Madness Madness!

WOOP WOOP Y'ALL! This week it's a thoughtful examination of getting soaked in cheap soda and occasionally meth vs. endless guitar solos from a band whose most compelling members have been (gratefully, presumably) dead for decades, and whose fans are twirling, TWIRLING, ALWAYS TWIRLING!!! If you think about it, Juggalos are like Deadheads, but tailored to the ruined economy and world left behind by the Deadheads' generation. Join us, won't you? We'll discuss which is worse: Following a hellish, vomit-spattered circus packed with nightmarish clowns, or going to an Insane Clown Posse show.

Important Link: The Achewood comic about the Grateful Dead.

We're back from vacation, and we miss it severely. But we wrote a song about it, because that's what we do around here. Enjoy!

We're Americans, after all, which means we can't deal with even the tiniest soupçon of nuance. What better mindset could there be when approaching a showdown between the well-intentioned but ultimately semi-disastrous teetotaling Women's Christian Temperance Union and the gathering of unredeemable 18th-Centuray Upper-Class British Shits that christened itself The Hellfire Club? It's a roller-coaster that starts with unpardonable circumstances that lead to desperate but wrongheaded ideas, and ends with unpardonable ideas from wrongheaded and decidedly non-desperate rich fucking twits. Also Brian talks about his first job as a mall puppeteer, ultimately raising more questions than he answers. Join us, won't you?

On this auspicious week following the United States' 245th birthday, we look back to a week ago, the auspicious week before the United States' 245th birthday, and the not-quite-an-episode we recorded then. I mean, look, it's an episode, it's just not specifically about clubs and organizations—unless you count the mildly exclusive club of people who tried to assassinate our 38th president, Gerald R. Ford!

That's right, today we're having a quick look at Sara Jane Moore and podcast stalwart Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme!  They are definitely two people who tried to shoot Gerald Ford, who, the Nixon pardon aside, was basically just sitting there not hurting anyone. I dunno man. People wanted to shoot a dude.

Folks, it's summer. It's a time of vacation. And last weekend, when we normally would have recorded this week's show, was Brian's vacation. So there's no new entire show this week. However, please enjoy/listen grudgingly to/mercilessly roast this week's offering, a new song about not having a podcast episode for this week.

Look, just because it's a creepily secretive cabal of the ultra-rich and politically connected doesn't mean the Bilderberg Group is creepy as hell, does it? It does? Oh, excellent! I'm relieved to hear you say that; I also find it incredibly creepy. In today's episode they will definitely not show up to their showdown with the Black Panthers, a crucial social justice group from the '60s and '70s that dared to kick the boot off Black Americans' necks and demanded long-denied justice. Also they made free breakfast. 

It had to happen eventually, folks: The Girl Scouts are squaring off against the Boy Scouts, and hooboy it is not gonna go well for the one with all the sexual abuse. (SNS for spoilers.) I mean, look: In the Boy Scouts' defense, is there anything inherently wrong with a crypto-militaristic, consistently right-wing group founded in the depths of British Imperialism?

... Yes! Yes. Of course there is. Jesus Christ. Anyway, the good news is we'll also be learning about the Girl Scouts this week, which is a much more uplifting tale. Except the part about the murders BUT THOSE WERE NOT DONE BY GIRL SCOUTS, OKAY

Which leads me to the CONTENT WARNING: There is discussion of some horrific murder right around the two-hour mark that lasts for about 10 minutes, so if you want to skip that, it's totally understandable. We've added chapter markers if you want to skip over it, though I don't know if that works in iTunes or whatever.

LINK! "The History of the Scouting Movement," youtube, where comments have been disabled for presumably hilarious reasons.

Sometimes you have choose between inherently evil and stupid organizations. Sometimes it's this week. The Greek System at U.S. Universities is known for just about every kind of baked-in racism, sexism, and classism; the John Birch Society is known for being a paranoid anti-Communist horse shit factory of the type that was generally laughed out of town back before we entered the stupidest timeline ever. Come find out which is worse!

Humorous Reference Materials

Chad Mitchell Trio: "The John Birch Society"

Bob Dylan: "John Birch Paranoid Blues"

Content warning: Part 1 contains some slurs against gay people, spoken by a gay person. Also CW for mentions of r*pe and abuse by police, and an unavoidable smidgen of pedophilia.

If you’re gay and have a job, you’ll have a hard time choosing between this week’s clubs! The Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis provided safe and empowering places for LGBTQ folk during the early and mid 20th Century when such refuges were painfully scant. Meanwhile, the Industrial Workers of the World — the IWW, or “The Wobblies,” a nickname no one has been able to satisfactorily explain — started sticking it to The Man at around the same time with wildcat strikes, whuppin’ some strike-breaker ass, straight-up sabotage, and demands for basic worker rights and protections, and, depending on who you asked, the overthrow of the government and the seizing of the means of production. Join us! 

You can have a shovel or a leather mug, but you can't have both. This week we determine whether 'tis nobler to White Savior into a recently semi-decolonized country and insist on capitalism, or to get shitty about the relative authenticity of other people's costumes. It's the Peace Corps, where the germ of an idea John F. Kennedy kind of swiped from Hubert H. Humphrey yielded a pipeline of deeply unqualified, overwhelmingly white college graduates into areas of the world we decided needed Help because they didn't look enough like the suburbs of Buffalo, NY. Compared to that, it seems like the Society for Creative Anachronism — picture guys sparring with fake swords even when it's not the Renaissance Festival — would be a shoo-in for this week's best club. It's closer than you think. Buckle in! This one's almost a third as long as Avengers: Endgame. But it's got way more shitty JFK impressions in it!