Join editor-in-chief Kyle Mann and creative director Ethan Nicolle for the second ever Babylon Bee podcast. NOTE: The day after this episode was recorded, Ethan's book Bears Want To Kill You was put back up on Amazon without explanation. He has no idea why they put it back up, or took it down in the first place, or if it will stay up. Here are the week's discussed news stories with timestamp: Story 1 (5:10) - Essential Oils For Men Now Available Story 2 (11:40) - Elizabeth Warren Promises to Cure Smallpox Story 3 (15:55) - Study: Hate Clicks Are A Major Source Of Web Traffic And Also 'The Princess Bride' Is A Trash Movie That Only Stupid People Like Topic of the Week (24:10) - Fathers Bonus Content (paid subscribers only) Bonus Story 1 (49:53) - New School Program Raises Awareness Of Things Kids Didn't Know They Were Supposed To Be Offended About Bonus Story 2 (56:25) - Rookie Mistake: Sound Guy Accidentally Unmutes Background Worship Singers -Subscriber Q&A (1:02:28) Become a paid subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans
In a world of fake news, this is news you can trust.
Broadcasting live from Babylon.
You're listening to the Babylon Bee.
Here are your infallible hosts, Kyle Mann and Ethan Nicole.
Yes, this is the Babylon Bee podcast.
I'm Kyle Mann.
And this is Ethan Nicole.
And we're jumping right in here with our second ever podcast.
That's right.
In the history of mankind.
We're going to make a big deal every time.
Fanfare trumpets.
This is the 143rd Babylon Bee podcast of all time.
Ever made.
There will never be another.
And you are listening to it.
You were born at the exact right time in history where you would get to hear the second Babylon Bee podcast.
You know, the sequel is always a little bit better than the first one, right?
That's always how it goes.
So how was your week, Ethan?
Hmm.
Well, I have a weird thing going on.
I don't know much self-promotion I can do, but I have a book.
Well, I guess it's actually in the Babylon Bee store, my other book that is competing with the Babylon B book called Bears Want to Kill You.
Yes.
It's not as good as the Babylon B book, but.
That's debatable.
It's all right.
But it's actually a lot more fun to look at, I'd have to say.
You did a great job with the colored graphics of bears.
Lots of graphics on every page.
Yeah.
Yeah, my book, I tried to get on Amazon, so I totally self-published it, and I got it on Kindle, but I tried to print it myself because Amazon does their own printing and it's horrible looking.
So I printed it myself through this fancy company, the Kickstarter.
And Amazon just decided for they never really gave me a reason, but they won't carry my book.
So I have my garage full of books and they won't let me sell it on Amazon.
That was like my whole plan.
So I posted this crazy letter that I got from Amazon saying like, sorry, we're not going to deal with you anymore on this issue and we probably won't email you back on this either.
It was like really like, it was like a cold breakup letter from like a next girlfriend.
Totally just typed up by a robot.
Yeah.
Like my screen iced over.
And I just nonchalantly posted it on Twitter because I've kind of been updating people on the progress of my whole Amazon debacle because this is like another thing about that.
Like I found out my book got taken down the moment after I finished an interview with Jonah Goldberg while I was in Washington, D.C. on a trip that I paid for to promote the book, telling everybody it was on Amazon.
So I'd done like multiple interviews, paid for all the travel.
Anyway, so here I am.
It's not on Amazon.
It's not going to be on Amazon.
But I got this crazy viral thing that happened where everybody thinks that Amazon's trying to censor me, like all my right-wing followers.
Even though they have the Kindle version up.
So I've gotten a lot of sales based on people thinking they're trying to censor my, like bears are trying to censor me from within Amazon or something.
Yeah, what's the conservative angle of this bear is trying to kill you thing?
I don't.
I've seen a lot of people.
Do you think it's because of your connection to the Babylon B?
Like I'll get DMs like they're whispering to me.
You know, people kind of love that stuff.
And yeah, there is definitely like a conservative culture thing where if any little thing happens, they're already.
Nah, censorship.
Yep.
Oh, we're being censored.
Yeah, I think one time I went to go log on to our little Babylon B secret Facebook group and it's like, oh, this group is inaccessible.
And I'm like, oh, this is it.
There it is.
Because there's legitimacy, right?
And sometimes it does happen like that.
Yeah.
There's stuff happening.
Oh, it's just a, it's just a glitch.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's been funny to see like how ready people are to like.
It's funny that went viral.
That's kind of that kind of thing.
People love that internal letter that they see where like, we're not going to carry your book.
And people like, oh, you know.
Yeah, it went crazy.
That tweet with that.
I just put a screen grab of that message and like I've sold like 100 books because of that tweet.
Yeah, I think people feel like they're part of some secret resistance, you know, if you see something like that.
Yep.
So that was my week.
Yeah.
Well, you had a more exciting week tonight.
You know, when we were recording this, Father's Day was yesterday.
So I had a nice Father's Day weekend.
Oh, yeah, it's Father's Day.
Yeah, I had a lot of meat.
Yeah, I had cigars.
We had steak for lunch.
Okay.
And then I just passed out and took a nap for the rest of the day.
Ideal Father's Day.
I always don't like eating out on Father's Day.
I just get permission to buy the nice, expensive meat, and then I grill it myself.
Oh, yeah.
I'm hardcore like that.
Well, this is a nice segue into our topic of the week because our topic of the week, we're going to be talking about fathers.
So every day what we do, every time on this podcast, what we do is we cover the news through three stories from the Babylon B, and then we'd have a topic of the week.
And our topic this week is talking about our fathers and what the meaning of fatherhood is in our relativistic culture.
Every week, there are stories.
These are some of them.
I've just missed like six calls from North Dakota.
I don't know.
You got something going on in North Dakota?
I have a lot of business holdings.
I'm recording this.
I have a lot of real estate, business holdings.
It's the Mount Rushmore.
Well, speaking of running your own business, our first story this week on the Babylon Bee, essential oils for men are now available.
Essential oils, of course, are typically more of a feminine venture, would you say, Ethan?
Yeah, I think it's a thing that...
Thing?
It's like the magic cards of females, I think.
They all sit around collecting them and talking about all the magic powers and all the special, like how they raise your HP points and stuff.
And the men are just like, I don't know what is going on right now, but they're very expensive.
It's definitely like that.
You know, you build your Magic the Gathering deck and you're trying to find the synergy between the different cards, you know, and the women are like, it's all about the combinations, right?
For homeschoolers, should we explain what Magic the Gathering cards are?
Yeah, it's like...
I don't even really know what they are.
I was going to say it's like Pokemon cards, but they wouldn't even know.
The homeschoolers wouldn't even know what Pokemon cards are.
Oh, you know what?
There was a Christian knockoff of Magic Magic called Redemption.
Holies.
Redemption.
So here's the, we're getting off topic, but here's the weird thing.
So in Redemption, you played like you were like angels, you know, and you're fighting over the souls of people.
But like Christian games always have this weird thing where like you have to play the bad guy too.
So your deck had like all these demons in it where you had to go stop the other guy from saving.
So whoever saved the most souls first wins.
And then it's like, but I'm going to play Satan and block your dude.
They have all these demon cards.
I don't know.
Or you have cards that are like a temptation.
You throw a temptation down and stuff.
So it's like this weird thing.
So it ends up being darker than magic, I guess.
It's darker a little bit.
So, yeah.
So this essential oils for men, the basic ideas, we kind of imagined what would be, what kind of essential oils would men like?
Yeah, this is one of those jokes that was so obvious.
I can't believe we hadn't made it till now.
I saw a couple comments on our Facebook page where people said, how is this not a repost?
Yeah.
From like three years ago because it looks, you know, every time I strike on a gold idea like this, it's like you sit around and the little workers in your brain like bring these little ideas up and I'm like, oh, there's no way that we're the first ones.
Yeah.
And I go and Google it and there's nothing.
Like if you Google essential oils for men, it goes to all the like essential oil.
Like they mean serious.
Yeah.
And then it's like, if you combine lavender with black pepper, you know, a lot of men like that scent.
That's a very manly oil.
So, no, but we imagined all the things like bacon grease.
Yeah.
You know.
MMA fighter sweat.
Lawn clippings.
The sweat of an MMA.
Actually, that's where I got this idea was I was outside and I was pushing my lawnmower around.
I know you don't mow your own lawn, Ethan, because you're not a real man.
I just stopped, yeah, but I used to.
And that smell was just like, I'm like, I could stand out here all day.
I'm not even a big like yard work or like I'm not very handy.
Yeah.
But it's like, I just smell that and I'm like, this is a job well done.
You know, it's the scent of a job well done.
It is tiring.
The Home Depot lumber aisle, that's another one.
Where you're just standing there and like, again, I'm not super handy, but if I have to go pick up wood for anything or pick up some tools and you just stand there, I'm like, yes, I'm a real man.
Yeah, every man in Home Depot walks with way more confidence than they do if they're walking through like JCPenney or something.
It's a way different feeling.
Yeah, and then you just feel like an idiot when the worker has to tell you where the screws are or whatever because you just screw going to rot and break and not work.
Is my whole thing going to fall down in a year?
I don't know.
Yeah, I'm a total more.
And then the thing about Home Depot is you're always having to go back.
You know, that's me as well.
Yeah, constantly go back.
I got to go four, five, six times because I get the wrong size nut or whatever.
Yeah, I always love that.
There's a meme of the one does not simply.
The one does not simply.
That's.
One does not simply Lord of the Rings meme.
Yeah, Boromir.
He's saying, one does not simply go to Home Depot one time.
That's perfect.
So here's some other scents that we have for essential oils for men.
Cuban cigars.
I like that satisfied.
You're making our listeners very uncomfortable right now, Ethan.
Exhaust from an American muscle car.
You know, I almost just wanted to say like unleaded gas.
You know, like you're sitting there just putting gas in your minivan and you're like, yeah, that's a real manly smell.
A freshly poured stout beer.
Nice.
You know, I was going to make that an IPA.
I would have punched you.
But yeah, I know that Ethan's not a fan of IPAs.
The scent of a just-fired assault rifle.
Authentic buffalo wing extract.
It would be the scent.
So you have to actually press oil out of whatever you're talking about, right?
Yeah, you know, and that was one of the struggles.
I was writing this.
I'm like, is this just like scents?
Because I'm sure they actually have like, you know, a candle or something for men that smells like bacon.
Like, I'm sure that's a thing.
So it was trying to be like, yeah, you actually squeeze this thing into, you know, you actually capture the chemical by pressing it or whatever.
Yeah, I think I had that on it because I did the artwork and you can see in the little text I put that like the cigar, the Cuban cigar where like they actually pressed like old cigar butts and squeezed all the oils out.
And it's like how disgusting it all becomes when you.
So man, if you're jealous of your wife's essential oils collection and you want to catch them all just like she gets to catch all the essential oils.
My wife just she had these like custom essential oil holders that she bought from these people that like they just drill these holes that are the perfect size for an essential oil bottle to sit into.
Yeah.
And they're in repurposed wood.
So you can create this like cute little like display for your essential oils to all fit into.
I think women like having a solution for things, especially when it comes to like health and like their kids, you know, so I sympathize with it because it's like this, you know, oh, my kid has a cough.
I don't know what to do.
And it's like, that's true.
Yeah.
And it's like, it's like, do we really know what's working?
Not really, but it feels like we're doing something.
So like just put some of this oil.
And it feels good that it's like something that came from something so natural.
Yeah.
Like really like squeezed a gazillion lemons and got this essential oil.
Yeah.
If you would like to get involved with the Babylon Bees multi-level marketing essential oils company.
Bee oil.
You're going to be doing bee oil.
We'll do a free conversation at your house.
No, honey.
We're squeezing the essence of bees.
You can use it on your enemies.
All right.
We're going to do our next story.
What do we got here?
We got Elizabeth Warren.
She was in the news.
Actually, she wasn't.
Joe Biden was in the news and we spoofed Joe Biden, didn't we?
Joe Biden said that he was going to cure cancer, I believe.
I think I actually read this story.
Joe Biden, yeah, he promised that if he gets elected, he will cure cancer.
That's impressive.
So we said Elizabeth Warren promises to cure smallpox.
And we also did another one with Joe Biden.
He says he's going to cure cancer and then.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
It says, which going back to our previous talk.
Essential oils.
We already have essential oils.
What do you need Joe Biden for?
Yeah, Joe Biden.
Joe Biden promises to cure essential oils as though promises to cure cancer as though essential oils don't already exist.
He's so ignorant of.
If he just had the doTERRA cancer set.
The cancer kit.
That's messed up.
Yeah, we're going to get shut down.
So it is.
It's a good thing that you're listening to the second ever Babylon Beat Vikings.
It's the final one.
It's all over.
Yes, back to Elizabeth Warren.
Elizabeth Warren promises to cure smallpox.
So this is actually a little...
When I write humor like this, it's hard for me to really think of all the angles that people could get offended by something, you know?
There's so many.
But this is actually a little edgy in the sense that smallpox was actually a disease that actually did harm indigenous peoples in America.
And so we always get a little pushback when we do an Elizabeth Warren Indian joke, especially when it touches on something like smallpox.
And I think the intention is never really like, let's make fun of smallpox or let's make fun of these people who got killed.
Yeah, to me, these jokes are always just like, it's just the, I don't even know, like, it is the low-hanging fruit joke, but it's just like, it's almost to me, it's so funny because it's so obvious and dumb, just a dumb, obvious joke.
Yeah.
That's not brilliant.
But what I like about it is that it's playing on Elizabeth Warren's like, like totally just being ignorant of her public image of like, I'm going to cure smallpox.
You know, like she's panting, like she's pandering to Native Americans.
Like anybody's still buying her little shtick, you know?
I can't remember that one, because we did one with Elizabeth Warren a while back where she shows up at some campaign rally dressed in full Indian garb with like scalps and all sorts of stuff.
And we just slammed like every stereotype of Native Americans into the headlines.
And there's all this outrage in that, which whatever.
But like to me, it was hilarious that she was.
Yeah, to say that she's that disconnected.
Yeah, the idea is not trying her best to be a genuine Indian and coming off as a total racist.
Yeah, the idea is not, oh, you know, these stereotypes about the Native Americans are actually true, but rather she has no idea what it's like to be a real Native American.
So she just pulls everything she saw in like Peter Pan, you know, about Native Americans.
And she's playing on all the stereotypes.
My daughter's obsessed with Peter Pan.
She just watched it again the other day.
That song is crazy in that.
What makes the red men?
Yeah, that's one of those things where that's weird.
That's a movie that would not get made.
I know, and I'm still, I'm waiting for it to be like, I'm waiting to go on there to our Amazon account because I bought it through Amazon.
I'm waiting until I go on there and it's like the screen is black and it's like, sorry, this movie's been removed.
Yeah, it's unavailable.
Yeah, I actually, you know, they just came out with that Aladdin remake.
And I was hearing people complaining about the old one in the context of this re-release.
Like, oh, that old one was so many stereotypes and so problematic.
And I'm just kind of like, I don't even, you know, I don't even get it.
It's like, it's like if I go and watch one of the Disney films that's about like a European white.
Yeah.
You know, and it's like, oh, they didn't really have unicorns and pegasuses.
It's like obviously playing on tropes from like the medieval times or playing on tropes making fantasy.
Thousand and one nights, you know, just playing on all of those on all those things.
People are really into, you know, one thing that gets a lot of clicks is hate, which that might be good for our next topic.
This is this headline was written by one of our best writers, Frank Fleming.
We sing his praises every week.
And he said, we could just have a section of the show where we talk about how great Frank is for like an hour.
It could be a topic.
Frank will be a topic.
Main topic.
We could do like a best of, the best of Frank Fleming.
His smile.
He's got a great smile.
So Frank actually pitched this article like, I don't know, six months ago.
And I put it in our trash heap to my great shame.
Oh, really?
months ago?
I put it in our...
You fool.
I put it like in our saved for later, maybe one day we'll run this pile.
And then I was just flipping through it, like trashing a bunch of stuff.
And I saw this headline.
And I was like, why did we not run this?
You know, it's funny, like six months later, like you see something in a fresh light, you know, and it's like, oh, this is actually.
Our standards have lowered.
Our standards just get much lower every day.
We need content.
Gradually.
Give us content.
And yeah, so this, here's the headline.
Study.
Hate clicks are a major source of web traffic.
And also, The Princess Bride is a trash movie that only stupid people like.
So, you know, The Babylon Bee, we're not just going to sit here and laugh at our own headlines.
We will laugh at Frank's headline.
We have the liberty to laugh at someone else's headline, which is Frank.
So there is this whole culture in the internet where websites kind of figured out that people don't click on articles.
And, you know, the Babylon Bee struggles with that because so much of our joke is in the headline.
And so what people figured out was if you just barf out the most garbage opinion, everybody's going to share it and retweet it and go, oh, these people are trash.
We talked about this last week with the, which one was it?
Oh, about all the different companies.
I think it might have been the subscriber one, but all the different companies taking on the gay pride logos.
Right.
And they're just cutting through the noise.
But the idea that they're taking a stance on something, which that's a little different, but still the idea that you're creating some kind of controversy or stance or something that gets people to share whether they like it or not.
Yeah.
So you'll see like this all the time, and especially with something that's like this beloved movie or beloved TV show.
And it's like, why The Office is actually the worst television show ever created, you know?
And it comes from this place where it feels really like disingenuous.
Like you don't think they actually believe this.
They just found some guy somewhere to write some garbage about.
Yeah, it's going to get everybody, because everybody wants to have their opinion, like something to launch.
It's hard to just create ideas out of nothing, but to piggyback off of something that outraged you, and then you can really jump up on a soapbox about it.
Yeah.
Yeah, we actually got a lot of hate mail about this one.
Really?
Yeah, we got a lot of people emailing us saying, actually, actually, The Princess Bride is a great movie.
I saw a lot of those.
It amazes me how, I mean, can you not see that the joke is directly right in front of your face in the headline?
Yeah, hate clicks are the only way to get people to click on stuff.
And also.
I'm pretty sure we all love the Princess Bride.
I don't know anybody who doesn't like it.
I'm sure there are people like that.
Yeah, there's people on that.
Very sad people.
I didn't grow up in a household that ever had heard of or watched The Princess Bride.
I went over to my friend's house in junior high or high school or something.
And his dad's like, have you ever seen The Princess Bride?
We're going to watch this right now.
And it was just this revelatory moment for me.
Like, wow, this is amazing.
Yeah, I think I watched with my kids.
It wasn't a big movie in our family.
So I did kind of retroactively like it after I kind of grew up and loved just fairy tale trope stuff and just that it's a hilarious movie and well done.
But yeah, I know my daughter was not crazy about it.
She was a little young and there's people dying and stuff in it, I think.
I can't remember exactly what it was that upset her so much.
I guess I haven't introduced my kids yet.
They've kind of seen it, you know, walking by as I watch it now and then, but I've never like sat down and said, no, yeah, I think it's going to be one of those things like having the talk with your kids.
Death to talk first.
Well, no, but it's a similar moment in childhood.
Oh.
Son.
Oh, I see.
Today you're a man.
I think you have to have the Princess Bride talk before you turn the movie on.
I actually just make a book on that.
I actually ought to introduce the Princess Bride to your children.
I actually just finished reading the book for the first time.
I was curious.
I heard it wasn't as good as the movie.
Oh, it's great.
It's fantastic.
Yeah.
I got to read it.
Every line is one of those things where he just managed to make every line amazing, you know.
But you know what's funny about it is he actually wrote the movie too.
So it's one of those things.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
So the movie's just as good as the book, but they're good in different ways.
So I would definitely recommend.
We always go back to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
But the movie says it's written by Roald Dahl, but I believe it was changed so much he like disowned it.
Because I was just watching, I was watching.
My daughter is obsessed with it now.
She's watching the movie over and over again.
Which is hilarious because she's four.
And when I showed her the movie, she's like, how'd they make a movie so fast?
She freaked out.
I found her the other day and she's had the book.
She's wrapped around the book, like holding it like she was hugging it and watching the movie.
That's great.
It's the first book that I read to her, like all of them.
She's so excited.
But yeah, so that's an interesting tidbit on that.
It says right there, it opens up and it says Roald Dahl, like sole screenplay writer.
Yeah, I feel like when the writer of the book gets their hands on the movie, it's usually not great.
Like, I feel like they're two different skill sets.
You know, a lot of times you'll see that the author was super involved and it's like they couldn't kill their babies to make the thing work, you know?
Yeah, unless the author has some experience writing screenplays and can think in that way.
Like, I think there's certain people that could do that.
But yeah, there's some hilarious examples like Stephen King.
Yeah, I was about to mention Stephen King and the Shining where he didn't like the original and then he went and he actually got he managed to write one for ABC.
Did you even see that one?
It was like 20 years ago.
They came out.
No.
There was the Shining mini series that came out on ABC and it was like Stephen King's actual vision.
And it was terrible.
That's what I love about Maximum Overdrive.
I've never seen that.
I have never seen them.
But that was the whole idea of that.
He did an ad where he was like the preview was like Stephen King standing there talking to you like a WWF wrestler.
WWE, WCW, whatever.
Ethan's now.
Ethan's pointing his gun finger.
Pointing his finger at you like he's going to take you down.
He's like, when you need a job done right, you got to do it yourself.
And it talks about like Stephen King.
You can look it up on YouTube.
And he's like, it's like screen.
He wrote the screenplay.
He directed it.
He did it all himself.
There's no book.
Like he made this movie.
And I actually know Yardley Smith, who she's a character.
She is in the movie, the girl.
The woman who plays Lisa Simpson's voice, she was an actress in that.
And she was telling me about how bonkers the set was and just it was so disorganized.
And apparently Stephen King says he was like on drugs the whole time he made that movie.
It's just this insane movie that makes no sense.
Like all the cars and stuff and mechanical things come alive and attack everybody.
And there's really no explanation.
That's amazing.
I know he had that series, The Lawnmower Man.
Did you ever see those?
I saw the movie.
There's one movie, right?
Or they make more of them?
No, I think there was like a whole series.
You're right.
It's kind of like Land Before Time.
And they got increasingly batty.
And it's just like, what is this even?
I just remember the first one had that monkey with like a diaper and like a robotic helmet.
It's completely different from the short story.
And the short story is horrible and just very weird.
And somehow the movie's even weirder.
Huh.
I don't even remember what we were talking about.
Oh, yeah.
We're talking about how terrible the Princess Bride is.
That's right.
No, yeah, we love the Princess Bride.
And definitely don't share this podcast with your friends and tell them, oh, you got to hear how horrible these guys' opinions are on the Princess Bride.
We don't want you to do that.
Right.
And now, the Babylon Bees topic of the week.
All right, we're ready for our main topic.
I don't know.
You know, actually, for this topic, I need to emotionally prepare myself.
Okay, because we're going to talk about fathers.
It's Father's Day week.
So maybe we can get some violins in the background or something here.
We need that sound guy that's your father.
Did your father abandon you as a child?
I love my father.
That's why.
We need a sound guy that sits there on the mixer board and plays like the funny sound effects, like the fart effects and stuff.
Yeah, we need.
I can add them retroactively, but it's not the same.
It's not the same thing.
We need somebody calling.
We'll put a job call out there.
So fathers, we were recording this podcast the day after Father's Day, as previously mentioned.
So the topic of fathers is near and dear to our hearts.
Ethan, why don't you give us a little bit of what fathers mean to you, maybe a little bit about your father?
I have a crazy story in that realm.
So I don't want to go off.
You can try to interrupt me if I go too far.
I'm now interrupting you.
My dad is like the biggest character on earth.
Like I didn't realize when I was a kid what a bizarre situation I was in.
But my family, my parents divorced when I was eight.
And I think I mentioned a bit about this in a previous podcast, but my dad was homeless for a period of time.
And he had been an aspiring opera singer in New York before I was born.
And so when I was a kid, he was a homeless Pentecostal opera singer.
And so he would like go bonkers in his Pentecostal church in an opera voice, like a voice trained to like sing to auditoriums without mics.
And I actually was there one day when the pastor took him aside and said, Tom, if you can't tone it down, we might need you to like find another church.
And he was heartbroken.
I've heard of, I heard a story from a pastor of mine once where he was going to Bible college and they pulled a girl aside because she was moving too much, like during the worship set.
Like you're no dancing at the school.
I love that the Pentecost, like if I'm scared we have Pentecostal listeners, they're going to be mad, but it's the idea that if the spirit's leading the person to do this, can you stop them?
Is that okay?
Is that all right?
If that was the spirit.
Well, yeah, but see, Baptists don't believe in the Holy Spirit, so it's all right.
Okay.
So you were saying, I apologize.
So, yeah, so we actually would sleep in his van with him on weekends, and then eventually he just left.
My dad had this way that he dealt with problems in his life where he just kind of, once it got overwhelming enough, he'd just up and leave.
Yeah, I think we all have that tendency.
Yeah, but he really was to an extreme.
Like my mom was his fourth wife, I believe.
And so he had a crazy past.
Long story.
We found a long-lost sister recently.
But so I didn't have a dad through a good chunk of my childhood.
And I also had a mom who was very dad.
I don't know if anti-dad is right, but she swore that she wasn't going to remarry because she didn't want us to go through that for some reason.
And so she just decided she'd do it herself.
She's had this bitterness about what had gone on with my dad.
And that was kind of a thing that she always kind of carried through life was that, or through my childhood, that she doesn't need no man and she doesn't need, she'll kind of fill that void of a dad.
She's a strong, beautiful black woman who doesn't need no man.
I don't mean no man.
That's true.
She didn't talk like that.
So yeah, I think that was very formative for me, though.
Being raised, finding out that I'm going to turn into one of these, and I'm not talking bad about my mom.
She's a great, amazing woman who worked her behind off.
She worked like three, four jobs at a time.
It's just, I think it was partly like the spirit of the times, the rising feminism, but also just my mom.
She's very independent, hard worker, and she, you know, she never really, she did remarry, but they didn't really, they weren't very cooperative.
But anyway.
So how did you become so manly?
Yeah, me so manly.
Without this, without like.
That's a joke, right?
I did seek it out when I got older.
I have, there's a lot of men in my life who became part of my life who, you know, but I think I did seek it out.
I really had to decide at some point, like, I want to be a good dad, and I have to just decide what a dad is.
And what my dad was really wasn't a dad.
And we've actually, you know, people that know Axe Cop, the comic that I've made, I have my little brother who's 24 years younger than me.
His dad is my dad, like 24 years difference.
And my dad's got an amazing wife now who has had a huge effect on his life.
She's been able to tame the beast inside of him.
So he's very old now.
He has a tough time processing.
His mind is kind of starting to go.
But yeah, there's been a lot of him remarrying and having another batch of kids actually brought us back together in a lot of ways.
I think we never would have, I think our connection would have kind of fizzled out through my life as I got older.
But because of him having the second batch of kids, it kind of brought us back together.
So that's like.
And that's like the nutshell version of my background.
The reader's digest.
Listeners digest.
Yeah, and it's interesting that you kind of came to a place where you realized how important a father is to your kids.
Yeah, I realized it out of like absence.
Yeah.
Rather than by having a really good influence.
And just, yeah, I think that that's one thing for me, you realize when you dive in, and it was because of wise men that had been in my life who had just said, like, you're made to be a father.
It's in you.
God made you to do it.
And when I just dove in and did it, I realized like, yeah, like there's a thing in me that's part of my makeup that, you know, when I when I seek out God and like say I need help, I was made for this job.
It's not an easy job.
It's like, you know.
Yeah.
That's kind of cool how God is really gracious to us sometimes when we're like growing up in a bad situation or you don't have a good influence because conventional wisdom is like, you know, if you don't have, if you don't have a good male influence, you're just going to end up garbage, you know, you're going to end up in a really bad situation.
Yeah.
And that's one reason one area where I feel really lucky because it was actually through young life that some really good male role models kind of found their way into my life.
Yeah.
So yeah, that was, you know, it was actually more jock-like guys.
I was like a grunge guy when I was in high school.
I had long hair and I hated everybody and I had like Barbie doll heads, severed Barbiell heads around my neck and stuff.
You were like Sid from Toy Story 1.
Yeah, I was trying to be the psycho kid just to scare everybody.
Blowing up toys in the back of the bag.
And I hated jocks and rednecks.
I was like in the Northwest, you know, wherever you were.
Did you listen to Pearl Jam?
Yep.
Oh, yeah.
Big Pearl Jam fan.
You're like a walking stereotype.
Totally.
Like, because you're Pacific Northwest, right?
Pacific Northwest, Pearl Jam listener.
And I thought I was so original.
Yeah, you're going to rebel by being exactly like everybody else around you.
But my young life leader was a total jock.
And he fit every stereotype of the jock type guy.
But he also broke it because he was the most loving person I ever met.
And yeah, so it was like a that was a big that was a big moment for me to find somebody like that.
That's great.
So my, are you done?
Yeah, you go.
Are you quite finished?
I could go on for way, way too long.
We'll scatter some more of my life story through other podcasts.
You've been listening to the Babylon Bee Therapy session.
I knew this is going to be a big one.
Well, I have an awesome dad.
And now I feel terrible because he's getting that.
I have an awesome dad, too.
Ethan's over here weeping.
And I'm going to tell you how great my dad is.
Yeah, I have an awesome dad and obviously a huge influence on me.
He was he actually put the space shuttle into orbit.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I've heard of that, I think.
I posted on Facebook yesterday, and it sounded like a joke because I'm like, my dad is awesome.
He put the space shuttle into orbit.
Because you have to praise your dad on Father's Day on Facebook or it doesn't count.
Yeah, it doesn't count.
Even though none of our dads are like on Facebook, actually reading this stuff.
But yeah, I posted like, my dad put the space shuttle into orbit and he scares bears away, which is true.
He's got this video where this bear is like charging at him through this lake.
Through a lake?
Yeah, he's like next to this pond.
If I remember it right, he's next to this pond in the forest.
And he was like on this solo backpack or something.
And he's like videotaping this mama bear.
And she like jumps in the water and starts charging at him.
Whoa.
And so in the video, he's like, go away, bear.
Go away, bear.
And it kind of veers off right before it gets to him.
And I'm just like, this is amazing.
That should go on YouTube.
You know, that's not what my reaction would be to a bear.
I think that's what you're supposed to do, though, right?
Like, you're supposed to yell at it.
You're the bear expert.
There's a lot of propaganda.
It's all in my book.
So that's a nice segue into our advertisement for this section.
Brought to you by...
There's one to kill you.
Not available on Amazon.
Right, but it's available in the Babylon Bee store in my store.
Yeah, so my dad did the space shuttle program until that got canned.
Wait, is that serious?
What?
The space shuttle?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I'm sorry.
I thought you were joking.
See, I need to, every time I say this, yeah.
My dad is actually.
Your dad's an astronaut?
He's an astronaut.
Actually, so growing up, it feels like a dirty word.
Growing up, you know, you'd bring your dad or whatever into, you know, you bring one of your parents into school to do like the career day or whatever.
No, not mine, but yeah.
Well, those of us who had good fathers.
And so he would come in and do like a presentation on the space shuttle and how they put it into orbit.
So he literally, okay, I'm readjusting my perception here because I thought that was a Kyle joke.
Yeah, no.
He really did.
Okay.
He did.
He actually did.
But all my classmates would be like, your dad's the astronaut, right?
And eventually you just start saying, yes.
Yes, my dad is an astronaut.
That's crazy.
But my dad took us camping.
That's around here because you're from here, aren't you?
Yeah, California.
Boeing.
Boeing has facilities out here, Orange County.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Okay.
So he does wind and load analysis.
But he was a good father, even though he's this accomplished, that he did something this amazing, and he's still made time for you.
He's a good good father.
That's who he is.
That's who he is.
Let's play the song.
Yeah.
So he, he, you know, it's funny.
He can't.
It's copyrighted.
Growing up, the thing I remember most was like he would read us Bible stories.
And it was like, he had like three Bible stories that were his favorites.
And he would go back and read those.
Elisha and the prophets of Babylon.
No, not the Bears.
He did.
If you would like to know more about bears, check out Ethan's book, Bears Want to Kill You.
That's right.
But not on Amazon.
He liked Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the Fire.
Right.
He liked Psalm 19, which I believe is the stars declare the heavens declare the glory of God.
That's a story?
It's not a story.
Oh.
But it's like, because he's into astronomy.
Okay, yeah.
And rockets and stuff.
So he was always big on apologetics.
Nice.
I was going to say, it sounds like he's very science-y, and yet he still believes in this backwards religion stuff.
Yes.
This crazy backwards religion.
That's where you got your big brain.
And he would tell stories about talking to other people at his job.
Because I'm sure he's kind of like an outlier there.
Yeah.
You know, in the STEM fields.
But yeah, so there was like three or four stories that he loved that he would always go back to.
And so every time now, if I go and I read the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abinnego, I remember exactly like the inflections that he would read it in.
I think it's a huge thing, raising our kids to love the Bible and to kind of make faith their own.
Obviously, fathers are really important for them.
Yeah, my dad would, in his van where we would sleep with him, would make stories up on the spot because we didn't have any books.
And they'd just be full of farts and diarrhea and stuff.
And I thought it was amazing.
The idea that you would make a story up on the spot.
That wasn't the Bible, but yeah, my dad.
It was the idea that he could make up a story that had us rolling laughing.
And that story had not existed a moment ago.
And he was just making up.
It was complete garbage, but it was hilarious to me.
Yeah, that was a big memory for my dad.
My dad being a STEM guy, like Seinsville, he was not into like creative.
Like, I'm going to make up this story right now.
Yeah.
You know, you know, it's funny is one time I asked my dad like, hey, you know, I don't even remember what the question was, like, you know, something about throwing a baseball.
And like, within 15 minutes, he's got this giant chart drawn out on a yellow legal pad showing like a diagram of throwing baseballs and wind resistance and momentum and inertia.
And I'm like four years old.
I'm like, I just wanted to play catch.
Yeah, my funny contrast with our dads is my dad was totally not at all about apologetics.
He was very much a spiritual experience only thing.
Like God reaches you through kind of like a voice in your head.
Yeah.
Anyway, we're getting kind of off the topic of like fatherhood, but that's like an interesting introduction.
And you probably have a million more things you can say about your dad, too.
Yeah.
Go ahead, keep going.
We'll do another episode.
It's just Kyle's dad.
Kyle's dad.
We have him as a guest.
Well, I guess the real point that we wanted to make, if there is a point, or the topic we want to discuss, was fathers being kind of an anchor for people in this relativistic culture where so much of the culture is telling us fathers don't matter.
Manhood doesn't matter.
Masculinity is always toxic.
Not that masculinity can't be toxic sometimes, but just the mere mention of something semi-traditionally manly is seen as toxic in so many places.
Yeah, and to me, that's the thing.
The whole debate about the definition of marriage to me always came down to that.
Are we saying by the idea that men and women are completely interchangeable, that there's nothing unique that either actually has to offer?
And if they don't, then like, then a father really is like a replaceable, unneeded thing.
And we had the story we should probably mention in the story this week that we put up.
Another great Frank article on Father's Day.
Oh, yes.
Nation celebrates existence of completely unnecessary parent or something like that.
Yeah, and there's a picture of the father and they're giving him the gifts.
Yeah.
We got a lot of angry emails about that.
Yeah, a lot of people didn't get that.
Actually, I think that's going to be our hate mail this week.
It probably is, yeah.
In a few minutes, oh, yeah, we did.
Yeah, we got ready, man.
Get ready for that.
But yeah, and obviously that's being sarcastic and using satire to make that point.
But we're making a big deal about these fathers when they're not even needed.
They're just disposable.
They're celebrating a thing that nobody actually needs.
Who needs them anyway?
You can probably artificially make babies now with just a woman and you don't even need the guy.
So what's the point?
And that's kind of like when you look at like relativism and where do we come from, you know, and that's kind of the whole, that's kind of the whole deal is that if we're just apes, highly evolved apes on this planet, you know, it's like, well, who cares if you have a father or not?
It doesn't matter.
You know, but if there's something, I read this great, can I bring up J.R. Tolkien?
Please.
I read this great quote from J.R.R. Tolkien this week in a letter that he wrote to his son when he was in the war.
And he said something like, there is something eternal about the relationship between a father and a son.
And I thought that was, I thought that was super deep, that there's something eternal and true about that.
It's not something that's just this evolved relationship and it's disposable and discardable.
Yeah, there's so much to say on this topic.
Like even just the experience of like, because I was tweeting the other night on Father's Day that, you know, I'm sad for guys who just by choice choose not to be fathers or anybody who chooses not to be a parent.
Like, I know there's some people that just aren't up for it or whatever, but like there's something about getting to a point in life and then suddenly you're re-experiencing life through your child.
You're watching them go through everything you went through again.
And now you have to impart wisdom on that.
Like it's sort of like the idea that if you read a book once, like you learn it, but then you read it again and then you read it like a third time and like take notes or whatever.
Like it's kind of like having kids and then I imagine having getting married, having kids and then having grandkids is kind of like that.
That's why you get more wisdom.
You're going through everything again, but through a different pair of eyes.
Yeah.
And being able to share like interests or like we were talking about the princess bride, you know.
Yeah, it makes it more exciting to see their eyes light up.
Like I said, I just read Charlie and the Chaka Factory to my daughter and it makes me so excited to see how excited she is by her first book.
Yeah.
You know, there's something like where God creates us and then we go and create other life.
Or like as creative people, you know, we write articles and make images and stuff.
And like, so there's something that where we're reflecting the image of God and that we create.
And it's a similar thing when you see your kids like draw something.
You know, whether it's a stick figure when they're really young or they're older and they start like stapling together their own little comic books.
You know, and it's like, this is amazing.
This is what I did when I was a kid.
You know, it's just weird to create something that then goes off and becomes its own thing and like creates things.
I don't know if that makes any sense.
No, yeah, it's amazing how much meaning and how much effect on this world and how much effect on your life all comes out of the one decision to have one child.
And like, it's, it's, you can't quantify it.
It's amazing.
I try to think about it the other way.
Like my parents, do they like see like, you know, articles that I write or, you know, if they listen to this podcast and they're like, my son is crazy.
You know, he's talking.
I have an anecdote because me and you went to do a went to do an interview in LA and we were coming back and your parents called and you had him on speaker.
Oh, that's right.
One of the most adorable things I've ever experienced.
Like your dad, he's like just keeping tabs on everything you're doing.
He has like, he knows like every article.
He's checking in on you and he's so proud of you.
I forgot about that.
Yeah.
Actually, my dad, if we can go back to the topic of Kyle's dad, My dad reads the Babylon Bee, but he only reads it on Friday morning.
Okay, so he reads everything Friday morning.
He goes on Friday morning, clicks on the view all stories link, and then goes through and reads all the stories that we posted in the previous week.
Wow.
He has 20 minutes set aside for it or whatever.
He just goes power reads in NASA style.
I think he reads all the headlines and then clicks on the ones that grab his attention and reads the whole story.
And then he emails me like top five stories of the week where he's judging it.
I get his commentary on it.
That's awesome.
Yeah, that was actually a funny phone call.
It reminded me of something like Out of Seinfeld where Seinfeld would like take a call from his parents in Florida, you know, and it's kind of one of those things.
But yeah, no, yeah, I think we were coming back from doing an interview and my dad calls and he's asking about every article we did and all the irons we got in the fire at the Babylon B.
He was excited for the radio interview that we were doing because it was on the Christian station that he listens to.
So he's asking me, what time is this air?
And, you know, it's like in the 1940s, like he gathers everyone around the big floor radio in the den.
We're going to listen to Kyle on the radio, kids.
Actually, did you see that thing you do?
Remember when the kid is like, I think they're on the big national bandstand show or whatever it is.
They're like on the big show for the first time.
They're on national television.
The band's on national television.
And the dad is, he's always been all crouchy, but he's super excited.
They're on the TV and he gathers everyone around.
It totally reminds me of like when I did Axe Cop, which I don't assume everybody listening knows about that.
You can purchase Axe Cop on Amazon.
No, but it was a crazy thing that happened in my life that I made a comic with my five-year-old brother.
And my dad experienced his son who was 29 and his son who was five create this thing together that went like crazy viral.
And we were doing conventions and interviews and we're on TV.
And he was, I mean, over the moon proud.
Like he was every single time I posted a comic, he's calling me.
He'd always have an Axe Cop t-shirt on.
He had like every Axe Cop t-shirt made, which there's a bunch of them made that nobody bought.
And he owned them all.
And it totally reminded me of that.
Like he was just such a proud dad.
That's awesome.
So we need to move on to some hate mail after all that sweetness.
We can't, you know, this is, we are a satire outlet, and so we can't let you go in away feeling good.
You have to feel cynical and sarcastic and upset.
So some hate mail this week we got, this was about the article that Frank wrote, Nation Celebrates Existence of Completely Unnecessary Parent.
And he says this.
Your article regard, by the way, this is in all caps, multiple exclamation points.
All caps.
Your article regarding dads being the unnecessary parent is appalling.
I will not read any Meyer of your crap.
Are we going to bleep out crap?
Can we say crap?
I don't know.
And by the way, I think Meyer was supposed to be more.
But yeah, he, yeah.
Yeah, it seems like this was typed in a rage because it's all caps.
Regarding doesn't have an N.
It's a regardy space G. Unnecessary is spelled on Neckari.
On Nekari.
But we're not going to pick.
We're going to pick on this guy for his spelling.
He's passionate about it.
The sad thing is like, I completely agree with him.
He just didn't get the joke.
I just didn't get that.
It was sarcastic.
You know what?
It's funny.
Actually, every angry comment I saw made me happy.
I was like, good.
People really are passionate about fathers do have a place and they're important.
And we completely agree with that.
There's a certain type of angle we take in a satirical article where you just say the opposite of what's true.
And those are especially prone to people misunderstanding them because they don't get, oh, you know, it's like, why would I share this article?
It's saying the opposite of what's true, you know?
So there's a weird way.
Actually, I knew when Frank sent this article in that there was going to be a lot of.
I thought about messing with the headlines.
I was like, nah, whatever.
It'll be all right.
Well, the weird irony about it is it feels like there are people that really think this too.
And I personally think there's probably not that many people.
I think that there is this movement of people who want to make the family obsolete and they think that, yeah, there's this weird thing where women are above men or something.
I don't know.
I think it's as crazy of an idea as any crazy cult you could be a part of.
These crazy people who think women are humans.
They think they're like.
Right, Ethan?
what are you trying to put words in my mouth so you're saying in trouble it's like that jordan peterson interview you know yeah So you're saying what you're saying is that you hate women.
All right.
Well, is that our show?
Our second ever show?
Thank you for listening to the second ever since the dawn of creation 6,000 years ago.
Babylon Bee podcast.
We're actually going to go on for another 15 minutes for our experience.
Probably 30.
It's been more like 15, 30 minutes.
Yeah, yeah.
We're going to check a bonus.
We got some bonus content coming for our subscribers.
So we're cutting up.
We're signing off now for the public.
But for those refined individuals who have subscribed to the Babylon B, you're going to get a little bonus content here.
We do a couple of stories and a Q ⁇ A section.
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