Belladonna & Mardock | Egalitarian Community Living

00:02 Some say we're on the verge of a great awakening. Others claim the powerful puppet masters multifaceted stranglehold is stronger than ever and on the higher side chats, We explore the conspiracies, The mysterious, The alternative and the occult On a quest that rests firmly on the fringe which won't be sponsored by audible or stamps dot-com nor picked up by the gatekeepers of conventional media Or radio it's a quest of the people So if you enjoy this first free hour of THC, consider sponsoring the journey yourself by subscribing at TheHigherSideChatsPlus.com Just $5 a month gets you a second hour with all our great guests on each of our months five shows You can also make your own topic and guest suggestions right under THCPlus profile communicate with Greg Carlwood and have your own custom RSS feed URL to use and still listen on the majority of popular podcast applications

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01:49 In the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed a nation through a series of radio broadcast known as the Fireside Chats. His aim was to reassure the common man that our society would recover from its troubled times but we're far from 1930 and I deal with a different kind of fire For a new era of worldly frustration We offer a fresh conversation! I'm Greg Carlwood And these are The Hireside Chats Alright party people, how's it going higher side chatters? Drinking a little drink smoking a little smoke as good as I'll ever be from San Diego. I'm Greg Carlwood and today is another one of those shows that looks at real-world solutions for people who are fed up with the system or just struggling to find a place in it. I like doing these shows every so often and the last one in this vein we did was with Greg Paul of The New Earth Nation And I liked that show but the person who initially told me about new earth led me to believe they were a little bit further along

02:46 in their communities than turned out to be the case. The philosophy of New Earth is great, but there's nowhere you can really go today to be a part of it really and a lot of people who were interested in those ideas wrote me about that frustration And it seems like a common thread with these emails is folks that are willing to work towards something bigger than themselves wanting to get back to the earth and away from the system but are still kind of looking for options they're not really seeing many And then there was once a long time ago where I tweeted something about wanting to get some THC fans and starting at Test City down in Costa Rica and getting the hell out of here. And I got like two dozen responses that are like, I'm ready to go right now!

03:24 But I don't know anything about starting a community and honestly there are already communities out there that have THC listeners in them actually. And that's what today is all about! I know it's fun to talk about the Brotherhood of Saturn and the Secret Space Program but what are you going to do with that? So, to answer back to all people looking for something wishing New Earth Nation or The Venus Project or The Zeitgeist Movement was real thing People who liked Wendy Tremaine from so many moons ago, you might like this one because really Mardok is right. We're not gonna beat the elite into submission but we can recognize that there are little pockets of sanity little pockets of community where people are putting that togetherness philosophy into action and making the decision to live a little differently So I contacted The Twin Oaks community and they passed me along to their sister community Acorn where I found Belladonna and Mardok

04:11 And they'll tell you all about their little community in a way that very few other media outlets allow for. And by the end, if you think that this might be something you want to try, You can totally reach out either Belladonna or Marduk and let them know you appreciate what they're doing and make your case! If you can't commit to this type of lifestyle but still respect it and wanna support some things they stand for... ...you could just buy seeds from them and support their community with their business that they run But if more and more people reject the pre-approved consumer driven dog eat dog system and choose to put down the posters and live out their activism, eventually the switch will flip. So just some food for thought before we dive in Also before I get into this, another THC themed piece of bumper music

04:52 I've gotten a lot actually, and a couple that are meant to replace the THC theme song that are great but i haven't done anything with them yet because i just keep putting it on the back burner. But i got this one from someone named Apaya who uses turntables built into suitcases that run off solar panels and used that to make this track. I saw some pictures, i thought it looked pretty sick so here's a little of that and we'll be talking egalitarian community living with Bella Donna and Marduk two members of the acorn community on the other side Smokin' a little smoke THC the higher side chest THC the higher side fish head How weird can you get? How weird can you get? How weird can you get? How weird can you get? THC can get pretty weird THC can get pretty weird

05:54 Alright people, today's gonna be an interesting show because every so often we examine one of these organizations or big projects for a new society like the Venus Project or the New Earth Nation and their flaw is that they're really only conceptual. Even though we know that first test city is always right around the corner some people just don't have time to wait sometimes you want to hear about options exist right now and surprisingly these options aren't on other side of globe in some far away exotic land In fact there probably one pretty close to you I'm talking about grid, egalitarian communities springing up all over the western world because as people consider their lifestyles, consumption and possibilities for collapse. For some this style of living just seems a bit more appealing. Well today we're going to talk to two people who live in just such community called The Acorn Community which is an offshoot of the well known Twin Oaks Community both in rural Virginia State

06:42 They're part of a network called the Federation of Egalitarian Communities or the FEC with functional communities in Missouri, Seattle, Virginia Ohio and a couple other areas in the US. And for the next couple hours they're going to tell us everything we might want to know about this style living. They are here to tell you that not only is another way life possible but it's happening right now! We got Belladonna and Marduk the sun god himself guys welcome to show how the hell are ya? Fucking great to be here. Excited to talk about something that actually works Yeah, this is really important to me so I'm excited to talk about it too Yeah, I mean thanks for being here guys. We don't get a lot of opportunities to look in depth at some of these types of communities very often because the mainstream isn't really interested in giving us that option so I appreciate it a lot why do we start off by you telling us a little bit about yourselves and how you ended up at Acorn? Were there aspects of typical American life that drove you to it or is it something that you got from your family How'd you end up living in such an unconventional way well um

07:42 I mean, i honestly found it from the internet. I was in the army at the time when i kind of did my wake up thing and realized that The status quo is not exactly what i want to live in so My wife and i were researching Just randomly thought oh what about that community idea That we heard failed In the 60s? I wonder if any of those are still around And uh We stumbled onto the FEC website and Found Acorn The rest is history. It's been really wonderful living here, I've been here about five years now. Wow that's awesome and Belladonna what's your story?

08:20 Yeah, I must have heard about a commune from some adult in my life when i was much younger because I never really did too well in school because I was always like analyzing the history books being like where are the women here? Like what's going on here this can't be right and so somebody must've told me what a commune was. So I was telling my mother since I was 12 that I'm gonna move to a commune and she was like how do you even know what that is? And finally I joined Occupy Somebody who was an Occupy with me moved to Twin Oaks and I visited Twin Oaks, and then just ended up living at Acorn.

08:58 Right on so yeah, you're pretty fresh I mean we talked about that in the pre-show but having heard about it from Occupy is kind of interesting because this is kind of the thing that Occupies seemed like they were trying to set up and a bunch of different areas That weren't really land they own But they all seem to get shut down but are there a lot of similarities between Zuccotti Park and what you find at Acorn? Um...I'd say there are definitely some similarities um.. I'd say It's more. You know More than insulated group like in occupy anybody could just walk into the general assembly and start raving about anything they wanted. It's like you know we invite people here and if somebody wants to live here long term that to get accepted for membership so it is slightly more organized. Egalitarian isn't really a term that we hear very much me what exactly is an egalitarian community what unites the ones in your network

09:54 Well, there's a mission statement from the FEC in general. It just is seven principles that all communities who apply to be part of the FEC agree to and I'll just go ahead and read it. Number one is says holds its land labor income and other resources in common number two assumes responsibility for the needs of its members receiving the products of their labor and distributing these and all other goods equally or according to need practices non-violence, uses a form of decision making in which members have an equal opportunity to participate either through consensus direct vote or right to appeal or overrule actively works to establish the equality of all people and does not permit discrimination on the basis of race class creed ethnic origin age sex sexual orientation or gender identity

10:47 acts to conserve natural resources for present and future generations while striving to continually improve ecological awareness and practice, creates processes for groups' communication and participation, and provides an environment which supports people's development. Sounds pretty rational! Yeah, and I think egalitarian means different things to everybody in the community. And that's one of the things that is kind of hard to speak about because it's using collective pronouns is often misleading and really to kind of understand community in any sort of in-depth way you'd need to spend a couple of months and ask several people there about what's going on because individuals really bring what hat is happening in the community

11:32 In existence the community provides nothing except to this space that's there and some basic like structural things around. We do want to communicate we don't wanna punch people in the face but beyond that whatever sort of Business or enterprise the community gets in is all individually driven and personal responsibility based yeah i mean you ask a question here to get five different answers. 30 what i'm sure you guys face some criticisms with communal living i'm sure your the dreaded word of communism because it's interesting that our society

12:10 They want to make us afraid of communal living. They want to make it seem super inconvenient or super strange In school working together is called cheating, but it is the best way to get by and it is the only way and the fighting, you know? I mean we're never gonna have a world without war unless every country considers themselves part of the earth first and part of the human family first. And then you have no one to go to war against. You have no enemies so-to-speak." I mean in school they never told me what communism was They just were like communism is evil and it happened in China So that's a huge flaw that we don't even teach kids but communism actually is. Right Well and

12:52 I think the main complaint with communism in general and especially from people who are into the sort of fringe and questioning like this is how you in general most people end up as anarcho-capitalist or something like that when in actuality, like. Communism especially in the form that we have its freedom of association where also against to be a tourist area state at all aspects so. I guess the benefit for the difference between like anarchic capitalism and and the sort of egalitarian community that we're trying to promote here is the fact that the abundance comes with sharing so much of what people work for and strive for is to keep their own little space, there on one bedroom apartment and have your own toaster in their own microwave and their own refrigerator when if twenty people got together

13:43 And started living you would only need one refrigerator and one toaster between them and all of the excess is, you know bounty that can be shared between everybody. I mean the idea that i find the most or i'm the most passionate about is The concept of like open source library sharing if you're not using a tool why? Why not let your neighbors use it? Just at a bare minimum. You don't have to like drop out of the system and move to a community in the woods, I mean there are all sorts of models and what works right for you is what is right for you and visit several of them if you're interested and you'll find a place that fits what you want

14:21 Also, some people I've heard about in cities like getting together with their neighbors and going in on a bulk food order so that they can pool their resources to get food. It's-I think a big part of it is pooling our resources so that we waste less I totally agree with you guys. Jacque Fresco is where i got that idea of library sharing, of communal goods and...I hadn't really thought about it before then but when he points out that everybody in the neighborhood and the subdivisions go a lawnmower that just sits there in their garage 99% of the time then just gets rolled out once a week It really did hit me at how Seriously inefficient that is so I'm really with you man. I think the community aspect of sharing goods is way better It just makes way more sense things get used more often I guess the only criticism something my girlfriend says because she's she went to culinary school She's big into cooking and she's got a lot of tools in the kitchen that she really likes, you know? She's kind of particular about

15:21 What criticism she brought up is in a community living situation people might not have the same respect for those tools or you know her ownership I guess gives her a little bit of a sense of pride to take care of some of that stuff. Do you ever run into problems with people disrespecting the things that are communally given? That is definitely a problem we run into. For example, Marduk and I are actually both... We cook a lot for the community and there is this really nice knife that we both use and I didn't know for a long time that you should oil, clean this knife and then oil it afterwards. And now that i know that, I continuously see people not oiled this knife but the great thing about living at least in this community is a lot of people seem to be open to criticism about these things so everyone I've spoken to about this knife have been like please oil that they're like oh! Oh I didn't know I'll do that now

16:20 One of the strong things about Acorn is that people are open to communicating. Like if there's a problem with the way a tool is being treated, a lot of people will listen And I think a lot of it is like picking your battles so-to-speak. I am also like Bella said, I cook a lot and when I got here people would wash cast iron with soap and water and thats just sinful Yeah, simple thing but with enough time and I would look after it. And I've been basically telling people if you don't want to or don't understand how to clean a cast iron the way that I prefer just for you leave it dirty and I'll clean it out with some oil and scrub brush

17:01 there's very little malicious intent that i've come across here especially i think it is like a filtering system that comes with being an intentional community as it takes intention you have to be thinking about yourself and how you wanna be in the world even find a place like this so i think the caliber of people who come here are generally way more mindful than the general population especially about Especially about feedback and wanting to improve oneself. Yeah, I mean i'd say there are many of the people here like really want feedback and want to hear how they can become...I don't want to say better people but improve themselves that they're happier And they can interact with people in a way where everyone's happier yeah people are definitely open to that here

17:44 It's kind of weird, but on a fundamental level it's almost like we have to relearn how to interact with people because we do it in this controlled framework and usually one person in most interactions is working for a company so they're getting paid and they have to be nice. And its shallow conversation and we really don't deal with the lot of people that we don't know super well on a regular basis in intimate setting. Well I think individually for me I learned so much by living here with the amount of people who come through and i pay attention to my actions and how people interact with me, and how better to communicate with them in a sense of not criticizing them like.

18:31 I've been trying to remove the word should for my language so i don't like to say that people you should do this or this is what needs to happen in the situation but more express my feelings and needs. In a situation so that people want to meet that it's more about like addressing people in a way of it, you were not alienating them. There's this great thing that we've been as a community trying to work towards, it's called non-violent communication so it's like for example say I had a problem with Marduk because...I'll give a really silly example he kept stepping on my toes instead of being like you always step on my toes and you're just being terrible and being inconsiderate Inconsiderate is a judgment So when I say you are being inconsiderate

19:20 He's he probably won't take that well because i'm assuming he is not considering so instead it's like i say how I feel and how its affecting me what would like to change instead of saying all bad like i said, i feel sad and hurts me that you keep stepping on my toe. Is it possible you could not step on my toe anymore? Yeah, I mean language matters. Yeah it seems to work a lot better like I've noticed since I'm trying to communicate that way or take judgment out of the way I communicate especially when it comes to emotional things people have a tendency to listen better and then I've noticed I like often feel closer to people afterwards and that's a big reason why I live here is

20:02 wanting closer connections with people like i felt like i'm from new york city and i thought like even though i live in a city was like. No million people there is such a disconnect at the light i had almost no close relationships yeah i can definitely see that i was actually wondering how are your friends and family outside of the community feel about you guys living there well i am I don't know, i come from a fairly conservative family mostly and so i typically just call it a farm which it is. Community is such a loaded term and people automatically assume cultish nature or like charismatic leader or religious base and all of that is just assumptions that are fed to people

20:46 through the mainstream media to kind of critique this way of life and make it sound impossible and fringe, to begin with. When I was discussing with my friends before I came here the most common joke I heard was don't drink the Kool-Aid That's the level of understanding that people have about community is they automatically assume cult They automatically assume will there has to be a leader and like it when it's some new delivery driver shows up or some career wants to talk to somebody they're like who is the leader and i'm like you speak your speaking room right here i leave myself

21:28 That's funny, but I get that just because it is the only time a community is shown to the people through the mainstream media. When it is a cult and when something negative needs to be broken up you never have them show up at Twin Oaks and say these guys are living in alternative way and everything going well and on with the next story Yeah, they don't do that very often. Well my family is pretty accepting and like they're both very artistic people so I think they just... They're just happy that I'm not hitchhiking and not calling them. Like before I came here I was hitchhiking around the country and would lose my phone and not call them for weeks So they are really happy that they can call one number and find out where I am

22:16 And I think they're also really happy because, I just did not fit in the outside world. Like I had a really hard time figuring out what I was going to do. I couldn't get a job. College didn't work for me so they're just happy that i'm happy. I have pretty great parents actually. I've got a lot of friends who just don't get it They are like why would you do that? Don't you want to make a bunch of money? So when I grew up... When I was growing up I thought I was gonna try and be a Broadway actress And people are like, why aren't you doing that? I'm like because I don't want to perform for a bunch of rich people every night. Like and I don't think that's what theater is about so I'd rather just move to a commune and live by my ideals but yeah some people, some of my friends judge me because of that but a lot of my friends are from Occupy so they understand.

23:08 I think one of the things that i really am passionate about as well is the idea of having your life be activism. The concept of like going out into the world and And shaking the chains and asking the masters, oh please do this for us. Lining up so that the police can tear gas you. I mean that just plays into their hand because doing that automatically assumes consent to being governed by them which gets me, I've never signed a constitution? That's not a valid contract!

23:46 personal political action is to try to use the least amount of Federal Reserve notes as possible and you know make the most friends and live a life that supports me because if, if you worry about how the mainstream and how this system and oh this story in that story. The terrorists have already won and the terrorists are in the government currently and we all know this so yeah the way I've seen to have the most direct action is with myself and not trying to get into a larger group. And that's what I like about community, is the fact that you still have individuality within it and more support from your friends to discover what you want to be in do. Yeah well said man! I'm with you there so The Acorn Community is an offshoot of Twin Oaks give us a little bit of history there for people who might not be familiar

24:40 Twin Oaks has been around since 1967. It was started by this woman named Kat King Cage, she read this book Walden 2 by BF Skinner And it's about this community called Walden 2. It is a utopian community and she based a lot of the idea, how she wanted to start it on behaviorism and she bought this property in Virginia I think like eight people moved there with her within the first couple years most those people left and then bunch of young hippie types moved in and it moved far away from the behaviorist thing

25:17 thing and started a hammocks business and eventually got a tofu business and now they have part of our scenes business. It's been going on a long time. Right on! And then Acorn started in 93 with uh, a few people actually Kat Kincaid came over neither of us have actually met her because she passed but Ira is the only founding member living currently here and Acorn has been going for 21 years now and been thriving More and more i would say i've been here for like the last quarter of it and there's definitely been a renaissance that as far as money goes. It takes a lot less when people share so we have per capita if we divide all our income its like 13 thousand a year but is far as how much abundance we have,

26:16 Very large beautiful timber frames seed office slash housing which ran right now which are in currently and unfortunately had two fires but that means we have like. The need to remodel until it is remodeled our kitchen area and i mean how's the cooperation from other communities as well help us out but we're still driving and making money and that's the cool thing about being here my interaction with everyday routines i never pay a bill i know we have insurance on the fleet of cars i don't typically drive but somebody pays the bills and interacts with that which is kind of. You know you want to spread out so that your everyday life here in your not having to do these interactions and cash things

27:03 It kind of weighs heavily on me. Definitely a nicer quality of life, like I feel like in the outside world people have to have a full-time job to take care their kids and feed their kids and they never get to see their kids Here we actually consider childcare to be part of labor so people who have children here can spend a significant portion of time with their children Yeah that's huge After being here i would never think about having a child anywhere else but community The extended family aspect that happens with a child they get exposed to so much more information and interaction earlier on the.

27:42 it really you can really see the advancement that happens with a child quicker and more trusting of adults. And all in all just like a braver individual comes out of community. Yeah, definitely there's more children at Twin Oaks than Acorn and they're pretty brilliant lot of those kids I was talking to 14 year old the other day he stopped talking about how the prison system is unfair and how much injustice is in it. And I'm just like, are you really 14 years old? This is not an uncommon thing to hear from a kid at Twin Oaks. It's pretty impressive. And they get so much love from the adults here. Like Marduk said before everyone here has the intention to create like a beautiful community and want the world to become a better place

28:30 So, I mean if i ever had children. I'd be super happy If all the people around this child had that intention well said so and when you guys broke off in 93 was there a catalyst for Acorn breaking away? Was there a clash of lifestyles or was it just an opportunity to get a new property What was this is starting to fill up a lot of people wanted to do things differently than twin oaks has a very written system they have like a policy binder that is like. I don't even know how to describe how thick it is. It's enormous and i don't think we even really have a policy binder like, We are more discussion based community. We have consensus meetings every sunday that's how we make decisions and if we have a policy its really only in place of somebody remembers that thats the policy And our main policies is everything is up for discussion like once if somebody if a policy gets passed

29:30 there needs to be an exception made and the exception is made if it makes sense to make it. We understand that we are enforcing our own laws, we don't have a police force I-and I don't want to be a cop so...I mean I do very little policing around here. Well tell me about the communal decision making because I experienced this a lot at Occupy camps and my god was it annoying trying to get a consensus on the simplest things how does the process work for you guys? Have you found a way to work around those kind of problems So usually what happens is people come to a meeting with the proposal and people discuss concerns, questions. And the idea is to sort of try and resolve these concerns instead if I get occupied I noticed that a lot of people would just block things automatically. And I think at Acorn I've noticed that people try to edit their proposals so it works for everybody

30:24 And we're trying to do this new thing lately where a proposal gets introduced at one meeting and we discuss it, and then we don't make a decision until next week into the following week. That way people have more of a chance to discuss and think because sometimes in the past like we've made a decision and then afterwards I was like you know what? It wasn't really clear on that. I don't know how I feel about that decision being passed so that's like...I'm really happy we're moving in that direction have more time to process Yeah, I've so very seldom seen a block actually happen here because people are trying to get along and make this thing work. And so I think at Occupy although it was not like directly involved i would assume that there'd be some sort of individualistic aggrandizing and just listen to me speak and like the sort of attention needs to go to me and I'm gonna make

31:15 some noise so that people pay attention to me. And in our case, I mean it does happen people like attention but for the most part we're trying to cooperate here and have a functional society at home so people don't Attack people i mean we have a role called the peacekeeper and i've seen twice somebody say alright we need to calm down let's take some breaths and then will talk about this a little more. Also what you said before you asked me about like the differences between occupy and acorn i would say there is are way less people with Messiah complexes here. That was a huge part of Occupy, I actually have written a bunch of things about chosen one-ism as I call it because there were so many people at Occupy who thought that they were running the show and they would just

32:06 Talk and talk and talk, and didn't really care anybody else thought right like Mars. That's not the case here Yeah that was a huge problem for the one here in San Diego And I just stopped being interested because I'm like all right if you're gonna run this thing Then you just go run it, and I'm just gonna go home this tent is getting old anyway I guess with, you mentioned the Twin Oaks regulation book and I guess that just with lots of people and many years at this it just you end up with a lot of regulation. But there's over almost over 100 people living there at Twin Oaks? A hundred say about 100 right on i think we have about 28 members here currently yeah 20 are taking

32:51 Yeah, obviously I've done my research and i knew that that number was about 28 but it did surprise me when i came across it. I expected to be much bigger under 30 people It seems like a lot of work to maintain farms and all your energy needs and all that stuff with so few people do you have any struggles with that? There's definitely a lot. I'd say there is like one or two people who are Pretty much running every area at least that's from my perspective and I talked about growing before but i think one of the concerns about that is how will be able to keep doing consensus because it is a lot even with 28 people. There are definitely ways to change the process a little bit while still doing consensus with more people, but I also think It would just change the way the community is like at Twin Oaks

33:43 There are people there who just like some people just don't talk to each other. It's very easy to avoid people at Trino because it is not easy To avoid someone here, like I see everybody here on a daily basis Yeah, and I think a lot of what makes Acorn a healthy environment to be in is a process we call clearnesses which is basically like a mandatory conversation with everybody once a year. And the first year you're here while you're applying for membership that the membership like interim time is one year You have four different clearnesses and basically four month intervals. And then after that it's once a year, so if there is something creeping into your relationship with somebody there is that outlet of being like let's talk about this in depth because I think

34:37 Part of part of what differentiates a corn from other communities is we have an inbuilt process for interpersonal work. Meaning that it's part of community we consider that labor credible whatever that means like we consider worthwhile to talk to each other and workout differences And there is an emphasis placed on that so that it actually happens and people don't just stew on things for years. When somebody says something, I have an immediate emotional response in a meeting... ...I try to step back and say is that something personal happening between me and them? Is this what they're talking about at all or are they the underlying issue behind it?

35:23 And i found often times it's just yeah that's a lot of projection. Yeah I mean, I kind of made part of my regular life even if don't have to have an official clearance with someone and since there is problem I will be like hey can we go sit outside for minute get clear on this? I think that something here a lot actually people saying to each other can you clear review on something and I think that a huge part of our culture and it definitely helps with like I feel, I feel a lot of closeness to the people who live at Acorn. And I do feel like it's like these people who live here are more of my family than my extended family

35:59 I think part of it comes from that clearness process, like having deep conversations, interpersonal stuff as often as we do. So let me have you guys tell the people a little bit about your typical day or maybe week if it's easier if you don't do the same routine every day. What do you spend your time doing? How much time is spent doing the lead work to keep the community going versus just hanging out and that kind of thing? Well, I do a significant portion of hanging out and that kind of thing. I would say more so than my previous life got way better at the guitar, way better conversation we do not have like a TV broadcast system here. So occasionally we have projectors, we watch movie occasionally but that's not really in our culture to soak up TV

36:50 And that gives a lot of extra time. Also, there's no commute and we have quota which is 42 hours a week and that is... We don't do any tracking of labor so you don't have to write down the hours you do it just a general understanding try to do this many hours and the things that are labor creditable Basically anything that benefits more than just yourself cleaning your own room not labor creditable. Clean the common space is labor credible and my typical day i do a lot of domestic stuff like i will cook dinner

37:30 three to five times a week depending on who's interested in cooking dinner. Same! And I do a lot of dishes, I also do office work, I answer the phone if you call Southern Exposure you'll probably talk to Belladonna or myself. We have a lot of the same jobs Yeah i think yeah we do have a lot of the same jobs and what is really an amazing thing that I found as we had a very stressful winter because we were displaced out of our main kitchen and belly on and i were overlapping in so much of what we're doing. That we are kind of stepping on each other's toes anyways and

38:08 It festered for a while and we actually just said, you know what? Let's fucking talk about it and really break it down. And its really strengthened our relationship and I think we've both grown from it. I definitely agree. But become a better cook because of the two. Because I wasn't that good when I first came here but I think I'm alright now. But Marduk has given me quite a few tips and it's been very helpful. If we had not decided to talk about It wouldn't have happened. People hear that number 42 hours and they're like, oh well this is a regular job but a lot of times people have to clean the house and make food and do chores on top of 40 hours a week so a lot of times the things you're doing because your part of the community are benefiting you as well just as your normal chores would

38:56 Yeah, I mean...I cook meals for everybody. So whatever you want to do 9 times out of 10 or more- I don't know the percentage because we don't actually have like assigned labor here so sometimes things fall through the cracks but there's two meals a day and you don't have to cook them And that wastes less food also. I think if for like five different families to cook dinner You waste a lot of food because it's pretty hard to cook 1 cup of rice You have to cook at least three cups and that can feed quite a few people. I think we definitely waste a lot less by cooking for everybody. Yeah, I think the numbers I saw were less than $1200 a year we're feeding 30 people and that number of 30 is very difficult.

39:44 nebulous and it's hard to track because we have so many people like, we have a regular visitor period that comes through with like four or five people. We have summer interns who are just interested in staying and a lot of times they come here just to try it out and end up saying oh actually I don't want to go back to college and then they stay and live here So yeah were feeding a lot more than that I would say any given meal 40-50 people and were doing on less than $1200 dollars a year for 30 people. Yeah, and we also grow some of our own food also like last night we had actually some bands come through and we had like 12 extra people And I just cut up some veggies and made soup and that was all it was from our garden That's cool on the subject of college you know one quote i heard in one of the interviews i listened to

40:31 by one of the founding members made a pretty good point about the skills you learn in this type of system and that instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars on college, you could join a community like ACORN for four years after high school and you'd learn hands-on farming and agriculture how to survive without a lot of the modern amenities how to come to an agreement work with people so you can actually have that experience and come out with a ton of practical knowledge compared to a lot of the majors that are out there. And I thought that made a lot of sense And also i mean if i ever don't think i don't plan on leaving here for a while but if i did leave i would have some incredible references and i can put my resume that i was a man i co manager of a big company. I hope i never have to do an interesting aspect cuz i think a lot of people one of the reservations might be,

41:22 How am I going to explain this gap on my resume? You know, if I extract from the system and do something like this there's a lot of fear that you can't get back in once you're out. But that's a great point maybe it's actually a plus for the resume I mean, it really depends. There are people who come in for a brief period of time and it just doesn't work for them and then they move on so if they call for reference whatever they did most you can just say that was the manager or co-owner of it because that is what you were doing You were stepping up to the plate in that sort of task that you wanted to pursue I would say yes, I was a kitchen manager

42:02 Whatever, you know. You can make up any story you want. I mean references... no one really checks those. Really? There's a gray area there! I would rather be homeless at this point. Like, a lot of my friends just bike across the country and we have so many people rolling through here and it's an accessible place for a short period of time especially when you're really interested in being here that that's one of the sort of selecting factors that i make when people come through is how much do they want to be here? How much do they really want to be here versus needing the place

42:43 We call this the spaceship vs lifeboat. When people apply for membership or apply living here, it's like are they going to take us to the moon? Or do they just really need us? Do we need to save them with a lifeboat? Right. And very clear somebody who lives here calls it juiced. They're not juiced about their The community they deserve looking to get away from something and the people who are like oh this is so exciting we're growing our own food raising animals in you know where does it not treating them terribly with the factory farms were living together talking and super excited about it. And that's the kind of people we want here yeah that isn't

43:24 That's cool. Let's talk a little bit about the community businesses that you've mentioned I mean, I know you guys have the online seed business and Twin Oaks You mentioned had or has a hammock business But I mean if people aren't willing to make the commitment to live this way They can at least support its existence from their comfortable air-conditioned living room by picking up products from these communities at least yeah, our main business is southern exposure seed exchange calm and and we sell open pollinated, mostly organic and heirloom varieties. I'm sitting in a room right now with probably like a quarter ton of seeds. We got some contender beans going on over here! And we grow some portion of the seeds here and have a network of farmers that grow for us.

44:18 play by directly from us is when you can get a hold of it we try to provide like very good customer service and i made some really good friends just talking on the phone and let the people who call in, we have really good customers and i feel very lucky cuz i've done customer services. like in the emergency room working at a hospital and that is way worse than trying to tell somebody how to grow lettuce. Yeah, I mean sometimes it's really fun people call and they're like I really don't want to buy the GMO food. I'm going to start my own organic farm, what could I start with? What's not too difficult?" And I set them up with some greens and some carrots. It is really exciting for me to hear about people who are moving in a direction of trying to grow their own food just like know that that is where the world has headed it very exciting to me

45:14 Yeah, like we really started like as Southern Exposure Like doubling our... We doubled our business I think three years four years in a row and then have been growing every year since And we started doing that in 2008 when other businesses were collapsing people were like oh man. I need to start growing my own food because that's like That is growing money if you're spending money on trash food at a grocery store Why not spend $2.50 and get 60 tomato plants instead of two dollars and fifty cents in one tomato? And it's also really great for people who are starting farms because we actually do, we take new growers on all the time. So if anybody out there has a farm and they're trying to make some money or they need help We are looking for growers actively so you can call us up and talk to our person who manages our growers

46:15 You can try growing seed for us. Right on eating fresh organic non-gmo foods on a daily basis is definitely something A lot of people would like to do these days They wish they could do but it's very hard in this culture to make that our priority, you know I mean It seems to be like one of the pillars of your whole community and that just kind of boggles my mind especially at this point like so far removed from buying like chip or RD and a can is The fact that putting something in your body is the most important thing why would you put trash there it makes no sense i mean that's more intimate than sex to me because it goes through your whole body.

46:57 Man, I should start thinking about it that way every time i'm tempted to go through a drive-thru because I do that everyday. I suddenly feel hungry and think how can I take care of this right now? Well there's either Chipotle or Carl's Jr., and tomorrow I'll have more foresight about this. And I've been saying this for five years now And I guess snack and junk food for like my typical junk food is an egg and tomato sandwich on bread that I cooked myself. All heirloom varieties of tomatoes and eggs from our farms, and...I mean, I couldn't even imagine putting a price on how much it costs to buy organic on the outside versus doing it yourself. It makes no sense! The idea of

47:46 having a lawn and then buying organic food just like boggles my imagination. Yeah I think that a lot of land is being wasted, i have this idea that i think New York they should make Central Park a giant community garden yeah wish they would do that or like Make so like there's all these like random islands off of New York City. They can make them into vertical farming towers I don't have like all these ideas about how the world could move towards organic food that is free I think that it's ridiculous that people have to spend money to buy food actually Oh, I totally agree with you and the budgets of these cities are huge. It really is ridiculous when I used to work at Sunglass Hut, I'd stand there on the corner in La Jolla California which is one of the highest real estate markets it's a really nice area and I see these guys come through couple times a week

48:36 these hanging baskets that are on lampposts and they're flowers. And they come by and they water them, then every four months or so the plants are dead because it's not really a good environment for them anyway, so they change the plant out." I'm like wow you already have the infrastructure! You're already paying people to come by and maintain these plants, they're just growing useless plants? You know if they were to be growing strawberries or blueberries or something I mean this homeless guy who's sitting at the very same corner every week might not die on the street. It makes so much sense. I mean if we're gonna exist in this system where everybody has to like work, work to make money to survive? I thought it would be interesting if maybe like

49:19 In Central Park or any city, a park was made into a community garden and homeless people are allowed to do that. You know they can just work in this garden and then have their own food from that and then develop skills because there are farms all over the place that would hire them if they have gardening skills No, yeah you're right that's another great idea too. So when you guys work for the seed business or something does all of that money go into the community pot? Or do you get some of your own money for things you might want to buy that the community might not care about? We have a $75 a month stipend which is personal expense if you do want to buy a bag of Doritos or a case of beer You're more than welcome to do that with with that money and

50:06 I guess the majority of the money elsewise is spent through community decisions healthcare is provided after six months the FTC has this awesome thing which all of the fc communities pay into which is called the name is called beach and anything over five thousand dollars ninety percent of it is covered by each so we have our own kind of network of insurance company that basically works for us and we can make. Loans from it and interspersed the access because there's always excess to actually have an organization that helps people out medically and also uses that money instead of going for investment capitalist ideas, of like investing in community which is something we all are passionate about. And that's one of the core things that kind of unites the FEC is the idea of spreading community however possible and will put labor and resources into doing it

51:04 With existing conditions it's kind of hard I guess to get in. And it depends on the condition and the person in general, I've definitely seen people who were excited to be here and seemed like it might not work because Unfortunately, we are not that accessible. We are very much a farm so if you have mobility issues it can be very difficult It's more like as people grow older there are facilities for that I guess Yeah and also they built like a new hospice kind of area at Twin Oaks And I imagine that if something happened to an acorn

51:48 they probably would be permitted to stay there i can't imagine why not. I was gonna ask you a little bit more about jobs cuz one rule i saw on your website is that even if you're willing to share your income, you're not really allowed to have an outside job i was kind of curious why that was That's not true. There was someone who lived here who had a nursing job and I think they gave a certain percentage of it to the community, and that counted as their labor. Oh right on! I think that was something I heard Iris say but it might have been an old video but I was worried if I wanted to join ACORN I'd have to quit the show. Oh no! Please come visit anytime

52:35 Yeah, there's many people who do different outside stuff. After you meet the 42 hours quota any labor you want to do all of the proceeds are yours and no one is trying to control what you want to do as long as your not being an asshole with your money saying look how much money I have versus how little you have There are people here with trust funds. I mean, so people come from all sorts of different backgrounds some from poverty some from like extreme wealth and all intermingled and try to knock down the class barrier even though after we step away

53:13 I will be poor and somebody will still have a trust fund. I don't hold that against them. Right, right. Well you know being a conspiracy show we hear about a lot of suppressed technologies this is something i wanted to ask you about because you guys got a lot of time do you ever pursue any exotic energy methods? There have been some There's a project that's happening now with veggie oil. We've been stockpiling veggie oil for awhile and have designs on getting a generator to Basically sell back to the grid because we're still plugged in like in the grid and the sense of electricity so if we can run some sort of engine off of that you know that we get for free to pay for our energy needs that would be great. There's talk about eventually building an off-grid residence

54:05 I run the solar panels or something is it about building a new building like that. Yeah we have several light dark green buildings currently late, buildings are not plumbing or electricity and so therefore they're off the grid because there's no footprint other than extension cord maybe how's your plumbing because you are on city plumbing are you on well Luckily we're on well water so our water is not fluoridated which is beautiful. Keep your third eye nice and clean! I was just thinking that... So do you guys use a lot of solar even if you're not totally sufficient on it?

54:46 Twin Oaks has a solar panel array that they're doing something similar with of like selling back or well utilizing it and then if there's an excess selling back, it's like a grid tied solar array. Personally I think we're overcast here in Virginia little more than what is helpful with solar. I guess personally I think that Although electricity is nice and if some of those alternative energy things actually pan out or get released into the public, I would love to do it. But honestly living without electricity is not that hard and I've done it in different homesteading like community settings for a while and It was very rewarding! I read more books than I ever have before and expanded my knowledge that way The only problem would be running

55:36 would be running our business because a lot of it is through the internet. So we would need to have electricity. Yeah, that makes total sense. I know you guys are obviously happy there and there are a ton of great aspects to communal living but is there anything you do feel like you miss out on? I missed out on advertising. Pop cultural references I don't get all the time. I missed street performers That's like the main thing I miss. I miss just like, I miss talking to homeless people actually. Like just getting to...I miss wandering streets and talking to strangers and finding out their stories. I miss that. I miss traveling but I can still do that here if you know take some time off i'm allowed to do that. Like I said before, I wanted to be an actress. I missed those opportunities to act but I don't like what it's feeding into If I were to audition for a lot of things

56:32 who would be getting that money and a lot of the corruptness in there, how superficial that all is. I don't like that so I miss those opportunities but it's funny to have opportunities to make theater and art here so i like that. Are there any other aspects of the community you like or haven't touched on? Yeah, the use of like waste stream. There's kind of a very large dumpster culture here and there is an enormous percentage of food that is thrown away I don't necessarily trust statistics but I've heard over half of the world's food supply is thrown away And that's one of things we do at Acorn Not only networking with different food companies, delivery services

57:18 Every Monday we get a giant cargo van full of food. We've gotten cases of avocados... I'm eating one right now. Cases of avocados for free that would have ended up in the dumpster had we not taken them and whatever sorts of food just amazing food that got thrown away because of a bureaucratic expiration date and like reclaiming that, putting it through through your body instead of wrapped in individual pieces of plastic and ending up as compost, in individual pieces of plastic in a landfill somewhere. And we also have tried to donate some of it to like food not bombs in the area but they already have too much there is so much food being thrown out Wow yeah that is such an awesome aspect of it because I say this all the time and it drives me nuts but you got homeless people

58:09 standing outside in front begging for food. Meanwhile, you know they're in front of a building that is stocked to the brim with food and they've got a locked dumpster out back where they're throwing out the excess food and it's like if you just went out the other door you could give it to this guy but then that wouldn't be fair because he didn't pay for it and capitalism everything has gotta be on even keel It just really sad but that is an interesting aspect of the community I like what you guys do there Equality means something different for everyone, different things for different people. Like that guy might have a problem that prevents him from working so I guess it just drives me crazy when people are like oh well they don't work they can't get food and its like maybe they can't work

58:55 In the way you want them to. Right, I mean i always also say with unemployment as high as it is in one aspect isn't that a good thing? We've just run out of shit that has to get done Isn't that what jobs are supposed to be? Is tasks that need to be carried out and we're catching up to those things so shouldn't it be good that were relieving people but obviously in this system that means you can eat Yeah, a lot of things need to change. Well the idea of you have to provide for yourself... The thing is there's so much abundance coming from the system now all it takes is people sharing and everybody would get their needs met easily and quickly and could be tomorrow! The thing about the whole idea of revolution that leaves a bad taste in my mouth is the idea that we're playing into their hands

59:46 The concept that we're going to out-violence the violent, coercive people makes no sense. No! We're gonna be... I guess my favorite banner is If I'm to fight under one banner, it's friends and love. Let's just be friends and love and share what we have because there is... Well, I mean there is so much abundance in the world and so many starving people just because people lock their dumpsters to keep this system going. People believe that if we don't go with GMO Monsanto thing that were gonna run out of food. I think that is just a myth

1:00:22 That isn't right. The only way you can get people to act so selfish and miserly is if they really do think that they might not have food tomorrow, they got to really believe this lie about scarcity I mean another interesting anecdote about abundance that I've probably said three or four times in the show before but it's just like such a crazy thing to think about is I know someone who adopted some kids from an impoverished country and When they took these kids, you know like four years old and six years old to their first grocery store They just broke down crying because they could not believe that there would just be a room filled with food like this where you can just go and pick whatever you want Meanwhile in the back of their head. They're thinking of everyone they've ever known

1:01:08 Who's just suffering and starving and it's got to be it's gotta be tough to think man I'm in a place now of infinite resources near infinite resources. And meanwhile, everyone I've ever known in this previous land is Is suffering sucks that does suck Well, and it's I think it's by design. I think there's a lot of like manipulation in the sense of controlling people's minds to think that they need to stockpile because there is some fictitious scarcity and like the whole idea Overpopulation and we're out stripping our resources in this event. We are only at outstripping our resources because we're throwing 90% of it in the dumpster planned obsolescence this whole idea of consumerism for consumer goods is killing the planet obviously

1:01:58 And it is getting nowhere quickly, helping one obviously destructive to the world and to everybody who's trying to call this place their home. And yet people just continue on with it because there's no like alternative given To them instead of just like figuring out oh shit gets thrown away for no reason at all. Yeah Yeah, planned obsolescence is such a thorn in my paw man. I that really-I hate it There's a movie called the light bulb conspiracy That focuses solely on planned obsolescence and it's called the light bulb conspiracy because they've got light bulbs In certain buildings there's one in a fire station They've been going for

1:02:40 decades, you know? They don't run out. The point is that these companies who made light bulbs had to make them expire, had to make them more fragile because otherwise they'd be out of business! They'd sell everyone five light bulbs and they'd be gone but the technology is there how inefficient is it that we just make them break down so that the cycle can keep going Yeah, my partner buys a lot of the computer parts here and he was saying oh well if we get that one it's gonna expire about a week after the warranty runs out. I was telling you guys that i just had to get a new hard drive and i don't ever pay attention to things like warranties because i dont keep that kind of paperwork and im just like whatever but when i went to buy a new one, the warranty is 2 years. I've had it for about two-and-a half years how funny that now doesn't work

1:03:32 It's like in a system of capitalism, and it always bothers me you'll have a lot of people who are libertarians who say oh it's the state or its capitalism. You know what's the real enemy? And they always want to put all the problems on the state and of course the states responsible for a lot but in capitalism how do you get rid of planned obsolescence How do you trust that a product is working? The guy who's selling it to you, who is relying on your purchase to live. He can't be 100% honest he can't tell you that he's actually got only the third best product in town if you really want a deal go down here even if he knows that he cannot tell you goes against his own self-interest and all these things seem small but when you stack them up and you build your entire society around them they eat away at what could be a paradise

1:04:20 Yeah, I think the whole idea of abstracting resources into money to begin with and like the whole libertarian ideal of the market is going to save us. This market that never existed they admit that there's never been a free market but if it happened then the market would save us. I mean Stephen Mullen does this all over time this idealistic market that somehow exists And people trade things and get what they want, and that's great. But the idea of inches building a house versus wood building a house... And the concept of oh well you don't have any money or you ran out of inches it's this same sort of correlation then yeah it's frustrating man I get it

1:05:09 Putting money and making money is more valuable than the stuff we actually need in the society that exists. It's ridiculous. And it's funny that you bring up Stefan Manayu because I like a lot of the stuff he says, but yes, he will not let it go about the free market and how capitalism is not the problem. He actually had a debate with Peter Joseph of The Zeitgeist Movement And one point Peter Joseph brought up that I thought was a great example is, you know imagine you got two guys who have pizza places. You know in Stefan Mani's perfect world two guys have pizza places that are competing One of them knows he makes 100 grand a year and he's happy with it but he knows if he's willing to burn down the other guy's pizza place or let rats loose in his business

1:05:58 poison his ingredients, he can make more money. And that temptation is always there and so now you have a system where the people who are willing to carry out that temptation, the people who are willing to stamp out their competition no matter what in a moralist way those people as long as they get away with it will rise at the top And look at the corporations that are on the top of their game today. They're the most cutthroat, blood-thirsty corporations. They definitely are the most moralist corporations and it only makes sense with this system like how do you weed that out and keep capitalism? You can't do it. Yeah competition is a sin That's something that has been said by many of I guess what I would consider oligarchs now in the elitist system of the corporation

1:06:44 competition is what they're trying to stand out and it will i guess the thing that i was trying to say is that, if value exists it is valuable because we're using it not because we're setting on it. The idea that gold based currency is going to save us from something if were all storing gold under our bed then that will make this system more secure than the current like fiat currency we have now It's bullshit gold can be useful if you're making rings out of it or connectors for actual like circuit boards or whatever you make with gold. If your using it then is useful and valuable but the idea of an inherent value that one can place that is judged by this fictitious market is just completely asinine well said

1:07:32 So we're getting kind of close to the end of it. How do you guys handle visitors? Obviously people can't just show up whenever they like this isn't silver dollar city or something Do people have to make an appointment if somebody wants to visit the community They should go on our website and they which is acorn Community org yeah They go on and there are a list of questions, send an email to the email that's provided on there. And then they will have a conversation with the person who people work on the visitor team and then they have like a phone interview. And if that all goes well, they get set up with a visitor period

1:08:14 Yeah, it's basically just write us an email and express why you want to be here. And let us know your intent if it seems like it matches up or not even I mean we're not super selective about who comes through here There's this common misconception that there are so many dangerous people in the world. I think that it is complete bullshit, the majority of the people in the world are nice and well intending they just don't know any better When people come here and see the abundance we have and the way which we're interacting It takes a very pathological sort of mind to not see that and respond in a mean take advantage sort of way

1:08:58 we don't lock your doors typically when we drive our cars around the keys in the front seat and the doors unlock where not trying to build a security culture here because of security is an illusion securities just control security is the idea that you can actually locked down your environment when actually It's closer to chaos than actual any sort of control you put on it. I'd say the primary thing we look for in emails from people looking to visit are how excited they are about the idea or like, Are they interested in anything? Like sometimes when getting these emails where people were just like yeah I like

1:09:38 I want to get out of the rat race. If somebody said that with a bunch of other stuff, it'd probably be cool but like some people you don't really... Like I'm-I like video games and I don't really like to read um.. You can just tell by looking at someone's letter if they're not quote on quote juiced And also we do look to see if someone is like super, super off their rocker gonna cause problems. And I think that's why we have the phone interview because it is pretty easy to tell like...I've done fun interviews and in the first five seconds I can usually tell if someone is going to be fine or completely unstable. Yeah right well for folks who might be thinking about an even higher level of commitment you guys do have an internship program right?

1:10:29 We've been kind of changing that a little bit to the way we want people to come for three week visit and then if they want to be an intern, they ask the group if they can be an intern. Right on! It's very... I mean people come for two day visits it's approachable in the sense that when you make contact with us somebody will contact you back. There's a lot of people who just are like, yeah I kind of want to do this thing and send out one email and then just don't reply. And so with that there is no... It is basically self-selecting in that sense. There's very little filtering that happens other than obvious people who are not willing even write a couple emails not being able to reply

1:11:12 Occasionally though we do show up and we have to ask them to leave while they're here is sometimes they seem unstable or some of the people who show up and then just like it's a very obvious i just showed up in smoke cigarettes for a week. Like that's fine. They can smoke as many cigarettes as they want, as long as they're doing other stuff. But I always tell visitors is...I think it's weird when visitors show up and don't do anything because if you were to go to your aunt's house for two days, you might offer to wash the dishes Like, I guess a lot of people show up and don't have any sense like that. They just show up and sit around thinking it's just like a giant party. And that is the biggest problem we run into with visitors. A lot of people are just like, Don't get it! This is like a giant project we're running here. Yeah, don't be rude. You're a guest in someone's home really?

1:12:05 Yeah, exactly. Most people who come through I would love for them to be part of that home if they want to be and then you kind of got a show that they're into it. So you guys are pretty flexible as long as people use a lot of exclamation points in their communication? I don't know too many exclamation points might get your belt out. Right not too many! If you wrote in all caps and exclamation points, that might fill it up. I think if anybody was honestly interested in living in community and wrote us a letter, it would be very clear from that letter. It would just come out naturally, I think. Right. Well hey, I really appreciate it guys! I think this has been a lot of fun. Before we go do you want to plug the business again a little bit? And remind people how they can support the community financially if they don't want

1:12:59 Southern exposure is the website. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, we'll get you there from Google. We have over 500 varieties of vegetable seeds mostly heirloom and organic. We have about 200 varieties or close to tomato seeds alone so... And we have a bunch of people who are really passionate about gardening and if you have gardening questions can help you out. We also have an amazing catalog You can just sign up for that it's a free catalog and it's chock full of gardening advice

1:13:35 isolation distances if you want to save seed and like times for planting and descriptions of varieties. And like disease resistance is it's a very great resource that alone I really feel great about, I mean just write us and get us our catalog call us up hit the email and get our catalog free and then see which see what you think. I mean we do put a lot of time and effort in our catalog, and it has many resources in it Also if you call us up you might get Marduk or Rai. Yeah I'd be happy to help anyone figure out how to start a garden also If people already have a farm and need some support Call us up also because we are always looking for growers So that's important thing

1:14:20 Awesome. Well, outside of the plugs I mean before I let you guys go is there anything else you wanted to leave the people with any parting words? I just want to reiterate that there is an abundance in sharing like it The more you share the more abundance There is and that really is like one of the greatest lessons I've ever learned is sharing my friends You get more. I agree share your resources And I think that's going to play a huge role in changing the way the world is right now. The more people share, the more people share their resources Right on. I'm with you guys, well Belladonna, Marduk it has been a pleasure hopefully i can come out there and visit you guys sometime if im ever in Virginia but... Yes! Anytime Until then take care of yourself guys Okay Yeah yeah great to talk to you Greg and uh I really appreciate what you do your show is amazing Me too thank you Thanks Also empathy and compassion

1:15:14 Well there we go guys, two great people who are doing their part to make sure the system they're supporting is one they believe in. This might not have been one for everybody some of these things might have seemed kind of obvious or like common sense but honestly We've been damaged as a people and we have some fundamental stuff to work out still And I'm sure a decent percentage of you are staring down at your license plate renewal, or your ridiculous electric bill. Or the stupid name badge hanging off your rearview mirror around your neck right now and thinking fuck all this! This ain't fun... I'm spinning my wheels and i don't know why and I need to try something different and connect with like-minded people along the way. And this show gave me an outlet for that Next week we're diving back into the world weird looking at the ancient story of the Anunnaki with a new twist

1:16:01 with our guest Gerald Clark and he'll explain why it seems most likely that the ancient engineers of humanity are probably still pulling the strings today. It's a good one, and in the meantime live long and prosper instead of wondering if there is heaven let's fucking make one right here And to close this out is a track by one of today's guests Mardock himself with a song called Fuckin' Nothing which is what you got to lose... ...and with that its your move capitalist corporations of extreme waste and psychopathic CEOs of the impending apocalypse Your fucking move. Please excuse me dear, but I do not want to talk. You seem to forget just who you are and what you did so let me tell you one more time. You broke my heart.

1:17:29 Forget just who you are and what you did So let me tell you one more time I broke my heart And i don't know how You're living with yourself I don't know how you're even living with yourself

1:18:16 You've always been mean at making sense, but oh so good. I did your cadence crisp in logic arguments you caught me quick. I'm sorry for all the fucking nothing that you got All the fucking nothing that you got from me Not here to settle debts I know exactly what i did and exactly why The light is a grip, not here

1:19:11 To settle doubts I know exactly what i did and exactly what led to it We both know that life is never fair We both know yeah, nothing's ever fair

1:19:55 Oh my god.