House Of Hammer - Part 2

With Oatmeal Pizza's Josh Campbell in for Jordan, Josh and TC discuss Max's Armie Hammer documentary.

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Hey, there a listener. It'sgood to have you. You're listening ninety
seven one The Freak. This isa dirt bag culture hour. We're on
every Saturday from two o'clock and gofour o'clock. When I say we,
I normally mean myself, TC Flemingand Jordan George Richardson. In this instance,
Shorts was not able to join us. We have Oatmeal Pizza's Josh Campbell.

(00:31):
Hello, a close friend of allon the station, perhaps none more
so than me. And uh,we're talking about the documentary House of Hammer.
It's a three part series on Max. I don't think it came out
that recently. Yeah, I thinkit was almost a year ago, last

(00:52):
September. That sounds right, likewas this discovery plus one that got added?
I believe so? Okay, becauseI will if this would have been
on HBO, I feel like Nickiand I definitely would have This would have
been a thing we watched. Ifeel like it would have been made a
little better if it was on HBO. Maybe it's good. It's a really
good documentary. There's just there's acouple of parts. There was hardly any

(01:14):
drone works. Yeah, that's thebig thing. I'm mad about. Now
there's like the times that they're like, there's a couple of times they're trying
to like in a normal documentary,they would do a newscaster saying something yeah,
yeah, but they couldn't find thenewscasters. They just had text to
speech that sounds like a newscaster thoughtit was my audio descriptions just suddenly turning

(01:37):
on and I was like, Iit didn't have audio descriptions, okay,
yeah, yeah, yeah. Thatwas another way I knew it wasn't like
an HBO made thing because now HBOgot sued by Americans with disability and because
they were like one of the laststreaming platforms to add audio descriptions to all
of their stuff, so then theyadded it to everything that they make.

(02:01):
But I think in all this discoverystuff that got ported over doesn't have them.
Yeah that's relevant to you because you'reblind. Yeah yeah, yeah,
listener may not know Josh listens withaudio descriptions because you can't see what's on
the television. Yeah, which wastough because they were doing a lot of
just showing you what the text messageswere or the Instagram messages were on the

(02:22):
screen. Did you watch this withyour wife. No, No, I
was down in my little room inmy garage while they were fixing the air
conditioning. Yeah, but I couldpause, you know, and then my
screen reader on my h computer couldread it for me. It's been a
tough tough lot for you recently,neither site nor air condition Yeah. Yeah,
I'm just I'm getting more adapted tothis, this climate change future and

(02:47):
all you all you people have beensitting around in your sixty degree homes.
Yeah, you're not going to knowwhat it's like. I already know how
to sleep in ninety five degrees.Congratulations, it's probably can't leave well and
no, no, and then youkind of wake up feeling like you're gonna
puke. But that probably lessons overtime, you'll find out. But yeah,

(03:10):
so, uh so, as I'mwatching this, I mean, I
think that part of why I wasbeing defensive of like, all right,
let's hear the cannibal out here,is because some of the most damning stuff
they sort of saved till the endof the first episode, because like,
I don't know, it's very clearthe main person they're talking to who does

(03:32):
live in Dallas, so could belistening to this Courtney, right, now,
uh, yeah, it's very clearthat she's been very bothered by what
happened. It was very difficult forher, But I don't think it's the

(03:53):
most damning stuff that he did.Like it it was, you know,
I don't know if she had abad time, he shouldn't have done it,
you know, Like I definitely heshould have done different things than he
did in that relationship, absolutely absolutely, But like the it builds to this
crescendo of a time where she's like, I didn't want to do it,
but I didn't say no. Thenhe he went ahead. Yeah, and

(04:17):
yeah, I don't know. Idon't love the situation. I wish he'd
acted differently. But like, ifwe're gonna say this guy should not be
able to participate in polite society againbecause he did something that she didn't say
no too, like then I don'tknow. But then there's other stuff that
he did, Dude that And here'swhere it's just like it's the crapshoot of
making a documentary. Who's gonna talkand who isn't The stuff that they're describing

(04:41):
from other people. Other people gavelike public testimony about it, but didn't
wish to appear in the documentary.Yeah, the big one was the woman
represented by Glory all Read. Gloryall Read posted or like she got the
woman to do a statement and thenposted the statement. I featured someone in
the doct minute, but I wouldn'twatched it, you know, by itself.
And dude, good luck watching thatand not thinking that he should be

(05:05):
in the front of the firing squadright now. Yeah, dude, the
guy that's responsible. But but I'mjust saying, like her, that girl's
experience drastically different than Courtney's in degree, but not really in vector, you
know, like it's it's all goingin the same thing. Just he got
a lot further down the road andthat's where you know, you're kind of

(05:27):
seeing more what his intentions are andthey're bad and and I think Courtney,
for me, I don't feel likeshe would. I feel like she was
almost there, still dealing with herpersonal feelings of culpability and guilt and shame
with it. She wasn't necessarily goingout there, She wasn't out for blood

(05:49):
or anything like that. From myread on her her take, it was
more she was still dealing with LikeI feel like I kind of allowed this
to have been. Yeah, she'sworried about the degree to which that was
and then the comparison, and she'slike, because in her head, she's
like, I'm a thirty year oldwoman, I think, she says at
one point, and when she findsout like a couple of the other girls

(06:12):
in his stable were like twenty andyeah, nineteen or whatever, and she's
like, I was totally just twistedin the head and spun up and thinking
I was in love, but alsothinking like I had all these fears and
anxieties from it all, and Ihad no idea which way was. I

(06:33):
was apologizing to him for his behaviorto me and things like that, and
yeah, and so that's when shewas like, I can't imagine it if
I was twenty or nineteen and goingthrough that type of stuff. Yeah,
and uh so, you know,I think that he's a bad guy and

(06:56):
he should have severe consequences for that. But as I'm watching along and like
it's you know, the first fortyfive minutes forty minutes of the first episode,
it's just it's a lot of setup, it's a lot of like like
it's but the condemnation has already started, you know, and like the way
that they're presenting this stuff, youknow, like they'll they'll show a text
where he's like kind of saying he'sin the BDSM stuff, and they'll put

(07:17):
very ominous music behind it. Yeahyeah, yeah, and the implication being
like he's done something sinister by sendingthis text. And I'm like, having
a kink is not it's not there'snot a political ad type of type of
framing. Yeah. Yeah, allof a sudden, it's in black and
white and there's doom music in thebackground. Yeah. And so as I

(07:38):
was, as I was experiencing that, I was like, you know,
kind of trying like I'm I'm Itried to. I think a good way
of living life that I've I've onlyrecently ascended to is uh, sort of
being a separate from your thoughts abit right of like you know, you
have your thoughts, but you arenot your thoughts. You're just observing them.

(08:00):
You're like you're the person behind yourselflooking at yourself. Yeah yeah yeah.
And so I'm watching as my brainis constantly being like, let's hear
out cannibal man and being like,what's going on there? And it was
an interesting the thing to like stopfor a little bit and think about I
feel like the answer is pretty clearthat whatever, because I do that a

(08:24):
lot, right, and I thinkthat it's I'm just I'm keenly. I'm
afraid that's that he's being misunderstood.Yeah, that's and and I'm so I
I can easily imagine being misunderstood.I'm familiar with the consequences of it,
and I'm scared of it happening again. I'd like to see it happen less

(08:45):
in the world. So like becauselike, you know, certainly as a
kid, you know, like Idon't know, I used to get in
trouble at school a lot, anduh, it would in my view now
probably be mainly like a you know, my meanings not being rectly interpreted,
you know, like I would makeit a joke. I would make a
joke. A teacher would take itseriously. They're like, there's there's a

(09:05):
time where the last like three months, maybe two months of eighth grade,
I couldn't go to classes. Theyjust have like a closet they usually used
for book storage, like during thesummer, that's where they would keep all
the books. But whenever the booksweren't in there, they would like take
you know, the ten worst kidsin school and just be like, don't

(09:26):
leave. This is your breakfast club. Yeah, and uh, I mean
you know the breakfast club that wasjust like one on Saturday. This was
every day of school for two months, and that was all Like I made
a joke. People took the jokeseriously. Uh. It's like, you
know, I know what it's liketo be misunderstood. I have perhaps an

(09:48):
exaggerated sense of the consequences of people, you know, of you thinking one
you meaning one thing and people understandinganother thing. And so I think that
it's one of like we u onthis show talked about the Whitney Hughes.
There was a couple of from WhitneyHouston documentaries and for something, for whatever
reason, it really clicked watching her. So, you know, after all

(10:13):
of them are done, after Whitney'salready passed away, so it's just other
people talking about their experiences around her. And they were trying to discuss Whitney's
sexual abuse in her past, andone of the ways they did that was
they showed one of Whitney's like assistants, housekeeper something, but like a close

(10:35):
friend, like a you know,someone who she's talking to every day that's
in her circle. Loda celas areno, no, no, And the
person described an incident where that person, the assistant, had said I'm going
I'm going on vacation. I'm goingto leave my kids with my sister,
and Whitney hit the roof. Shewas like, no, you can't try

(11:00):
family members that do that. It'stoo dangerous. You don't know what they're
doing. And to any regular personleaving your kids with your sisters, soups
norms, it's not a problem.But Whitney, whenever she had had that
happened, she was left with afamily member and she was abused by that
family member. And so her traumahas caused her to see this differently,

(11:22):
like that, she's experiencing the worlddifferently, Like you know, it's it's
like if we're both leaking in acube in front of us, and because
things had happened to her, thisred cube appears blue to her, and
in her world it is blue.And that's that's how I feel about this
being misunderstood stuff, you know,like that, I've had a couple of
tough times where you know, Imeant one thing, someone else thought something

(11:43):
differently. They had more power thanme in the situation, and so you
know, they're understanding rule the dayand it held you know, grave consequences
for me. And so I'm justlooking at Army and I'm just feeling that
again. You know, my traumahas changed and whatever insuding exaggeration to call
it trauma, but like my experiencehas changed the way that I am looking
at this thing. So I'm justlike, you know, let's hear how

(12:05):
the cannibal guy, I don't know. Yeah, you know, not to
turn the whole thing into psychoanalyzing you. You're welcome to. But I also
feel like you're not rebellious streak,but like you're you have a very healthy

(12:26):
skepticism of any sort of like authorityin many cases, and when something is
presented, like in a documentary wherethey're setting it up, like you can
you feel the vibe from the veryget go, like this is an anti
Army Hammer documentary, like they're tellingyou right from the jump. Yeah,
so that is there. You feellike there's something in your head that's part

(12:48):
of that. That's like, allright, I'm not going to take your
word for it. You can't justpresent yourself as an authority on this,
I'm going to immediately like hold thatin reservation in the back of my mind
until you prove it to me typeof thing. Yeah, I don't think
it's universal, but it definitely goeson. You know, I think that

(13:09):
there's some things. It depends onthe subject matter, you know, Like
I'm inclined to believe some things andnot others. You know, like if
if you're trying to think of agood example of something, I'm just gonna
I mean, you know, ifit's a document about how great Notre Dame
football is, I don't need youknow, if they just start out by
being like it's great, I'm like, yeah, you know. So the

(13:30):
context depends on matters a little bit, but I think in general you're right,
Yeah, for sure. And Iand I have that too, like,
and I used to have it alot more when I was younger.
Like just if someone would, evenin a benign way, like approach a
subject from a certain point of view, I would like immediately be like,
okay, all right, yeah,make that stand up. Yeah. A

(13:56):
lot of especially whenever they get tothe stuff his family. You see a
lot of examples of reasonable instincts failing, like becoming too exaggerated and failing to
serve the individuals experiencing the instincts.And I think that's what's I think that
happens with me that like, youknow, I've I've got that, Like

(14:16):
there's there's definitely some utility to havingthe sort of oppositional nature that you're talking
about, but you can also youknow, it can negatively affect your life.
It can prevent you from you know, having too much of excess of
any of any Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, And so you know,
I got a healthy dose of it, and I think it's productive to unwind
some of that. And you know, it's hard process, no, but

(14:39):
having the introspective ability to do thattrick of it sort of intentionally disassociate,
float outside your body for a minuteand see yourself going through that process of
like why am I Why am Iwanting to be the guy who gives army
hammer the bindef of the doubt?What is the thing that's make me do

(15:01):
that right now? Yeah? Yeah, that's like a very healthy thought process.
I think that's why it's cool towatch movies and you know the kind
of stuff that we talk about inhere every week, you know, like
movies, TV shows, documentaries.I think every I think watching that stuff
it gives you a real opportunity tosee how you're reacting to it and then
ask questions about that. And Ithink you can learn a lot about yourself

(15:22):
from good art. The actual Greekcatharsis what they meant all those years ago
when they started the theater. That'srights. Yeah, so very interested in
the question of why Army likes BDSM. I feel pretty confident about my conclusions
there. I don't think it's likeintensely complicated or anything. You hear about

(15:48):
his family, and we'll get intothe family stuff pretty shortly here, I
think. But you hear about hisfamily and certainly you get the impression that
there's not a lot of warmth andlove. Yeah, And so whenever you
that that kind of like does twothings to a kid, because I do
think you know, any of theseanyone's kinks, I think are all,

(16:11):
you know, like responses to thingsin your formative years, right, and
not just kinks, like any qualitiesyou have, like we we are basically
a response to things that happen inour formative years. And you know,
I mean, you can deal withthose and you know, kind of unwind
them, like I was saying,or not, you know, but like
even then, it's sort of therough draft of your life and then you

(16:33):
can make whatever revisions, you cando whatever work you want to do to
change parts of it, but it'sstill the skeleton that everything's hanging off of,
you know. Yeah, I think, especially by when they get into
the family history going back five generations, there's there's definitely like a genetic component
that you're primed for certain types ofbehaviors. And so if if certain things

(16:56):
happen in your developmental years that causethose things to express themselves and like the
manifest in the most extreme way possible, then it's probably going to be similar,
you know, along the genetic line. Yeah, I think it's fair
to say there's a genetic component,But I, you know, as does

(17:18):
everyone, I have a hard timeon winding that from you know, the
actual things they experienced, Like hetalks about, you know, his pre
funnel cortex stuff, but like,I don't know, I'm pretty convinced that
the experiences that you have in lifecan shape exactly what genes turn on and
off and what, you know,how exactly your brain develops and everything,
like that. Oh No, Ithink I think it goes to show that

(17:41):
if he's just launching people who don'thave a pre funnel cortex and that's his
basis, then like his is goingto develop differently. Right. No,
I'm not I'm not even talk I'mI'm saying just the blueprint, Yeah,
that he starts with, it's goingto be guided. The thing that are
going to activate inside of that blueprintare going to be guided by his childhood

(18:03):
experience. Yeah, and if there'sa similar childhood experience going back five generations
amongst the people in this family,there's going to be a lot of there's
not He was he was predetermined almostto have this. Yeah, his life
wasn't going to unfold in another way. It's gonna be hard, Yeah,

(18:23):
it's gonna be hard not to Yeah. But yeah, So I think that
he's got a real lack of thelack of like warmth and love, and
I think that that has a twopronged effect of one making him crave that
sort of intimacy and two having nomodel for a healthy way that that intimacy

(18:45):
looks. And so that's what's goingon. You know, Like I think
that's a pretty common like sex addictionframework. You know. Oh yeah,
of like if if if you don'thave love, if you're not getting the
right kinds of love from your parents. We all do need it. You
need it very badly. So ifyou're not getting it, you're like,
like, then you don't have anyconfidence that's coming, you know, like

(19:07):
if it doesn't come to you early, then you're worried that you're not going
to get it. And it's notjust with sex, it's with all the
stuff. Like part of the wayto get attention was to have very self
destructive behavior, whether it was throughdrugs or alcohol or driving recklessly, like
his dad did the same thing toget the attention of his grandfather. Like

(19:29):
his grandfather did the same thing toget the attention of his great grandfather.
Yeah, like, you know,I thought it was especially key. There
was one part that they came backto a couple of times where you know,
he direct message a woman that hewould hope to tie her up and
put her somewhere public as a testof her devotion to him. Yeah,
you know, like will will yoube strangers in order to show me how

(19:56):
much you mean to me? Andthat is just screaming out to me that
he's scared of being abandoned. He'she's not confident that the love and intimacy
that he craves is going to becoming back to him or and that the
only way that maybe he processes loveis through complete, complete submit that servile
slave master slave relationship, Like yeah, I mean, I love meat.

(20:21):
That's the way can the only waythat it makes sense to him is not
a two way street. It's ayou adore me, you worship me type
of thing. Yeah. I justI think that he wants them to worship
him to that degree because that's theonly time he can feel safe that they're
not going to leave. Right,He's created a zero sum relationship. It's

(20:44):
not like it's not going to bereal love. But if they stick around
out of fear and whatever, loyaltyquote unquote loyalty, Like he's he's so
around, you know. I firmlybelieve that anytime people do things that are
construed as evil, anytime people dothings that hurt other people, it's the
root of it is fear. Likeit's always you can explain some way that

(21:07):
the person was afraid of something andit made the mac that way. And
I think the thing that he's afraidof is these people leaving him, of
these people loving him less than heloves them. And you know, I
don't know. We all experienced thatin our lives and we all deal with
it in different ways. But Ithink that his is more exaggerated because that
fear was more fully realized when hewas a child, the way that his

(21:27):
family treated him. See, Idon't know. I'd love to talk more
about the family stuff. There's alot of really interesting things in there.
I've got a couple of clips ofsome of the more extremes stuff that is
his family did, so let's talkabout that. Next. It's the documentary
House of Hammer, availed on Max. This is the Dirt Bad Culture Hour,

(21:47):
and it's ninety seven one. TheFreak