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3 episodes with TISM
2 episodes with TISM
2 episodes with TISM
2 episodes with TISM
2 episodes with TISM
2 episodes with TISM
2 episodes with TISM
13 episodes with TISM
3 episodes with TISM
After a 19 year hiatus TISM are back and with a new album...that came out last year...Ok so I missed the news when this dropped but here is my review on the long awaited new album by TISM
Support Battlepubs fundraising efforts for the Shriners Children's effort! https://battlepub.com/products/charity-bevs-slambo-gtIf you want to support the show support us on Patreon! https://patreon.com/freedomfriendspodcast If you want to get some of the fine smokey treats you see us having, check out https://www.warfightertobacco.com For all your games, drinks and high jinks at https://battlepub.comWant the best rubs, sauces and seasonings for all your meats? Check out: grillyourassoff.com/freedomfriendspodcast Follow the guys here https://www.instagram.com/warfighter_jon/https://www.instagram.com/hooliganmikey/https://www.instagram.com/warfighter_scott/https://www.instagram.com/qlabjas/https://www.instagram.com/qlabjustin/www.facebook.com/FreedomFriendspodcast www.instagram.com/freedomfriendspodcast www.youtube.com/c/freedomfriendspodcashttps://x.com/FreedomFri15038
Embarrassing intimate stories, unsolicited advice and an autism diagnosis. What more could you want in an episode? 0:00 Intro 0:18 Partner vs Child 7:47 Call Me Daddy 10:00 Sh*tty Soda 13:50 Doggy Style 18:48 Making A Movie 21:56 Embarrassing Sex 35:28 Spinning The Block 37:12 Unsolicited Advice 56:02 Touch of Tism
Podcast/interview I did recently for the radio station i work at in honor autism awareness/acceptance month.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
I meant to upload this last week but I was in Australia losing my mind crossing the outback like the narrator of What's Rangoon to You Is Grafton To Me (which no one out there seems to know, let alone have any interest in ABC radio, TISM, Wake in Fright, Ozploitation cinema, that guy that walked around talking to people on the street on TV, or even the morning show I turned on upon arrival at my airbnb that was referring to orange and ham pizza as "Christmas Pizza" before segueing into cockroach milk). So anyway, here it is now.President Crooks continues to go Bucko wild, necessitating at least one well meaning bleep from me and making Jennifer uncomfortable. He talks a bit about the history of noise, the types of noisers, Milwaukee's wild rap scene, and some other bits (Australians and their oppressively close sun got me calling everything "bits" now). Pulled a couple of really old Smudge tracks from Bucko's Bandcamp, at least one dating back to the Galactic Intolerance Records days on archive.org. Check out the rest of what remains of his discography over at http://thesmudge.bandcamp.comAlso, check out the zine/documentary-ish thing we made about his Milwaukee Noise Fest and our trip to Fargo, the Arbitrary Art. Be the first to download or buy a copy at my gumroad http://thearbitraryart.gumroad.com or glance at the unlisted video Bucko put up that I generally pretend does not exist. Or if you're in Philly look for an unmarked DVD in a yellow sleeve that I occasionally drop in Little Free Blockbusters.
Send us a textMarcus and Muffin talk with Keith and René about Sturgis but.. hey look a squirrel! Sorry we might have gotten a little distracted! Support the show
Jon from Christianity on the Spectrum (@ChristianityOn) joins Josiah to discuss his research into the relationship between autistic individuals and Christianity. They discuss why autistic people tend to leave Christianity as well as what many find compelling about the faith. They also discuss a few surprising results that Jon found in his data.Check out Christianity on the Spectrum here: https://christianityonthespectrum.podbean.com/Follow Jon on Twitter @ChristianityOn or Bluesky @christianityon.bsky.socialBecome a Fruitless Patron here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=11922141Check out Fruitless on YouTubeFind more of Josiah's work: https://linktr.ee/josiahwsuttonFollow Josiah on Twitter @josiahwsuttonMusic & audio creditsSentimental - Dan DarmawanYesterday – bloom.In My Dreams – bloom. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Support the pod & subscribe for bonus content!https://www.patreon.com/c/extragravyshow (18:50) The LA fires(57:00) Best Albums of the 21st Century(1:12:25) Best Rap Albums(1:17:25) Clipse/Kendrick coming?!(1:34:30) Real Bad Girls of the 6ix Ep. 2(1:43:20) Dave Chappelle /Glorilla on SNL soon(1:48:55) Sheryl Lee Ralph's relationship dynamic Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dive into the wild and unpredictable world of Melbourne's most enigmatic musical act, TISM (This Is Serious Mum), as Triple M's Rosie Walton and Dangerous Dave sit down with Humphrey B. Flaubert and Ron Hitler-Barassi for an unforgettable episode of 'New Music Sunday'. Known for their sharp satire, outrageous performances, and complete anonymity, TISM brings their unique blend of chaos and humor to the studio for a chat like no other. In this rollercoaster interview, we have had to censor some parts, and flat out remove others for legal reasons. However, we've let a few parts slip through the cracks for this online version... Don't tell our legal team.. xo See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Just Ace: A podcast about the 90s Australian alternative music scene
Welcome to Just Ace - a podcast about the 90s Australian Alternative Music Scene - whatever the hell that means. This week we look at the band TISM Support Patreon Buy Me A Coffee Buy the book Buy a poster Follow Facebook Instagram YouTube Website You can write to us at justace90s [at] gmail [dot] com
This week: new albums from TISM, RÜFÜS DU SOL and Nice Biscuit. Also: rolling in dog dirt, pure uncut fan service, forced interstitials, ultramarathon training, exactly what was expected, unsafe working at height, the best of what's left of, biscuit meditations, structural thought, the Dan Auerbach Cinematic Universe, this won't help, this won't make the mix and Doc Fails To Read Bios. Next week: Salmonella Dub | Magic Machine | Hanni El KhatibSpotify playlists: Current albums | 2024 mixtape | All our playlistsThe database: Review albums since 2015 and year-end top 5 listsFind us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | Omny StudioRSS feeds: Just sports | Just music | EverythingContact: Twitter | Facebook | EmailSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
TISM return armed with a tantalising trifecta, with their first headline run since 2004 in October and November. The upcoming Death To Art Tour is bound to go down in Australian music history, with TISM set to be joined by fellow Aussie icons ESKIMO JOE, MACHINE GUN FELLATIO, BEN LEE and THE MAVIS'S.With four of the country's most iconic acts teaming up for the Death To Art Tour, this historic run of shows not only mark these as TISM's first headline shows over two decades, it sees fellow sonic scoundrels MACHINE GUN FELLATIO reform for the first time in 19 years, as well as THE MAVIS'S reforming for the first time in six years.Releasing a brand new single I've Gone Hillsong in 2022, the group's first new material in close to 20 years, TISM also teased at the time an album which did not exist. Fast-forward to 2024, and TISM have since released a new EP, 2023's The "C" Word, complete with caterwauling commentary and chaotic charisma. And, most recently, the beloved unruly collective have ventured into a brand new chapter, with their new full length album Death To Art, out now.TISM have retained their anonymous and cult-like status since first forming back in the early 1980s. Laced with nihilistic humour and gleeful sarcasm, as well as a razor-sharp penchant for hybrid dance, pop and rock, TISM may have kept their identities a secret all this time, but their impact on the Australian musical landscape remains undeniable.HEAVY got the rare opportunity to share some time with TISM, and, as you would expect, things got a little crazy. Listen to the full interview above.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.
On today's episode we are discussing the unique presentation of Autism in girls. We discuss the way that gender bias in research and society means that girls and women are less diagnosed, later diagnosed and are less accommodated.
Season 10 is off to a bumpy start as The Boys welcome new guest, Lil' Tism Featuring Cale Evans, and Jacob Brayton. Music by Josh Brayton. The Podcast From Hell is a fully improvised comedy podcast featuring creatures from the worlds of Mythology, Lore, Legends, and the minds of North Carolina's okayest improvisors
This week: our 400th episode GOAT Albums Top 50 Spectacular, the pointy end. Background reading: Doc and Beeso's original top 50 favourite albums lists from 14 years ago. How has the pod changed our music tastes? Who wins the ultimate deathmatch of nostalgia and recency bias? Listen and find out. Next week: new albums from TISM, RÜFÜS DU SOL and Nice Biscuit.Spotify playlists: Current albums | 2024 mixtape | All our playlistsThe database: Review albums since 2015 and year-end top 5 listsFind us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | Omny StudioRSS feeds: Just sports | Just music | EverythingContact: Twitter | Facebook | EmailSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Guess who had a hearing, a small win and is feeling pretty good about himself? Guess again, because it is not the show's resident counsel, but in fact the illustrated man has had words, not pictures, and tells the tale. We have found more words about the AFL Meat Market, the AFLW problem, the Spring Racing Carnival and of course the dearly departed in The Deathalyser. Musically it is underrated Aussie songs and some rippers get unearthed to enjoy their deserved moment in the sunshine. You may hear Mental as Anything, Goanna, TISM, The Easybeats and Hush in glowing terms or will it be William Shakespeare, Pussyfoot, Joe Dolce or Warwick Capper that rises like a mushroom through the fluent and effluent babble of the boys? Kevin Hillier, Mark Fine, Stephen J Peak Subscribe in iTunes!https://apple.co/2LUQuix Listen on Spotifyhttps://spoti.fi/2DdgYad Follow us on Facebook...https://bit.ly/2OOe7ag Post-production by Steve Visscher | Southern Skies Media for Howdy Partners Media | www.howdypartnersmedia.com.au/podcasts © 2024See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode of Think You Know, Shahad and Emma dive into their personal experiences of discovering they have ADHD, with Emma also learning she is on the autism spectrum.
This week in music: new albums from Charly Bliss, Los Bitchos and Full Flower Moon Band. Also: the mould is my enemy, uncut chipmunk, diabetes, where we're going we don't need lyrics, I agree with me, melancholy mazzing, the picture matches the label, Eaton Roots and leaves, live geography, PE in partial effect, Twin Towns vibes, basically in Nottingham, urban decline, aggressive elevator soul, banned in 1995, late TISM and beats by Ray. Next week: Massive Hassle | Ginger Root | The Jesus LizardSpotify playlists: Current albums | 2024 mixtape | All our playlistsThe database: Review albums since 2015 and year-end top 5 listsFind us on: Spotify Podcasts | Apple Podcasts | Omny StudioRSS feeds: Just sports | Just music | EverythingContact: Twitter | Facebook | EmailSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Are we the only podcast in existence that touches on all these subjects this week?Probably! And that's why you love us, or at least tolerate us!To watch the full video of this podcast head to our substackhttps://weirdertogether.substack.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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On today's show Border Force has seized four illegal fishing boats north of Broome. Over in the US, Kamala Harris has picked Tim Walz as her running mate. A GP in the UK has been suspended for beating himself up. Iconic Aussie band TISM is making a comeback after 20 years. The top 5 moments from day 11 at the Paris games.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A new MP3 sermon from Discernment Life Ministries is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Revelation 101 Faith of Faiths Science(tism) Subtitle: Revelation Speaker: Dr. Leon L. Sanders Broadcaster: Discernment Life Ministries Event: Bible Study Date: 9/8/2024 Bible: Revelation 17:1-6 Length: 75 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Discernment Life Ministries is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Revelation 101 Faith of Faiths Science(tism) Subtitle: Revelation Speaker: Dr. Leon L. Sanders Broadcaster: Discernment Life Ministries Event: Bible Study Date: 9/8/2024 Bible: Revelation 17:1-6 Length: 75 min.
Polecam książkę o filozofii i moralności polityki oraz o tym, dlaczego leninizm wciąż jest wiecznie żywy (wśród populistów). Bardzo błystkotliwa opowieść rumuńskiego politologa. (00:25) Zamiast wstępu(03:15) Faszyzm i komunizm jako systemy równoległe(08:30) Populizm środkowoeuropejski jako leninizm(16:00) Zamiast zakończenia Warto także posłuchać
Bagyó Sándorral, a Vízimentők Magyarországi Szakszolgálatának vezetőjével beszélgetünk.
More Flism&Tism from RLM. | Original Airdate: 29th June 2024 | Watch it here: https://youtu.be/8NzLEHYCOA8
Episode 625: Mystify you mind with 90's pipe windows. Andrew has coffee autism. The Topps baseball cards of yore. Andrew and Brett take a math quiz, Puke slits his wrists. Have you tried Jim's Dog Sauce? our first SCCA Nationals autocross was quite the experience, but Andrew is getting old and slow. Puke gets attention driving the race-car. But how do you buy a kayak?
The Alan Cox Show
The Alan Cox Show
This episode looks at Johnny Cash's “The American Recordings”, a series of 6 albums released on American Records between 1994 and 2010. By 1994, when he signed to Rick Rubin's American Records, it looked like Cash's career was all but done. However, Rubin had other ideas and, over the next 10 years, worked with Cash to produce some of the most memorable work of his career. Part of this process involved Cash covering songs by some of the greatest artists of the late 20th Century - U2, Nine Inch Nails, Nick Cave, Tom Petty and Leonard Cohen. He's not performing the songs in his usual country style, but simply as Johnny Cash. It's a great story, with a fabulous playlist! Jeff's found 5 bands you would not believe exist, including Mac Sabbath, a parody of Black Sabbath with lyrics about fast food, and Shat, a band that is offensive in every possible way, whose lead singer's costumes are draped with dildoes! Our "Album you must listen to before you die" is “Arrival” by Abba. Reviewers weren't convinced. Neither is Jeff. Have a listen and see what Mick thought. References: Winny Puhh, The Residents, Mac Sabbath, Shat, TISM, Taylor Swift, Tortured Poets Department, Abba, Arrival, American Records, Rick Rubin, Def Jam, Shel Silverstein, “A Boy Named Sue”, “Solitary Man”, The Highwaymen, The Man in Black, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, June Carter Cash, “Bitter Tears”, “Ballad of Ira Hayes”, Bruce Springsteen, “Highway Patrolman”, U2, Zooropa, “The Wanderer”, “Personal Jesus”, “The Mercy Seat”, “Streets of Laredo”, John Cale Johnny Cash American Recordings – Full albums Johnny Cash – Our episode playlist Discogs' listing of all 6 covers Interview with Rick Rubin re “Hurt” Ten Bands you Won't Believe Exist
The Artist wants U to know he's very "fluxsable". Mex then informs everyone that he's always in an area, knows when it's time to get sleepy and how much that ape costs.
THANKS BOGOO AND FASHY FOR THE SUPPORT! Live show 8PM EST: https://odysee.com/@PNNAmerica/PNNAmericaLiveDec --- Help by supporting the show: Dogecoin: DS1Fp4wmQ1jdbYj4cqi3MJNWmzYe6tt9w4 Monero: 83VjQv94rfxdrd2sp9bNFeXv4MeNjtfe3cVKnYCemkr2TnZWArDWWqUFSu3PftA836CxY8DPtrUfmFJHLdFoj9q2Eb11DNE --- MY Website! (Book included): https://pnnamerica.neocities.org/ --- POL NEWS CENTRAL (DAILY NEWS): https://www.polnewscentral.com/ --- 16MB: https://rumble.com/user/sixteenmb
this is an easy listen
Logan, Curtis, Luke & Grembo did a Friendsgiving or whatever you want to call it at AOP in TN. 2 days of solid wheeling, a week of Logan and Curtis flirting, a mangled zj, and what happens on the mountain are all brought up.
Sitting Solo, with the boys we immediately have ti address the dilemma in regards to Hylton honoring the punishment for losing the weight loss competition, ADCC Orlando or Alabama vs. LSU in Tuscaloosa November 4th, both happening on the same day 575 miles apart from one another, College football being back and the upsets in week 2, kodie's new car troubles, Kevin and Ryan from Tenth Planet Atlanta absolutely crushing at the last ADCC Open in Chicago, Rusty and the boys in A Rustyc Spoon Foodtruck do it again with the Riddler Cup, some of our favorite comics out right now and why Shane Gillis is the best in the world, Beautiful Dogs being an example of that! hope you all love these solos, thank you guys for tuning in!Follow us on Instagram:@somepeoplesuckpod@thisisthehomie@_hylty
Lilo and Bill offer so many valuable insights and lessons based on the learned experiences they have had before and after Bill was diagnosed as an autist. They have been together for over 30 years, and Bill received his autism diagnosis after more then 20 years of marriage (and lots of challenges they didn't understand). During this episode, Bill and Lilo share openly and honestly about how they have struggled and persevered in love. Bill spent 24 years in the military and Lilo is an artist, hairdresser, and home-schooled all of her children. They have moved 14 times and through all of the ups and downs of life they have discovered the unique strengths, challenges and differences that have helped them grow and learn about each other in ways they never expected. This episode is filled with lots of laughs and insights that will be helpful for all neurotypes. The topics we address include: Communication challenges and ways to address them Asking your partner if they "will" do something, instead of if they "want" to do something Marriage is a contest of generosities. Being unorthodox and eccentric. Understanding how you each "recharge" differently. Mr. Spock as a spirit animal? When one partner wants a "mute" button for the other. Having a "neurostat' for sensory input. When strengths may also create challenges. Struggles and failure can make us stronger. Love is the glue that helps us advance civilization Being a learning organism. Give up on what's supposed to be a "normal" marriage/relationship and accepting what is. Being a life dog, navigator, personal assistant. Stop expecting an apple to be a pear. Everyone is a swiss cheese person and you need to fill your own holes. Texts and emails remove "tone". Time limits when discussing emotional issues. Rituals and routine. When holidays and presents don't have the same value or importance. Is it black and white thinking or both non-linear and linear? Patience is critical. Understanding different perspectives regarding loneliness and time alone. The life changing impact of understanding autism. You can listen to Lilo's podcast called "Touching the 'Tism" or Bill's podcast "Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast". You can e-mail Lilo at marriedtotheiceman@gmail.com or email Bill at: cgpodcast@pm.me _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ If you are interested in learning more about the support groups that Mona offers for neurotypical/allistic partners or neurodiverse couples, please send her an email at: neurodiverselove4u@gmail.com. or visit her website at: www.neurodiverselove.com Follow Mona on Instagram @neurodiverse_love or click here to sign up for the Neurodiverse Love Newsletter. Also, if you would like to buy a deck of the Neurodiverse Love Conversation Cards, the digital deck is available for $11. Click here to buy your deck today. Lastly, if you missed the 2023 Neurodiverse Love Conference you can buy unlimited access to the 27 AMAZING pre-recorded sessions for only $98. Thank you for being a part of the Neurodiverse Love Community! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/neurodiverse-love/message
The vault wars are back as Dicky Dunne opens the vault and remembers some greats whose birthdays are today and more!
Join Nick, Bull, and me as we discuss your favorite condition. Autism. Yep, you heard it right, autism. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDjNByp7N8OZxqicxRgr0-w/join Support The Channel: https://streamlabs.com/RobSays https://streamelements.com/robsays/tip https://patreon.com/RobSays__ https://RobSays.net Send Me A Message, You Might End Up On A Video: https://anchor.fm/redpilled/message Popular Videos ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twitter Notifications: https://youtu.be/sw3gOBZQymc The Hardest Red Pill Truth I've Had To Swallow So Far: https://youtu.be/G-2IWgEZni8 On Being A Short Man: https://youtu.be/r5jpHZvUEds Stop Chasing Women: https://youtu.be/hCle07lN8cI Men Love Idealistically, Women Love Pragmatically: https://youtu.be/x9r-jlOQBbM Briffault's Law: https://youtu.be/_aCRJhE7kdc The Lonely Old Man: https://youtu.be/QXRysuGFFUg Carl From Black Label Logic #1: https://youtu.be/4nd5OuL_OTA Carl From Black Label Logic #2: https://youtu.be/8hg52VN6nuA Video Editing w/Rian Stone: https://youtu.be/b1agSdW7SUw
Who Knew It with Matt Stewart is a comedy game show podcast hosted by Australian comedian Matt Stewart. This episode was features musician Damian Cowell (TISM, Root!, the DC3, Damian Cowell's Disco Machine) and comedian Jess Perkins (triple J, Do Go On podcast)!Watch Matt's stand up special FREE on YouTube: https://youtu.be/cWStRpI-BhESupport the show via http://patreon.com/dogoonpod and you can submit questions for the show!Get tickets to see the podcast/Matt live: https://www.mattstewartcomedy.com/Check out Matt and Jess' podcast network: https://dogoonpod.com/Theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and Logo by @muzdoodles! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Another exciting week with the gang - Dj drop the ball on the intros so that's a clear sign this episode is going to be pretty random. Dj talks about self control, a trip to best buy and Cheeze is told about himself. We dive into the Grammy's , Is the podcast media culture turning into content over everything? 3 hour pods are brazy
The Boys discuss the accuracy of their autism test results before talking about interest rates, the EU energy collapse, and how the government culturally appropriated child soldiers from Ancapistan --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/moonlit-altar/message
Grim and James are joined by Jerry Cthulhu, Nickie the Dude, Zac Hawkins, Gary Taters, CallmeIan, and Mellowhorus. Enjoy the chat! Support us financially at https://www.patreon.com/cruzinwithsteak or cruzinwithsteak.com/donate Check out our anime review show Shonen Dump www.shonendump.com Join our Discord ChatRoom https://discord.gg/PmdJaJY || James Cruz Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/cruz_controllin Send us hatemail or love mail at grimsteak@gmail.com Live Show Every Tuesday at 9pm est on CwS Radio https://s3.radio.co/s230f698de/listen Check out Jerry's show "Nox Mente' at https://noxmente.simplecast.com/ thanks go out to Sir Felix Ortega II for providing all the jingles and outtro music. Check out and support felix's work at https://sirfelix.bandcamp.com/ https://www.patreon.com/jinglemoney/ Check out our website at https://www.cruzinwithsteak.com Follow us on Twitter @cruzinwithsteak @gromsteak @jamesCruz_cle
Book mentioned: “Powwowing in Pennsylvania: Braucherei & the Ritual of Everyday Life” by Patrick J. Donmoyer https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40605053-powwowing-in-pennsylvania Eric's website is at www.ericsteinhart.com Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S3E27 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science: Based-Paganism. I'm your host Mark. Yucca: And I'm the other one Yucca. Mark: And today we have a very special episode of The Wonder. We're really excited to discuss urban paganism with two guests from New York City, Joh and Eric Steinhart. And so welcome to both of you. Eric: Hello. Joh: Hi, thank you so much for having us great to be here. Mark: really delighted to have you, so I guess, to get started why don't we just ask you to tell us a bit about yourselves? How did you come to non paganism? You wanna start Joh? Joh: Sure. My name is Joh. I've lived in New York for about 16 years. My path is very new. It's only about four years old. I've always been drawn to certain. Aesthetics around the occult I was a teen goth in the nineties, which perfect for that, but I never, I never really thought that I fit into any of those paths. I couldn't put my finger on why. A few years ago I purchased a, a beginner's book on, on witchcraft and developing your own identity as a witch. I got it just for fun, for a long train ride. There's a bit in there in the beginning that outlines different kinds of witches or witchcraft like green witches, kitchen, witches, chaos, magic, wicca. I'd heard some of these. Terms before, but they're described very plainly in the book and it gave me a little bit of a glimpse into how vast of a world paganism might be that I didn't know anything about, or I hadn't realized. So I started reading a lot more about developing a practice, but still didn't really feel like I fit in. I couldn't relate to the belief system parts. And in one of my internet rabbit holes, I learned about the book godless paganism, which described paganism from a more science based lens. And I just got really excited about what that sounded like. So I ordered it to my local bookstore and I devoured that book, the concepts, it taught me even more about how personal one's path can be and that there is this little corner of this world that felt like a fit and like I could belong. So then I started looking for a community because I was so excited and I wanted to talk about it with people. And I was clicking on links and links and links online and finally found the atheopagan Facebook group, which was the first active community that I had found that actually had recent activity in there. So I, I joined and I've been in that community for about two to three years, and it's just such an incredibly supportive, inspiring place that gives me ideas of how to develop my practice even more. And you know, now fast forward to today, I'm just really grateful to have found this community and group and little subset of of the path. Mark: That's great. Thank you. Yucca: Yeah, Eric, what about you? Eric: Yeah. So, I mean, I come from a very strange place. I mean, I'm Pennsylvania, German and Pennsylvania, German culture often known as Pennsylvania, Dutch, but we're not Dutch. We're Germans. And that culture is a magical culture and, you know, magic was normalized in that culture from the very beginning from its very roots. And so I grew up with a lot of that stuff. I mean, I grew up in, in a culture that was filled with magical practices of all sorts. And I mean, nominally, I mean, you know, nominally explicitly a Christian culture, but probably a lot of Christians would say, no, you know, you guys are doing some weird stuff. And, you know, I, I became attracted to science and early on and, you know, just don't really have a theistic worldview at all. So combining some of those things got me and I, you know, and I was in, I was involved sort of in, in atheist movements for a while and found a lot of atheism to be kind of, practically shallow, you know, there's, it's like, yeah, after you're done being mad at God, what do you do then? I mean, and there was like nothing. And you know, my, I would always say things like, look, there's no atheist art. You know, there's like atheist music, you know, there's just, you know, there's, there's no culture, right. Or the culture is, and more and more people have observed this. It's kind of parasitic on Christianity in a way. And so I found that very unsatisfying, right? Certainly I know plenty of atheists. I'm a philosopher, I'm a philosophy professor and I know plenty of, you know, professional atheists and all they do is talk about God. And so I'm like, look, I don't wanna talk about God. Let's let's let's talk about something else. Let's do something else. And I found that paganism in various forms, it was just kind of, kind of starting, but in various forms, you know, had a culture had art, had aesthetics, had practices, had symbols had a fairly rich worked out way of life. And as a philosopher, you know, I've got plenty of training in ancient cultures, particularly Greek and Roman but also also Germanic. And you know, I just thought, oh, This stuff, all kind of fits together. And so I became very interested in thinking about ways and I've advocated among atheists to say things like, look, you guys have to start. And, and, and women too, you've gotta start building a culture and you can't build a culture of negativity, you know, a culture of no, a culture and especially not a culture. That's essentially a mirror image of Christianity that all you're doing is talking about God. And you know, I've had a little success there, but it's a, it's a tough hall. But I think more and more something like a kind of atheopagan could really be a live option for the future of lots of aspects of American culture, right? As people become de Christianized, what are they gonna do? And some people say, well, they're just gonna be secular. But that's not really an answer and that's not a culture. And as you start looking around, you start to see these other cultures that are kind of bubbling up and developing. So yeah, I mean, I came to it from, you know, both the sort of old ethnic, Pennsylvania, German angle, the kind of philosophy and science angle and dissatisfaction with you know, sort of mainstream atheism. So lots of different roads in Yucca: Wow. That's a, that's a really interesting path to, to come on. So it'd be interesting hear more about the practice, the magical kind of practices that you talked about. Eric: well, there's a good, there's a good book by this guy, Patrick, Don moer called pow wowing. So you can check that out. It's incredibly rich and incredibly weird stuff, you know, Yucca: well, we'll find that and put it in the show notes. If people wanna take a look at it. Eric: Right. Mark: Yeah. Well, both of your stories are really very interesting that way in, in in that identification of Something being missing, but the, the main, the main offerings that are, that surround us in our culture, not really fitting that hole. That's certainly what I found as well, you know, and it's the reason that I wrote the essay that first started out a paganism. And I, I should probably introduce at this point that Eric, you, you especially have been involved with various non theist pagan efforts since long before I wrote that essay I just was, did a poor job of research and didn't find the other naturalistic non-theistic paganism efforts that were being done around the world. Until after I had already, you know, published and was starting to get attention for atheopagan So, as urban pagans living in the city what do your practices look like? Joh, you wanna, you wanna start on that? Joh: Sure. My practice may not be super urban sounding, but, but. There's some stuff about like spots in the city that, that I do. But generally my, my daily practice is in the morning. My apartment faces east and I wake up early enough to catch the sunrise every day. And I'll kind of first just stare at stare at it and kind of greet the sky every morning. I do stretches to start the day and I position my mat to face that window so that I can really connect with the day while I'm waking up. I have a small focus that I decorate seasonally. I really connect with ritual and the different physical objects around my practice, probably because I was raised Catholic and I always loved the sacred spaces, the incense, the bells, the rituals, and the regalia of it all. So it's a very tangible practice for me. And I have a. Personal calendar with the, the, you know, the solstice and the equinoxes in it. But also with other days that are very personal to me. Like I celebrate Freddie Mercury's birthday every year, for example, and, and the anniversary of when I move to New York and I'll actually take that day off of work and like use that whole day to really explore parts of the city that I love. And don't as easily make time for during the rest of the year. And then I also try to cook and eat seasonally as much as possible and really understand what the, what the ecology of this region is like. And I made this spreadsheet that tells me what's in season around here based on what month it is. It makes it easier to shop for and plan meals and things like that. Mark: Hm. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: Wow. That's a lot. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah, that's very cool. Thank you, Joh. Yucca: you have any parks nearby that you go to? Is that part of your practice or more? Just the relationship with the city and the sky. Joh: There is a really beautiful community garden in my neighborhood. That's open to the public a couple of days a week, and sometimes I'll walk there or ride my bike there and just kind of slowly walk down the paths and see how everyone's set up their plots and what they're growing. And there are bees everywhere and some benches off to the side. So sometimes I'll sit there and journal a little bit, or just kind of stare into space. And, you know, the people who have plots there are required to volunteer, you know, certain number of hours every week. And there's this section at the end where you can see everyone composting and things like that. So there's that piece. And then. In the city as well. There are different ways. Speaking of composting, that you can participate in kind of that cycle. So you can go to a drop off spot and bring your food scraps and they'll compost them and, and then use that for the public parks and things like that. Yucca: Oh, nice. Joh: that's like another way that allows me to feel more connected to the public parks and spaces of nature that are kind of engineered in such a dense area. Mark: Uhhuh. Nice. Nice. Eric. How about your practice? Eric: Yeah. I mean, my practices are probably a little too intellectual. I mean, one of my main practices is trying to figure out how all this stuff can work out and how to make sense of, of, of pagan ideas and practices. Right. That's cuz I'm a philosopher. That's what I do. I mean I do have a little I have a little altar and I do, you know, things, things like that, but I, I do try to think. A lot about how what paganism means and what kind of pagan concepts are relevant, for instance, in an urban context, right? I mean, cities are not trying to be forests. That's not what they're trying to do. They're not. And, and, you know, trying to work out pagan contexts or concepts and beliefs and practices in an urban setting it may, you, you have to think a little bit differently, right. Because there's a lot of you know, what you might call mainstream paganism that has a very I think very biased view of what paganism is or should be like we're all supposed to be farmers or, or, or Amish or something. I mean, I grew up with the Amish, you know, I mean, so I'm like, no, no, I know what that is. And so, you know, thinking of the ways that that cities are natural spaces and that cities are ecosystems not because they're trying to be, you know, a national park, right. I mean, and there's more and more wonderful research among, you know, biologists and ecologists of, of how cities themselves are ecosystems, you know, they are not, they're not phony ecosystems like, oh, New York. City's great because it's got central park. No, you know, the, the city isn't eco, I mean more and more research onto this is fascinating stuff because you're finding all these species, not just humans, humans are a natural species, but you know, raccoons, cougars, coyotes, you know, and New York city has there, there's beautiful research that's been done in New York city. Right. We have herds of deer. Wandering the city. We have, you know, foxes. I mentioned the, the raccoons, I think the bird life in New York city is, you know, and so you find things like, and there's a term for this, a technical term for these kinds of critters, right. Sin, Andros, right. These are animals that have adapted to humans and now live. They flourish with humans. They flourish in cities, right? So, New York city for instance, is an extraordinary place to be a Raptor, a bird of prey, right? New York city has some of the highest Paran, Falcon and Hawk populations anywhere. Right? Because they love the tall buildings. They love the bridges. Like the bridges are filled with Paragon, Falcon nests. And you're like, yeah, these, you know, life is adaptive. And So I try to think of all the ways that we live together with all these things in the cities and how humans have made a home, not just for humans, but for, for a whole ecosystem of, of critters. And, you know, like urban raccoons are not like rural raccoons, right. They've things. Right. And it's really interesting, you know, and people study this, you know, scientists, they study like how cities are driving bur particularly birds and raccoons. Are the species been studied most to become more intelligent, they're learning how to solve all sorts of problems. Right. So, so I find, you know, so part of, I guess my practice is sort of learning about that, observing that, thinking about ways that I mean, we haven't, we have a general issue. In the United States, right. Which is that so much of our space and structure is thoroughly Christianized. And it's not an easy thing to say, oh, well, let's, we're, you know, we're just gonna do something different, right. When all of your space is structured around a certain way of life. And so, you know, I, I try to think about ways that we can think of all kind like, okay, the four elements, you know, fire earth, air and water for me, light, you know, how do those relate in an urban context, right? Then in the, in a great way in New York city, you know, you can actually go into the earth. You know, in ways that most ordinary people can't right. And you can go deep into the earth right. In the, in the subways. I mean, you can do that on a daily basis. Right. And you can, you know, I mean, being stuck on a subway, train deep in the earth right. Is a way to like, encounter something that's terrifying and forceful. So how do you think of that sort of thing in, in a, in pagan ways, right? How do you think of, I mean, New York city is also very close to water. I mean, that's the reason the city exists. Right. It's one of the greatest bays in the world. We have dolphins, we have whales in the Hudson seals thinking of that kind of life as part of the city too. And I'll mention one other thing, thinking of things like, I don't know if people know about, I mean, you know, about Manhattan henge. Right. So, so you've got, you know, you've got structures there that people recently have started to say things like, Hey, we Stonehenge, we have Manhattan henge. You know, we have a, we have a thing and it wasn't designed that way, but Mark: Eric, would you like to explain what that is for our listeners? That don't know what it is? Eric: Yeah, Manhattan henge because Manhattan, the you know, the streets are in a sort of Southeast Northwest orientation. There are two times of the year when the sun come, you know, if you're stand on 42nd street in the middle and you've got skyscrapers on either side, my head is the sun, right. And the son just comes down between, you know, vertically between the skyscrapers and sets, right. You know, across the water sort of like Stonehenge, right? Like coming down between these monoliths. And I've seen it is, is really incredible. And people, you know, thousands and thousands of people go out in the streets to photograph it. And Thinking about ways that that kind of stuff can develop. And it might not be stuff that somebody says explicitly like, oh, this is pagan, like it's Wiccan or ARU or drew it, or, or whatever, or witchy witchcraft or something, but these are cultural things that people start to do. Right. And if you start to look around, you see all kinds of little shrines in the city, you know, I mean, there are, there are some obvious big ones in the statue of liberties, like a big pagan statue. And there are statues of old Greek and Roman deities in the city. There's like, mercury and Atlas are down at Rockefeller center, right? There's a statue of pan at Columbia university there. These, you know, these things exist. And not to, I mean, I, I think also, you know, a lot of urban places in a sort of practical sense of things to do things like art museums, right. Where you can go in, in New York, the metropolitan museum, and you can see lots of in fact they just are now having a big show on what old pagan statues used to look like. Right. Because they weren't white, they weren't white Mar they were painted. Right. They were dye. And so they've taken a bunch of them made replicas and they could still find microscopic traces of these dyes in the rock. And so they've now repainted them as they looked. So I'll go see that soon. So there's lots of opportunities for people to do all kinds of things. And I, and I real, but I really do think that. There's a, still a need to develop a lot of cultural infrastructure, right? You could go out in central park and, and do some ritual on the solstice or something, but that's really not. That to me is like something that sort of slides right off the surface of the culture, cuz it doesn't have any connections to things. There used to be some larger connections before COVID there was a network of drum circles. I don't know if people had been to prospect park in Brooklyn, there were some immense, there was immense drum drum stuff going on there. COVID kind of brought an end to a lot of that. So we'll see how that starts up, but I, I think there's a lot of There's there's a lot of thing. And if you do wanna go out in, in you know, in a kind of less urban environment, you know, New York city is actually is the highest density of Woodland trails over 2000 miles of trails within a 60 mile radius of the city, cuz the Appalachian mountains just arc right across the north. Mark: Right. Eric: And so you can, you can, yeah. It's the highest concentration of Woodland parks and trails anywhere in the United States. Mark: Wow. Eric: There's a lot, there's a lot still to be done. And I think I'll just, I'll just leave off with that. Mark: I was that's. Yeah. There's so much to say there. I mean, you mentioned the met and it's that talk about sacred spaces? I, I mean, the metropolitan museum of art is one of the great sacred spaces of the world. It's like a shrine to all human culture. Joh, I, I know you live in Queens, so I imagine you get to the Cloisters which is another super sacred space for me. This is kind of out of order of the, the questions that we talked about doing, but are there specific places or sacred spaces that you think of? When you, when you think about urban paganism in your city, Joh: Yeah. One thing that New York really does well is bigness. There are a few very stereotypically New York spaces that I have like religious experiences and in their giant. So the inside of grand central terminal is one of them. It's massive. It's echoy. The ceiling is painted with this beautiful night sky scene with the Zodiac constellations on it. Part of what feels so humbling being in there is going off of something. Eric said before is knowing that it's also this hub of this massive living transportation network that enables the movement of thousands, millions of people within this tri-state area. Another one is the branch of the New York public library with the very iconic lions out front it's, it's a beautiful piece of architecture. It's also inside cavernous full of this beautiful art, larger than life and quiet. It's really like church almost. You feel like when you're in there, cuz you have this like reverence and respect and gratitude for all of this knowledge that's contained in there and that it's free. Like you can just go and like getting a card is free. It's it still blows my mind. This one is pretty kind of cliche, but the empire state building it's so tall, but the city is so dense that I never expect to see it when I do so I'll be walking somewhere, probably distracted, multitasking, and then I'll look up and it'll just be there in front of my face. And it's this like instantly calming moment for me and kind of resets me in whatever's going on in life at the time. And then there's like smaller little smaller spots. Like there's a Steinway piano showroom near times square that I like to go visit. I play the piano and it's a really silencing experience, even though it's so busy around there and, and crowded and, and loud, but just to stand outside and gaze in at these beautiful pianos that are handmade just across the river in Queens, like it's really, really cool how accessible places like this are because of that, you know, that network that connects, although the parts of the city, so well, the subway. So yeah, those are, those are a few that come to mind. how about you? Eric: Yeah, I think, I think Joh says some great things. I mean, one point there is like the urban sublime, right? Like these, you know, towers that rise to infinity. I mean, it, you can have a kind of experience. That's hard to get anywhere else. If you go like up to the observation deck on the, you know, the freedom tower that replace the world trade centers or the empire state building or Rockefeller center, right. You go up on tops of these things and you see, you know, from a. Point, and that kind of space is you know, I mean, it's commercial, right? You pay, you're going up to the top of, of a skyscraper, but you, it can induce kinds of experiences that are hard to get elsewhere. And sure, grand central station, that's like a great example of a kind of space that's already, you know, sort of semi pagan in its kind of classical thing. Like the Zodiac is there and it's this immense space and you can, you can go in and just be you can experience awe and, and, and humbleness and things like that. A lot in the city. And I think, you know, especially when I first started coming to the city and, and probably a lot of people would have a similar experience. You, you just feel overwhelmed. I mean, the, the sheer size of these things that are around you and unlike I mean, other cities have some of this, but you know, it's not like in New York city, you can walk, you walk a few blocks and you're out. Right. I mean, if you're in Manhattan, you can walk for like 12 miles through this amenity and you're sort of like, I mean, it's, it's humbling. So I think that, I think, and I think there's a lot of symbolism that goes into that. I'll mention that there have been a couple of urban terror decks, right? That use, I mean, if you think of the tower and you think of just, well, the tower, you know, or you think of things like that, there have been some there have been, there are a couple of urban TA decks, some better than others, but you know, people are, and this is what I think about the cultural infrastructure. People are starting to build that kind of thing. Right. And start to see these symbolisms in these, in these places. So, yeah, that, I like, I like that. What Joh said about sort of the urban sublime and what mark, you said about kind of these museums that hold all this, this cultural stuff and. You know, I often think of, of paganism in terms of the symbolic, right. Rather than you know, I'm not much for, for ancient, ancient roots. That, that seems a little racist to me. I'm more into thinking about the future and thinking about things like, you know, if I think about superhuman minds, right? I mean, the city itself is like a high of mind. You know, the city itself is a super organism. It's a superhuman intelligence. Right. And, and things like me, I'm just like a little sell in this organism. I'm passing through contributing something to it, but the, the amount of energy that flows through San Francisco or New York, or, you know, something like that is astonishing. Mark: Yes. Eric: And it's it's information too. I mean, places like, okay. New York, Tokyo, you know, San Francisco, you know, are, are some of the most information rich places on the planet. Mark: London, Hong Kong. Eric: Right. And, and so if you think of like, you know, you think of a deity like mercury or somebody like, or thought, or Glen, you know, these, you may think of these divine minds and these patterns of information. I mean, I prefer to leave those Dees in the past where they lived, but now you look at super, if you want a symbol, cuz for me, a lot of this is symbolic. If you want symbolism for superhuman intelligence, you know, superhuman mind a superhuman agency, right? I mean the place to one place to find that there are other places, but one place to find that is in the, you know, the rich information flows the density of information flows in cities. Mark: Mm-hmm Eric: Right? You, you can really, you can, you don't have to think like, I mean, Okay. I lived in New York city. This means I am part of something that is immense it's 400 years old. It's I don't know how long it'll last, but you know, so many people have contributed to it and you're there you feel it you're like, yeah, I there's this thing, you know, it's immense, I'm a tiny little part of this huge thing. So. Mark: and, and I think that's really well said, and it also, it extends beyond the bounds of New York city so much. I mean, I, I think about watching old movies where pretty much everybody came from New York or their immediate family came through New York. It's like the entire culture of the United States is deeply informed by this urban collective experience that then spread throughout the rest of the country. I was thinking about, you were talking about culture and of course, city is where the culture is, right? I mean, there's culture everywhere, but big cities are there're places where it's easier for people that are cultural creatives to make it. There are more opportunities for them to, to make a living. And it reminded me, I've lived in two big cities in my life. I've lived in San Francisco and in Barcelona. And one of the things that attracted me the most about both of those places is busking in the underground. Eric: Oh Mark: the, the caliber of musical performance that you can experience. Just at random, you know, by stepping off of a train and suddenly finding yourself surrounded by it is it's like this, this spontaneous moment of, you know, truly religious kind of joy to me. And it's, it's one of the things that leaps immediately to mind to me, when I think about my fondness for those cities, right. Eric: Yeah. I mean, I, I think, and maybe Joh can speak to this too. I mean, the you know, thinking of those of those spaces where you can go and, and, and hear music and often the, the cultural thing is, is mixtures of cultures too, like in San Francisco or Chicago or New York. I mean, I can, you know, there are all these little I think, was it, Joh, did you mention Centia, did somebody mention that somebody mentioned that, but you know, there are all these, there are all these, you know, Afro-Caribbean cultures that have come into New York city and you could find all these little things, like all over the streets. You know, and they have some, you know, Afro-Caribbean significance and there they are. Right. And so you already find lots of, you know, there are lots of alternatives to a dominant, this sort of dominant Christian narrative. There are lots of alternatives already in these urban spaces, right. That come from from other other sources. Joh: I was actually also thinking about the, the mixture of different cultures. When thinking about some of the places that I like to visit there, there are a couple of neighborhoods in downtown Manhattan that I like to just I'm drawn to them. And I just like to walk around in and think about. The history and evolution of culture in those neighborhoods, like the history of music, of counterculture, of the different immigrant communities that settled there over time and everywhere you look, you can see little remnants of all this history from like a German inscription in the brick facade of a building or a plaque telling you that Charlie Parker lived in that building a 24-hour Ukrainian diner founded by refugees in the sixties that like still you know, still you can't, you it's always a weight. So there's that, there's that kind of magic too. And then I think just walkable urbanism in general, like increases the likelihood that you'll have chance encounters with not just different cultures, but like different kinds of people who are living different lives from you. Like. There's a community of local businesses and neighbors, and then the city workers, and it's all happening all in the same space. Like there's no alleyways in New York city. There's like two in the whole city. And so all that stuff is, and activity is just running up against itself and like keeping the environment running and thriving and kind of with this magical energy all the time. Mark: Yeah. And, and when you think about that, when you think about all those different cultures and different sort of value systems and so forth, all kind of coming together and finding a way to coexist, then it's no surprise that it's the cities that are the blue parts of the United States, right? It's like in the cities, people have figured out how to get along, cuz they have to, there's no choice about it, Joh: Yeah. And to coexist peacefully. Mark: And eventually to thrive. I mean, not, not just to coexist, but I to actually have melding of cultures and you know, new and interesting combinations of stuff like jazz, for example in new Orleans and New York and Chicago. Anyway, I, I don't know where I was going with that, but it, it occurs to me that the, the values that we associate with paganism, right? The inclusiveness, the tolerance, the the appreciation for beauty and culture and diversity and all those things, they really thrive more in the cities than they do in the, in the rural areas, which we think of as more natural, right. Eric: Yeah. I mean, that's a weird, you know, you find that kind of, to me, very, almost paradoxical or contradictory view in a lot of paganism, which is like, oh, the rural environment is the pagan environment. And you're like, no, the rural environment is filled with fundamentalists, man. Mark: Well, not entirely, not, not Yucca. Eric: nah, well, I mean sure, but, but still it's it's yeah, I mean, if you have a sort of polycentric culture where you've got lots of different cultures and lots of different religious ideas and lots of TISM lots of mixing of different religious ideas and you've got, you know, intelligent raccoons and, and you know, sparrows and yeah. Racoons have little hands, you know, they're learning to work stuff. They're gonna, that's what we're that's what's gonna take over after we're gone. You know, so, so I think that that's already seeing the multiplicity. I, I think of paganism often in terms of multiplicity, instead of, you know, unity, it's like, yeah, there are, there are many perfections and many ways to bring those together and, and integrate them into a system without, you know, reducing 'em to a, to like everybody has to act the same, you know? And I do think so. I think in, in that sense mark, what you said yeah. About cities having that, all those combinations right. Are really good. Really good. I don't think we're quite there yet in trying to figure out what, you know, the sort of next culture is gonna be, but won't happen in my lifetime, but I, I hope it will happen. So. Yucca: One of the things to kind of shift a little bit that, or some qualities that are usually not associated with urban environments that sometimes are, are highly valued in certain pagan circles are things like solitude and stillness and quietness. And those are things that I'm curious. Do you feel like. It is a fair assessment. That that's not something that really happens in urban environments. And also, is that something important in your practice? If it is, how is that something that is a pagan you, you search out or cultivate in your life? Joh: This made me think of something really specific. So it's actually, I feel like one thing that happens here is there's so much stimuli going on all the time. That it's actually, for me, at least fairly easy to, to, to be find myself in solitude. I, I live alone and You know, during the pandemic, especially, I didn't see anybody. And it was, it was very quiet. Actually, if you, you know, if you live in a more busy part of the city and you have an apartment facing the back of the building, that's like a sign that it's gonna be quiet. It actually can get really quiet here, surprisingly. But one thing that I don't know, I think this happened in multiple places around the world, in the beginning of the pandemic, but this, this thing started happening here where at 7:00 PM every day, everyone would leave their apartment and go outside and start clapping for the healthcare workers and essential workers who were actually having to still leave their apartments and help the city run. And this happened for months and months, every day at 7:00 PM, everyone would go outside and start clapping and, and it really helped, I think with the. Precarious kind of mental health situation that we were all finding ourselves in because we were trapped in these tiny boxes for so long, like scared of going outside because of the density and everything. And it helped us feel kind of alone together in a way. So that, that goes veers a little bit off of what you were asking, but I think it's actually not that it's pretty easy to find that piece and that, that that quiet and solitude if you if you try, like, not during a global pandemic, but but yeah, that just my mind kind of went there when you asked that. Eric: I think that was, that was a, a great place to go. I mean, I remember that we didn't go outside, but we leaned out our windows and banged on pots and pans, you know? And that's that was kind of a collective ritual. Mark: Yeah. Eric: I mean, it kind of, I mean, it was a collective ritual and I think, you know, I, I wonder about some of that solitude or something. I mean, certainly in, in lots of urban areas, there's a lot more, I think maybe I'm maybe I'm wrong here, but you know, a lot of collective action, there's a lot of political awareness political activity. And maybe that solitude, isn't quite what people are wanting. Right. Because it's not like I'm gonna go into myself and, and I'm gonna go, I mean, cities face outward, right. I mean, and that energy gets radiated outward. And I, I probably, if I had to think of my most well, you know, the two very pagan moments in New York city, both were musical. One was when I heard the band high long in New York, which was. You know, almost surreal in the, in the, the juxtaposition of this, this high, long shamanistic, you know, whatever they're trying to bring up. And it's in, it's in a theater in Manhattan and there are thousands of us there and we're all chanting and clapping and dancing and stuff like that. But probably even, even a little more, you know, pagan than high, long was like one time when I went to a Patty Smith concert in Manhattan. And that was just an, you know, an, I don't like to use this word, but that was intense. You know? I mean, that was something that was, I've been to a bunches of concerts and that was, you know, everyone just collectively this was, I think the 50th anniversary of her horses album and that's what they played. Mark: Oh, Eric: Right. And everyone knew all the words of course, and everyone was simply. Well, like in this unison and that's already you know, Patty Smith's already like, what space is she in with with these kinds of cultural things? You know? So I, I think there's a lot of opportunities for those kinds of collective mu I mean, music is one, art is one political, you know, political gatherings are be they protests or just activist gatherings. Mark: Dancing thing. Eric: Dancing. Yeah. All those kinds of activities really happen in, in cities. So I wouldn't go with the no, I mean, yeah, like, I mean, Joh was right. You can be solitary in the city if you want to. I mean, it's probably more solitary there than anywhere else. Right. Because it's certainly in New York because you know, if you're not engaged, like nobody's gonna talk to you. Mark: Yeah. Eric: Right. I mean, they're gonna leave you alone. And but I, I do think that there is an enormous amount of col I mean, that's the point of a city it's collective activity. Right. You know, I lived on a farm. I know what I know what rural isolation is. Like I, you know, I don't wanna do that ever, ever again, so yeah, I dunno if that answers that, but there you go. Mark: You know, it occurs to me when you talk about that. When I was, when I was in late high school and, and into my first couple of years of college, I was really into punk rock. And of course I was living, you know, very close to San Francisco and there was a huge punk rock scene there at the Maha gardens and some other places. And so I saw a ton of shows and one of the things that always struck me was these bands never come 60 miles north to where I live. They, they don't leave an urban environment. Right. Because punk lives in the cities and and many of those concerts were truly ecstatic experiences. Eric: Right. Mark: I, I mean, the mosh pit was just this glorious experience of mutual trust, where we knew we weren't going to hurt one another, but we were going to fling one another around. My partner NAEA tells a story about being in a pit in Philadelphia where somebody lost a contact lens and the entire pit sort of went who to make a space so that they could find their contact lens. And they actually did find their contact lens. So, you know, it very, I mean, there's a, there's a very abrasive kind of quality to the punk aesthetic, but really people who cared about one another and, you know, were, were part of something. And that was very much an urban experience. Yucca: Hmm. Eric: Right, right. I mean, I think you, can you get that kind of you get those kinds of energies and a lot of that so far is kind of aesthetic, right? Music, art, dancing, things like architecture, you know? And, and it'll be interesting to see, you know, people translating that more. You know, that's why, I mean, I think for instance, sort of the pagan music is really interesting and the ways that that can go. And different kinds of artistic expressions. And one of the things we didn't really talk about, which I think of as kind of pagan is sort of the, the visionary community, right? The transformational festivals and, and, you know, visionary art and that stuff, which to, to my mind, is in entirely a pagan culture, a pagan subculture. And that's, that's there too. Right? A lot of that is in urban areas. Also in New York city, there was an San Francisco too, I believe, but they're a big, you know, I think of stoicism as, as a pagan movement, contemporary stoicism, and there's an enormous enormously rich stoic groups in in New York. San Francisco comes to mind and a few, there are a few other cities that have, but yeah, San Francisco certainly has all this transformative tech stuff. Mark: And the, the whole burning man phenomenon, which is really interesting when you think about it. Because a lot of the people who go to burning, man, don't come from urban centers, but they have to build a city Eric: right. Mark: in order to have. The kind of crucible of creativity that they want. And burning man is a very pagan experience in, in at least the one time I was there. It definitely was not necessarily in a worshipful kind of way, but in a, in a cultural way, the, the kind of mutuality and celebration and expressiveness and creativity that you have in those kinds of environments are they remind me of the pagan community. And of course there's a lot of people there who are pagans. Eric: Oh yeah. Yucca: A lot of rituals. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Eric: Yeah, that's gotta be like a paradigm case of how to do religion differently than it was done before. Right. And yeah, I mean, I teach a lot about burning man and you know, I always say to my students, I'm like, well, what do you think a new religion would look like? It's not gonna look like the old ones, you know? And you find, I mean, there's a lot of that around, I mean, that's, that's obviously closely connected with San Francisco, but there is a lot of that around not just burning man, but there's a, there's lots of places around New York city that are filled with that kind of stuff. I mean, yeah. I'm thinking in particular of like Alex Gray's chapel of sacred mirrors, Mark: mm-hmm Eric: which, which used to be in Manhattan, Joh, did you ever see that? Joh: No, I didn't. Unfortunately. Eric: It used to be in Manhattan. And now it's moved up the river into the Hudson valley and COVID kind of shut it down, but that guy used to have like weekly I'll just say raves at his place. Right. Wa in Weiner's falls check an hour north of the city. So, so that stuff is all around. Right. And it will be interesting to see if it gets more, you know, as things go on, if it gets, I mean, maybe it will just remain at a kind of level where it's people doing aesthetic things. Right. And they'll come together in these kind of groups and maybe it'll get more organized. I don't know. Mark: Hmm. Eric: Yeah, go to go to, Wappinger go to the chapel. I can't wait till the chapel sacred mirrors opens up again. I went with my, my friend, my friend of mine, Pete, and there was something about, I don't know what, you know, iowaska or something. And Pete looked at me and said, I didn't think this guy would be into drugs if you know, Alex Mark: Alex Gray. Really? Eric: yeah. It's like, Mark: the man who envisions gigantic halos of color all around the human form. Eric: you know, like 47 eyeballs, you know, like yeah, right. A little irony. But you know, that's, that's you know, it's all around and you know, maybe people don't conceive of it as pagan in a unified way, but maybe they should. Right. So we'll, we'll see where that goes. Mark: And I think, you know, the other part of it is that people are looking for rituals for, for shared communal experiences. Some of which we've just been talking about, but even people that are doing rituals in a more formally pagan kind of way, they have a much easier time finding others of like mind in a city than they do in an area like mine. For example, even though I'm close to San Francisco and there's a pretty large population of pagans here there's exactly one atheopagan other than me living in my county to my knowledge. Oh, that's not true four, there, there there's four of us, including me. And that's a, you know, there's half a million people living in my county, so yeah. Cities become this focus of such energy and, and collaboration. Eric: Yeah, I think they might. I mean, I, I, you know, there's probably like, you know, 7 million atheopagan in, in New York city. They just don't call themselves that. Mark: Huh? Eric: Right. And I think that's an inter I don't know if that's quite true, but it's, I think an interesting point, right? That you have people that are maybe nominally secular, but yet they do all these kinds of things. Right. And they don't I mean, I make contact with this through my students. Right. Who don't identify as, you know, pagan or atheists, but yet they're doing all sorts of they, you know, if you ask them, do they believe in God? No, but they don't identify as atheists. It's just, they just, they just don't do that stuff, but then they do all kinds of other things. Right. And you know, they, they do all sorts of, I mean, witchcraft was a kind of popular thing. I don't know if it still is, but they do things right. And they have all sorts of little rituals. Some of which are, are, come from family, traditions, others, you know, they do strange things with crystals, with their cell phones. Right. Those kinds of things could easily become more you know, a little deeper and a little more widespread where people start to think organically like, oh, what? And sometimes they might just not say, no, I'm not doing anything religious because they think of religion as Christianity and maybe they're right. And maybe that's right. And so I do find it an interesting point. That you say like, yeah, there might be a lot of atheopagan around you. They just don't call themselves that, Mark: right. Eric: you know, and they don't, you know, I mean, I know Masimo is a big leader of the stoic community and we just have this debate about whether or not he was a pagan. He'd be like, no, cuz that's like star Hawk. And I was like, no, dude, you're reviving, you're reviving an ancient pagan way of life, which is, oh, by the way, your own family history by your own admission, you know? And he's kind of like, like, guess that's true, you know? But he wouldn't call himself a pagan. Right. But he's doing the thing. So I, I do. And all those people out in San Francisco who do like the transformative text stuff and. A lot of the kind of consciousness hacking and things that goes into like some Americanized forms of Buddhism and things like that. That's, you know, there just might not be a single word for it yet. Mark: Sure sure. And all the, all the tech millionaires going to south America for iowaska ceremonies, you know, I mean, these, these are not the, the men who founded IBM in the 1950s and all wore an identical blue suit with a white shirt and tie. You know, this is, this is a very, very different culture that we've got now. Eric: Yeah. I think so. Was there, Joh, were you gonna say it, that it looked like you were gonna say a thing. Joh: The thing you were the thing you said about, you know, there, there might be 7 million Athens here, but they don't call it that. I just keep thinking about that because there's so many parts about like the set of values and the just human universal human needs, or like seeking for community for for ritual. The I've, I've seen acts of service, like in the past couple of years, like just becoming more community based here, like mutual aid, community fridges things like that. And, and what you were describing, like not, not your IBM founder, you know, people kind of looking for more right. Trying to. To look for more meaning it's all these little pieces kind of just existing at the same time, but not being named in any way. Eric: Yeah, or people aren't quite sure. That's why I think that, you know, building a cultural infrastructure, you know, some way to fit things together that says, oh, you guys are all have a lot in common. Right. I don't Joh, maybe, you know, maybe you're tapped into the secret networks. I mean, I don't know, like allegedly there's a zillion you know, iowaska rituals, like all the time in New York or there were before the pandemic. I don't know what the Panda, I mean, the pandemic transformed so much. There are big psychedelic conferences in New York, right? The the horizons which I've gone to. And but I, I don't know if this stuff is all, is all, you know, secret or, or not. Mark: Well, it seems as though we're at a time where culture and particularly the monopoly of Christianity has really shattered. And of course it's rebelling right now and trying to lock down everything it possibly can, as it loses its grip on the population. But there are all these fragments of things that are kind of floating around. It's like the accretion disc around a star, you know, Those things are going to, to glom onto one another and get bigger and bigger. And some of them will just spin off into space and be their own thing or dissolve. But I feel like nontheistic paganism is a kind of an organizing principle that a lot of these things can fit under because it provides meaning it provides pleasurable activities that people find joyful, provides opportunities for people to be expressive and to create family in whatever form that is meaningful and helpful to them. So it's, it's kind of an exciting time and I, I agree with you, Eric. We're not gonna see the outcome in our lifetimes. I don't think, but this, I think we're at a really pivotal time in this moment. And so working to be a culture creator is a really exciting thing. Eric: Yeah, I think that's true. And I, I mean, sure. I mean, I think that you know, and I don't know what to make of this as a, you know, an American who's growing older, but yeah, the, the sort of angry Christian nationalists trying to lock down what they can. And I don't know what it's like to live in, you know, Tennessee or Georgia or Indiana. I lived in the Northeast and, you know, Pennsylvania's an interesting case too, but I mean, you know, New York and north and east, it's like, Christianity's gone. Mark: Yeah. Eric: It's like, it's not here anymore. And I don't know if California or the west coast is that way. Certainly you have pockets here and there, but what a strange, yeah, that's just strange, Mark: After 2000 years of complete hegemony, right? Eric: Well, right. And you know, how are people living their lives around that? I mean, one of the things I like to do is catalog the existence of stone circles in the United States, you know? And like they're all over the place. I just found one like three miles from where I am now, Mark: Wow. Eric: know? I mean, and so what are people doing? Like what, Mark: It's a lot of work to build a stone circle. They must be doing something. Yucca: Is this is this in a park. Eric: No, this is on private land, up in the Hudson valley, you know, and I, and I just, just learned about it and you know, so I, I, I think we're all gonna, my prediction is we're everybody's gonna smoke weed and look at birds that's gonna be the, that's gonna be the thing, you know, bird. Now he's a bird, you know, now that now that weed is legal, but yeah. Where's this gonna go, Joh? You're young. It's up to you. Mark: Yucca is young Eric: Yucca is young too. That's right. You guys are young. Not, not is old, old foggy like us. Mark: Yeah. Eric: So what are you gonna do? I telescopes you got it all there. Yucca: Oh, yeah, I'm a science teacher. that's this is my classroom back here. Yeah. Eric: Oh, all right. Mark: Well, this has been an incredible conversation and I know we could go on for hours. But I think it's probably a good point for us to kind of draw down for this episode. And I would imagine we're gonna get a lot of really positive response from this episode. And we may ask to have you back to talk more about these things, cuz it's, it's really been just wonderful and super interesting talking with both of you. Yucca: Thank you for joining us so much to think about. Eric: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having Joh: Yeah, thank you so much. Us on, this was super fun to, to reflect on and think about, and talk about in this group. So thank you. Mark: You're very welcome. And of course we welcome feedback and questions from our listeners. The email address is the wonder podcast, QS, gmail.com. That's the wonder podcast, QS, gmail.com. So we hope to hear from you have a great week, everybody, and we'll be back next week.
It's that time of the year, so we're gonna get super patriotic for this installment of the Solo Show Saga. I talk about the founding fathers getting drunk before signing the Declaration of Independence and break down which one is my favorite. Jizzlane Maxwell recently got sentenced to 20 years in prison while R. Kelly got 30 years….oh Jizzlane's client list also hasn't been released. The system works! Elon Musk met with Pope, their turning CERN back on July 5th, and I watch possibly the wildest PSA I've ever seen. If you enjoyed the show, please Like & Subscribe to our channel and share the links. This show can be found @hiddeninplainsightradio on Instagram and @thehiddenpod on Twitter. iTunes Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-in-plain-sight/id1488538144?i=1000459997594 Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5zsntvl63Do7m9gNTD8Za2?si=MczvbuMlRuCbmWChclVUZA YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNRejWJs0hn8pefj5FiE7ZQ If you want to support the show, check out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiddeninplainsightpod --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hiddeninplainsightradio/message
Pete sits down after a show with former booze enthusiast, Patrick Madison, and wrangler of all things Autism, G.W. Nell to talk comedy, drugs, hoarding, and much more. Super fun episode with a couple talented comics. Patrick's IG: @patrickmadisonjokesG.W. Nell's IG: @g.w.nellIG & Twitter: @petemorriscom In affiliation w/ @protocholbeverageYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaSnHvPkgige_GX2C4YedeQtik tok: @wellseepodEmail us something mean: wellseepod@gmail.comIntro Song:Easy Rider by: Action Bronson, Arian Asllani, Justin Nealis, Mahzhar Alanson, Zafer HakansoyAlbum: Mr. Wonderful
In this episode of The Long Run Show, we are going to be talking about energy , how effective the sanctions will be on Russia in the long run. Hosted By:Austin WillsonMichael O'ConnorTranscript:welcome back to another episode of the long run show. This is Austin Wilson. I'm here with my cohost. Michael O'Connor. And today we are going to be talking about energy very timely subject at the, as we're recording this, there's the whole Russia, Ukraine, conflict, war invasion, aggression, whatever you want to label it happening over in Europe and obviously with Russia being one of the top producers of natural gas and.In the global economic system we thought this would be a very timely subject. We've been wanting to talk about energy for a while though. Mike and. This is just there's a lot going on. There's talks of sanctions being thrown around. And how is that going to impact European countries in the U S and Western countries. So China's role in all that is, there's a lot of moving parts here and some interesting solutions as well, maybe. We don't know all of those. But we'll just talk through that and try to think through what this means for oil stocks or companies and anything related to oil, which has everything.So it's true. That's a good way to put it. And like you said, we've been talking about this for a while. We've hinted at we've definitely run into your energy discussions, especially in our ESG one the whole. Green energy thing. And then all that, there's a lot of been a lot of different opinions and different kinds of paths that different companies and especially national governments have taken. We've seen countries in the last decade, really abandoned nuclear war. I don't know. I pretty severely disagree with it's clean, enormous amount of energy. You're not necessarily reliant on other countries to supply the fuel. Maybe you don't have uranium mines, but you usually can usually pretty dependably get uranium as a national government.So it's that's a whole thing. I'm a big nuclear guy. I think I've heard that you are as well. So we might, this would be maybe one where we're not really adversaries at all. We're just agreeing and on our soap box, but. Hey, what's a podcast for if not a soapbox. Exactly.So it's been interesting though to watch okay. We've seen different, like energy has driven. Or it's driven the us going into the middle east and mulling around, over there doing different things. And so it drives a lot of foreign policy but also I think that the less more.Commodity gas. As far as energy goes, that's very important for heating homes and businesses, and a lot of different things. Obviously oil touches everything. Just about everything you've touched during the day has something to do with oil because of plastic and parts and.Yeah, literally everything. My, my phone case here is got oil in it. The cord that's connecting my headphones to my laptop's got oil in it, essentially. It's in everything, but natural gas is also a huge factor as well, especially if we're talking Europe, they get a lot of their natural gas, like Poland to Germany, get a lot of natural gas from Russia.And what is this whole conflict due to those supplies? It's the middle of winter, so you're going to need to heat your home, whether you're in Southern Europe or Northern Europe and natural gas is is one of the things it's not a lot of people with. At least in Europe that I know of maybe some more in, in the Nordic countries with their interesting cozy hygienic, he, I forgot how to pronounce it quickly or something like that.Yeah. Going to pronounce that, but a nice cozy wood burning furnace. Yeah, exactly. So I think of the two almost at this point, as far as energy goes, Natural gas is something that hasn't been explored as much. Now I know that doesn't drive as many economic outputs, but it is definitely from the consumer, like direct directly of consumer impact. That is definitely a factor that I think hasn't been talked a lot. What are your thoughts there on the natural. End of things. That's an interesting point because we definitely live in a very oily world. We're very, everything's viscous and wonky but that's a good point. I In order to so many, I'm a big.Cooking guy. I like gas more than electric stove top. I'm a big gas ranger fan. I love my natural gas Austin. I'll tell you what. And so the heat a house or to cook a steak like that is such a huge those are two very basic survival necessities heat. You got to stay warm to stay alive.You got to eat to stay alive. Now you could just eat refrigerated foods instead of cooking steaks. But what's life that a good steak net here. And again, maybe I'm vegetarian listeners but Hey you could roast some nice broccoli or something with that, but here's the thing.Even if you're roasting some nice broccoli or eating raw refrigerated foods, your refrigerator uses natural gas. That's a problem and it might be heating your home. So I think it's one of those things where people definitely focus on oil for good reason, but natural gas is also a somewhat of a large resource that I don't think it's enough, quite enough.And it's w it's winter in the Northern hemisphere right now, too. It's smack dab in the worst, my least favorite part of winter, when Christmas is long gone, it's just cold and you just freeze your nose and you're just sad and just waiting for spring. So this is where it's time for no gas. Exactly.Exactly. This is about the worst time to have a cold house. So it'll be thing to see what's done as far as sanctions. I know. This is a very evolving situation and I'm sure by the time you might be listening to it, it's going to be different than what we you time. But just a month ago in January, nobody would have been thinking that there was going to be any impact on oil or gas or sanctions in that realm.And even at the beginning of the invasion, Eh, people were okay. There's going to be sanctions, but commodity markets are going to be. We're not going to see sanctions on oil or gas. That's a bridge too far for Europe, but it looks like the European union is trying to support Ukraine and however they can.And so it seems like that options on the table and may by the time you listen to this, maybe a thing there might be sanctions out by that point. So what is that what does that do here in the us? I think we're very far shielded from. 8% of our oil imports actually come, we get a lot from Canada.Like over half of our imports come from Canada and we produce enough oil to be self-sufficient. Now we still important export oil for various reasons. In the U S I don't think we'll be quite as hit by that as they will in Europe. But you're, what are your kind of thoughts on that? As far as what's the. As we look at Europe, having trouble with not being able to get enough natural gas or oil coming through their pipelines. Yeah. It'll be really interesting because we've seen a few days ago, Germany stopped the the Nord stream to a big pipeline. And that's interesting that the. I think the invasion was not what a lot of people expecting.Like you say you're expecting a lower impact on commodities markets, lower impact on economic situation worldwide, less impact. Russia, because I think a lot of people thought it was going to be just a replay of 2014. They go in, they just make a lot of weird statements like, oh we're just protecting our, I said this is insane.I Munitions and rockets on civilian buildings and stuff. It gets, it's very different. This is a kind of a war of attrition style invasion. And which is just so sad to see and so scary to see. And I think the interesting thing is. It's really galvanized the European union to say, Hey, you know what?We're not afraid to lose out on some natural gas. We're not afraid to lose out on oil if it means having the safety of our citizens and of our neighboring countries. So I think the interesting thing is it's probably going to hurt the sanctions and the actions that are taking place are, I'm sure it's gonna.Pretty much every country in Europe's and every citizens pocketbook, but I think it's the right call. And I think that in the long run, as we always talk about I think that it will push more energy independence on both the constituents of the EU and the EU as a whole. I think that you will probably be strengthened as a diplomatic entity and they're going to have to say, okay, let's maybe let's figure out.Some sort of energy sharing program where member states are able to frequent. By cell transmit energy. Maybe I personally, I don't know if this already exists, but I would imagine if it doesn't that this will probably happen where you'll see. I would imagine and hope that a bunch of nuclear energy generation being built France has I think the highest penetration, highest amount of. Energy is nuclear of any country in the world, and I'm sure they have the the companies, the technicians the expertise to be able to rapidly scale that in the EU. So I think. A lot of collaborative action being taken, which I think is really interesting because at the end of the day, in the short term, it is going to Jack prices up.It is going to hurt the pocket books of likely every European citizen. But what Putin's done is essentially galvanize all of your up against him and against his imports and his products. And really become a pariah that you know, is at the end of the day, I think simply going to integrate.Collaboration and cooperation, especially on energy, which was this Trump card. Trump Putin ironic a Trump card that was holding over Europe. And now it's all right there, Take it is what it seems like. Yeah. It's interesting because, and we've spoken about this a little bit. How we're we have grown up in, in the last 70 years has been some of the most peaceful times in the entire world and we've grown this interconnected global economy and of course that leads to.Typically more peace. There's always people taking advantage of it, for sure, but there's typically more peace if everyone's relying on everyone else for resources and trade and imports and exports, but then The winners and losers in all of this, right? You have smaller European countries that are just going to totally pay the price for being dependent on Russia and gas and oil in the short term.Now, hopefully like you're saying, I really hope that the European countries can figure out a way to satisfy their need for energy in them in a more efficient manner. But my it's interesting because I think energy independence is probably has been up to this point. I think this is a great global example, but it has been an underrated kind of national security protection that most countries have not thought about before. But I think they're going to think about a lot harder in the future and I wonder what that does for. This is not a political podcast, but I don't know what that does for relationships between countries, because economics obviously has played a huge role in the piece we've seen in the world over the last seven years. And I don't think that is at all by mistake. I don't think that's at all by coincidence. That's clearly been the case, but then you. It's going to hurt European countries to not have this natural gas and oil. And also in the short term, Russia is creating its own rift with everyone else.Besides some countries, China, North Korea Iran, some of their allies and friends national friends. Russia's kind of creating this rift for itself over the long run. If we want to get back to a more peaceful world, how does it look? And obviously this is not to like, try to excuse what Russia is doing right now, because it's absolutely abhorrent.But what does that look like? If we get past all this and hopefully no war like global war breaks out, it looks like. Country back into the fold after you've gained energy independence, right? Because Russia, some people have said Russia is just a gas station that happens to have a country connected. They're there Saudi Arabia that they're very heavily dependent on oil. What is, what are the long-term impacts of this from a, both an. Economic standpoint and also a peace standpoint just because the, those ties, those global ties and interdependencies really disincentivize people, countries, not people but countries and their leaders, whether rational or not to go to war. If you need something from another country, probably not gonna attack it. You're probably gonna find a better way to get whatever you're trying to get from it. And so I think energy independence is a good national security kind of strategy, but at the same point, how do you still. Or balance that with being somewhat dependent to be peaceful, it seems to me account everybody just being good pers clearly.So there has to be some incentive, usually monetary to, to promote that. And here's the thing that has been blowing my mind is imagine 60, 70 years ago, right after world war II, Europe is rebuilding. Asia's rebuilding everything who would have thought that Germany and Japan would be our two.Primary economic and diplomatic allies in this kind of a situation and the buffers to Russia, which was the ally in world war II. It's it's pretty crazy how in which I think that gives hope that in the long run. Over decades, whole countries can really be brought back into the global sphere. Germany is now a leader in European, the European union as a pretty much the diplomatic center of Europe, I would say. And Japan is absolutely economic powerhouse. Both countries have seen. Incredible regrowth and rebirth. And there's no reason why, you know, after all this, even in a worst case scenario, Russia, wouldn't be able to come back and I'm sure that the global community would be happy to receive it. Barring some sort of truly horrific apocalyptic event, I think in the long run countries. Are extremely resilient, similar to a person getting a cold or something they can knock you out for a few days. But I think that at the end of the day, the people of of a country. Always attempt to, to come back towards the community. The interesting thing in this situation is that just the amount of relatives across so that Ukrainian and Russian citizens are very close in terms of bloodlines and in terms of cultural heritage it's such an interesting situation to see, and it's sad to see such close nations fighting. And such aggression from Russia. Can you imagine if we just invaded Canada? It's wild. It's wild to think about. But I think it's also been a wake up call for the world and that wars do happen and it's important to be vigilant and be focused on the long run and say, okay, just because things are good right now.It doesn't mean things can go crazy things mean things can't go crazy. And a few days think about even just a week or two weeks ago, it seemed like it was all just talk on, oh it's probably just positioning whatever and that it's real.So I think it's a good reminder. But in terms of back in terms of energy I think, like you said going to a. Looking at energy as a national security interest and not to not to go too much on the Ukrainian situation right now is is powerful. Being able to provide energy to your citizens is.Crucial in this day and age with the amount of infrastructure that relies on it. Refrigerator, washing, machine heating, we're talking natural gas heating. You're getting your house, cooking your food. That's about as basic of a national security interest as it can get almost. Yeah. It's it's amazing when you put it that way. It's like a. Pretty much all of the 21st century gins that we appreciate and love are our washers are just wash it. Here are our refrigerator, our clothes drying and washing machines. Those are all rely on energy. And so if you don't have that, you're really launching yourself back hundreds of years. If you can't provide energy, clearly a big issue. So let's dive into energy specifically, cause it's the broad term, right? Involves oil Metrocast, anything otherwise known as turbines. Sorry. The you can tell I'm really big on turbines anyways. Wind solar might be a thing. Nuclear, you mentioned earlier, you really there's coal, which pretty much everyone agrees is one of the worst. So there's hydro hydroelectric power. There's a lot of different ways to create energy. We don't have a lot of good ways to store energy. That's one of our biggest issues. Humanity a thing. We don't really have a good battery yet to necessarily store some less reliable forms of energy. But what far as the landscape that I just laid out? A lot of people break it down into like renewables and fossil fuels. That's the normal terminology. Is there a better way to approach that?Because I feel I feel like that's not always helpful to just break it down to, oh, this is renewables and green and these are fossil fuels and black and dirty. And. It seems, it must be a better way to, to look at this because from an innovation standpoint, usually you gotta come in and at a problem from a different angle and approach it in a new way.And so I like what you were saying about nuclear. I, for one have heard very convincing arguments on its benefits. And on its long run capabilities, obviously we've seen stuff like Chernobyl and what happened, I believe. Japan or it might've been in China with the tsunami hit a large nuclear reactor Japan.Okay. Got it. Obviously we've seen those disasters, but it seems the way nuclear has evolved and the point that it's at now this is a beautiful case. Study run more than 70% of their country's electric grid on nuclear energy. And they're in for the long haul. Clearly they built up a lot of facilities for it. And so not just nuclear, but hydro electric power. That's another huge resource that's untapped, especially here in the United States. Actually I talked with a company that was making a process to allow fish, to go past dams so that they could hydro and more dams and basically not impact the natural environment around the dam and have free flow.Wildlife, but also have electric power being produced there and balancing both sides of it. So what are your kind of off the wall, thoughts on energy? Like how do you think about it differently? Because I don't really like being forced in those two boxes. Okay. Green or fossil fuels.That's the only two. I think it's very unhelpful when it, when we try and look at this problem, I actually really, I really appreciate that because I think. That's pretty spot on because if you just, if you're just categorizing all energy in terms of does it emit fossil fuels or not, or does it emit, does it use fossil fuels and emit some sort of side effects into the environment? It's almost going back to our ESG episode of that's a certain methodology. I think that it doesn't describe what's actually going on at a deeper level. It's a methodology to ease. Look at the broad scope of, okay. These things and it hearkens to. To design thinking and specifically called a one input system.So let's say your car on a good day when your car is not breaking down, it's a one input system. So you just input gasoline and it works as a system is at least in terms of your psychological perception of it. Sure. You got washer fluid, you got oil, all those things, but in terms of your psychological perception, it's a one input system which makes it very easy for your brain to get.Categorize it very well. And when it's working well, you have to use very little psychological energy to keep track of your car. Even better for a, something like a Tesla or an electric car where really pretty much is a single input system, except for windshield washer fluid. I think it's the only fluid in a Tesla. So in something like that, it's like a pretty much a true single input system. You put electricity and maybe you've got to worry about the washer fluid every three, four months or something like that. But it's really not that big of a deal. And I think that there's a tendency for both in terms of regulation on the governmental level, down to the consumer level to think of, to try and categorize.Energy forms in a box and think of them as a single output system, almost okay. Wind and solar that doesn't put anything out. So that's a good, that's putting out like goodness into the environment. That's a net. Good. And then if you like, ah, coal, natural gas, that's a net bad.That's putting bad things into the environment. And then if you see pictures of nuclear, Power plants. Whoa, what's the, all that like crazy smoke coming up. It's just water vapor. It's literally just water vapor, which always blows my mind. How many people still are like looking at crazy stuff coming out of the nuclear plant over there.Oh. And you're like, yeah, look at the crazy stuff coming out of your bathroom door. When you're taking a hot shower, it's also called water paper. But your your other housemates, don't worry about that. Cause it's water vapor. Exactly. Exactly Steve, you can you can, you don't have to worry about it.I don't know who Steve is, but maybe he's our escape go to the show. But anyway, there's a human tendency to try and simplify these things into kind of single methodologies. And I think that the idea of the black and white of this is good for the environment, quote, unquote, or bad for the environment.Quote unquote it's it's. At a ground level. You can't there's so much of a difference in nuance in really every single method, because solar it's okay, you only have it half the time. And that's, if you're lucky, if there's no clouds all sorts of stuff, so sure. If you, and they're expensive to build so sure.If you can get them up, you can get the sun going. That's great. Wind is tough. It's also intermittent. So that whole battery problem is very prevalent. And yeah, with like cold yeah, that's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff coming out of there and there's more and more, they're more and more companies coming out with new and innovative ways to capture or even turn some of those emissions into good things.But at the end of the day, it's still a process, but I think the part of the danger is. Saying that okay. We need to just shut down all of that stuff like that. That's just not going to work. And that's why I'm a big personal advocate for nuclear because that's nuclear is one of the few. Methods where it's okay. We have both the thing needed. We have tons of uranium. We have the capability to use it immediately. It would take, it takes a few years to build an and get a nuclear power plant operational, but it's not like Jesse, just a few years. It's you've read a decades of transitioning to wind and solar.Like you. Pretty realistically, you transitioned to co like net zero energy production for most of the world, if you use nuclear energy and it wouldn't be that difficult within a decade to 15 years, which is mind-boggling. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. To push back and also support your argument. So the output effect, I think people over. W I guess, value or think about they F they overemphasize. So it came out of the plants and underemphasize, the inputs going into some of the, for instance, solar panels or some of the impact that it like wind turbines have directly on bird populations and local environment. Clearly bad outputs for both fossil fuels and both solar and wind.There's obviously outputs that are negative and a negative consequences from hydroelectric. I'd like the company I mentioned earlier, there are some companies looking to solve those issues. I think what's really. Probably the best best course of action. And there's also problems with nuclear too, right?Like what do we do with all of this uranium that we've used up that you can't really use anymore? And now it's radioactive and that's a problem for humans. Where do you store it? Is there enough space to take it out? Like mine it from the earth, use it and then store it safely. The capability for that whole process.That's a whole kind of other question that we get into. Clearly every form of energy has some sort of negative output because we're humans and we're running around doing stuff and we're bouncing and bashing into things and screwing things up. Okay. So energy. It's always a problem.There's always negative outputs. What I think makes the most sense is it. And it's interesting because this conversation always gets very dogmatic and political very quickly. It's oh yes. You're on the left side of the political spectrum. You line up with green energy. If you're on the right side, you just want fossil fuels and then they just go after each other. What's what seems like the better angle to come at it from is okay. We acknowledge that each has problems. Worse than others. Probably what we probably should do is take what we have now, whatever that is whatever's in place and make it less harmful. And then continue to look for motivation on the kind of the solutions based around our current technology and reducing the harm of our current technology while also building.Completely new technology to harness energy from our natural environment. And so whether that's making solar and wind more efficient, whether it's companies like the one I spoke about earlier using solutions for transporting fish across hydroelectric dams. Great. Whether that's emissions companies creating solutions to.Sure. Some of the negatives of oil and natural gas and coal cleaning up the process while looking for better solutions, I think is probably the ultimate answer, but nobody ever wants to say that. Cause that's a bad sound bite that doesn't look good on TV. It doesn't look good on Twitter. But that seems like the best way to go about it. And oddly enough, it seems like the way that would pay off the best. Okay. Because a company, an energy company, who's only focused on one one resource, one way of making energy. It's very risky. That's completely undiversified. So imagine if you had an energy company where you're yes.You're you have some oil exposure, but you also have some nuclear exposure and then, oh, by the way, you have a subsidiary that runs an emissions company that reduces the emissions from both your oil and natural gas section and in the nuclear section. No, by the way, you have some windmills and solar panels to boot, it's tough to beat.It is one of those subjects that will naturally create a tension and there can be contention pretty easily on it. So it's something where energy is a classic, especially in the last 40 even 50 years has been a classic political debate. When I think you're right, I think at the end of the day, it doesn't necessarily have to be, it can be a debate that is ensconced in moderate TISM and the.It's enabled to be both sides can understand what the other side is coming from. I think that it's exactly like you're saying it just takes a cooler heads to prevail. Now there's an interesting point with the energy companies being diversified. It is really expensive to, especially especially nuclear is very expensive to get a nuclear plant up and running.I'm sure you're going to, you're going to make that money back over the course of decades and then some, but it is very carefully. Heavy and with all the subsidies that been going on for wind and solar, there's been a lot of development there, but how long is that sustainable? And is that even a good thing that the government is offering subsidies?Maybe not, maybe better off subsidizing nuclear or geothermal or hydroelectric, who knows? Yeah, there's some interesting there's some interesting. Talk and research and inventions being done on the hydrogen side of trying to create like hydrogen fuel cells to power vehicles or like small theaters. So there's some interesting things that we didn't even mentioned, like geothermal, you mentioned that we haven't even talked about that being a, an option as well, but there's Conversation with someone. Yes. Even when you're talking about Iceland, they run most of their infrastructure on geothermal, because it's basically just the one big volcano over there.So they were lucky enough or lucky enough to live on a keynote. You call them lava land. So the Iceland There you go the Vikings didn't get that one. But that's okay. We won't hold it against them, but it seems like there's a lot of options out there. And I hear what you're saying about the nuclear being expensive and obviously government subsidies planned all of that. But it would seem and maybe we should go consult for some of the big oil boys, but it seems. If they wanted to, they shouldn't have the margin to go off and try and do a nuclear power plant. But I would imagine that, and it's we were just talking energy for some reason. I really don't understand why, but it gets political at least in the U S very quickly.And if I bet since oil has had a bad rap for the last few decades here if they went off and did nuclear, it would be the worst PR move. I'm sure their marketing department who would just be in their faces and do the desk going, no, why are you doing this? So it'd probably be a bad PR move, which is why you see a lot of oil companies. They're throwing money at wind and solar because it looks good, but it might not actually be. While for them, or they might not even be using reports of large oil companies putting up a solar energy, a field, and then they never connect it to anything. They just leave it unplugged, but it's just a PR stunt.So they don't care. This is spill a little oil in the golf and build a solar cell, a couple of solar panels. It's all good. Anyways, it seems like maybe the real Kind of brunt of the energy question is look for more innovation and try to reduce the tribalism or political.Political influencer or issues that arise in that sector. I don't think you're ever going to reduce the influence, but at least try to reduce the politics of it all because when you get down to it we're talking about things that everyone needs, which is why, again, it seems like.Interesting that it gets so divisive so quickly because everybody, I don't care how rich or poor you are. You still need a warm house to sleep in. And that's something that we should all be able to behind. So it seems like it, it just needs to, like you said, cooler heads need to prevail and hopefully we can see some of this coming to a head I've seen.Like with with Germany, we were talking about earlier and versus France Germany has gotten rid of all their nuclear has a lot of nuclear. Like I said, 70% of their grid is from nuclear power. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Yeah. And I think on the international scale the interesting thing is that France is such an interesting, I love that you brought up France again with the nuclear, because the.The one other big input that nuclear requires is vigilance as human vigilance, which is not that easy to have. It's, it could, I'm sure it tires out and nuclear engineers to sit in the reactor room and know, you're constantly watching dials. Maybe it changed a little here and there, but usually nothing's going to happen in 10 seconds where everything's, everything matters.It's the right once in a career. If that hopefully never ending. But maybe it does. It's like that's a really such a unique requirement. And maybe there's definitely been attempts at fusion power becoming realistic cold fusion, maybe as the holy grail of energy. It's interesting.And at the international level yeah, we'll see what happens if Germany kind of changes. Course. I think they're going to have to change course at least some direction whether that's nuclear or otherwise. Considering they're pretty much cutting off a lot from Russia, so it's going to have to be some, something's going to have to pick up the slack there.Yeah. And I think the interesting question when it comes to that is, does this kind of. Increase the innovation that we see in the energy sector, or does this whole situation with just, and I don't just mean Ukraine specifically, but does the whole situation now where it seems that. The ground is shifting partially because of what Russia is doing, but also partially because we've been in this trend towards green energy and I say green, see, I'm using those terms again, but we've been to shift whatever green energy is.Usually it's like solar and wind. Everybody's been trying to towards that, does this accelerate the trend towards solar wind and. Or does this decelerate that trend and then make everyone look differently. And which I think if the latter is done well if that kind of re-evaluation of what energy is, where we get it from, if that's done well, I think that could be a positive thing. I think probably solar and wind have up to, I'm not saying they don't, but It seems like this is a time for reevaluation. Obviously there's a lot more than that we need to focus on is more important. We don't, I want, I don't want to minimize what's happening in Ukraine and use that as just oh, this is the energy game.I'm not trying to say that. But once this is over and the situation is a little more stable, I think there's gonna be a very big reckoning when it comes to the energy sector and how people look at it and move forward from. Yeah, I think that's a good point to bring up because the effects of everything that's going on will not be visible until after so we're not going to be able to really understand exactly what's what the short, mid and even long-term effects are going to be.But speaking of the long run what do you think in terms of everything we've talked about? What do you think are some action steps? Because it's interesting in terms of. Investments. I do personally. I have some portfolio picks that I have and I've been looking at that are long run energy plays, but I think even just from the last, the week, the last week of things that have going on, it might be rebalancing a bit.I don't know. Yeah. Oh, even the, even the big energy companies are rebalancing. BP's divesting from a Russian holding. So is so shell there's some wild stuff happening. If you own those stocks, you're already divesting from some of the political conflict, but what's say is I think and this is my thesis going into it.Almost if you could phrase it as follow the money. So the money right now is in all the fossil fuels that's where it is right now. Now we may, and I use fossil fuels, meaning oil, gas, coal. That's where the money is right now. There is probably going to be a shift from that. It seems like no matter what, there's going to eventually be a shift.I don't think it's going to be a hundred percent or excuse me, 0%. No fossil fuels at all. I don't think that's ever going to necessarily happen, but there's going to be a large shift, but that's where the money is now. I think if the companies that are have the capital. The large oil and gas producers, they're the capital.They're going to buy up the next energy companies coming up just as a protection measure. And so I think at the moment, and this, I may change my opinion on this going forward come back to it five years later, I may change. But I think. Your long run play is probably better served by looking at some of the bigger names in energy and sticking to those rather than trying to choose, pick and choose smaller cap energy companies that say they're doing something interesting.Now, I think. If you are looking at let's say you have a portfolio and you're like, you have a subset that's just dedicated to energy. It would, it might be worth your while to allocate a portion of that energy section to picking some kind of moonshots. But I think what's going to happen is as those companies mature, they're going to get gobbled up by some larger players that have the capital to do for some reason, see the large players actually being the innovators early, but I see them buying up the innovators. I think that's just probably going to be their strategy because they'll see it as either competent. Hopefully they'll keep the innovation going. Hopefully they won't just buy 'em up and shut them down. And if we start to see that, then I might say, okay, But I think to change my thesis on that, but for the moment, I think that's probably the better long run play rather than just trying to focus on. Okay. Who's the big nuclear player. Who's the big solar and wind Claire. Who's doing hydro.I need to find that company. That's what I would be doing just to think through how this is going to play out in this transition phase. And again, as we see with everything happening politically and internationally it seems there's going to be a reckoning of energy somehow that comes out of all of this after the dust settles.So that would be my thought. But what are some of your thoughts on this? This is funny, cause you're going the risky. Innovation centric, small cap play. And I'm the opposite. So know I'm saying own the large caps because they're going to buy, they're going to buy the innovators. That's a thing. I don't know how it would be crazy if you could get in on the small cap ones before they're bought out. But how do you know for sure that's the million dollar question, but for me, yeah. Putting bones on it, I just recently took a position in general electric. I think that their decision to split to break up the conglomerate in the few years down the road is a great idea. The whole list of fundamentals behind that, but essentially G energy will be its own stock as far as I understand if the plan carries forward. And if you just look back at standard oil, you look at John D Rockefeller.Most of his massive fortune at its height was because of the stock value of the separate companies. Over after standard oil was taken apart, all the companies still did very well and did better on their own because they were able to a whole host of things. But I think that the GE breakup is actually really good and will be good for GE because I think GE energy might do exactly what you're saying is that once they're their own thing, they might go grab some really innovative companies, integrate them and have a smaller they're not have be to.The budget, the big general electric methodology and shareholders it's they could be more agile. Maybe they're going to innovate on a host of different things. And I think GE is a great play because they manufacture so many durable goods that go into electrical generation in the U S and across the world, whether that's wind turbines or the manufactured, I believe.Second most nuclear reactors in the world. I pulled up, I Googled what companies build nuclear reactors, and I did that. They came up with the list and Rosa stone, or that's probably not how to pronounce it, but in Russia is built 68 nuclear accurate. So a Russian companies built the most nuclear reactors, but second is a general electric and Hitachi.So I'm guessing. Joint venture, but together they built 64 nuclear reactors. And third place is very far away with KEPCO, which is a south Korean. But they built 20 themselves. So maybe KEPCO is a good stock to grab to. We'll see. But I personally recently got a position in general electric. I think another energy play that I've been in for awhile, I've mentioned several times.And at this point I've lost a lot of money on, but I'm still in for the long run. Is I Tron? I think they have really good solutions for industrial electrical inputs and smart. The stock has not been doing. So take it as you will. Maybe it's a buying opportunity now. Maybe you shouldn't buy it.Maybe you shouldn't dig my advice, but I'm still along. And I try and I'm not necessarily planning on buying more anytime soon, but still long on it. We'll see what happens with GE. Maybe I'll buy more of it before it actually splits up, because I think there's real opportunity there. That is pretty uncommon.I think that the GE play could be a soft. Long run played like a three to five decade play. Could you make a lot of money on, but that's just speculation, not financial advice, like all this financial advice but yeah I think of a good point in looking towards nuclear. I just think at this point we have to also.I guess my reason for not looking to it quite yet, is it hasn't seen mainstream us adoption or like very good PR yet in the U S there's still a lot of people who think it's very unsafe and just, it doesn't have a good image. So until it wins me, not me, but until it wins the hearts and minds of the American people until it wins over one of the largest consumers of energy. China's there too, but I'm not looking to them to take on nuclear anytime soon. It, until it really wins some more mainstream adoption. I personally think it's a little far off, but like you were saying, if you can get in at the right time and early enough, you can definitely see some payoffs that are.Impressive ginormous somites opportunity for alpha is what is, ah, there we go, which is a whole separate discussion because I don't know if that exists, but oh no, he's not. I set my golf. I knew that would put you off. So anyways, I think at this point we've about energized ourselves right out here today, but it's been a better pleasure talking with you, Mike, on this episode, a long road show.And thank you again for listening. If you would give us a review. That would be amazing. This has been another episode long run show with your host, Austin Wilson and Michael O'Connor. We'll catch you later. .Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-long-run-show/donations
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