Hello and welcome to How to Win the Lottery Season 10, Vermont.Book two, Radio Free Vermont, colon.Do you know the subtitle?
It's like a fantasy or something like that.
A Fable of Resistance, yeah.
By Bill McKibben.I'm Joey Lewandowski.
Shreds, welcome back.This is our second of three Vermont books.How's the maple syrup going?Sure.Last episode, you said you're gonna drink a gallon of maple syrup per book we read.So you're now second gallon of maple syrup.How's that going?
Now.Yeah.You weren't.But yeah, I was not.But this has led to it.
But that straight up pure Vermont.
There's nothing like- What's the movie that's like, William H. Macy is like, the great state of Wisconsin will not apologize for its cheese.Is it Thank You for Smoking?I think it's Thank You for Smoking.Maybe.Have you ever seen Thank You for Smoking?
Once a long time ago.But there's nothing quite like something from Vermont.
Yeah.Let's hear.You got, you got, you got facts.
Well, I was thinking about the book, but yeah, I've got Vermont Facts.Vermont Facts.OK, so since the first episode we covered general things about the state, I thought today we talk about famous people from Vermont.
I have a list of like 12, some of whom are named in this book.You can get at least three of the people on the list.
Is Anna Kendrick from Vermont?
I don't know, she's on the list.
I think she's from New Hampshire or something like that.
I'm gonna allow the Google rule here, but okay.She's on my list, who else?Think obvious.
Bernie Sanders.Number one.Yeah, but do politicians even count?
I don't know, she's from Portland, Maine, Anna Kendrick.Anna Cook Kendrick from Portland, Maine. Very famous food people mentioned in this book food people.
Mm-hmm Dessert people Emeril Lagasse one of Ben and Jerry's.
Yeah, sure Ben Cohen Jerry Greenfield's Trey Anastasio Fish, yeah on the list.Mm-hmm And there's one other there's a musician who was referenced in the book in the text.I think maybe twice Someone I've seen at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, really?
Yeah, the Bouncing Souls.Oh
Grace Potter, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.She is from Vermont.
She's, she's good.I like her a lot.There was a president from Vermont.Can you name the president from Vermont?
I want to say from the 1800s.
Actually, he's probably from the 1900s because he was born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont in 1872.
Are you impressed that I knew that?
You should be.I mean, you're smart.That's right.I am.Not a nerd, just smart.
No, smart people are nerds.
American Revolutionary War hero that also has a home goods store named after him, potentially.
Well, I guess he's from Massachusetts.
He's also not a hero.He's like the opposite of a hero, right?
Depends on who you're rooting for.
Although he was, he was also like, wasn't the thing about Benedict Arnold that he like... Unjustly canceled?No, no.He like was a hero before he became a traitor.
Whoa.Because of just some slapdick, it's just like a traitor.It's just like nobody cares.Yeah, yeah, yeah.It's the rise and the fall.
Yeah.Revolutionary... War hero...
Also has like I think a home goods store named after Paul Revere.No, I don't know Ethan Allen.
Oh, okay Well, that's the gods in the gods in it.
Yeah, that's the thing that's repeated throughout that throughout the thing But it might be something you would pick up on but maybe not other names Billy kid Who the first American skier to win an Olympic medal in alpine skiing?
Billy kid that does not sound like a real name.Oh
I know, but also maybe that's trance is possibly best based off of John Dewey, who's a philosopher and a guy, an education guy, not doing that.All right.I was like, is this two decimal?No, he's just another Dewey guy.
No, as I understand it, Dewey Dewey decimal system is actually Dewey from Malcolm in the middle.
Yeah.Yeah.Orson Bean. Actor.Sure.Yeah.I mean, if a murder being done, Akhvich.
Yeah.Um, he's like the, the, uh, Boston beans, Chicago, Boston, famously of Vermont city.
Um, poet name, a big poet, Robert Frost, Robert Frost.
Name a name, an American painter.Americana.
It's not, it's not, um, America Norman Rockwell.
Does Vermont suck? I don't know, and then the last- All of these things I'm talking about suck.I like Vermont quite a bit.
The last name on the list, someone, a titular tractor man.
John Deere.John Deere.That is also in the book, right?That John Deere did significant damage to America.Seems fair.With the way that those tractors till the earth or something like that did significant long-term damage to soil and how farming works.
Now, not to bring back to not bring back to to foreshadow a future, maybe I think all tractors like I know, like it's all automated by computers.
I mean, that makes sense.We want to, like, destroy the world in class.
So what is Radio Free Vermont, Colin, a fable of resistance about?
The entire novel is right there in the title.Um, it is about a guy with an underground radio station, which almost on its own feels dated.Right.Because like pirate radio, he does podcast.
Yeah.Cutting edge.Right.But pirate radio was something that like was huge in the eighties.Yeah.Right.And, and like, uh, I think had a sense of rebellion to it.
Now that things are on the internet, like a lot of the stuff that he, in the text, I'm like, can't you solve this problem with a VPN?
Well, I think maybe, possibly.
Like, it doesn't seem that hard to just be like,
I do think that, like, to get serious about, like, masking your IP, like, there is, like, sort of stuff like this that you have to go through.Yeah.But also maybe just, I don't know.
Or just, like, host it via the Philippines or something.Isn't that, like, fairly easy to do?Don't people do that shit all the time?Isn't that kind of what, how, like, the dark web runs?
And, and, and, I mean, I don't know anything about this stuff, but I feel like it's not that hard to hide your identity on the internet. Although I say that while Ross Ulbricht literally got arrested and is in prison right now.
I think it's easy to mask what you're doing online if people are not looking for you.If people are looking for you, it becomes a lot harder.
If the FBI is looking for you, it becomes hard.
So Vern Barclay, who the entire time I was just picturing him as Jim Barney.
I would love that.I mean, and so, so, so, so it Mr. Mr. Nam.
Yeah.But the name Verne, like just, there's only one.Yeah.What do you mean?The fact that they're looking for him, I think they need to go through greater lengths to mask what they're doing, where they're doing it, how they're doing it.
Bouncing things around to Colorado for some reason.
So, it's a novel that starts out with this idea of an underground radio guy who is a traditional terrestrial radio guy but has been sort of radicalized by his native state of Vermont sort of slowly being encroached on by things like Walmart or things like Coors Light or things like, you know, any number of like multinational conglomerate that is sort of very slowly
erasing the identity of Vermont as a state and Vermonters as like a specific type of people.In many ways, this book is lowercase c conservative, like very conservative in that it is
a guy standing in like the very like William F. Buckley definition of conservatism, where it's like a guy standing at the wheels of history yelling, stop.He just wants like quote unquote progress to halt.
And that doesn't mean that's not like quote unquote Republican conservatism, because it's like they sort of make it clear that like, identity politics and stuff, or they have all the right opinions about identity politics, right?
So like their conservatism is just, it's literally like, stop changing the thing that I love.This is not progress.This is actually eradicating our identity.
Our beer is better.Our music is better.Our culture is better.Our people are better.We want to secede.
And also we might be wrong.You should make up your own mind about this.Let's like, it's sort of like, is the nicest, middle-of-the-roadest, drama-freest way to do all of the things that they are doing.
There are a handful of incredibly dramatic things that happen in this book that are presented in such a matter-of-fact, non-dramatic way that you feel like... It feels like a couple of kids have, like,
done a prank to their principal and like they might get detention for it, you know? Whereas like in reality, like in the reality of the book, clandestine government agencies have kidnapped someone and held a gun to her head.
Well, we just read a couple of books ago, The Deluge, right?Like government agencies kidnapping people.And this is like sort of a future dystopia, but like putting them in a black safe for 18 months and just like that, you don't have rights anymore.
Yeah.This is like the nice boy version of that.
And here it's like, they bring trance to a place that she recognizes and just like, oh, I know, I know also how to outsmart them.And I'm going to be like, you never really fear for her life.
Yeah, you never fear for Verne's life.You never feel like they're going to get caught.
You never feel like they're going to suffer the things that, for example, the people at Ruby Ridge suffered for similar sentiments about, like, separating from the government.In the history of America, we've had a number of secessionist movements.
I think most of them have not been
treated as nicely as Verne and Trant are in this case, even if you don't want to call it secessionist movements, like there are these sort of militarized, like it always ends with a bunch of people in a house with the ATF surrounding them.
And then that house gets either shot up or burned down.
Although in this one, that happens, but they've outsmarted the ATF basically and have not only outsmarted the ATF, but like, so severely outsmarted the ATF that, like, they are able to get an entire new home built for the woman who is housing them.
Yeah, which, like, also, by the way, that scene... So, what happens in that scene is that Vern has... set himself up to interview a local newsman, or allows himself to be interviewed by the local newsman.
And they sort of hint somehow where that location is going to be so that he can lead the cops back to it.When the cops and the FBI get back to it, they think that Verne and his co-conspirators are inside.
Verne and his co-conspirators are not inside, they're outside, but they've doused the house in gasoline so that it will burn down, correct?
They've also set up like sound effects inside to make it sound like there are gunshots coming from inside fireworks.
They've rigged fireworks inside to make it sound like there are gunshots going inside.
At this point to me, in some ways they lose their ethical high ground here because they're intentionally trying to make those cops feel like they're being fired upon and then acting like
Oh, we didn't, like... Oh, there was no proof of gunfire inside the house.Like, they were doing suicide by cop.
Like, when someone pulls a gun on a police officer and, like, runs at him like he's going to shoot him with the intention of getting killed, people do that all the time.Nobody blames the cop when that happens, really.Right?
Like, I have a pretty bad attitude about police.We've talked about it before.Sure. In this circumstance, what are you supposed to do?It is like they have invoked a thing where they then get to be like, oh, we were mistreated.
And it's like, but that actually happens in real life.And you're exploiting that thing that happens in real life so that you can forward a political agenda that you're not even all that sure about.
That like at the end of the day, they're just like, we just wanna have the conversation.And it's like, you could have had that conversation on regular terrestrial radio after paying a fine for flooding the Walmart.
Like the whole spirit of rebellion in here feels like soft cheese to me.And that's my new catchphrase.
I mean, this book also goes so far as to be sort of toothless in the way that it ends on the discussion in the town hall.
It makes no decision about whether or not Vermont is going to secede.
It literally ends with like, well, now about the secession thing.It ends and just feels like...
By the time, I mean, so I'm reading on Kindle, or even if you're reading, you're flipping through, you know how much of the book is roughly left, but I'm like, or like 90% of the book, I'm like, there's no way that this is going to resolve.
They're not going to secede in the final 10% of the book.And I'm just like, okay, I feel like at certain points, it's inevitable where this is going to wind up.
So what I get the sense of is that Bill McKibben, who has a history as an activist and environmentalist and all those things, and I think this also would have been a good book for the Eco module, to be honest.
And I think he is like, seems to me to be like a right-thinking kind of person.Correct thinking.Yeah, I think he's like smart and like all of this stuff, but like his book exists as a kind of agitprop rather than art.What does that mean?
It's like art with like a specific political purpose rather than, like he's meant to agitate people into thinking about things.Got it, got it, got it, got it.Propaganda.Sure.And like he is making this argument
and bringing up all these things that he's thought about, and that he thinks that other people should think about, and maybe they should, while at the same time being like, the real problem with America is that we don't get along.
Like, we're not out there having conversations.It's all like this...
extremism and we need to, like, more people need to be out there willing to put their ideas on the table, but also be willing to admit that they're wrong, admit that they're, uh, possibly mistaken in their, like, assumptions, and are willing to change course based on the, like, being corrected.
And you're saying he does that well or not well?
Um, I mean, that's fine.I think that's what Bill McKibben is going for, and I think that he, like,
But it also feels like the characters in the book have reached a point where like that's not acceptable for them anymore.Like they're not really, like they want to have the conversation, but it's also just like, we're kind of done.
Yeah.Well, I mean, it ends with him being like, like he's always very, very on the radio.He's always like, and this is my opinion.And if you have another opinion then.And so like, I think for what Bill McKibben wanted to do, I think he did it.
And, and like in, in so far as judging books on what their authors are attempting, this is a successful book.
I think it underestimates the darkness of the American government, which is strange for an environmental activist to have that position because, especially if you know the history about things like this, what I wanted from this book was for Verne to at some point realize what he's gotten into and been like, this is way more, there's way more evil in the world than I was prepared for.
And I just don't think that's Bill McKibben's back.Like I think he's probably one of those guys that is like, and God bless him if this is his point of view, we just like approach the world from completely different perspectives.
Like he wakes up and he's like, you know, look for the helpers, the, like a very like Mr. Rogers, like here's, here's how we can like heal the world.
Like you both see the world the same way, but he is
optimistic and you are yeah well i i think i think that's great and that's i find that sort of thing moving but like as we talked about a million times during the eco module like i don't think it's properly cynical it's a very west wing view of the government it's an erin sorkin view of the government which tends to end up being centrist rather than leftist because if you're really like a leftist or uh aren't like a truly like right-wing person you've
Really been shit on and stepped on and and like none of your ideas have ever come to fruition and when people have tried To activate those ideas and make them come to fruition.
They've been Extremely marginalized now in the case in my opinion in the case of right-wing extremists.
That's a like a really good thing those people being marginalized but in the case of like Marxism and and Just the basic idea of viewing the world through its material conditions like that being marginalized I think is bad and dangerous and we don't have a coherent leftist point of view in this country because
because of those things.So, right, okay, back to the point of the book.
You haven't heard the word Marxist in a while on the podcast.Well, I mean, it feels.I don't know that it came up at all in the ego module, so.
No, it probably, it must have.It must have.It must have.But also, it's been a while.So I have a hard time dealing with this book as, like, as a fable, okay.Sure.And I think that's where he, like, acquits himself, right?
But by saying, like, look, this is like a fantasy.This is, like, how things could be.This is, like, if the world were the kind of world that I wanted it to be and people weren't so violent,
It acknowledges those things insofar as the Second Amendment is concerned.It'll be like, yeah, we love guns, but guns can't fight with a Predator drone.But it doesn't acknowledge those things as far as Trance having a gun to her head.
And it's like, Trance, you would not be able to break into that building and rescue someone from... Right.You would all get killed.
And someone would find child porn on your computer, you know, or like something like that, that it would be like this.I feel like the world and the government, the world of government is significantly darker than Bill McKibben is presenting it as.
I feel like the book is sort of underpopulated in terms of like how many bad guys, not just like the severity of them, but like. Like what you're saying, like, it just seems like there's no one at the entire facility.
Like there's the one guy at the gate who probably isn't lit in on things who just lets them go because he's been advised at some point in his career, don't halt people who are probably cross country skiing training.
And then there's like nobody else until the two guys who brought trans there.
Yeah.And why is the CIA black site like the one place that this woman is like an expert in?It's very strange.
Like, it's very novelistic in that sense, that, like, it's asking us to, like, understand these coincidences.
But that's the thing, like, it's not going for, but it could, theoretically, is, like, a Coen Brothers level of criminal stupidity.In this case, the criminals are the cops.
Yeah, like a Keystone Cops thing, where, yeah.Right.Okay.
I mean, I— But I don't think it commits that.I think it's, like, these people are— proficient to an extent, and they are evil to an extent, but they are not the foons.Like we should not think of them.
We should not realize that they are bad at their jobs.Yeah.
Whereas with the Cohen brothers be like, of course they would accidentally without thinking or whatever, bring this woman to the one place where she knows the ins and outs and has every capability to escape.
But the Cohen brothers also would have, as they do, like you, you have to remember that like burn after reading,
The movie's come up a lot lately in our conversations.
But it ends with like John Malkovich killing someone with a hatchet, right?Like he fucking like puts an ax inside someone's head toward the end of that movie.So like that gets like properly dark.
I don't think you get out of this with nobody dying in real life.I just don't think you do.
Or being put in prison for, you know, like Verne ends up in Guantanamo Bay and is tortured or something like that.I don't know.I just don't, it doesn't hit my levels of cynicism.And maybe that's a me problem.Bill McKibben, write in.
I think there's a couple things about the book that I'm not enamored by in terms of the writing.I think having someone be a soloist monologist podcaster feels for the benefit of exposition.
It also does something that I talked about in the Stephen Markley thing.One of my least favorite devices, which is having an autistic sidekick.
Well, that was the other thing.That can just give you- I said, as is having a character with Asperger's.It's like, here's the history of music.
Yeah.And it's like, I don't know.Okay.But like this feels info dumpy.It feels like you're taking up room on the page for things that are not necessarily important to the, to the test.
What's weird about that is that like Perry, who has Asperger's does not seem to get the Vermont thing.He's like, but I like this other kind of music.Like let's talk about this other kind of music.
And so there's a lot in here that's not even like, this book is like pro Vermont propaganda.
Fine, but it's also like you should be that character should be like like it seems like Verne is Encyclopedic about the history of Vermont, but Perry's just like let's talk about this other music.
Yeah to sort of no end Yeah, explain how Perry and Verne get together
I don't remember another Perry is a computer guy and he's the one who just is able to like he has it seems like Vernon Vernon is an older I think in the 70s possibly and he just does not have a Grasp on technology and Perry is the guy who is able to help get his word out to the world Yeah, Perry, I think upset by the encouraging Walmart thing Was a person who had a job with
pipe access and learned himself that inverted if you inverted the pipes you could flood it with Fecal matter and he did and that's what brought and Harry's like, all right, this guy's not half bad or burns like that Not this guy's not just teamed up and then we're on the run and there's also still Sylvia who is the host where they live and there's also trance and then the other thing that was strange to me about the book is that like we were talking about the scene earlier, but like
80% of the book, we're just suddenly in trance's point of view for the first time.And just like, this is strange.
Like the whole thing was like Vern or in the same room as Vern.And then all of a sudden we're like watching trance understand where she is.It's like, right.
Yeah.That's a lapse in structure and style.
Like you introduced her, you have a scene, like maybe when she's like stalking around the house, we go to her first when she first enters the text, but we don't.
The whole thing seems like a pushback toward the Trump era and also kind of a- I mean, this is a Trump era book.
It also feels like kind of like a systemic or like just a built up, still kind of like PTSD, sort of like an emotional PTSD from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Like just, it's like things have been bad here for a while and I'm just tired and I want to start something new. Yeah.
But still, even getting, even if their secession was successful, which can you imagine in a Donald Trump presidency how he would have reacted to a state trying to secede, a liberal state trying to secede?Yeah.That's still your history.
Like you're still like people from Vermont died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
People, you know, in your state voted for Trump or like, you know, it's, yeah, you can pretend that you are above it, but like just forming your own nation does not remove 250 years.
Like something that is interesting about Vermont as a state and those new England states are, are, are like that, you know, uh, uh, maybe less so Massachusetts and Connecticut, but like when you get to like Maine,
Vermont, New Hampshire, like, those states have a very, like, they don't have the same attitude as New York and New Jersey.
They have, like, their attitude is significantly more middle of the country, because they are more, like, farming, and they are, like, the gun states, like, definitely, because there's a lot of hunting and a lot of, like,
There is what I think people socially think of as right-wing culture up there, but it's also a state that is very socially accepting of
LGBTQ people and and things of that nature so so like I think America in general is a little bit confused by like We'll call them the lower 40 whatever of like outside of Maine Vermont, New Hampshire the lower 47 With the exception of Alaska, which is north.
Well, the lower 48 is the ones without Alaska and Hawaii, right?So this is like the lower 45
Yeah, because Alaska couldn't be included in this too, although I think Alaska is typically sort of more right-wing.You're talking about the rurality and like... But it clashes with sort of social leftism in like an interesting way.
Like, these people are like, we voted for Bernie, we want change, but also don't take our guns.
Yeah, yeah, which is like, I understand that position, because they're like inherently mistrustful of the government, and inherent mistrust of the government can lead you toward small-scale socialism like Bernie Sanders, especially on a local level, which is what this book is talking about.
It's talking about like, you know, All this really is is helping your neighbor when they need it.
But it takes that idea of neighbor and makes that like neighbor is much more codified in a way, in like a governmental way, like that you should help your neighbor when they need it.
Yeah, and I think that the mixture of those two things is confusing, but I understand.It makes sense.Yeah.
It's also like in a place where your nearest neighbor might be five miles away and calling the cops might take an hour.Right.You need to protect yourself somehow.
Yeah.And yeah, it's not weird.And they also have ideas about, or at least like New Hampshire, for example, has pretty extreme ideas about taxes, I think.So I don't know.I mean, it's not my point of view, but it is, It's a fascinating point of view.
I think that's something that's interesting about the state thing that we're doing.
It's just kind of a coincidence is that, you know, talking now here about the rurality, Vermont and Delaware, two of the four states we've done are in the five smallest.
In the country.I looked up in Ohio and Louisiana, like 31 to 35, like they're in the middle, but still smaller.
Did we do Ohio?We did do Ohio.
No, no, not Ohio.Sorry.What was it?We did Ohio.We did.
Louisiana.Louisiana, not New Orleans.It's 31st.And we did. Maryland Maryland 42.
So we know we didn't do Maryland yet.We did.No, we didn't we did Delaware Is this our third is our we did Vermont?
It was our fourth state So what was the other one?Louisiana, Delaware Vermont, Kentucky Oh, the Kentucky.Yeah.How can we forget Kentucky?Kentucky is 37 though.So we've had Louisiana 31, Kentucky 37, Vermont 45, Delaware 49.
And I don't know that this is actually going to matter in any way.This is just kind of a coincidence, especially thinking like Vermont and Delaware being very small.
This feel like there's also like, I think what reminded me of your thing, like there's a contradiction between like rurality, but also not that much space.You know what I mean?
It's just like a lot of space, but there's not like, it's not like in Texas where it's like, my ranch is a thousand acres.Montana or whatever.
North Dakota.These places that have this like, these like sprawling landscapes.Vermont, like relatively small, but still kind of like,
sparsely populated.That's another thing that they do a lot in the book, just like Vermont lost more people in this war per capita.It's like, well, you still lost like 12 people.No, that makes sense to me.
I think of that in terms of like, I was recently like trying to explain the potato famine to someone and like how bad it was.And it's like Ireland lost half of its, like a quarter of Ireland died and a quarter of them left.
It's like us losing 150 million people.
Yeah, that's insane.That's like so many people to just have your entire country just be like sheared in half like that.And so like to them, like on a small scale, it's like if you have a family of 10 and five people die, that's fucking insane.
Like all of a sudden your life is completely like cleaved in half.So yeah, I don't know.
That's also, I mean, similarly, although completely different, I don't want to derail, because I know you've not seen the show, but like in The Leftovers, like only 2% of the world, I mean, still a lot of people, right?
But it's 2% of the world disappears.But there's a woman played by Carrie Coon, Nora Durst, whose entire family is gone.And so she's like this, like, why me?
Kind of like she's reckoning, because it's like 2% is like, you might, like an entire town, like there's one town, second season's about, like, where nobody left.Nobody was raptured or nobody was taken or whatever.
And it's like, well, what, why, what happened here?And just like, there's no reason why.It's just like, it's just math.It's just odds or, you know, whatever.So.
I should watch that show.
It's great.Favorite show of all time.
Yeah.It's the first season.
A couple of things different.In one, he's a cop.In one, he's a firefighter.Or maybe he's the mayor.No, he's the mayor in the book.And he's a cop in like the Justin Theroux character.Yeah.
We're going to be reading books by his relative at some point.
Have you had Lawson's Sip of Sunshine?What?The beer that he mentions in this book over and over again, Lawson's Sip of Sunshine.
It's really good.I'm not a beer drinker.It's really good.But I was just like, okay.
Well, I also think it's funny that they're like, the governor, I think, is so proud of this retractable roof on the stadium.
And they're like, we're going to open it with Nickelback.And everybody's just like, No.
Yeah.Also, but like Nickelback is such an easy target.
But also just it's funny that like it's always qualified just like the biggest retractable roof in the North in doing just like it's just it's just an arena, right?
Nickelback does suck, though.
I might have said it in here before, but I have somewhat. It's not even a story, but it's a thing that I've mentioned a lot.
If you know this, I can cut it off, but I have a connection to former member of Trump's cabinet who is referenced in this book, who chimes in at the end, Rex Tillerson.Yeah, Corey Lewandowski.
I thought you were talking about your brother, Corey Lewandowski.
My brother, yeah.Black sheep.Have I told you about the Rex Tillerson thing?No. So Rex Tillerson, who was in his cabinet doing some kind of Secretary of something.He was the Secretary of State.Yeah.Yeah.Which is crazy.
He's the CEO.He was former CEO of Exxon Mobil.
So my parents met at Exxon.My dad doing chemistry, my mom in the law department.
Wow.I didn't know that.I worked at Exxon.Pumping gas for four years in high school.
Did you like that job?I fucking loved it.Did you like the smell of gasoline?
That's true.Do you think because of that job or was it before then?
No, have we not talked about this?
No, we have, but I forget why.
I had a brain injury when I was a child.Okay.
So Rex Tillerson was being groomed to be the CEO of Exxon.And so he was bouncing around from different, like building to building or whatever, and like spending time and like learning about the company, whatever.
So when I was in elementary school his family moved to our town And my mom being me saying that she is knew that mrs. Tillerson, whatever her name is knew no one in town She's been like this is like pre-internet really social like where do you go grocery shopping?
Where do you get buy kids clothes?We're like whatever and so my mom was like very kind to her and We one time their son Tyler who is my grade, had like a birthday party.
We all went over there and like, just like this down country road, whatever, like literally a road so bumpy that the steering wheel cover on my mom's car like flew off and just like, it's bumpy.
And then you turn and it's just like the most gorgeous house you've ever seen in the world.Um, cause it's future CEO of Exxon, future secretary of state, Rex Tillerson's house.
So in first grade, the only really thing that I remember about Tyler Tillerson, we had to do a presentation at the end of the year on our, History.Like, I did something about Italy or whatever.Like, I like pasta.You're six, right?
It's just like, I like noodles and I like the flag and whatever.
Tyler.I don't know if I would remember this, but my parents told the story like a hundred times.It's a burn in my brain.Tyler, son of the future secretary of state.Rex Tillerson mentioned this book.
Tyler goes up to the microphone or whatever it is and just goes, my name's Tyler Tillerson from Texas and I'm proud to be an American.And then he sits down. And everyone's just like a plus.I guess he did the assignment.But I was just like that kid.
This is like when I had, we had a assignment in my history class, you were supposed to take a song and relate it to it, to like a year of history or like it came out that year or something.
So people were doing like, you know, Ohio or you know, whatever.You just link a song to, to like a era of history.And one kid did when lightning crashes by live. And at the end, the teacher was like, what does that have to do with the year?
And the kid just goes, I don't know.He just wanted to play a fucking live song for the whole class.
I remember that time when I was just like, I think I might like the band live.And you were like, there's no way you like the band live.And I listened to like half of that song.I was like, there's no way I like this band.
I don't think you're thinking about the band live.I was like, Pretty sure it's... Alright, we have an email address, lottery at cageclub.me.Meg's reaction to Radio Free Vermont, The Egg wrote in about this book.
Did you talk about this book with her at all or no?
No, I think she, well, I think she indicated to me that she kind of liked it.
You poisoned the well a little bit.Yeah, I did.With me.I did.But also, like, I never would've like loved this book.
I had a harder, I had a harsher opinion of this book than I do most of the books that we, that we read.
And I try to, well, we've also been on a really good tear of like weedy, weedy, good books.
Yeah.I also try to, um, sabotage whenever possible. No, I try to measure my opinions on here so that I appear to be more reasonable than I am in real life.
So you do the opposite of what, so that, so everybody on the podcast is like to get ratings, you need to be like extreme and take a stance.You're just like, we're going to be centrist.We're not going to insult anybody.
No, I mean, I try to, I try.Okay.So like I've said this before, I try to understand what the author's doing and if author is succeeding at what the author is doing, the book is a success.
And so that's how I try to like look at them and I try not to have, Harsh opinions.
So here's Egg's reaction.I thought that this book was kind of fun but had no substance.
This is also a book where it feels like I'm talking myself out of liking it as I write the email because I keep finding things that aren't good.
Well that might be a Indicative of something like if you think the more you think about something the less you like it.
It's probably indicative of a thing like there are lots of movies that Movies more than books that I'll watch I'll be like, I don't really like that, but then I'll keep thinking about it And I'm like a year later.
I'll be like I'm still thinking about that movie.Let me watch it again I'll watch it a second time.I'll be like that was actually really good.Yeah, and then it'll like, you know inch its way up and
X says, the man who read the audio book also read one of the sections of the deluge.All right.And the acts of terrorism reminded me of the weatherman.
Having that comparison in my head makes the novel feel like it should have gone darker, which is what you're saying.Yes.
Everything was smooth and uncomplicated.Nothing went wrong.But honestly, there's a part of me that liked it like that because it wasn't a stressful read.It was a nice palate cleanser after the last module.
That makes sense.It's also, it's a real like entourage parks and rec style thing where it's like, none of these problems are real problems.We can like,
I wish I had the needle drop of the oh yeah, but I don't.Put it in post.It definitely did feel racist in that seemingly no black people live in Vermont, parentheses.
I think Sylvia made a comment about asking Perry if he liked any music by white people, which felt weird.
It's not racist that no black people live in Vermont, is it?That's just the demographics of that state.
I could look it up, but I barred from using Google.And all their freedom inspiration comes from the Revolutionary War.I also didn't like that the only two lesbians got together when maybe they had that conversation.
Yeah, that's fair.That's fair.Yeah, that's fair.
I didn't really like the assimilation.
Also, like, let's just, like, consider that, like, trance, it has to be, like, a super famous lesbian. in Vermont, right?And then, like, Sylvia, who's, like, a big-time Vermont person, like, doesn't, has no idea who she is.
But she may not know that Trance is a lesbian.
She doesn't even know, she doesn't know who she is at all.
If you love Vermont, that seems inexcusable.But, like, I think there's plenty of people just, like, I don't know, athletes.
I, yeah, I don't, I couldn't name you, like, New Jersey athletes, really.You couldn't name- Jim Dowd.I know Jim Dowd.You couldn't name Billy Kidd.Right, but he's from Vermont, right?
I know, but still.Yeah.Todd Frazier, proud of Tom's River.
Yeah, no, I know a lot of New Jersey athletes.
Egg says, I didn't really like the assimilation school either, but I did think it was funny that someone who runs the school didn't recognize a person from, quote, Vermont history, even though that history is made up.
It is weird that this book exists kind of in reality.It's like, we got Lawsons, we got Grace Potter, we got Bernie, and here's a fictional, a fictional.Fictitional. Is that a word or is that not a word?
Fictitious.That's where I was.
I was like, I pivoted mid word and like, fictional Olympic athlete, which I guess like if you don't want to have like a real person, maybe get kidnapped and whatever, but it's just like, they're spending so much time like grounding this in the Vermont we know.
Well, she's also an Olympic athlete in the sport that is most useful to what they have to do.Sure.Like they could have been like, Oh, she's an Olympic athlete in a,
She's an Olympic athlete and I like curling water polo and you just be like, we're fucked.
Yeah.But it also makes sense that if she's from Vermont to be good at skiing and shooting, I wish egg rights, we could have seen some consequences of actions.
It's a shame the book ended right before the vote, which we talked about all in all egg rights.I found this book to be fun while reading it, but it doesn't hold up on closer inspection.
I think it's fine.Cause you were like, I'm not crazy about this book.Yeah.In a little bit harsher terms than that.Like I went into it like being skeptical, but I think I would have been just like, it's fine.Like I don't, it was easy to read.
I don't think it's bad.I just don't think that it's great.
I read the entire thing in like a day and a half.
Yeah.Yeah.You fly through it.
Uh huh.Well, I'll say this.Today's crime is stealing a bicycle.
I didn't want to cut you off because I felt bad cutting you off in most recent times as I thought.Yeah.Yeah.Blame it on the rain.
A ship, a new mother cries Her placenta falls to the floor The confusion sets in Before the doctor can even close the door Lightning crashes and an old mother dies Her intentions fall
We hate Colin Jost.That's the motto of this podcast.
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