Robert is reunited with Katy Stoll and Cody Johnston for a book episode.
Oh man, it's Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the worst people in all of history. That sometimes, boy, there's a lot of books that I have to read for this podcast, and that that is exhausting. So every now and then we like to do a little bitty episode that is easier because I don't have to read a book. I just have to read a book, but in this case, I get to read it live to my friends Katie Stole and Cody Johnston More Slash even More News multiverse, which is a lot like the Marvel multiverse, and that Chris Evans is heavily involved in both. Yeah, it's the same. They're part of the same universe, part of the same universe. That's right, Cody, you are famously playing she Hulk uh In in a new series of movies. Um, and Katie, a lot of people don't know this Iron Man's stunt doutble and in all of the original Iron Man for the last twenty years. That's right. Um, sorry that that dried up for you, Yeah it does. It is a shame that there's no more Iron Man roles. But I have a feeling we're all gonna do fine in this new career. We have in which we're going to be reading a very special book by Rush Limbaugh titled Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims. Wait so wait a second. Wait, fuck you man, hold on when you when you show me this book, I didn't realize he wrote it. I mean bizarre like fan fiction that you know. I'm like, no, look at this, Look at this cover. I want you to look at this fucking cover. Stare into its novel kind of between this person and their horse. Yeah, it's You've got like a bigheaded caricature drawing of Rush Limbaugh in colonial garb and his horse. And I know because I've read a couple of reviews of this that's his sidekick. He's a talking horse boy. The plot of these stories, as far as I have learned from reviews. I haven't read the book yet, but I've read some reviews, is that, uh, Rush Revere is like is like a history teacher at a public school and he goes back in time to teach kids the history of the United States of America. This isn't amazing. Yeah, I mean, these are number one New York Times best selling books. And one of the things there's a lot of liar like what I hate about them is that they're they're really quality printing jobs, Like people talked about that in the reviews, but like no, like look at this, look at like beautiful illustrations like these are this. It's a really well photos put together book, well but feeling book, Like I hate all of the resources that clearly went into making this very well put together book on an aesthetic level. And then look at this fucking back cover, Like it's like Rush Limbaugh an actual picture of him, like standing and smiling. I mean, we need he's wearing. He's wearing a fucking leather je He looks like the substitute teacher who like comes in in a leather jacket with a helmet and like tells you he's ridden a motorcycle to work. But then like later in the day, one of the kids makes fun of his name and he just like slaps the kid, and then you have to have like a meeting with the principle about how he's not going to be allowed to because, to borrow a phrase from Cody, it's very weekend dad. It's very weekend dad. And then I think the thing that we have um failed to to describe for our listeners is that the cover the Paul Revere and the horse, it is Rush Limbaugh's face on Paul Revere's body, if I'm not mistaken, right, So it certainly is. Yeah, no doubt that that um cherub like face with a jaunty pilgrim hat and talking horse apparently do your time's best seller A. So I got this in the mail. I did not purchase this book. I got this in the mail with this card, which is covered in a bunch of obscure wounds in a drawing of cathulu Um and inside the card, I'm gonna read this. It's from Kimberly and Thor. My husband and I are huge fans of the show. We have learned so much and also died inside from how shitty humanity can be. We were at a thrift store recently and saw this book amongst the hard back copies of individual books and knew it was perfect for you. In the gang Um and then she says, the author's note had me in stitches. So I feel like we have to start, and first off, Kimberly and Thor, I want to I want to thank you. It's so thoughtful. We haven't even read the bookyet, and I know you nailed it with the hammer of thor. I might instead of saying thank you, say for thank you, like like a mix of fuck you and thank you, thank you if thank you? Yeah? Um, interestingly, so this is in the Brave Pilgrims. Okay, so we've got it. Starts off. We've got a drawing of the Mayflower that, as far as I can tell, is pretty pretty and pretty accurate drawings, little notes that seems fine. A note from the author. We live in the greatest country on Earth, the United States of America. But what makes it so great? Why do some call the United States and mirape? How did we become such a tremendous country in such a short period of time. I'm gonna answer that. For your Russian the answer is genocide. Several genocides, one of which was an enslaving genocide. Yeah. Um, so that's good. But he does not, he says. Instead of after that saying genocide, he says, after all, the United States is less than two hundred and fifty years old. I want to try and help you understand what American exceptionalism and greatness is all about. It does not mean that we Americans are better than anyone else. It doesn't mean that that is that is literally what we said, because he's like, it doesn't mean that there's anything different to us as human beings or that we've never faced problems. American exceptionalism and greatness means that America is special because it is different from all other countries. It's different. It's you're not saying that, say it's not special because we're inherently better. We're just different in a way that's exceptional. And that's not saying that we're better. We're just exceptionally different. We're exceptionally it's like a special difference that is like above are not, We're just more exceptional. The Roman Empire practiced chattel slavery on a massive scale, and the Mongolians carried out a series of horrific genocides in order to colonize large areas of land. But those are different than what the United States did because the people spoke different languages. See, they were speaking like Latin and whatever, and we did that stuff when we while speaking English, which means it's fine, it's okay, it's good that we did. That's what makes us special is that we spoke English. The words, the words, the words that the words more or less. But yeah, absolutely the same meanings but different words. Different Yeah, different sounds, that's all. So I'm going to continue with Rush here. It is a land built on true freedom and individual liberty, and it defends both around the world. So there's another I have notes on this one as well. Um, I might refer people to our episodes on the CIA or on Henry Kissinger and all of the different times that the United States. But Rush was a big fan of all of the democracies we overthrew because they were they were generally left wing. Um, I don't know, this is what's what's kind of One of the things I read when I was prepping for this was a Chicago Tribune review of this book, um, which I might pull up for a second, but basically the author was like, yeah, Rush Limbaugh is like a right wing idealogue. But the book's actually fine. It doesn't have, you know, much that's objectionable in the history is okay, and it's like a pretty good children's book. And like, as soon as reading it, what I think is dangerous about this is that Rush is obviously doing this to groom children, right, Like, that's the reason you write a book like this is to like children left towards full of groomers. Well, we can talk about the age of women that rush Limbaugh tend to do approach, but um, he's attempting to like inculcaid kids with his ideas, and he's doing it, I think, pretty intelligently. And the fact that a guy who I think is probably more or less disinterest at the Chicago Tribune could read this and be like, well, this isn't very political is evidence of how politicized to the right our history education is. Because like one of the things that guy I have to bring up, the Chicago Trip being an article because there's a quote from it. Uh, that is I think like emblematic of kind of the some of the things that most Americans just tend to kind of like accept as red and uh that I found kind of like unsettling. Um, here's the exact line. Russia's political viewpoints certainly shows up, but less than you might expect. He even defines American exceptionalism in a matter unlikely to offend Rachel matt Out, which I guess you might be right because she might not be offended, but also she just she just made a statement about how she likes hanging out with Tucker Carlson. Again, there's a lot to say. I missed that. Yeah, she loves running into him. He's they're all nice people to each other, people to each other exactly. Yeah, um, which is for all of his flaws. One of the things I like about I'll always like about Jon Stewart is he does not pretend to like people like Tucker Carlson. Yeah. But but anyway, why because it's good for money, because they're all basically whatever whatever as as anyway, Um, the role of the United States is to encourage individuals to be the best that they can be, to try to improve their lives, to reach their goals, and make their dreams come true. In most parts of the world, dreams never become more than dreams. In the United States, they've become true every day. There are So I had a friend with a dream of dying, Well it was a nightmare, but it was a nightmare of dying from lack of affordable insulin. And then they did that's a dream, a nightmare that came true. That could think, Cody. That couldn't have happened. Do you think that would have happened in Denmark? Do you think people are dying from lack of insulin in Denmark. That is a dream that will not come true in Denmark. Those are those are specifically American dreams, right, American dream that is the exceptional American dream the world. Katie. I know you like poetry. You must have read A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes, which is a poet about how dreams only come true in America. If I'm remembering it properly. Yeah, that's that's exactly right, Roberts. That's what was getting on about. We are a page into this book. No, this is a note from the author. Forward is kind of ghost. I hope that. I hope it talks about like his titles, like I was thinking about, like Limball Revere. Os. I would completely change my opinion on this book if he'd had the courage to call his character Limball Revere. Wow, that was a lot of hits right in a row there. All right, I'm gonna continue. The sad reality is that since the beginning of time, most citizens of the world have not been free. I wonder I wonder some sort of where they weren't free free people in them? Is he? Are you going to elaborate on the ways in Whish people weren't free in your book. No, I don't think they're going to. For hundreds and thousands of years, many people in other civilizations and countries were serving to their kings, leaders and governments. Now, I guess it's true that the first four of the five first presidents being slaveholders means they didn't have servants, they had slaves, And he does not. He does not list slaves on here, So maybe that a search fine like upload this'sf and then I'm sure there's a kindle version, but I'm not going to pay for it. Um, we're reading this again. I have to say it was an author a very well printed book. I hate how high quality the printing of this book is, um because it's like, also, like are the pages aged or is that just like what it looks like? No? No, no, that's just what it looks like. It's they did a pretty nice for like the year. Um, it's very recent because I can as a conservative like kid when I was like nine or ten, I can imagine having getting this book from a family member or something, and like two because there's two books in this and this this is a collection. It's an anthology first to Rush Revere novels. Oh oh, how nice for him. Yeah. So we're talking about the people who, for thousands of years, We're certain if you look up the adventures of the category is adventure series gathered dren this idea of like, oh I need a new adventure novels by Rush Limbaugh. I mean there's like there's like he got through like seven of these before finally. Yeah. Yeah. Um. So we're talking about the people who, for thousands of years were servants to their king's leaders in government. It didn't matter how hard these people work to improve their lives, because their lives were not their own. Imagine that. What a horror. They often feared for their lives and could not get out from under a ruling class no matter how this guy. Yes, this is inconceivable to an American living in bondage to a ruling class that responds with violence anytime you try to get out from under them. Something we can't comprehend here. There's an unfathomable situation. Is this still the author's note? Yes, this is still the author's note. We're barely making it sentenced by sentence. Many of these people lived and continue to live in extreme poverty, with no clean water, limited food, and none of the luxuries that we often take for granted. Many citizens in the world were punished, sometimes severely, for having their own ideas, beliefs, and hopes for a better future. The United States of America is unique because it is the exception to all. This country is the first country ever to be founded on the principle that all human beings are created as free people. The founders of this phenomenal country believe that all people were born to be free as into Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm just circling back to what you've already mentioned. This article a pretty accurate description. The author's note is completely false. It's all it's all lies, But these are also he is. What he's doing successfully here is he is reframing his specific line of right wing bullshit, which most centrists dislike Russia. Limbaugh is not a guy who had a big listenership of centrists, and he's reframing it in a way that is very familiar to anyone who had an American grade school education, and thus is like pretty inoffensive, um because people are kind of used to hearing it written. This way, like, I can see how people who were not regular listeners of the Russia Limbaugh Show could read that. I don't think any of them would buy it because I what I will say, and this kind of mitigates the danger of this book. The only people who are going to see Rush Limball in a book's cover and buy it for their kids or right wingers. But I can see how some like kind of centrist book reviewer could read this big Oh, it's actually not that bad because like he's not he's he's saying like he's saying what is right? Yes, well, and it's just like this is yeah, it's it's it's cool. It's cool that he's he's he's doing this. Um uh yeah. I mean then there's also there's some like weird Thatcher right here stuff here, America is a place where the individual person serves himself and his family, not the king or ruling class or government, which is like Margaret Thatcher's big things like we don't have a society. There's no such thing as society. Their individuals and their families, right. And this is like a very central conservative idea, in part because conservatism rests heavily on the atomization of the individual from other individuals, and like the best way to do that is to separate people into this false idea of a nuclear family that's like the building block of civilization as opposed to communities of people like engaging with each other for mutual benefit with in support, which is like what what where things actually happened. But if you get everyone atomized into this like no, you you and your family are plotting like plot looking thinking because what he talks about here when people have the freedom to look for a better future, what he means is that you as an individual have a freedom to try and earn a better future for your family, but you, as a person who is part of a collective, as part of a class, don't have any like that is not part of the conservative vision of freedom, which is part of why like they love ship like the suburbs, because when you live in the fucking burbs, you are inherently separated from people who don't live there, right, Like you're atomized, that's anyway, even in the suburbs, you're on a smaller, like smaller level, you're separated from all your neighbors too. Yeah yeah, yeah, um, this book on the Pilgrims is part of the great tale how the United States came to be. The Pilgrims came to our shores more than a century and a half before our country was established in seventeen seventy six. But there are reasons for coming to the New World. Helped to sow the seeds of our nation. The story of the Pilgrims and their arrival in the New World has been taught for hundreds of years, and then that time, the story has been tweaked and changed by people, to the point that it is often misunderstood. I want you to know the real story. Okay, yeah, And I bet all of our listeners want to know the real story. But you know what they want to listen to more ads for these products and services now and through products and adventure through products and services. Our primary sponsor for this week is my favorite sponsor, which is the organization with the plot to nuke the Great Lakes region, which I think we can all agree is a noble endeavor. Just get rid of them, Just get rid of those lakes or the world. Make them into one lake, make him into one lake. Whatever you do, just nuke them, you know, yeah, nuke the Great Lakes. Here's our sponsors or tone. We're back. Sophie hates it when we talk about nuke in the Great Lakes. That's because she thinks that all of the brave men on the Edmund Fitzgerald deserve to die. Sophie along. Wow, Wow, the worst thing. Robert's accused me. All right, okay, so a wow. So I was just praising the construction of this book, and most of like the illustrations are pretty well put in this one. This one is not. This one's not great. It I'm looking it's it is a very crude photoshop of like a ruddy faced pill addict Rush Limbaugh's head on a colonial body chip jab it's from and in his head he's got a little map and it says it's listing like the northeast coast. It's got like Newfoundland, Cape Cod, New England, Virginia. But instead of spelling Plymouth, right, I want you to see, Cody, can you read out how he's spelled Plymouth or can you see it's all reversed. It's all gonna be reversed on the thing. He l I M O T H Wait wait yeah yeah, buddy, Because nobody cared that much about the facts. They wanted to make this look enticing to kids, and I think it does. Again, it's a color, but yeah, yeah, it's bad. It's bad. Nobody read it and Karen yeah no, I mean it was a New York Times bestseller. These were all number one on the best seller list when they dropped. Yeah, but nobody cares, we hope. Yeah, I mean they're like, well, I mean, I can't speak for this book. I don't know the details, but a lot of these books, especially somebody like Russia Limbaugh, will buy them in bulk. Yes, that it is unclear year. I mean again, Rush was on every day when I was a kid, so like a lot of people worshiped this dudeen and fourteen is a little bit past his his best of date, but he was still influential. I mean, I don't really know. I can't obviously, because of things like that, because of how like effect of the Right is at gaming the New York Times bestseller list, I cannot tell you how actually influential these books were. But I mean I I just as a kid who listened to him almost every day for years and years, I do feel like there's a pretty decent chance there's a lot of kids who were like because if you were nine or ten back when this book came out, you're eighteen or nineteen right now. We gotta have some listeners that have read these books because like for middle schoolers and stuff. So yeah, I'm thinkary ten to twelve, thirteen, fourteen maybe is kind of like the age for this, maybe like nine to twelve something like that. But I kind of suspect there's a lot of like Graper types who encountered these books when they were kids. Um, we'll see, we'll see. Um. Yeah, I'm trying to find the because they have usually in the New York Times on their best seller list, they have a little icon next to books on the list to indicate if a lot of them have been bought in bulk, because they know that that's one of the one of the they probably didn't have that they probably didn't have it back then. I do need to I need to note real quick, sorry, the jib jab photo of him inside the book that you showed us the express the face the face of him, and you can confirm this for me if you could. It's the same photo from the cover his head um and it's the same head from the second and third book cover as well. Yeah, I think they just keep sticking and they just pop it on, which is inconsequential, but you know, yeah, it's a big detail. So the book opens with our character Rush Revere on the deck of the Mayflower like vomiting over the side, or trying not to vomit. He's like sick and queasy. He's just telepo ordered to the year sixteen twenty and only been on the boat a little while. I tell you, when I think of Russia, Limba, I assume he's vomiting. I'm also I have to say, that is the only believable way to introduce the story. Now, the best way, the most, the most believable way for this to open is if he starts off vomiting, then guzzles down another three or four ox eyes and starts weekly masturbating to like a forty year old sports illustrated magazine. That's that's really the intro to Rush that the most Well, we'll see what happens next. I guess um this was not my first encounter with someone from the past. Although I was feeling extremely queasy. I tipped my hat and introduced myself while trying not to fall over. I'm not a saint or a separate that. The guy has asked him, like, we should throw all you whatever. I'm rush Revere, I said, I'm a history teacher from the twenty first century. I've come to the twenty fourth century. Blimey, you're mad, the whole lot of you. You think I care if you make it to New England? The sailor laughed. So this is a sailor who doesn't care about the people who are on the Mayflower because they're all religious extremists, which, yeah, I guess fair um, So okay, he pukes on this guy. He probably didn't even write it, but that's not really terrible. Well, it's all terrible. So he pukes on this sailor, and the sailor threatens to beat him up, and so he runs to his horse, who was named Liberty for help. Now, Cody, I know you have a lot of questions the books about to answer them. Now, look, I know what you're thinking, what's a horse doing on the deck of a Mayflower in the middle of a storm? Tross, good question. The truth is, my Liberty is no ordinary horse, all right? And then I actually I'm going to be honest. The surf and stuff, YadA, YadA, YadA. The guy's threatening. Okay, so this dude is coming after him, and he finds his horse, and his horse says, I hope you can fly, and okay, oh yes, one can talk, yes, oh yes, and he can talk, writes Rush, I told you who wasn't an ordinary horse. Before the man could even turn around to see who had spoken, Liberty kicked his hind legs and sent the sailors sailing high into the eye. And then he fell into the air, and then he fell into a web of nets. Perfect shot. Liberty said, you appeared in the nick of time, I said, starting to feel sick again. Leaping into the mayflower in the middle of a storm wasn't my idea, Liberty said, speaking very fast. Yes, I can leap to different times in American history, but I'm not. Okay, So the horse is the time, you know. Look, he's at least getting to the point here. Yeah, he's also very hungry, which I'm not going to read all of that. That's apparently the thing which the horse, Yeah, hungry for pills. This is the first book, Yes, Cody, I know, like it's you know, it's customary recommend it's a good idea to like start in the middle of your action, you know, like it's and like, this is a really bad way to start this book. It is. So one of the things is the horse as because he gets so sick, takes him act to modern day America. So there's there's well, in order to travel through time, the horse has to say a catch phrase. There's two different ones. I think there's to get back to the modern time, it has to say rush rush, rushing from history. And then I'm guessing too, history is the other way it works. But yeah, that's the prologue. Now we're in chapter one where he's back at his job as a high school or middle school. Yeah yeah, middle school. Yep, yep. Um the school bell rings, YadA, YadA. Principle Sherman also comes into the class. Um. Oh boy. I wonder if Sherman is going to be the bad guy because Sherman beat the Confederacy. I don't know. We'll see if this principle winds up sucking um on the principle of Manchester Middle School was not a small man. If the door frame were any smaller, the principal would have to duck his head and twist his way into the classroom. I stood outside in the hallway as the door closed, but watched in her hair of the door, small window. Everyone meaning, please take your seats, said the principal with authority. He stood at the front of the classroom, hands at his sides while his eyes scanned the desks and chairs. I have an important announcement. The room went silent. It was apparent that the principal Sherman, did not tolerate disrespect. I have some unfortunate news, he said, Your teacher, Miss Borrington, needed some extra time away from the academy to help care for a sick family member in the academy. Nobody calls him a middle school. The academy, Um, okay, whatever. Anyway, he's introducing his substance wealth insurance and if nurses were covered, she wouldn't have to take time off from school. But doesn't rush, I think people should take time off and like I would want this, like teachers and stuff. And he does not explain this. He just calls it a middle school. But the fact that he says it's an academy and the principal announces that they have only the best teachers here I think this is a fancy private school for rich kids. Only the best teachers. Yes, only the very best of teachers. Um, the exceptional teachers, I would say, actually an exceptional Wow. So there's exceptional. There's like a whole diet tribe in here about the name Rush and how it's not a weird name. Um. So he comes in and he like writes his name on the school board or on the chalkboard before I even and then like a girl, raises her hand after he writes his name on the chalkboard. Before I had a chance to even call on her, she asked, your first name is Rush. That's weird, and why are you dressed like that? She said, I could tell that this student was all business. If there were a pecking order in this class, she would probably be at the top of the food chain. My seating charge and replied, thank you, Elizabeth. Do you go by Liz? She rolled her eyes and nearly grunted. No, unlike some people, I have a real name. It's Elizabeth. It's a lovely name if you like four syllables, I said, rate winking. If you must know, my real name is Rusty. But when I was your age, my favorite class was history. In fact, I found myself rushing to history class every day I had it, and when rushed from my home, rushed down the street and rushed through the school until it was sitting. Eventually my teacher started calling me Rush and it's stuck. Is this a true story from his that's not his actual Rush. His given name is Rush. Yes, that's his actual given Hudson Limbaugh. Yes names Hudson. Yeah, yeah, I love that. That's yeah, the third Rush Hudson Limba, the third Yes, Rusty, Yeah, it's that. It's fucking unbelievable. Like, first off, absolutely not nobody's backstory, Like like, but you guys were so horrified. I would say, well, I, Katie, I thought you were trying to slander the number one achievement in American artistic history, the film Hudson Hawk, which I will not stand for, no, no, no, no, Bruce Willis is greatest, name only contribution to civilization, the film Hudson Hawk. Um, we're talking. I'm gonna let it slide, but watch Hudson Hawk people, Um, great film. So yeah. He then explains why he's dressed. Apparently he's dressed obviously the way he's dressed in the gym chip clip art on the cover as like a colonial dude. So he explains that, um, can you anyone guess who I am dressed? As students raise their hands, they guess George Washington. Good guests, but no, however, I am dressed as someone who fought in the same revolutionary war. Is George Washington? And they assuredly knew each other. Are you Thomas Jefferson asked another student? Sure. No, however, another good guess, YadA, YadA, YadA. He's paid. They keep saying, more white men because they can't tell the difference. Yes, yes, it's fucking Paul Revere. Um. So he has he has fucking interactions with these school children, which, boy, we just don't need to talk about that. Um okay. Then he brings his horse into class Liberty. Um, yeah, I don't think we're ever going to explain how he got the horse. I'm sure at some point we're going to learn where the horse came from. Um, but yeah, it'll be like through like somebody asking where do you get the horse? And he'll explain it. And I don't mean that all the girls, all the kids horse except for a girl named Freedom. Well I did I did once to go to a school where kids road there. School. Um, but that was it was for a bit. Yeah, it was for a bit. Um. Okay, so let's let's move past this school section, because boy, we just don't need this goes on for pages. They're just talking get to the history. What the heck, we don't need any of this. Um, so Jesus God. Okay. Finally, finally, uh, he takes a bunch of kids with him into the past. Uh. Yeah, they go rush, rush, rushing to history. I don't I don't think about that. I think all I think Actually, I assume all children and their parents consent to go back in time if the teacher can time trap if asked. Yeah, yeah, that that actually does seem fair. The magic school bus, right, guys, thank god, we're cutting that. We're just we're just canceling for that one. Um. The trip through the time portal was like jumping through a hoop. Instantaneously we landed in Holland. I quickly surveyed the geography and discovered we were in a field not far from the Dutch port of Delf shopping. Thankfully, we were alone, so he doesn't get to decide where he's going he just hops on the horse and then like pops over to somewhere sometime. Yeah, he's in fucking I guess Holland, because that's where they set off from the he's looking for pilgrim well, Puritans, Um right, right, okay, oh good, and now he's whitewashing the Puritans. This is great. Um. The woman turned in my direction, but didn't stop walking. She stared at me as if I were some strange animal at a zoo. She quickly replied, if you're looking for Puritans, you found us. These the Puritans. I had always amag sin the Pilgrims in clothing that was black, white, and gray. However, these people wore clothing that was dye in every color of the rainbow. A yellow shirt, blue britches, green stockings, a red dress, a purple knitted stocking cap. I was certainly mistaken to think that I knew what the Pilgrims were every day. It was time to get my class involved. Class, I said, these are the real Pilgrims. I pointed the lens of my smartphone towards the large group that had gathered. I guess they're watching it through his phone or some ship. I'm sorry, he is not taking into account how irresponsible this is to just all of these children in a different time. I mean, you could drastically change the events of history. I mean that would be the best case scenario, right, if they somehow got these people killed and so they didn't colonize the North. Yeah. Yeah, give him a few more years to to get ready. Um, all right, so we're learning about the fucking Pilgrims, and boy, I just do not want to, absolutely do not want to, because I know there's some weird socialism shaming coming uh in the part about the actual colony and uh that they make and yeah, so let's let's let's skip forward to that a bit here. Um. Boy, this this has been like ten pages of him talking about how cool the Puritans are, um because they separated from the Church of England, um, and how they really just loved liberty as opposed to being weird religious extremists who wanted to be able to oppress people without being having to live under anyone else's rules. Um. Anyway, I guess it makes sense that he would want to whitewash them for that, right. Um. Yeah, So he travels back into the present, into the classroom to talk to the kids about what they've learned, and then Principal Sherman walks in, Um, yeah, and it's it's it's a whole thing. Uh uh Um. The Principle demands an explanation because he's heard some weird shit. Uh an explanation, I stalled, well, yes, of course, I realized that Principle Sherman would eventually find a yellow wooden shoe outside the classroom windows, so I began. We were discuss the Pilgrims and how they left England to escape religious persecution and settled in Holland along the journey to the New World. I brought a wooden Dutch shoe from my trip to the Netherlands as a bit of show and tell, and Principal Sherman interrupted me and said, pointing, you mean, like the one that's broken and splintered on the floor here. I had forgotten about that one. Yes, and apparently wooden shoes are not very sturdy. Principle Sherman walked over to the window and saw the second shoe lying on the grass near a big oak tree, and yet that one looks just fine. I joined him at the window and said, um, okay, so this is all very boring, boring, boring, It's very boring and bad. Uh that's okay. They're surprisingly more random classroom bullshit and discussion of Puritans in here than there is actual narrative action going on why this was an adventure series. There getting okay, but we it looks like we're going to get some explanation here. So he has this kid, Tommy, who's like the little it in the class um starts like bagging on him for his horse. Um and yeah, okay, so do um okay. Here's him explaining this is the explanation for how the horse can travel through time. It appears that lightning may have struck Liberty and created a supernatural phenomenon or a time portal that thrust him forward in time to our day. The electrical properties that charged through his body and the vortex that sent him to the future changed him physically and mentally. He can not only talk and disappear, but he's also I paused, trying to formulate the right words Freedom finished my sentence and said a time machine. Tommy said, confused, Did I miss something? Did you just say time machine? He's more like a time portal, I said, to clarify, he has the ability to momentarily open a time door anywhere in history, well more specifically, anything that touches American history. Tommy started laughing, Okay, this is a joke. I'm onto you. This is some TV reality TV show called The Biggest Bozo Who Believes? And where the cameras been? Looking around the room. He then looked back at Freedom and back at me. But the US were dead serious. You believe this guy, Tommy asked Freedom, sticking his thumb out at Wait a second, wait, wait, wait what I thought the horse was named Liberty, the horses Liberty. Freedom is the girl in the class who likes rush. Oh my god, come on, I didn't catch that, Cody. You didn't catch that. Oh yeah, but maybe I skipped ahead a little much. But yes, Freedom is the girl who's immediately on board his weird ass bullshit. That's great, Cody. It's called subtext. It's called subtext. Okay, Cody, I know that. You don't. It's called you are You aren't You aren't. You aren't an author like me, so you don't understand the complexities of literature. But when you want to say that a character you name her Liberty, and then people or Freedom. I forget which, but either way, people know they're a good I do see it subliminal, it's exactly exactly. It's like, um, it's like, I don't know if I say it's like Nietzsche enough people probably haven't read Netzsche that they'll just assume that I'm not lying. So it's like, say, it's like Nietzsche. Yeah, No, it's like you fucking name your character Shepherd or whatever. Yeah, exactly exactly. You name your character Shepherd because he's hot and he focks like a stallion. That's that's why you would do that. As an ally's very wuly. So you know it's probably time for another advert. Let's just do let's just get the funk out of your Rush we're back. Um. So Freedom tries to convince Tommy that Rush isn't lying about his time traveling. Tommy is the hero of this story. Also, like Rush just say magic, Oh boy, something's going on here. Yeah. I love that he's he's now like he's he is in the text of his book sweatily defending the time travel mechanism that he's written into it. Also, Rush just have this substitute teacher be an inventor. Who made like you know, he can also have a talking horse sidekick. Why is the horse have to be that's just sweaty and stupid, and it causes all of these questions that could be answered by saying I built a time machine and I made my horse smart. Because you know what, if you established that this character is an inventor who's built a time machine, all believe that he has a talking horse that he sites. It's fine, It's fine. That is not going to be my problem with your work. If you do it, that wouldn't be complicated. And that he was struck by lightning, and so he can only travel through American history. But he also just traveled to Holland. So again, does it just mean that, like where is the I go there? Right? Because the people who were in Hollands, some of them later went to the Northeast, but none of them ever lived in the United States. But it was like American. But does that mean that, like you could go back to ancient Rome because the founding fathers based a lot of our republic on the way the Romans did things like you go back to Africa? Right, you know, could you travel back to when like the Portuguese first started exploring slaves from Africa, because that's as much a part of the history of this country as the landing on Plymouth. Um. Not explained by Rush Limbaugh. But he doesn't like the birthplace of Christopher Columbus and just like hang out there, like, yeah, is he going like Genoa? Yeah? That is all this is all part of American history. Is he, for example, going back further than the sixteen hundreds to like, you know, indigital like to co Kia right in like modern day like Missouri, Illinois area, and like talking, you know, I'm guessing he's not. I mean you probably like can you go to like fucking Greece because you talk about democracy? Like right, yeah, are you? Are you going to China? Because they invented gunpowder and played a crucial role in the colonization of North America. Um, none of this will be answered. That's all decided by the horse. So Tommy and Freedom and Rush continue their argument. Hey, I might be crazy, but I'm not that crazy, Okay, Tommy said. He got up from his desk and started pacing the floor. He took off his baseball cap and combed his fingers through his blonde hair. He sighed, I have to think about this for a minute. We probably shouldn't show them the other thing I can do, should we? I mean, he seems a little freaked out right now, Liberty said no, I said firmly. I took a deep breath. I need to finish our story. I believe the lightning creed at the time portal to the modern day. Tommy put his sorry, sorry. Arguing about the lightning this is like again, just say magic, and we're just say magic, God, magic science. It's fine, but also anything yet very fancy academy. That kid cannot wear a baseball cap inside. No, no, there are in sufferable uniform, yes exactly, and again probably not horses a loud inside either, but we'll let it slide. Also like it's a talking horse, Yeah, it is a talking motherfuckers. Mr Ed, that's the one not talking. Yes it is. It's one of the two famous horses that can talk, you know. The other one is Liberty. He keeps. This is now like two pages of arguing with this child about the lightning handle not arguing, I think a room full of children. Tommy put his baseball cap back on and said, okay, okay, maybe it is possible I mean, I don't think the lightning hit him directly. Technically, a direct hit would have killed him, But I guess there's a possibility that several bolts of what is where is it? Electrostatic prism and the possitive and negative charge carriers, combined with the acoustic shock waves create him some kind of time hole. But ce Liberty, what is the conversation they're having? This is a history adventure. It's because it's not even like he figured it out and he's like like an explanation for it. It's just like a character guessing, yeah, it's way, and we're just we're now explaining how like Liberty when they came for the future met Rush and like how shocking the world was. This is my point. There's a fucking book in the past with his magic horse, and then do this like whole sequence like show him meeting the horse. Yeah, it's like, we're not going to do that. Um yeah, we're absolutely not going to do that. We have an illustration on this next page. It again, this is all just Liberty explaining how they met. Um boy, there doesn't seem to be any explanation for this at all. There's just a picture of him holding a modern day I see can with an American flag that says too if by tea underneath it. I don't know why that was put in here. What's happening on the page opposite from it? Like he's talking liberty and liberty are talking about fucking how he met his fucking horse, right, how his horse came through time? What page are we on right now in the book? My god, my god, if I bought this, you bought this book. So we go children something, presumably, and so far it's just been nonsense. So far we have learned that the Puritans were just a bunch of nice people who wanted religious freedom as opposed to thought. And we have had spent pages talking about how lightning strikes could conceivably give horse the ability to time travel. That is, that is the primary fact dump we've gotten so far. Dress code at this academy. Yeah, it's uh. They're talking about when football happened, because Tommy's a football player, even though he knows a lot about lightning. That's a boy. This is just this is just ridiculous. We don't need we don't know. And when does the history start? That's a great question. Oh good, So Tommy gets on the horse. Now we've got a picture of Tommy riding back in time on the horse. So I'm in a cause that's what happens in the pages I've skipped. He's sitting in relation to the other Yeah, so they are trying to land undetected on the Mayflower. The time portal opened just as it did momentsary. What do you do with all the other kids, Katie, You're gonna have some open questions about this because I am not going through every fucking page of this stupid yea makes sense, Okay, the picture doesn't explain. Therefore, I cannot tell you I am. We're not gonna be hitting every plot point here. The time portal opened just as it did moments earlier. As clearly as possible, I pronounced each word, September six, Plymouth, England, the launching of the Mayflower. I had found given that giving the exact date, location a name of the historical event event helped liberty get us to where we needed. Of course, like you don't need to, I understand why you would do that in any way. The sensation of jumping grew time was always the same. The rush of air sent goose bumps over my body. The hair on my arms stood on end, and for a second, it feels like it does when you're swinging backwards on the sciata. YadA YadA. Um. Okay, so they're like, it does it does sound like he's coming. Like, never use the word rush unless you're referring to your character. Yeah. So they have liberty go into stealth mode and pretend not to be a talking horse so they can sneak on the Mayflower, which is easy because some of the pilgrims had second thoughts. Um. One of the pilgrims, he's William Bradford, who he met in Holland, remembers him and says, Rush Revere, it does my heart good to see you again. And is this the person you were waiting for in Holland? He smiled affectionately while straightening Tommy's brown leather hat. Yes, this is Tommy, I said, as I put my arm around Tommy's shoulder. His parents are gone, so be caring for him on this voyage. It's a pleasure to meet you, Tommy, Bradford said, as he reached out his hand to Tommy, who shook it. William turned back to me and said let's talk some more after the ship set sale, the captain is very eager to leave. Okay, boring, get get some plic domain. We got like four pages of public domain photos of the fucking Mayflower, like drawings of it and ships. Your question about Tommy, I mean, we're not going to have an answer for it. But it's Tommy just wearing two thousand thirteen. No, no, no, he's dressed. They gave, they gave, they found clothes for him. I'm gonna I am. I Am going to fill in a blank here and say, Rush Revere traveled forward in time, found a pilgrim child, separated from his family, cut his throat with a straight razor, and took the clothing from him. Makes sense, Yeah, it's a little a little bit of a This is also an Assassin's Creed. Uh, just like half of the chapters are like really boring, but about aliens and something Rush limbine his hoodie running speaking of by the way, speaking of fiction stories that did not need to explain things as much as they wound up doing, Assassin's Creed made the same mistake as the Rushed Revere novels. Nobody needed any of that. You don't need that section at all. People just want to murder folks in different time periods. You don't need to do a whole thing like that's not necessary. I wasn't confused. I didn't have questions. It's like if the Grand Theft Auto series like added as very sweaty, like whole fucking series of missions about how you're like a time traveling, superpowered person and that's why you never die in the car, Like, we don't. We don't need that. No, no, that's necessary. So I'm here. Yeah, I'm not here for the sorry, yeah, not not here for the lore. Um okay. So Puritan's Boy just a lot more Puritans traveling on a boat. Um, with most of this is not history. It appears to be like them encountering random people. And like there's like three pages where Tommy meets a pilgrim kid who has a puppy and they talk about puppies. They talk about how uncomfortable boats are, which I don't. Yeah, it's it's great. Um, this is this is a ship book, guys, this is a real ship is really bad, like not like as a history book and as an adventure book. Yeah yes, and just like a children I mean like does he ever? What is he? What am I supposed to learn from this? What am I? You're not supposed to learn anything from this? And look, I'm not going to keep digging through this. But there is one thing I wanted to hit um that I read when I was reading reviews of this. No, it's kind of about some of the weird politics. Um, and so I think we'll close on that. But I would be doing I would be doing a disservice if I didn't like bring it up. Um yeah, uh here we go. Oh boy, um uh this this is a different review than the one I've read, but I have to read it. This is from a review that some like homeschooling Mom wrote, I think reading the series has given us a nice break from traditional schooling. My kids automatically preferred it over textbooks are looking at encyclopedias. They were drawn into the story of rush Revere at the middle school he teaches in his students. They like that there was time travel involved. Um yeah. Although she says she she had a hard time getting into the series when it came to the history in the books, that narrative narrative did tend to get a bit bookish. On one hand, we got to know many of the real characters that shaped America, YadA YadA. On the other hand, the series the characters would sometimes seem to go on a rant, spending a good time amount of time explaining historical events and facts a bit unnaturally through chunks of dialogue. That's because all of the bits where he's explaining history read like fucking uh like Wikipedia pages that were just like copied. And she doesn't like the part where you're teaching your children something. Well, yeah, I mean I think because it's bad writing, like give her that it's it's not yeah, it sounds like interested in like learning that much. Yeah, and it's poorly written, and it's it's a it's bad. It's a bad book series. Um but yeah. So like one of the there there's a because it's Rush Limbaugh, there's like a weird bit of uh anti collectivist ship in here. I'm gonna read from that Chicago Tribune article anyway or again. Limbaugh, like other conservatives, seizes upon the Pilgrim story is an example that of the terrible things that can happen when people pool their resources in a collectivist manner. The author seems particularly offended by the idea of a common house at Plymouth. To him, the Pilgrims suffered, suffered from the fulls of commonism, and survived only by belatedly injecting individualism and free enterprise into their settlement. And like the basis of this is that they used to have the Pilgrims had common ownership of like food and fields and stuff when they came and eventually like decided to give families their own land, and that caused people to produce more corn or something. And this is all bits of history that that people take out and politicize. But yeah, so he's he's, he's there's definitely pieces of this that he takes out for his lesson, But I think most of this is basically him writing this weird, sweaty sci fi story about a middle school teacher and occasionally like cribbing and rewriting chunks of Wikipedia pages and like throwing them into the mouths of historical figures like William Bradford info dump about the most boring aspects of history. Um, anyway, that's that's that's the book. It's this sweaty mix of propaganda and horse lightning debates. Um, I mean, I'm thrilled that you invited us to participate in this. Did you all learn something I learned about liberty and the people that? Yeah? That the characters? Um, yeah, Tommy, I hope he doesn't change his mind and think I don't think he does, because Tommy, Tommy is the one who provided us with our our scientific explanation for the time travel that we absolutely needed. Yeah, otherwise where would we be right now? Yeah? Otherwise where would we be right now? Well, you know where we are right now is at the point in the episode where y'all plug your mother fucking plug doubles. Yeah, we got stuff to plug. Um, check out our YouTube channel somewhere news. Do that we got get out three hour episode about Jordan. Do you do have a three hour episode about Jordan Peterson? Um? So check that out. Go spend three hours with Jordan Peterson, just like those doctors in Russia who who many days with him while he such conscious after they weren't allowed to do that, going going cold turkey on Penzo's and think nothing's fine, He's great. He doesn't. If you take if you look at a picture of him from two thousand seventeen and a picture of him from this year, it doesn't look like he's lost seventy pounds and also his mind and not at all. Yeah, he doesn't look like he's aged twenty five years in the last three. It doesn't look at all like he picked up the wrong grail. Yeah, there's there's nothing unsettling about his tendency to periodically cry at random moments. Very fine, but but that is one of them. Anyway, Thanks, I love you all. Like Rush Revere loves his horse, everyone isn't a girl his lightning horse. I mean, there's no opened up a portal with the lightning. There's only one line I can responsibly end on which I'm glad he's dead. I continue to be glad he step if it weren't for everything else he would deserve to die for writing this book and book two and three and four, and from all of the like seven or five. How are many? There's too many of them, Robert. Sometimes you really surprised me, and I know what we're gonna say, and it gives me just the most reaction. Look, I'm glad he's dead, and I'll go ahead and say it, you know, hunt down the illustrator from this book, figure out who did the jib Jab and take him down Jab. I'm not sure which one, but it's one of them. God, alright, We're done by. Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from cool zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.