Just tell them to leave. You can't.

You can't do that. Get out. My students wander off and they're just rejoiced. My son was wandering around outside the school. He'd be happy about it. I think I got sent to the hallway a couple of times. Maybe that was later. But yeah, just go sit in the hallway or something if you're being disruptive. Or go to the principal's office. But didn't you go to Catholic school? Yeah. Yeah. So if they told you to sit in the hallway and you didn't stay in the hallway, there would be consequences. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Right? I just feel like in other schools, they see the kid walking by, they're like, I guess he's going where he's supposed to be going. Walk out the door, got your parents picking him up. I don't know. Yeah, what year do you teach most of the students? Most of them are first and second year students. But I get all across the board. They're borderline adults. 17, 18. They're officially adults.

Although every once in a while I'll get a student who's like in high school and, uh, taking a college class for credit. And it's funny because they totally expect that I would know that they were like 16. But if you're in college and when you're in high school, you're actually so sharp that it doesn't really stand out. Yeah. So it's kind of a cool thing. Um, Oh, fourth grade teacher here. The story from Brian's childhood is all summer in a day by Ray Bradbury. This has been a few weeks, Aaron, but, uh,

Believe it or not, the story is still being used today in our reading curriculum. It's a story on how jealousy can cause people to do things they'll regret. A couple months ago, I told you and Dusty about this story I remember in school about a kid getting locked in a closet. It was a place where it rained every day, and they had one hour of sunshine, and they locked this kid in a closet, and they forgot about him. So when they came back in,

They're like, oh man, this kid's been locked in the closet. And you realize, guys are like, that's crazy. That seems so whatever. But a lot of people said, no, this is a very – so the story is it was set on the planet Venus. Okay. A girl comes from Earth. They've never seen the sun on Venus. It only rains. And she says, I've seen the sun. And she tells them about it. And they're like, you're crazy. And they get so frustrated with her, they lock her in a closet. Okay.

or they're jealous of her maybe. Then once every seven years for one hour, the sun comes out. They all go out and play, enjoy the sun, come back in. They're like, oh, she's still in the closet. And it's going to be seven more years before she sees the sun. Well...

Well, I was already against colonizing Mars. By the time we get to Venus, we're pretty, but it's a very, I guess it's a very well-known story. I had never heard of this. Is it interesting though? Published in 1954. Things were a little darker back then. They didn't feel a need to put a positive spin on things. Huh? Yeah. You think when she came out, she was like, I don't care. I still saw the sun more than you. You think she tried to hold up and maintain the front? Maybe, maybe it's hard to say. Uh,

Uh, Kristen. Last comment. Christian Grable. Graybell. Graybeal. Graybeal. If I had this group of names when I tried to read them in my class to call roll, it would be a nightmare. I don't know where you're getting your listeners from. We do get some especially weird names. Mondragon. Mondragon.

People think I pick because of the names. I don't. I don't think about the names. Unless it's some business. If it's Bob's Automotive or something like that, then maybe I ain't going to. Unless they have a really good comment. You know what I mean? I'd like to hear from Bob's Automotive, actually. If they write in, I want to hear what Bob's Automotive says.

I'd love to hear their comment. Christian Greybiel. Greybiel. I was just listening to an earlier episode about hotels and was curious if Aaron is still collecting hotel keys. He must be close to the world record by now. I'm getting there. I just started a second binder. Whoa. How many is in the first one? Probably 300 or so, if I had to guess. I haven't counted them, but I keep them in little baseball card things.

So it's nine per page. So I've got a whole big binder's worth. Now, like this weekend, the hotel, they gave me two room keys. You put them both in there? No, I just keep one. Because that'd be cheating. Right? Yeah.

I'll only one per trip I've put in there, but I was on three different hotels this weekend. So I like it, it adds up pretty quick. The Guinness world record guy comes in to do the record. And he's like, so wait a second, wait a second. I'm sorry. We've got duplicates in here. Call it off. Call it off. Takes his tuxedo off. Just rips the tie off and storms out.

Well, we were all part of a world record for longest comedy show. We were. That's exactly right. We know they can be strict, these Guinness people. Oh, yes. Absolutely. Had to keep 10 people in the room at all times. Yeah. Do you want to talk about that? Explain what that is? Yeah. I think we talked about it before. It just came up on my Facebook memories feed from like, was it 10 years ago? Does that sound right? It was 2015. Yeah. 10 years ago would have been the first year they did it. And it was during the comedy festival. That was before I started...

My first open mic in Nashville was the Monday after that. Really? At Bobby's. Yeah. So I missed the first. The first. So we inspired you to get involved. Yeah. Did you come and watch? No, I watched the live stream on Nashville stand up. You were like, I do that. Why you drove? No. What is laptop? I am a responsible driver. I want to make that very clear.

So I think we've talked about it, but for people who haven't heard, we set a Guinness World Record for the longest consecutive nonstop comedy show. I think we demolished the old record. Yeah, it was by a few days, right? We did. We did. I would challenge anybody to go to the Guinness World Record page and check out how long it actually is.

I mean, since it's been broken, right? No, I don't think so. But as it turns out, we're only registered. And this is, wow, I'm leaking out some information here. I mean, obviously on the page. But we only got it certified to the point where the guy handed us the trophy. Oh, on guinnessworldrecords.com. Oh, that makes sense. So as soon as we broke it, he's like, you broke it, and then he stopped. Right. So it's not actually like eight days long. It's just at the moment that we broke it.

80 hours? Whoa. Is that true? No, that's not. So there you go. So if you guys want to do comedy for three days and 13 hours. 80 hours, five minutes. It's still pretty long. It's very long. It's still pretty long. A little bit over four days, right? Yes. And the best part was we were like, we want to do this. No, a little bit over three days. It was DJ Buckley's idea. Yeah. I remember, dude, this was, I mean, this was a year before he got me, Joe Kelly, Dusty,

And Chad riding into Smoker's Abbey Cigar Shop and was like, I've got an idea. And he just looked crazy. And we were like, this could be good or bad. Yeah. And he laid it out there and it was so much fun. But you had to keep the rules where you had to show that you had 10 paying gigs in the last year.

which I only had because I ran that cigar shop show. There you go. I remember that. You had to perform for 15 minutes. There couldn't be a five-minute set. At least 15 minutes on stage and there had to be 10 people in the room. Yeah. And I remember, can I just tell my story about this? Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm not...

I'm not a Bates or Weber level comic even now, but back then I was new to it. And I had signed up, had a Saturday night show. And when people would come over from the festival, they'd spike them in. You remember this? This is when Hannibal Buress came over. And I was up and they got a call that Nate and Eric Andre were going to come over and do sets. And they would just spike them in wherever you go. And they were like, hey, Nate and Eric Andre are on the way over here. And I just started being like, please, God, don't get here.

While I go on stage, because if they got there before I went up, I would have to follow them. And I was like, this is going to be horrible. And sure enough, they showed up. And, uh, you know, to this day, I think about what a great comic Nate is because I assumed Nate would go first and then Eric would go.

But actually Eric Andre went first. Cause I think if you've ever seen him live, you know that you can't possibly match that energy or follow him. And I was like, how's Nate going to follow this? And this was, I mean, this was 10 years ago. So Nate walks on stage and goes, I'm just going to run through the set. I'm doing on the tonight show this week. And that's how you follow. Yeah.

Yeah, that will do it. So then you followed Nate on this show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He opened for you. It felt like a slow roll down a hill instead of a drop off a cliff. And, uh, it's so that felt great. How about that? Look at it. 10 years later, it was not good, but it wasn't terrible. 10 years later, here you are. You took over his podcast. That's great. Yeah. I've been laying podcast. It's great to be here. That's, uh, that's cool. I had no idea about that. Yeah. That's really fun. Yeah. That's super awesome. Well, as you know,

Neck, we're coming up on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Well...

more than that we're a year and some change away but yeah well this weekend is the 250th anniversary of the start of the revolutionary war whoa and we didn't even know that when we picked the category no i just noticed it right before i left the house i was doing some last minute research and then it said april 18th paul revere wrote i was like april 18th they said april 19th bous lexton and conquer yeah and i'm like i did the math i'm like it's 250 years ago yeah so how about that yeah

And we have a historian here. I'd like to talk. So just, can we just talk about the revolutionary war for a little bit? I would love to. So you were, you're for it. Well, I'm for it now. It took a while. There's some years where I was like, I don't know. We could have,

You know, having a monarch, you know, it's really hard to turn against the idea of having one guy who's just born and everybody goes, well, I guess he owns everything. Yeah. What do you think? First of all, we learn about the Revolutionary War as Americans. How different is it? Do you know? How are...

If you grow up a child in England, are they even taught about this period of history? Or is it just kind of a, you know, they've been an empire for so long. Who cares about the little colonies? You know, what's funny is that like, I don't know how to answer this question because I'm from North Carolina, but, um, and you know, you would think I would know because I've had several British friends and actually hung out with them around the 4th of July. But most of our relationship consisted of me just screaming at them. We won. And so I never really asked them how it felt. Yeah.

I'm just curious if they even talk about it. Yeah, they've had a lot of wars, so maybe it's not real high on the list. And they've been around forever. Yeah. We're not even 250 years. Yeah, to me, I know 1492 when Columbus came is not the official – Sailed the ocean blue. Yeah. Sailed the ocean blue. But that's the date we have in our head for when America was discovered. Yeah.

Well, discovered by Europeans. Maybe not you. People who lived here knew about it. They were. They did it for a long time. Right. All right. Where's Dusty? Does Dusty even think the Earth is that old? I'm not even sure. It's a good question. I wish he was here. I want to do this to him. Come on. That's a good question, though. Anyway, Europeans discovered 1492.

And in my mind, the country kind of got going almost right after that. But there was more time in between that and the Declaration of Independence than it has been since the Declaration of Independence to now. Oh, that's a good point, man. I never thought about that. That's the kind of thing I should be saying when I teach. That's a good point. Yeah, because, I mean, it's the Spanish. The Spanish and the Portuguese. They're the ones who dominate the whole world. And the English basically gets started up as like a complete upstart.

And they don't even have a Navy. I mean, at first they just, I mean, mostly what's, I mean, they have like some ships, but mostly what they do is they were an Island. So they had some boats. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the thing is if you're an Island, you got to protect yourself, but they would hire like basically pirates. Like they would get privateers. Wow.

And be like, hey, you fly under our flag, and we'll let you pirate, and we'll kind of endorse that, and you can keep your stuff, the stuff that you take. I like that guy in the parking lot in Detroit. A lot. Actually, he did wear a Union Jack shirt the whole time, which is way weird because this was much later when they got that. That's interesting. So I read that – first of all, I'm so embarrassed how much either I didn't know about the American Revolutionary War or forgot. I'll just say forgot.

Some of it hadn't happened when I was 90% of mine is from Mel Gibson's the Patriot. So you're gonna have to wash some of that off. That's a, that's literally my job at MTSU is trying to back people out of what they think they know about the revolution. You sent us some, it's a good movie though. I mean, it is, it is a fun ride. I'll say that a fun ride. It is. Uh, and some of my friends actually were extra. So you can see my buddies running down the hill. Is that real? Yeah. Um, they shot it like just in the border of South Carolina, North Carolina. Wow.

I think it's that one or Braveheart. I can't remember. They're all the same movie. Anyway, everybody just turned it off. Braveheart, history professor. You're like, ah, it's all the same to me. It's Mel Gibson running down hills. That's the whole, most of the movie. Either the Patriot or Braveheart. I can't remember. It's either Scotland or... He was fighting for some kind of independence and people were running down hills. Some of them were my friends in one of them. So did the British at the time that this is all going down, what was...

Were they called Britain? Were they called England? What were they? Were they called England? I can't remember all this side of things. I mean, like... Redcoats? United Kingdom comes later, but yeah. Okay, so they're not the UK yet. No, no, no. That's later on. Great Britain?

when they form with the other ones. I'm not a British historian. But they're a major player in this war. They are. Is that fair to say? Yeah, they're British at this point. The British are coming. I was trying to make a point about how – That's not for 30 years. It doesn't even work. The UK is coming. The Soviet Union is here, and they're like, what is that? Communism? No, we don't know what that is yet. I was trying to make a point of how ignorant I was about – if you had asked me when did the Revolutionary War end,

I would have said, well, it had to have been before 1776 because that's when we just signed the Declaration of Independence. But I think I had it confused with the Constitution. Yes, you did. This is, all right. Well, I know I did now, but I think that's, yeah. Dude, one of my favorite things is, and I've like tried to campaign against this, is like you drive past somebody and they've got like a sticker on their truck and it says, we the people, and underneath it says 1776. Yes, sir. But we the people is from the Constitution, which was written in 1787. Ooh.

Oh, how about that? I don't. Usually people have other stickers on their truck that make me believe that they don't want to be corrected. Hold on. What's the first line of the Declaration of Independence? When in the course of human events. Ah, it's not nearly as catchy. It's not. You're right. And that would not fit on a bumper sticker. So we the people doesn't appear in the Declaration at all. But

Life, liberty, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's it. Yes, it does. So you can put that in there. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. And look, I appreciate the spirit. You know what I'm saying? Somebody has that on their truck. Well, that's what it's about. To me, it's like they appreciate this place and that's what I appreciate. That's what it's about. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. But it's just, it's really hard when you're driving by with your pen trying to mark them wrong. You have to window over your car. You know what I'm saying? You veer over and hit the trees in the median.

All right. So what I read was that we'd been fighting some other wars, uh, French Indian war, things like that. It was really getting, uh,

it was financially draining on Great Britain's economy. So when those things kind of got settled down, they're like, well, we got to get our money back, start taxing these colonists. So they started just putting on a ton of taxes. Is that right? So like, here's the thing. It's not necessarily the taxes, like paying the taxes themselves. For a lot of Americans, it's the principle of it all. Like, yeah, you got to go back and realize that like the, the English colonies that were set up, they were set up for like so many different reasons. You got like religious freedom with like, well, I wouldn't say it's the Puritans were nuts, but,

and it was the freedom to have their own faith. I thought either that or you were Amish. I didn't see what you drove here. But so like the colonies have nothing in common. They have like nothing in common whatsoever. They're all kind of their relationships with Great Britain. So like one of the things that happens in the American Revolution that you see a huge change is that like Pennsylvania newspapers are talking about what's happened in Boston, which like they didn't care before. So that was not the case before this guy. Quakers like –

I mean, you've got the earlier colonies. You know, the first one is Jamestown, Virginia, right? I mean, that's a corporation. It's set up to make money. That's what it's for. It's a crown charter colony. And so, like, that's the reason they start sending it. You know the stories about them trying to grow tobacco and people starving and everything. Yeah, yeah. The whole idea is they're just trying to give people land so they'll go move over there. And they actually, what they do is they give out head rights. So if you're a single man and you can get over there, they'll give you two head rights, which I think is like 40 square acres. What is that? It's like 40 square acres. Okay.

But if you've got a good amount of land, but they'll give you one more for anybody you bring with you because they want you to bring like your wife and kids so that you won't go there and just go nuts looking for gold and then starve to death. Wow. So you're like, you'll be invested. Right. And then, you know, England's an Island, so there's like no space. Yeah. So there's tons of people, the population's growing. Where do you send them? And then colonies have demonstrated that they can make you incredibly powerful.

right with the Spanish yeah so the English went in on that game and that's that's why they set that up but the Puritans and you know that establish what is Boston in Harvard and like they set up in 1630 it's a completely different game like what they want is the freedom their breakaways from the from the Church of England they believe they've got the proper way to do things and if they go get their own town they can show everybody exactly how God wants them to live yeah but it also makes them really kind of nuts I

I mean, like they, they believe that like most of them are going to hell, even if they live the right life. So it's very stressful. But one of the things is a tough way to live. It is a tough way. There's some crazy stories about like, apparently one woman threw her baby down a well because she said, at least now I know.

She knows what? She knows she's not going to heaven. Like, she doesn't have to worry about it. Oh, my God. I was like, I don't know if you know where you're going now, but I would like to have at least a coin tosses chance. I would maybe park illegally or something. I don't know. I'd maybe eat chips. I'm going to try Bugles during Lent. Yeah, exactly.

But yeah, so, but they're just completely different. And, and like, even when Quakers show up in the, in the Massachusetts Bay colony, they're not down with other people's religious freedom. They just want to do their thing. They run them out. So there's Georgia, like SCC, SCC was a prison colony. I mean, it was like, they sent prisoners there. Yeah. Scott James, I would have thought that he could take the debtors prisoners from the old world and bring them there to be soldiers. And they would appreciate that. And they were not very good at it. So pretty quickly became a slave slave colony.

Oh, geez. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense though that, I mean, we talked about a few weeks ago, we did an episode of Virginia and we talked about Patrick Henry. Yeah. And give me liberty, give me death. That was about Boston. Or give me death. What did I say? Give me liberty, give me death. Give me liberty, comma, give me death. I think the or is the operative word there. True freedom comes through death. It's like, well, he was goth back then. That's pretty –

It's pretty good. Head of the times. Yeah. Just give them both to me, dude. I don't care. What if he just went liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. But I was talking about Boston and to your point, it was very rare, I guess, for one colony, almost a state, to care about what's going on in another state. But that's how big it was getting the problem. It's the fact that the British, first of all, they passed this on all the colonies at the same time. So for the first time, they had something in common.

And what they had in common was nobody asked them about these stamps, right? First you get the sugar tax and then you get the stamp act, which is really what makes people very mad. Cause it's like the sugar tax is like an excise tax. You don't see that you're paying it, right? It's like, what's happening with the tariffs when you have tariffs, right? You don't see that. But with like the stamp act, it's like a sales tax, right? Where you go in and you see that line at the bottom. Yeah. So you saw that it was on there. So it made everybody mad and they, they went nuts. The stamp act was any piece of paper. Yeah.

It was like playing cards, legal documents, all that kind of stuff. So, of course, it hit people in cities more than it hit people outside of it. So that's the reason you see the big riots happen in the city. Were these things designed to... Were they punitive to us or it was just a necessity? They just needed the money. Here's the thing about it all is that... All right, so...

When the British win the Seven Years War, the French and Indian War, it's like all part of the same thing. It's like seven years. They get like all this. They get control over all this land to the west.

And in order to not start a war with the Native Americans out there, which, I mean, they're still powerful at this time. They have to agree that no American or no American colonists will cross this demarcation line. And what is this line? What was considered the West then? It's kind of the Appalachian Mountains, kind of the crest there, right? Yes, this is where we are right now. We're far west. Yeah. And so the thing is that like American colonists aren't going to listen. So the British literally have to start policing this.

Which like jacks up their costs. And so a part of the reason it's not just the debt from the American revolution. It's like, they're literally have to maintain a presence here to stop these colonists from, from going across and starting a war that this is the thing. It's like, it's really, it's really a miscommunication. A lot of it. Cause you can't, I mean, it takes months for a message to get across. Right.

So the American colonists see the British taxing them. And then all of a sudden there are these red coats everywhere. Right. And they're like, so you pass a tax on us without asking us. And now you're going to shoot us if we don't listen. Yeah. But from the British perspective, they're like, we're trying to stop you guys from starting a war that could basically destroy your colonies. Okay. So that's a big part of it. But the debt is another thing too, because you didn't have a long time to pay back debt back then. So you kind of had to like pay it back quick. Or if the French started a war and you burned your credit, like you'd lose the next one. Wow.

This is not funny. I'm sorry. No, I'm sitting here thinking when we go to Mars and colonize it, every country will eventually get the technology to go to Mars. And then is there going to be another war breaking out? It's people that even from our country go to Mars on SpaceX or whatever. After a while, we're like, guys, we don't need this United States taxes on us. Right, right. And we'll start an intergalactic war. Yeah.

with Mars. Well, my thing has always been like, if you know anything about colonies, like if you study them at all, let's assume we don't. Okay. Uh, you don't want to be, you don't want to be a colonist. Like you just like people starve, they die. Like if you, if you look at like what it's like when you first, they first go to Jamestown, like you wouldn't want to be that anytime somebody says the word colonist, don't, don't go along with them. Yeah. It's a, it's going to be a long time before, before you want to wait it out.

Let them get some stuff. Yeah. Let them get some. Yeah. Let them get the tobacco growing. I'm assuming that's what we're going to do on Mars. It'll be legal up there. That way still. Yeah. A lot of them do think of themselves as Englishmen. And that's the reason they're so mad whenever they just start passing taxes on parliament starts passing these taxes. Okay. Cause they're like, we're supposed to be members of this whole thing. And you didn't ask us like the British just come with the understanding. Well, we fought a lot of this war to keep the French from taking your colony. So like, you're going to pay that back. Right.

But again, when you pass a tax without asking and a bunch of soldiers show up, that doesn't look like it's being done with your interest at heart. Taxation without representation. Taxation without representation. Which, by the way, the stamp tax gets repealed six months later. It doesn't even last that long. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. They realize it. But the problem is that when Parliament decides to stop the stamp tax, they have a new prime minister. And this guy's like...

Well, the reason, what happens, well, I should back up and say that what happens is that mobs form and destroy property like after the stamp tax is announced before it even gets to put into place. Okay. They bash out windows, like tear things down. They're like hanging effigies of people by nooses in town squares. Where is most of this happening? Is it happening everywhere? Boston is the hotbed of it. Okay. Yeah. Boston, because those Puritans, those Puritans, they all believed you had to read the Bible to, uh, to as a part of your faith. So the literacy rates in Boston are like sky high. Oh,

So they can read all the pamphlets. Right? Wow.

Okay. There's like some estimates like literacy rate in Boston is as high as it was. So they're down in Charleston. Like if we knew what was going on, we'd be upset. Well, it's like Charleston, there are people who are mad different places, but it's really the cities, right? Again, because like the stamp tax is going to hit you if you're like, what they do is they directly put this tax that people have to deal with it are like lawyers and people who are in printing presses, right? So the people who control the law and the people who control the media. Yeah.

And those are the wrong people to make mad. Right. Right. Literacy rate 1776 is it was about 60 to 70%. So that's.

Lower than it is now? Crazy. Lower than it is now. Wait, what is it now? Well, in most developed countries, you're the person like 98%, like 99%. Ooh, global, it's 86.3%. Well, you got to, you know, there's a lot of countries where they're like, women shouldn't read, you know. Right, right, right. That factors in for sure. So the U.S. were pretty good. Developed nations...

Often exceeding 96%. Yeah, no. Okay. But that's crazy impressive for the time. So what ends up happening is the mobs go nuts. The new prime minister realizes six months later that it's a terrible idea. The Stamp Act isn't really going to raise the revenue. And he decides to cancel it and they're going to reintroduce something different. But he also knows that from the colonial perspective, they're probably going to think that it was being nuts that made him cancel it.

Right. So he's like, we can't let that happen. Reinforcing bad behavior. Yeah. So they, they crack down harder. Right. And,

and what the colonists learned they go well when we were nuts uh that uh stopped the stamp tax so they send more people we'll act crazier yeah and the british go we can't let them think they're being crazy and it's just a vicious cycle and with like an ocean between you back then with a ship that would take like months to get across you can't really have like a sit down and talk you know did did the did people in boston what were their accents like at this point did we know did they have british accents i

I have no clue. I thought that too. I wondered, could I even understand? Because in the Patriot. Yeah.

I'm just curious. I wonder when that... I'm guessing with these kids that can grow up in England, they grew up in Boston. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't know if they have British accent. And there are people who come from all over the world there too, so... Okay, okay. Recently, I had to pick up some body care stuff, but the scents were all so boring. We know how that is. Men's products need more variety. It's the same stuff, same bland smells. Once I smelled Cremo, I

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I mean, probably just, I mean, I don't know. I mean, the thing is I've read what they write and that's pretty hard to read sometimes, but I get it. Yeah. They use F's as S's. Idiots. That's why we're better now. The future is better. It's always better. Yeah. They're a Congreff. Don't they write that? Yes. And it is hard. What's the F and the S thing all about? I have no clue. I really don't know. George Washington told us what we're fighting for. George Washington told us what we're fighting for.

He's done two sketches about it. So then the Boston Massacre, it kind of led up to that, right? It was bowling, bowling, bowling. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this was years later, right? I mean, it's such a slow process, right? Because you go from like these riots happen and then the first battles are like 10 years later. Wow. Crispus Attucks. Another name I heard. I forgot who he was. I know now, but I couldn't have told you yesterday. Crispus. Crispus.

I was like, it's a cereal. Do you know Crispus Addict? No, I know Crispus. I bet you did. Who's Crispus? Who's that? He was the first person to die from the war. The Boston Massacre was some British soldiers. Things were getting out of hand.

Somebody got a little loosey goosey with the gun, got some fired, some shots. This guy died. And it was kind of a rallying cry for the colonists. Like they're killing us now. Yeah. It was also an incredible, incredible example of like propaganda of a propaganda mill for this because it's,

Pulled up Crispix. I was like, what does he look like? I'm just trying to give some context to what we're talking about here. That's Crispix's original cereal. This is way funnier for all you guys who don't know what's coming. Anyway, so like, I mean, yeah, Crispix was a black man. And it's fascinating because we don't know much about him.

Like the thing about port cities at the time was people come from all over the world and just end up there. Right. Cause these, I mean, there's a Star Wars, just like Star Wars. Cause if you miss your boat or something, you're just stuck there. Really Mos Eisley is a, well, no, it's not, not necessarily that it's that people are in dock. Right. And so you don't really know, then people will, you know, stay behind. Um, but anyway, so yeah, you end up with this, this, this interesting mix in these cities and he's the first one shot.

But, and the story really, a lot of people don't know this, but what happens later on is that the question is, were these guys just awful and they just opened fire because they hated colonists? Right. Or were they reasonably scared? Yeah. Because colonists had like assaulted people, like literally tarred and feathered people, destroyed property. I mean, these mobs will be drunk and out of control. Yeah, yeah. And if you're in the British army at this time, like there's no sense of patriotism. Right. It's a job. Yeah.

Yeah. And this is not the job. You're a mall cop. Yeah. You're a mall cop. And this is the worst mall. Yeah. Right. Like if you have any say, so you don't want to be there in Boston. Yeah. Right. So like, you're probably like no experience, likely lower experience. And, uh,

and probably not getting your first choice. And so what ends up happening is there's apparently like there's a scuffle and one of the soldiers thinks they hear the order to fire. Then everyone fires because they thought they missed the order to fire. And yeah, I mean, same outcome. But later on, John Adams actually defends those soldiers in court and has them found innocent of a malicious intent. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. He was the trial lawyer, yeah. Because I've seen John Adams on HBO. Yeah.

which is a great Paul Giamatti. Yes. Unbelievable show. Yeah. Uh, that's, that's how I knew that were the, were citizens allowed to have guns at this point, or was it just the British shoulders that had guns? No, I mean, people would have guns cause it was just a part of your life. I know less about like the details, but I know it was, uh,

in the early colonies, there's this idea that everyone had a gun, but you were actually less likely to have one in a lot of places, especially if you were poor because they were expensive. Okay. But yeah, I mean, they had them, but by the time you're out in the field, by the time the actual revolutionary, uh, revolutionary army is formed, like a substantial portion of Washington's men don't have shoes or guns. Um, I don't know the exact numbers. I'm trying to think of which one I'd rather have. I think it's pretty close, dude. I think shoes. I could run. Yeah.

All right. So then when did the Boston Tea Party happen?

So Boston Tea Party is 1773. I mean, is that in the order? In the story. So it happens after the Boston Massacre. Okay. And the story with that is what ends up happening is like all these taxes have been passed. And of course, it's amping up, right? You get more and more like both sides are getting crazier. The British are passing more regulations. They try to like target Boston specifically. I'm thinking that that'll stop the other states from or other colonies from like, you know, feeling the pain. By that point, it doesn't work.

But what they do is they actually, it's not because they increase taxes. It's because they lower taxes, but only on the British merchants. Oh, okay. And they're like, Colin, it's love tea, man. They're going to love this. Yeah. But they're mad because they're like, this is just another act of favoritism towards you. Oh, interesting. And so that enrages them. And at that time, you're only supposed to trade with Britain. You're not allowed to sell some tea to the Spanish because they really want it. This might be a dumb question. Are average people concerned about this and upset about it? Or is it just like high level-

people doing business that are, cause I'm just trying to think of like an, like a commoner. Is he that affected by these taxes that he would resort to a mob in the streets? Or is he like, what, what do you, what do you think? It depends on where you are, right? I mean, if you're in a city, you're more likely to see it. Okay. If you're out in the countryside, I mean, you know, you, you, and you still, this is another thing. You still have tons of loyalists.

But even in Boston, you know, when this whole war, when it's clear, it's going to be a war happens. I think it's a, is it a thousand loyalists who lived in Boston? Just leave. They leave with the British because they know they see what's coming. Yeah. So like a big part of this thing is like, you don't know who your enemy is.

Right. Everyone looks the same. Yeah. And you don't know if they're a spy. You don't know if they're on your side. I mean, the whole Benedict Arnold thing is just one big example of how this plays out. He's another person that I knew it was a, if you said who's Benedict Arnold, it's like, I'm pretty sure he's a traitor, but I couldn't have told you who he was until I researched last night. He started with them, uh, almost at Americans, but they, the colonists, I guess the car, and then he defected over to the British. Yeah. Yeah. And a pretty stunning act of betrayal. Yeah. He was planning to give over a fort.

Yeah. Yeah, no, he's... Yeah, but it's just... It's part and parcel of the fact that like

A lot of these folks, even the officers in the Patriot Army, they had been in the British Army. Right? So, like, that's all there was before. I mean, there's not even an army until they just make one up in 1775 and say, Washington, you're the leader of it. And even, like, several colonies don't like it. They're mad. They're like, no, we're colonies. We're not, like, part of something bigger. So, we have a Navy? No, not at all. There is zero Navy. It is – we picked a fight with the world's biggest naval power. Yeah.

No, y'all come over here. We'll fight over here. Bring it over here, buddy. No, like AP polls, like coaches poll, number one. Number one Navy, British. They're the Alabama of, okay. They're like, we're going to build some ships. And you know what they do get is they get a submarine out of this. They do build one of these. It's called the turtle. Yes. Yes. You know about this, Aaron? No. But the submarine in the Revolutionary War? I mean. Made out of wood, right? Made out of wood. So how does it even sink?

I don't know. Um, I didn't, he's going up like, what's the problem? Once they told me it was made out of wood. I agreed. I said, I'm not getting in it. Um, but yeah, it's like basically the guy, the guy who invented it had done, had studied at Yale and his project was trying to figure out how to make gunpowder explode underwater. Okay.

Which has got to be the coolest college life ever. Yeah. You're just like, what are you doing? You're in a scuba diving outfit and you got a whole bunch of, a whole bunch of fire. But he figured out how to do it. So he built this thing that could go under. And like, no, the thing is like, nobody's looking for it. Right. Nobody's, nobody's going to be like, oh, there's a submarine. Cause that didn't exist. Right. But his whole thing was like, he's going to like crank this thing over to the ship and like essentially like stick gunpowder to it.

And then get far enough away from it and ignite it. And it's supposed to blow a hole in the side of a ship because they're wood. Yeah. He never pulled it off. Never, never worked for him. Yeah. So he was supposed to scoot over, get close to the ship, stick it on and then get out of there. Yeah. Yeah. That's the idea. But apparently like the gunpowder pack, like I think he, the story is like he ignited it, but he couldn't get close enough. So he had to just let it go down the river to explode somewhere else.

Um, because I was, I thought it was called the turtle because it was slow, but it says, because it looks similar to a turtle. Yeah. Two turtle shells. And, uh, one of my favorite things was when I was sending baits, like some of this information about maybe topics to work out. I realized that in 2007, there was a Brooklyn man who was like an artist. Uh, he was detained by the NYPD, NYPD boat. Cause he built a replica of it.

And was out in the water. Hudson river. He's like over. And he was trying to get near the queen Mary too, with it. Not good. No. And he was like, I just wanted to take a picture with it. And it's like, that's not why we made the turtle.

The turtle and the queen Mary too also seems like something you would want to sink with a revolutionary war submarine. There's tons of terrible ideas for submarines. We should talk about terrible Confederate technology. Sometimes there's civil war technology. They had one too. And it, it worked out even worse. George Washington in a letter to Thomas Jefferson called the, uh, the turtle an effort of genius.

in 1785 so it's like fire festival i gave it the old college tribe like fire fest if you're like i gotta get in on that you're like i mean they keep on trying it a couple of times too

But, um, I don't know, I guess like it could work, but it just never did. So did we develop a Navy during this war or do we just rely on the French? Uh, well, we heavily rely on the French, uh, but we do, we do get ships. Uh, I don't know. I don't know all this, the details of the Naval history, but we do get, you know, we get some, and then, you know, you have like, um,

you have privateers who come in on our side and things like, which are like independent ship owners. So, you know, they, they join us, which is a terrible idea. Okay. So things are building up, building up. Yeah. And then April 18th, which would be this Thursday. Yeah. 1775, uh, Paul Revere. Right. Now I read, he probably did not say the British are coming because back then they didn't know what that meant.

Yeah, I'm not sure. Say cometh or something like that. It was more like, what did he say? The British doth cometh. What did they think he said? Probably the loyalists are coming because everybody was British basically then. So they'd be like, yeah, we're here, dude. Yeah, and then they all saw themselves as British first. Then they saw themselves as being from the colony. That's why whenever the British identity goes away, they don't think of themselves as Americans first. That's a new thing.

They think of themselves as Virginians. Yeah, which is why it's so remarkable they all came together. The United States is, not the United States are. Right. That was a big moment. I can't remember the context for that, but I remember... Wasn't that a big moment? The first time they said the United States is versus the United States... Is that in The Patriot? Or Braveheart? That's one of the more mind-bending moments. Moneyball? The U.S. is not mentioned in Braveheart once. I want to say that. That would be...

All right. There needs to be a sequel to Braveheart where he takes on the Soviet Union. Can I ask you, Ben, what is a historical movie that you think does a good job of telling the history of something? Yeah, that's a good question. Because I feel like all the blockbuster historical films are anachronistic and silly and just get things wrong, right? But what's one that gets it right? Okay, so movies. Yeah. I would say, have you ever seen Enemy at the Gates?

It's a World War II movie? World War II movie. It's about Vasily Zaitsev, the sniper, the Soviet sniper. Oh. Is this Tom Cruise? No, it's Valkyrie. No, this is Ed Harris, I think. All right. Valkyrie. No, that's Vanilla Sky. Is this Tom Hanks or is that Ben? Yeah. No, man, that sniper showdown, like between Zaitsev and the German snipers, in that tank factory, which actually Henry Ford built in the Soviet Union for the Soviets, crazy story. But that, I think that captures it. Open and seen.

where they're pulling in and they had these train loads of people and they're just dumping them out at the Germans. Yeah. And the guys that they're handing them a gun and they're going, they hand the first person, the gun and the next person bullets. Yeah.

and the guy's going when the person in front of you gets shot pick up the gun put in your bullets and keep shooting yeah that's how they that's how the soviets fought their way out okay out of stalingrad and that like that that scene is epic and you know someone who spent a lot of time studying soviet history as well in world war ii that that is that's really oh that's cool of course it's dramatized uh yeah well it's got to be a little we gotta make it a movie yeah yeah yeah uh saving private ride yeah those i mean those movies are good they glory i haven't seen i haven't seen glory

Really? Yeah. Sorry. I haven't seen, obviously I haven't seen the Patriot or Braveheart of some sketches. John Adams. I wish you'd watch John Adams. Were these, all right. So the shot heard around the world. Right. When the war started. Right. Lexington and Concord. Yeah. Concord. Well.

Well, we, but we weren't, we weren't conquered. Ironic. Isn't it? And now that phrase has been used so much in sports. Yeah. Uh, uh, world series, Bobby Thompson, a home run shot heard around the world. Yeah. She's every, you know, but that's the original shot heard around the world. Right? Yeah. Cause I mean, it just, it's going to change everything because they had spent the last 10 years wondering, is this going to be a war or what? Yeah.

And even when the shots are fired, this is what a lot of Americans don't get is that nobody thought, well, they've started shooting. This is going to be a full scale war between the British and the colonies. They go, well, a couple of rednecks in Boston got upset and got a hold of some guns. And so still, I mean, it's, I mean, that's like you pointed out, that's April of 1775. We don't even declare independence until July 4th, 1776. So there's a whole period of like,

Actually, one of the first things that Continental Congress does is writes to England and goes, hey, to the king. And they go, hey, you probably don't know how bad the parliament's being to us. Could you stop them? Because we love you and we want to be loyal citizens. That's the same body that later on writes the Declaration of Independence. Wow. When the king ignores them and actually passes even worse stuff on them. Okay. Yeah.

I read that no one called it the shot heard around the world at the time. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem years later called Concord Hymn where he called it that. And that's how it became popularized. There's a lot of that. I mean, like the Washington crossing the Delaware painting, that's a painted in 1851.

Right. But people imagine that's the way it was. It was way worse. I think I've started out live again. It was way worse. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What we're like, all right, so George Washington becomes the leader of the army. Yeah. That doesn't exist. Yeah. The Continental Army. What are these famous founding fathers doing during the war? Benjamin Franklin. Is he on the front lines? Yeah. He was actually. Fighting? He fought with just a knife. He was like, was he like 70 during this war? Yes. He's so old. Samuel Adams was holding a beer. Samuel Adams was drunk.

Ben Franklin was actually behind me lines trying to sleep with everybody's wife. Yeah. Me and Weber watched the Ben Franklin documentary, the Ken Burns documentary. Yeah, the Ken Burns, Ben Franklin documentary. That dude was a dirtbag. He was. But he was awesome. Yeah, he's a very cool figure. But man, what a scoundrel. Yeah. Yeah. Weird. He's friends with Ken Burns.

I'm not friends with him. They hang out all the time. He's been on our show because I love their stuff. A lot of times they send me the screeners. We either have Ken on before we've had the writers and stuff like that on the road to now my podcast that I do with Bob Crawford and the Averett Brothers on SiriusXM post on weekends and on all podcast players streaming right now. Live in D.C. May 29th. Anyway, so. So you don't watch the Spin Franklin. What kind of snacks do you have? Well, I would have said chips before now, but. Cheetos? Yeah.

Crispics? Yeah. Crispics. All right. But like Alexander Hamilton, guys like that, are they fighting in the war? Yeah. Hamilton's a kid basically. He's like a teenager. Is he fighting? Yeah. So when the war breaks out, all he realized, he's from like, he's an illegitimate child. His mother's dead. And he like by a crazy fluke wrote a description of something he didn't see, which was a hurricane in the Caribbean. Yeah.

that raised money. And all these people were like, who wrote it? And they realized it's just this orphan kid who works in this import-export firm. So they send him actually to New Jersey to finish high school. And he applies to Princeton. And he really wants to go there, but they reject him.

So he ends up going up to New York. And when he's there, he realizes like maybe he could rise up this revolution, like revolutions open up opportunities for people to like get places they never were before. So him and his friends insanely steal a bunch of cannons from the British. And now he's honestly, he's one of the most well-equipped guys like around there. He's like a teenager, 19 or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, he basically like he has,

very little military training. Yeah. He may have had some from the colonies where they always, all the white people drilled in case there was a slave insurrection. So you kind of like knew some basics. Okay. But yeah, I know he like reads books and decides like I can run this. And so they end up taking him out. He ends up showing that he's incredibly brave. And that's when he joins Washington, the man to get whipped across the state of New Jersey. And after 1775 when the British show up.

So he's there. Thomas Jefferson serves as, I mean, he's in continental Congress and he's the governor of Virginia for a while. Franklin goes abroad to be our diplomat in France. Cause he's the guy you want there. People love him. Um, but they did love him. Right. Wasn't he kind of like the suave, like he would, he would hold court and like,

Was he well-liked by people? Dude, yes. I mean, look, this guy. Remember in the documentary, the thing, it's like going across the ocean was the worst because it was just like months of being on a wooden ship. Benjamin Franklin looked forward to it because he could do experiments. Remember in that documentary, all the things this guy did, there's just a line where they say in passing, and during this trip, he discovered the jet streams. And they don't even stop to appreciate that. If any of us did that, they would have been like, it'd be on a plaque. He just did it on the side.

So, yeah. So, he's over there. And so, a lot of these guys are in the trenches. I mean, this is where Marquis de Lafayette shows up, an unknown kid who just wants to kill British people because they killed his dad. Wow. It's like a movie. It is like a movie. It's a funny story, too, because… Sounds like it. So, during the revolution, the Americans were broke, but the French would never join us because we were going to lose. They were pretty sure of it, and they didn't want to make the British mad. They just whipped them a couple years earlier. Yeah.

So the way they make money is like the French are really, they're really like, they're just really, uh, the imagination that they have of the Americans, which Franklin plays up. It's like really big. Franklin walks around with a coonskin hat on like a reckoning skin hat. Right. The whole time. Just to play into the mythology of. Yeah. Really? Yeah. And the French are like, whoa, these like rednecks are like smart and they're reading, you know, like philosophy. Yeah.

So the French, all these wealthy people, they go over to Philadelphia where the Capitol is and they will let you, they will, they will be like, oh, you're an officer in the colonial army now. And they'll go get like these uniforms made and they will like, okay, here's your official commission. And then the rich people will like give them some money they need. And then they go back home. It's like a parade, right? It's a charade. It's a, it's a, it's a game they play.

And that's how Lafayette ends up coming over. And they're all like, oh, look, this kid wants to come like, hey, look, I'm a real go back with your army. Right. But he gets there and he's just like, where's Washington? And they're like, he's in the field, buddy. He's losing real bad. You don't want to go out there with him. And he's like, I want to go to Washington.

And they send him out there and Washington like writes back shortly after he's like, what did you do? Like, did you not tell him he's not really an officer? Right. And so it's only when he gets cornered that he like lets Lafayette go and he runs at the British, like a maniac gets shot and keeps going. So it becomes a hero. He becomes a hero. And I, probably my single favorite person in all of history. You know, this week in Detroit, people told me you got to go eat at Lafayette, Coney Island.

And it's a hot dog, famous hot dog place in Detroit, right down the street from my hotel. Yeah. So I went in there. So then I Googled, well, who's Lafayette Coney Island? They said it was named after the street, Lafayette. And then I Googled that and the street was named after your guy, Lafayette. This is the 200th anniversary. Or Lafayette as we call it. His tour, he came back. He was the longest living officer from the American Revolution. He came back after serving and he went and brought the, he could have joined the French army, which was like a big deal. But he stayed an officer in the American army.

And he's the ones who was like shadowing the British as they were getting cornered at Yorktown. Yeah. He brought his resources back. And afterwards, he went back home. He got arrested during the French Revolution, but he was the longest living officer from the American Revolution. So in 1824, he came back and did a farewell tour of the United States where he went to every state but one. And that's why things are named after him all over the country. Oh, wow. How about that? He went and visited Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage.

Took a boat down the Cumberland River through Nashville. There's a Lafayette Street here. We call it Lafayette. I know we do. That's a problem. Lafayette, yeah. In Alabama, it's called Lafayette. Lafayette. But they're all named after Lafayette. After that guy. And to this day, he goes back to France and he passes away. But to this day, Lafayette is buried in a French cemetery under an American flag. Wow. You know what they say? The smallest step forward can make a big difference in your financial future.

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I don't know that people listening to this podcast are going to be happy that we have someone on who actually knows what they're talking about. I'm so sorry. They like to laugh at how dumb we are. I'm so sorry. I thought about that when I came on. I was like, should I pretend? But the people on Reddit are always like, these guys are idiots. I can't listen anymore. So maybe now they'll be happy. Well, we'll get them back. Yeah. You really want those listeners. Yeah. Finally, some people who have some standards for us. I remember early on, Aaron, listening to this show. Yeah. I know how smart you are and just listening to you try to hide it. Yeah.

Well, he does a good job. 250 episodes in. You're a great actor, Aaron. Yeah, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry to everyone listening right now who's just like, you know the reason we don't listen to your podcast, Ben? No, no. This is why. This is great. I've learned a lot. No, I think it's so interesting. I read that...

The biggest killer of soldiers was not bullets, but disease like smallpox. And George Washington was revolutionary. No pun intended. Had his soldiers inoculated and that really helped save them. Yep. Had them burialated. It was like an old timey thing where that, so, uh, you know, the whole idea of like a vaccine is that you, that you introduce someone to a small amount of that thing. Well, back then, uh, the way you did that was you got somebody who was sick from smallpox, uh,

And you literally went and cut their wounds on their arm. Yeah. And you would cut it open and dig out the pus and blood. Yeah. And then come cut somebody else's arm and just rub it in there. There's a scene of this in John Adams on HBO. Oh, really? Yeah. I tried to watch that so many times. Abigail Adams does that to all her kids. Yeah, but it's risky. Obviously, it's not exactly precise. Yeah, it's just kind of like...

yeah like how much do you use it's like one knife blade yeah just cut off a little piece throw it in there but yeah because there was there was actually were they wear socks back then i mean you think they didn't have shoes you think they were but did they wear because it was all leather shoes did they wear socks i don't know i mean they wore knee socks if you were fancy i'm just wondering if they're because i because if there's one thing i know forrest gump

They tell you to wear socks in battle. So maybe if they would all wore socks. Then we would have won? We don't remember that. But we did. We would have won faster. Okay. That and machine guns. That and flamethrowers. All right. So George Washington –

across the Delaware and push back the Hessians. Yeah. He didn't really push him back though. He just caught him off guard. Who are the Hessians though? So they're, they're just mercenaries. So like the stockings, they were stockings stocking made of wool, cotton, linen, or silk insulation and comfort. So they were, yeah. Okay.

Probably not as comfortable as modern socks, but they had stockings on just for everybody. I mean, it's one of the dumbest questions I've ever asked somebody, but I'm glad we figured it out. This guy plays it so well. I don't know that. I feel like if we had had those, he is good. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Really? Uh, somebody told me, I think it was, somebody told me they were leather shoes. You're not supposed to wear socks with leather shoes because leather can't smell bad. They were starving. Uh, I don't think they were like, but the problem here is, uh,

You're not wearing any stockings under your pantaloons. You can get foot disease. You can get gangrene. You can't have foot disease without a foot. That's kind of a luxury for a lot of people. The Hessians were mercenaries. Yeah, they were from modern Germany. All these states formed together to form modern Germany. But they were just basically like they had... Why were they fighting? Why did they care? Money.

They just, they pay. We'll come over and fight for your side. Yeah. Well, they're just like, you have an army, right? Right. It's expensive to maintain an army. So the British would just come to them and be like, send your soldiers here. We can't maintain enough of them. But if you'll send them, then afterwards you can, you know, you don't have to worry about them. They go back home. Are we using British pounds at this point? Do you think we're using their money? Yeah. I mean, the global, the global currency is the Spanish milled coin for a long time, but they're using British currency. And then we start printing our own, which has absolutely no value, which is kind of hilarious. Yeah.

It's worthless. And that's what we pay soldiers in. And they were not real happy about it afterwards when the country's broke and they're like, uh, they start taxing them and they're like, okay, we'll pay with the money you paid us. And they're like, we won't, we're not going to take that. Somebody gave me a movie pass. Yeah. Only an idiot. Yes. Only by the way, I sold in a thousand shares of a Helios and Matheson stock movie pass.

If anybody wants to buy them, just send me a nickel. Diamond hands over here. For real. It's coming back. Who were the Native Americans and the slaves? Which side were they for? I mean, it depends on where you are. I would say a lot of the enslaved people were actually for the British because the British say, if you'll come fight for us, we'll free you after the war. Yeah.

So that's a- Whether Americans, not Americans, but call it a say, like come fight for us and then go right back to work. Well, it's interesting because slavery doesn't work the same way as it does later on. So it's a hard dynamic to get across to people because most people think of like slavery as the thing that it is right before the Civil War, which is a totally different thing than what it was back then.

You have plantations like in South Carolina and places like that. But yeah, no. So a lot of enslaved people run away and go join the British. And then you're not going to believe this, but the British do a pretty lousy job of living up to their promises. Well, they lost. Yeah. They're like, hey, I guess you guys were any good. We'd free you. But yeah. So in the Native Americans, it kind of varies by group, right? So some side with the British, some side with the Americans. But a lot of them stay out of it.

Yeah. So, yeah, it would seem like they would side with the British because the British want to keep them kind of close to the coast, right? Yeah. So the, so I think, and I'm, I'm not an expert on native American history, but, but yeah, I mean, there are some in the North, especially where, where like in the South, there's so much distance between the coast and the Appalachians kind of that line. Right. Yeah. And, and there's just less settlement because the land's not as easy just to like South Carolina is a nightmare to, you know, to, to a lot of that, to, to farm at the time.

So there's plenty of space, right? But if you're up in New England, man, the mountains are right there. And so, yeah, there's definitely more of a sympathy there. Ethan Allen, I swear, I thought that was just a furniture store, but apparently he was a pretty big deal. I've never heard of Ethan Allen. Heard of the furniture store, Ethan Allen? I have heard of him. Ethan Allen, the person made a little less time than the company has. Who do you guys think is the most famous person in American history?

George Washington. I would think either him or Lincoln, right?

I think, but I think Washington's just like, he's, he's a part. I mean, I don't think there's anybody who goes, who knows about George Washington and you go, what about Lincoln? And they go, who? Right. Well, that's my point. It's one or the other, right? I mean. Yeah. But I think, I mean, I just think it's Washington. And the thing about it is nobody knows anything about him, which is kind of funny. Uh, that you. Cut down a cherry tree. He didn't cut down a cherry tree. Teeth of wood. Look, I don't want to get into, I don't want to get into a story I do, but that story is a psycho story. It's nuts. Yeah.

It starts off with a child with an ax and we're just supposed to accept that. It's different times back then. And then he goes and chops down his father's favorite thing. He destroys his father's favorite thing with it. And then his father acts like he's not sure who did it when there's only probably one ax and it's his son's holding it. Yeah. And he walks over to the kid and goes, did you cut, cut down the tree? And then the kid goes, yeah, I did. Yeah.

Like, that's kind of crazy. Yeah, I cut it down. Like, what else do you love? What else do you, I mean, that's not, to me, that's not leadership quality. That's the sign of someone who should be institutionalized. But what do I know? But he's honest. He was honest. Why did his dad love a cherry tree that much? That's what I'm saying, too. It's also very creepy. Yeah, it's just a weird family. He's like Dusty. But does Dusty have a one tree that he goes, that one's my favorite? Yeah, they're all his favorite. Yeah, they're all.

Yeah. He might, he might, man. He's trying to put them up in the medians on the interstate. These kids are gonna have to get some lats. They're going to cut down all these trees. You know what I'm saying? So I was having this debate with myself today, thinking about it. George Washington. Well, sounds like. Pull up next to Brian at a stoplight. He's just arguing with himself. Literally switching seats. People are beeping at him. Oh,

Guys, what I do in my own time. Yeah, yeah. You're both going to lose. Just go. Yeah. So George Washington's on the $1 bill. Right. Very prominent. He's on the quarter. Very prominent. But Lincoln, he's on the five. And the penny. But the penny, which is. But the penny, which is worth less than a penny, is going to be discontinued. But throughout history, it's probably the most popular coin in America. Most popular coin.

Again in 1873, winner of most popular coin, the penny. I looked, as I was arguing with myself, I Googled most famous Americans and NBC did a show in 2005, the 100 greatest Americans all time. Okay. Hosted by Matt Lauer. Yeah. He's out. And then one of the top 100 was Bill Cosby. Oh, really?

All right. So some of these did not age well. And that's why you don't kind of put people on coins by fiat. Was Ben Franklin on this list? He had to be, right? Yeah. That's one of the things I remember from the documentary is that what's lost and all is Ben Franklin was a legit celebrity. Yeah. At the time, all this is going down. He's not just some old guy who's into science. He's well-known, respected, liked. He's the greatest American celebrity at that time.

So it'd be like, uh, I don't know who's the equivalent of that now. Dolly Parton.

Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, honestly, yeah. It'd be like if Dolly Parton was also an inventor and scientist and signed the Declaration of Independence. Yeah, kind of beloved. Yeah, no, I mean, that's kind of the crazy thing is that at the time, people didn't know who anybody was. Right. And that's why when you get to the Constitution, everyone knows that if you're going to, which was written basically illegally, if you're going to have anybody back it, you have to have the only two people that everyone knows in there, and that's Washington and Franklin. Wow.

Wow. And Washington did not want to go. They just showed up at his house and they were like, congratulations. Virginia has elected you to be our delegate. And he's like, no thanks. And one of the reasons he decides finally to go is like, of course, if he feels like the country wants him to do something, needs him to do something, and they're right about it, then he will go do it. But also he had like a reunion of his friends from the Society of Cincinnati that he wanted to go to. Oh, okay. So...

He was after the revolutionary war. He was like kind of a legend. Okay. Okay. Well-liked respected. This guy led one of the most epic upsets in history. Yeah. I mean, epic. And when he was done was well poised to just take over. And this guy, not because they asked him to, but because he starts contacting Congress and,

He hands over his commission. He just goes, I don't want it. Like I'm done with it. And he, he basically was like, hurry it up, hurry it up. I want to be done. I want to hand this back over and go home to Mount Vernon. Yeah. And nobody like nobody can make sense of this. Nobody's ever like you, you have this power and you just want to go back home. He wanted nothing to do with politics. He was like, I want to be remembered as a unifying figure. I don't want to be involved in politics.

But Americans couldn't stop dragging him to do things. And so, I mean, he's a life of service.

It's funny to think about how different it would be if say the British had won, but we wouldn't know any different. Like this would just be the world we live in here. And we'd be, we'd probably be glad they won. We like, you know, it's just funny how that poster probably wouldn't be here. Yeah. Yeah. George Washington wouldn't be our first president. Be sketchy how funny it was when they drawed and quartered him, you know, look at him. Yeah.

Snap, crackle, pop when he burns like this. Cause they would have done that, man. They, they weren't kind to the traders. They did that in Braveheart too. Did they? They draw and quarter people. Yeah. Is that where they tie ropes too and they pull you apart? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. They did that in Braveheart. Yeah. Fun doesn't, doesn't kill you right away. That's the fun part. It looks like it feels good for about a second.

Oh, my back. Don't you kind of want a chiropractor to do that to you for a split second and then put you back down? I've got an idea, okay? It's that service, but they tie your hands and arms to goats. Okay. Those are like goat yoga, right? Aren't we like into bringing like smaller barnyard animals into our healthcare regime now? Yeah. Let's get them in there, right? We whip them or we show them some food and they all run different directions and you walk away limber.

Okay, how did the Revolutionary War end? What was the final straw? So the final thing is it's Yorktown, right? Because they surround them there. But the whole thing, and this is a weird thing, Washington's greatest asset was that he knew how to escape. He knew how to keep his men together on the battlefield. He shared the sacrifice. But he knew how to get away. Deception was a lot of his thing. Because the thing is that the Americans know how to win the war. They forced the British out.

But the British really have no clue how to win. Do you win by, you catch Washington? Okay, that would matter. Do you catch Congress? They take Philadelphia and Congress just runs into the woods. Really? Yeah, they just go set up in bunk houses somewhere. Normally you take the Capitol and you're like, game over. But they were like, we got your Capitol. And they're like, we live in the woods now. And they're like, what do we do? So the whole American strategy was just make it cost so much.

And make it last so long that it wouldn't make any sense to keep going. Wow. Because the British only cared about it because it was profitable. Yeah. And so once you make it cost and you go, you're too far gone. Once you invade inland, like the British do following the Siege of Charleston, they go inland. People who didn't really hate the British now hate them because they've showed up. You know how it is in the South. Somebody from another country shows up and they're like, get out of here. Right. And so they've stirred up people so bad and they realize like, okay,

They surrounded us at Yorktown. We surrendered there. And the French are now involved heavily. And there's just no way we can win this. So they finally go, all right. But they don't. And this is a side story that's really important. The British don't think it's over. Like, they're ready to come back.

They're like, you guys go try this experiment and we'll be back whenever you're ready. And they're totally, it's not until after the War of 1812 they accept it. So the Americans are broke and they're trying to figure out how to pay their bills. And they know that if they can't pay back the money that they borrowed, then they'll have no loans again. The British will come back. And that's the reason they actually write the Constitution is because they need to be able to raise revenue. That's a whole other story. One of the big reasons.

Whoa. Was this funny? Was that funny? We the people. We the people. We the people of the United States broke. I feel like we've seen four movies. We kept referencing The Patriot, John Adams. John Q. Might as well throw that in there. And Denzel Washington. Yeah, with Denzel Washington. He's at the hospital.

I'll find a way to bring that up. I was like, yeah. And the fourth one is a movie about World War II, Enemy at the Gates. Oh, Enemy at the Gates. That's right. That's right. All right. This is fun. This is, you know, people are going to be like, wow, this guy knows what he's talking about. I don't know how to take this.

Yeah, you guys just know I won't be here for the comments to respond. So you guys can write. We'll have Dusty answer the comments. That'll be great. And I won't listen to the next one. How about that? Well, you want to go through maybe one or two of those fun stories that you sent over? A couple of those like the – you sent over a list of some of those. I read through them. They look great. Just like the fun. Let's see. There was duels. Yeah. A group of folks tried to get George Washington ousted and replaced –

Horatio Gates. Yeah, they try to replace him. And the best part is Horatio Gates. I don't know. Ben, take over. I guess you guys were like, he might still be likable. Let's keep going. I was trying to wrap up. Oh, I thought you were just going to run through him real quick. Okay. So Horatio Gates is basically this guy they try to oust Washington. And Washington's men are furious. And one of his right-hand men finds this guy, Thomas Conway, who was one of Gates' right-hand men.

and uh washington orders everyone not to duel anybody but this guy like leaves the military so he's like i'm exempt he just finds this dude and shoots the side of his face off like the thing like duels back then usually you usually you went out there and we're like i'm man enough to stand here for my honor and shot over each other's heads if you had something to lose yeah and this guy john cadwallader just goes out and just aims and shoots him in the face

And normally you want to walk away, right? You want to be like, I don't even know what happened, right? You just turn around and you go, I saw a bullet flying. And then I heard something drop as I was leaving, like for deniability. But, uh, the cod walleter apparently upon shooting, it went through his mouth and out the side of his face. And apparently he walks over to him, looks at him on the ground and goes, well, that should silence the fool's lying tongue. Anyhow,

These guys are cold blooded. It absolutely is. That's wild, man. Yeah. People were just built different back then. They were. Some of them didn't have cheeks. I mean, they did and then they didn't. It's a real bad time to run into a giant cod walleter. Like, I thought you couldn't do me. He's like, I'm out. Yeah. I'm off. I just got off my shift. Let me ask you this. When I was in school, American history, there was no internet. So you had a book. Yeah.

You had a book? You had a phone where you picked it up and you were like, Susan, connect me? All right, man. I'll stop now. Guy's getting cocky at the end here. I feel like I belong. But anyway, you had a history book and maybe encyclopedias at your house. Yeah. But now with the internet, you can look up anything. Like, why do we need you?

I don't think we do. Well, first of all, we need you so I can produce the audio of this stuff so Weber doesn't put a laptop on the front seat of his car and try to read stuff and scroll while he's driving. So one life saved alone right here. The reason, I mean, why is what I do important in teaching? I was joking about you personally, but has it changed now for students now that, that's probably more grade school, I guess, where they would use the internet because you're teaching more than just facts. You're teaching the why instead of just

the how come, right? Yeah. I mean, I mean, the thing is we're human beings and human beings understand things in stories and the random facts don't make any sense unless you put them into a story. I mean, this is literally how we've evolved to think. And, you know, I tell my students, I'm like, if I gave you a list of every character from the Avengers, how long, and like their traits, how long would it take you to memorize that list? And they're like,

And I'm like, yeah, but I can show you a movie that's an hour and 45 minutes and you could answer every question that I asked you about. Right. Yeah. So it's the story there. It's also because, I mean, I try to mentor my students a lot, right? Help them with their writing, help them with scholarships, right?

I got incredible success stories. So, I mean, from my perspective, teaching is not something that's just about going in there with facts. You tell the stories. And I think that if, you know, in a democracy, you need to have people who are grateful for what they have and were willing to sacrifice for it. And you don't just get that from being like, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. Right, right.

You know, the way I try to teach it is like, this is an inheritance that we've all, that we've all got. We didn't earn it. It was passed down to us. And like every generation we have to decide whether or not we're going to be good stewards to that.

and pass it on to the next generation as good as we've got it. And I think when you understand that you're in the story like that, uh, it means something better. And I can't teach them everything, but what I try to do is teach them a little bit of love for this place we live and a little bit of appreciation for what happened before. Wow. Wow. How about that? That was well said. That was powerful. I tried to put it in your face and you've like, wow. I hope if you're listening to MTS, you don't fire me. That's why. That's why. Yeah. That's awesome. That's great. That is awesome. That's awesome. That's so awesome. Uh,

Uh, thank you so much for coming on, Ben. This was fun, man. It's good catching up with you. Yeah. Haven't seen you in a minute. Yeah. Thanks for having me. And next time we come on, I come on, which this is my podcast now. So next time I invite you guys on, we'll talk about something you guys know. So good luck with that. Dumb movies.

What do you think real quick, real quick, biggest misconception about the revolutionary war, something that you think is taught wrong or something that people believe that isn't true. Is there, is there one that jumps out to you? People believe that folks were like, rah, rah, America. They were not, they didn't know what it was. It was introduced to them. They spent a lot of time refusing to cooperate with Washington and the States. Washington's constantly writing back to Congress being like, yeah, I've told them I'm the commander chief of the continental army. And they refuse to acknowledge that that exists.

the, the, the local militias won't participate with him. Um, he sees this country for what it could be. And so do a couple of people, but most, most people are fighting for Virginia or Massachusetts. It's only after the war of 1812 when we whipped them, Andrew Jackson whips them down in New Orleans. Yeah. Right. It's only after that unlikely victory.

Americans have been born here for a while. Yeah. Right. So, so you think about it, like by the time you get 18, 15, there are people who have been born in the United States at this time, there were people that were born British citizens, right? They were born into their colony. Right. But once you got enough people who have born here and then you have a huge win like that, that's when people start thinking of themselves as, uh, as Americans. It's like, it's like the Carolina Panthers where I'm from.

It absolutely is, right? When they first showed up, I remembered it was everybody's second team. Yeah. Right? But what happened? By the time you get to like, you know, 15 years later, kids have been born there. Yeah. We go to the Super Bowl where we're going to lose terribly. Blown kick. And that's the point where everybody becomes Panthers fans, right? And so it's like a little analogy, but like that's the way it was. And then after that, you have really the first era of American nationalism.

That's great. It's a good question. I've always said the U.S. is the Carolina Panthers of the world. Don't ever say that.

Thank you, Ben. You're the man. Anything, we're going to plug something real quick. Where are you going to be, Brian? April 26th. I'm going to be in West Bend, Wisconsin at the Ben Theater. Beautiful. May 9th. I'm in Madisonville, Kentucky at the, I think it's called the Ballard Convention Center. Okay. It's a fundraiser, but it's a full comedy show. I'm taking Paula, because I can't say her name. Paula. I'm taking Paula and her husband, John. Okay.

And it's May 9th in Koshinsky. Is that right? Yeah. Since you can tell she's a listener to this show. I know. You kind of say it quickly so you don't. All right. There you go. Anyway, that's May 9th in Madisonville, Kentucky.

You got your Yazoo show coming up. I got Yazoo Comedy Hour First Fridays. But the things I really wanted to promote here, if that's all right. If that's okay, Aaron. Please, please. As long as it's not your podcast. So my podcast, The Road to Now, if you like history, that's what we do there. And we're doing a live show in Washington, D.C. on May 29th at the Hamilton Live. Guests are Major Garrett from CBS News. That's cool. Margaret Tylev, who's a great journalist. And then Doug High, who was a host.

ran the whole communications for the Republican party in the country, uh, and is now like regularly on CNN. And we're going to tell, it's going to be funny. Like if you like this, you'll like that. Uh,

So it's going to, we don't normally do that stuff, but it's going to be tales of murder and mayhem in DC. And then locally, if you're in Nashville, perfect timing, my live comedy game show, kicking back off here, May 22nd. I've been doing it since 2015. Yeah. Weber once hosted for me, wrote the show lasted 20 minutes. Apparently I did the worst job ever hosting. I remember that I hosted perfect timing and Lucy came out to me in the middle of the show. I was like, you have to slow down. The show's going to be over in 15 minutes.

It was not good. I still feel bad about that. I'm sorry, Ben. But Ben, you do a great job with it, and it's a fun little something different for people to check out. One time, Aaron and I were teammates on the show here at Zadie's, and two things I remember. One, you convinced me to take a bite out of your disgusting shoe. Do you remember that? You weren't supposed to get that one, Bates.

I was doing trick questions for a while and he picked one on the game board and it said theoretically at the top it said if you were to put this shoe in your mouth would you put this flip flop in your mouth for 200 points right

And of course, no one was going to say yes to that. And the surprise was that the answer on the next slide where you reveal the answer was, of course you wouldn't. You're too good for that. Here's 300 points. But Bates put the flip-flop in his mouth as the crowd counted to 10. He got no points. I still feel terrible about that. It was supposed to be for one of the younger comics. And the other thing, so at the end you go off stage, one of the

two participants goes off stage, right? That's what we used to do. And then you answer some questions and they come back out. I developed the system, foolproof, I thought, for Aaron and I to basically, I was going to game the system, but we got confused somehow and it went, do you remember any of this? No, not really. It went terribly wrong. I can't remember the way I figured out, but Aaron, I say this, say this, or whatever. We tried to cheat on your game and it didn't work. Yeah. Well, if you had succeeded, you would have won exactly what you got. Yeah. Anyway.

But Aaron's so good at playing dumb, he couldn't do it. Yeah. It was fun. Check out Ben. Ben's the best. Thank you for coming on. May 16th, I'm in Greensburg, Pennsylvania at the Live Casino. May 31st, South Bend, Indiana. June 1st, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Just added that. Come on out and see. This is Aaron Weber, by the way. Come see one of my live shows. You guys are the best. We love you.

None of this is lost on us. Dusty's back next week. We hope. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. God bless America. Give me liberty. Give me death. Boom. We the people. 1787. Nate Land is produced by Nate Land Productions and by me, Nate Bargetzi, and my wife, Laura, on the Audioboom platform.

Recording and editing for the show is done by Genovations Media. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to catch us next week on the Nate Land Podcast.