Part One: How Woody Guthrie Turned Folk Music into a Weapon

Summary

Behind the Bastards: Part One - How Woody Guthrie Turned Folk Music into a Weapon

Released on December 24, 2024

Introduction

In the premiere episode of "Behind the Bastards," host Robert Evans delves deep into the tumultuous life of Woody Guthrie, America's iconic folk singer. This episode not only explores Guthrie's musical genius but also unearths the dark and complex facets of his personal history, painting a comprehensive picture of a man whose life was as turbulent as the songs he penned.

Woody Guthrie's Family Background

Robert Evans begins by setting the stage with Woody Guthrie's lineage, highlighting the problematic nature of his upbringing. Guthrie’s grandfather, Jeremiah Purcell Guthrie, moved his family to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in 1897 under dubious government policies aimed at displacing Native American tribes. This move laid the foundation for a family rife with racial tensions and unethical behavior.

• Quote [00:01-01:10]:
  Robert Evans: “There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating.”

Early Life and Struggles

Guthrie's father, Charlie Guthrie, emerges as a central antagonist in Woody's early life. Charlie’s ambition led him to politics, where he secured a district court position in 1907 through fraudulent means, including the disenfranchisement of Black voters. The family's ascent was short-lived as economic downturns and personal tragedies struck, leading to the collapse of their wealth and stability.

• Quote [05:59-06:07]:
  Robert Evans: “But this brings me to the subject of our annual Non Bastards episode. A guy who became very aware of the fact that there were bloodsuckers murdering all of his friends and loved ones and decided, well, fuck, I don't know what else to do but sing some songs about it. This week we're talking about Woody Guthrie.”

Involvement in Racist Activities

The episode confronts the grim reality of Woody Guthrie's father's involvement in heinous acts, including the lynching of Laura and her son L.D. Nelson in 1911. Guthrie acknowledges his father's role in these atrocities, a revelation that casts a long shadow over his legacy.

• Quote [15:57-16:03]:
  Robert Evans: “He has a lot of pain in his life, don't worry. Excellent. I'm not gonna say it makes, you know, it equals out, though. So Woody was open about the fact that his father had taken part in this lynching and later accused him of having dawned clan robes.”

Music and Activism

Despite a troubled upbringing, Woody Guthrie emerges as a prolific songwriter with an estimated thousand songs. His music became a vehicle for social commentary, particularly during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Guthrie's songs often reflected his personal struggles and the collective hardships of ordinary Americans, cementing his role as a voice of the people.

• Quote [17:26-17:33]:
  Robert Evans: “So it's. Yeah. Bad. I mean, yeah. I don't know what to say about that.”

Faith Healing and Grifting

In his youth, Guthrie dabbled in faith healing, influenced by his uncle Jeff and the prosperity gospel propagated by figures like Norman Vincent Peale. This phase of his life showcases his susceptibility to the self-help culture of the time, blending his charismatic presence with questionable practices to survive economically.

• Quote [45:00-45:15]:
  Robert Evans: “He really does believe for a while that he's got some ability to heal people and ability to read their mind. I don't think he's a. He's a grifter here. I think he's a kid who's kind of gets really excited by this shit that has enraptured all of the adults in his life.”

The Dust Bowl and Migration

The episode meticulously details the catastrophic impact of the Dust Bowl on Woody Guthrie and millions of other Americans. Faced with environmental and economic devastation, Guthrie becomes one of the 400,000 migrants heading to California in search of a better life. This period was pivotal in shaping his music, infusing it with themes of displacement and resilience.

• Quote [39:33-39:42]:
  Robert Evans: “The rest will follow. I love it. It's so politically confused. Are you a Drop in the water? Or are you completely an individual and everything is your fault if you fail. I love it.”

Conclusion

Robert Evans wraps up the episode by reflecting on Woody Guthrie’s enduring legacy as a folk musician who used his art to challenge societal injustices. Despite the shadows cast by his family's dark past, Guthrie's music remained a beacon of hope and resistance, influencing future generations of artists and activists.

• Quote [51:02-51:20]:
  Robert Evans: “So, anyway, I'm gonna end this by playing you our first full Woody Guthrie song, and we'll hear a couple over the course of these episodes. But here's so long it's been good to know ya.”

Notable Quotes

1. Robert Evans [05:31]: “But this brings me to the subject of our annual Non Bastards episode. A guy who became very aware of the fact that there were bloodsuckers murdering all of his friends and loved ones and decided, well, fuck, I don't know what else to do but sing some songs about it. This week we're talking about Woody Guthrie.”

2. Sophie Lichterman [02:35]: “I'm grateful for my dad, who. The only time I've ever seen a Klansman in robes was as a kid. And I was driving with my dad, and my dad saw these and we stopped and they were flyering, right? And my dad just rolled up the windows, locked the doors, and then fumed.”

3. Robert Evans [43:44]: “Everyone just needs a blood boy.”

Key Takeaways

• Woody Guthrie’s legacy is a juxtaposition of his influential music and the morally complex environment in which he was raised.
• His father's involvement in racist violence profoundly impacted Guthrie, shaping his worldview and his art.
• Guthrie's early ventures into faith healing and his susceptibility to the prosperity gospel illustrate the broader societal influences of the time.
• The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression were critical in galvanizing his activism through music, making him a pivotal figure in American folk history.

Conclusion

"Behind the Bastards" offers an unflinching exploration of Woody Guthrie's life, going beyond his celebrated musical contributions to reveal the intricate and often troubling forces that shaped him. Through Robert Evans' insightful narration and candid discussions, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of how Guthrie transformed personal and collective struggles into powerful songs that continue to resonate today.

Transcript

[Margaret Killjoy]

Call Zone Media.

[Robert Evans]

Ah, welcome back to behind the Bastards, a podcast by Judge Robert Evans. The honorable Judge Robert Evans presiding over the Court of Basterds. And you know, I announced last week that I am now officially a legal United States municipal judge. And I think a lot of people thought that was a bit, they thought I was joking. And I just want to say, folks, I would never joke about that because as soon as I, I, I was sworn in, I was handed a case to rule on. And I've been, I've been thinking nonstop about it for the last two weeks. And I know the Supreme Court's got a lot of important cases coming up obviously, but, but they all pale in comparison to this question, which is which of the Lestats in the different interviews with a vampire is more fuckable? And I have my ruling here. Is the jury ready to hear it? Our jury today, including Margaret Killjoy and Sophie Lichterman. Are you guys ready to hear my ruling on this one?

[Sophie Lichterman]

I am. Although I've only seen the evidence produced about the 90s interview with a vampire.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, you gotta watch the new TV show, It's hot as hell. And that's who I go with, is the TV show.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Robert, have you ever heard of jury nullification?

[Robert Evans]

Uh huh. You can't nullify me on this.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Oh, okay.

[Robert Evans]

Cause he's just so hot. Look at him. Look at him. Sophie, have you not looked at him?

[Margaret Killjoy]

You're asking me to look up.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I'm looking at him now.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Are you asking me to look up what a man looks like and say if they are hot or not? Because I refuse on principle.

[Robert Evans]

I wouldn't call him just a man because he's supernaturally good looking anyway.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Well, the old one is just Gare.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Whereas the new one looks like, I don't know, kind of like a little bit of Viking, little bit of French sex pot. He's good. He's good. It's a good TV show. Everybody watch the new interview with a Vampire. That's my ruling. Margaret, how are you feeling?

[Sophie Lichterman]

I'm feeling like I like vampires.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, you're gonna like that show though.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I struggle with vampire stuff though, because I'm incredibly squeamish. But I love the romance of vampires and the like, sorrow of living forever and all of that. So I sometimes start watching vampire movies and then they start eating people and I'm like, this is too much for me. And I'm like, well, what did I think was gonna happen?

[Robert Evans]

It's okay. They're occasionally sad about eating people in the TV show.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I have a question for the two of you.

[Robert Evans]

Okay.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Would you become vampires if given the choice?

[Robert Evans]

Absolutely. Yeah. Why not?

[Margaret Killjoy]

Sophie, could I still have my dog?

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, I can have your dog. You just can't hang out with your dog in the day.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, just not in the day.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Less time with my dog. Not into it.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Well, it's the same amount of time. It's just inverted.

[Robert Evans]

I just like the idea of eating people. Yeah.

[Margaret Killjoy]

But, like, I hang out with her at night and during the day, so whatever gives me the most amount of hours with Anderson.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Can you make a vampire out of Anderson?

[Margaret Killjoy]

Would she live forever?

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Oh, Anderson. We're vampires. We're fucking vampires.

[Robert Evans]

Can you make dogs into vampires in standard vampire mythology in Margaret's world?

[Sophie Lichterman]

Okay, well, I mean, vampires can turn into dogs, so I feel like there's, like, there's clearly a blurring of the line between human and dog and vampire world, so we might actually just become peers with our dogs, in which case it's an even easier choice. The hardest part for me is the drinking of the blood. But you know what? I'd be willing to accept it.

[Robert Evans]

There's a lot of people whose blood I drink. There's a lot of people drinking my blood. I might as well have some of theirs.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Most of the people I've asked this have said no. So I'm impressed with you two.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I'm down. I'm ready to do the vampire shit again. Interview with a vampire makes it seem incredible.

[Margaret Killjoy]

I really loved Vampire Diaries. It's my one, like, really bad CW show that I'm like, that was such a good experience for me the 17 times I watched it.

[Robert Evans]

No, I get to be best friends with the guy who played Bell Rios in the Foundation TV show. It's a great idea. I'm picking vampire.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Again, based entirely off this TV show.

[Margaret Killjoy]

This is going to be a really long hold of it back. Right. One time I went to a grocery store, and the Vampire Diaries actor brothers. They're not real brothers in real life. Were there trying to sell their bourbon, and their dog licked my face. And it was a really good experience. I'm just saying. It was a really good experience for me. And I immediately had to record with Robert and Jamie afterwards. And they're like, what's wrong with you? Why do you keep. Why are you smiling so big? And I was like. I was like, vampire Diaries brother's dog licked my face. And they're like, okay. I was like, you don't understand.

[Robert Evans]

Here's the thing.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Vampires consume the Blood of human beings in order to stay alive. And so do essentially most of the people who run our country. Which is why people have been up in arms and very interested in some stuff that's been happening in the news recently.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Sure.

[Robert Evans]

But this brings me to the subject of our annual Non Bastards episode. A guy who became very aware of the fact that there were bloodsuckers murdering all of his friends and loved ones and decided, well, fuck, I don't know what else to do but sing some songs about it. This week we're talking about Woody Guthrie. Yeah, yeah. Margaret, what do you know about Woody?

[Sophie Lichterman]

Well, I get a mixed up with Utah Phillips in my head, even though I shouldn't. And I believe Woody is the. This machine kills fascist guitar, not Utah, Right?

[Robert Evans]

He sure is, yes.

[Sophie Lichterman]

And is he the list of stuff for the New Year or is that Utah?

[Robert Evans]

I think that's Utah.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Okay, he's this land is your land.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah. Where they always cut out the good verses about getting rid of private property.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. And to be fair, he cut out the good verses. We're gonna talk about that in these episodes. We're gonna talk a lot of Woody because Woody is a complicated figure. Gonna be one of our famous. Let's talk about the morality and ethics of a guy who lived and was born into a world that most of the people alive have trouble comprehending. Episode.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yay. Every history episode ever.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think this is a good time to be talking about Woody, because fascism as it was when he was a young man. Fascism seems to be ascendant around the world. There are outlaw gunmen carrying out attacks on capitalist institutions that symbolize the poverty and suffering that have made a lot of people miserable. And yeah, you know, a lot of the people who have listened to this episode were probably forced out of their homes for some period of time this year due to one kind of environmentally influenced disaster or another. A not insignificant chunk of the audience, given the hurricanes and fires, yada, yada, yada. And that's the way things were in Woody's day too. So let's learn a little bit about America's greatest folk singer, or at least the patron saint of all American folk singers, Woody Guthrie.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Cool.

[Robert Evans]

And we're back. So if you're not familiar, as we stated, he's the author of this Land Is yous Land. He's the author of all you Fascists Are Bound to Lose and a whole bunch of other socialist and anti fascist protest ballads. He also wrote a shitload of other well known American classics and a bunch of unknown folks, and I should say an unknown number of other folks songs. When I say unknown, I mean it. There is no comprehensive accounting of how many songs Woody wrote and, like, published, but credible estimates are somewhere around a thousand or more.

[Sophie Lichterman]

That's the way to do it.

[Robert Evans]

So this is a very prolific songwriter. Right. And, you know, a lot of the songs that he would have written, rather than being many were published in different songbooks and whatnot and are still sung today. But a lot of them only existed briefly in dingy little stages from New Jersey to the Redwood Coast. So he's my kind of artist.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, I like that kind of guy.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It's hard not to. That said, when we talk about his family background, there's some rough. Gotta be some rough moments here and some rough moments in his own life. This is not a guy who was unproblematic in any comprehensive way. What?

[Sophie Lichterman]

A man who had power in interpersonal relationships wasn't perfect.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we'll talk about how much power he. He's a little more complicated than that even. Okay.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. His grandfather was born Jeremiah Purcell Guthrie in Bell County, South Texas, and went by Jerry P. Restless, as was the family condition, he'd moved his family north to what was then known as Indian Territory in 1897. Today, we call most of this Oklahoma. And at the time, it is where the federal government had pushed a number of tribes in order to pretend, hey, we're not trying to dispossess you entirely. You gotta keep moving, but keep moving. But eventually, like, you'll land in this. This great area where, you know, you guys will be safe forever. That's Oklahoma. That's what becomes Oklahoma. It's just the Indian Territory in this period. It's not a state. So during this period, the government offered land grants in this territory, up to 160 acres, to anyone with, quote, unquote, Indian blood. And Jerry's second wife, Woody's dad, Charlie's stepmom, was 1 8th Creek. Now, obviously, everything around this is messed up and part of policies that were, at best ignorant and at worst genocidal. And we're not commenting on the validity of how the government saw indigeneity at this period of time. Just saying this is how they handled it, right? So Charlie grew up. And that's again, Woody's dad grew up in proto Oklahoma, which reads best as protocolahoma, but I don't actually think. I don't know how. Well, it scans audibly anyway. On his dad's ranch, he was ambitious. He studied business through correspondence courses. He also learned penmanship through correspondence and took a correspondence course on boxing, which makes a lot less sense to me, but okay. Punch. Hell yeah, punch better. Can't wait for that third letter.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Many people who are listening to this are basically doing that with YouTube right now and not actually practicing, so.

[Robert Evans]

Right, right. Yeah. He would have been a YouTube guy in a different era. He would have been like watching videos on how to punch better. Yeah, he was good enough at the money stuff. Like, he does actually learn pretty well how to manage money and handle business. And pretty soon as a teenager, he's running the family farm. Eventually, things are going well enough that Jerry and Charlie sell what they have and Jerry moves back down to Texas to start another ranch near the border. Whereas Charlie moves to a small town called Castle. In 1902, he gets a job in a dry goods store. And he meets Nora Tanner, the daughter of a schoolteacher. In the 2006 biography Ramblin man by Ed Krey, here's how Nora is described. If Kansas born Nora was not the prettiest girl, she was among the most spunky. Inevitably. And here's where things take a turn. People judged 14 year old Nora as something of a tomboy because of her spirited attitude. How else would she assert herself in a house with three brothers and sisters and three half brothers? Again, 2006 is probably a little too late to be writing about a 14 year old girl who gets picked up by a man in his 20s that way.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, not the prettiest. That's what. That's what we need to know.

[Robert Evans]

I don't love that. Now we are talking about Woody Guthrie's dad here. I just want to remind you of that. This is not the subject of our episode. And gross arrangements like this.

[Sophie Lichterman]

And is this his mom? Is Nora the moment?

[Robert Evans]

Yes, Nora's his mom. And this is gross. But this is also not a wildly uncommon arrangement. And Nora and Charlie, they meet when she's 14. They don't get together immediately. He starts hanging around her and her family and gets to know them for two years before marrying her when she is 16 and he is like 25.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Oh, great. So not great. So many years. Still a little uncomfortably awful.

[Robert Evans]

Not great. Still creepy.

[Sophie Lichterman]

So respectful to just hang out. And two years.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Two years to just lurk over a child.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Just hanging out, making it really clear that you're into this child.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, but not until they're in a. I'm not defending this.

[Robert Evans]

Let's be clear. Charlie Guthrie sucks ass. This is not the worst thing Charlie Guthrie's going to be involved in. Oh, good.

[Margaret Killjoy]

So he's just, he's. I'm glad we have a bastard today.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah, no, there's a bastard in this episode. And it is, it is Charlie. It's Woody Guthrie's dad. Definitely on the bastard spectrum. So he starts reading law and he gets involved in local Democratic party politics. Oklahoma, the state, is about to become a thing. And while, you know, it's unformed in this period, there's an opportunity for ambitious young men to make names for themselves. And Charlie decides he wants to do just that. He runs for a district court position. And he Wins election in 1907 because all of the votes from local black men were thrown out under false allegations of ballot stuffing.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So Charlie's really just knocking him out of the park.

[Sophie Lichterman]

The Democratic Party is not the same. No, this is before the great inversion of these two parties.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. And he's just. Yeah. Comprehensively not a nice guy. After winning, he takes his burgeoning family a few miles away to Okema, a town which was having an oil boom and was an exciting place to be in 1907. Something no one has said about Okema since. For a few years, life was grand and Charlie gets rich. He acquired more than 30 properties. He joined a Masonic lodge. He purchased the first automobile in Town in 1909. And he became a fiery antisocialist polemicist, giving ranting speeches about Eugene V. Debs, the pro union socialist rapperouser and presidential candidate. So I bet you're saying, margaret, wow, what a great dude.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I'm saying like, ha ha, this guy had a socialist kid.

[Robert Evans]

He sure did. And we're gonna get to why. But first, let's talk about a crime against humanity.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Oh, good.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Everybody loves a good crime against humanity.

[Sophie Lichterman]

That's why I. Come on. Bastards.

[Robert Evans]

Uh huh.

[Margaret Killjoy]

I thought that's what you were doing to call to ad breaks, which you could do right now if you'd search on this.

[Robert Evans]

It's okay, let's talk about a crime against humanity first. That'll lead into the ad break.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Oh, I thought you were talking about advertisements, but okay.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, no, no. Talking about horrible things.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Great.

[Robert Evans]

In Late May of 1911, a Black mother and her son, Laura and L.D. nelson were taken into custody after being accused of shooting and killing Ofiske County Sheriff's deputy George Loney. The deputy had been on their family land going after a cow he believed had been stolen. And a struggle ensued. Laura apparently grabbed for the deputy's gun first. It's a Little unclear exactly what happened, but her husband wound up pleading guilty to larceny. And so he was away while Laura and ld were taken to a county jail. As was often the case in situations like this, outrage spread around the white families of the area. A crowd formed. Woody Guthrie would later allege that his father was one of the men who joined that crowd. They burst into the county jail on the night of May 24, raped Laura repeatedly and then hung her and her 14 year old son until they were dead. As was usually the case, local photographers took pictures of the lynching site afterwards to sell his postcards. The photos of Laura's body hanging dead are the only known surviving pictures of a black female lynching victim. So there's a good chance people have seen pictures from the lynching that Woody Guthrie's dad did or helped do. Obviously, it wasn't just him.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Cool.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Horrible.

[Robert Evans]

I told you he sucked.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

No, I am.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yep.

[Robert Evans]

Charlie Guthrie, not a nice man.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Did he get to die? Painfully.

[Robert Evans]

He has a lot of pain in his life, don't worry. Excellent. I'm not gonna say it makes, you know, it equals out, though. So Woody was open about the fact that his father had taken part in this lynching and later accused him of having dawned clan robes. Right. So Woody's like, yeah, my dad was a Klansman. And he would later in life write several songs about the lynching. One of them was based on a misconception that Laura's two children were lynched. Her baby was probably found alive nearby. The song was titled. But a lot of Woody's songs about historical events are not literally about what happened. Right. Like there's, you know, this is folk history. Right. Anyway, one of the songs that he wrote about this event was titled Don't Kill My Baby and My Son. And I haven't found Woody singing this song, but I want to read some of the lyrics. And this is kind of him sort of singing about this thing that his dad did. As I walked down that old dark town. In the town where I was born. I heard the saddest lonesome moan I ever heard before. My hair, it trembled at the roots. Cold chills run down my spine. As I drew near that jailhouse. I heard this deathly cry. Oh, don't kill my baby and son. Oh, don't kill my baby and son. You can stretch my neck out on that old river bridge. But don't kill my baby and son.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Damn.

[Robert Evans]

So it's. Yeah. Bad. I mean, yeah. I don't know what to say about that.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I'm grateful for my dad, who. The only time I've ever seen a Klansman in robes was as a kid. And I was driving with my dad, and my dad saw these and we stopped and they were flyering, right? And my dad just rolled up the windows, locked the doors, and then fumed. And then later he was like, those people have guns. That's why they're doing this. And I realized later it was because he was justifying why he hadn't gotten out of the car to fight four men to himself, because all he wanted to do was get out of the car and fight them. Anyway, I'm glad that I had the inverse dad. I don't know.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Yeah, for sure.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I mean, I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma and learned that one of my friends dads was in the clan, which is how I learned the Klan was a thing, which was when my mom found out, when I stopped hanging out with that kid.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Which is also. Shout out to your mom about that, Right. Cause you grew up in a more right wing family, right?

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah. She was like, absolutely not about this. Yeah, fuck these people.

[Margaret Killjoy]

There you go.

[Sophie Lichterman]

There is a line.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, no. That was a hard line for my mom. Yes. In 1912, the year after the lynching, Woody Guthrie was born. But the introduction to Rambling man, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Studs Terkel, does a better job of setting up his birth than I can. So here's studs. In 1912, the Titanic sank. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson was elected president. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born. Fate sings its own kind of poetry. The day was July 14, Bastille Day in Paris, France. Woody's Day in Okima, Oklahoma.

[Sophie Lichterman]

That's good.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's a good intro.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Also, it explains my big question, which was, what does Woody stand for? And now I know.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Woodrow Wilson Guthrie.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yep.

[Robert Evans]

People were a lot more optimistic about Woodrow Wilson during this period of time, Margaret. There was a lot of hope for Woodrow Wilson in 1912. That's going to prove to be somewhat, shall we say, mistaken? Errantly taken. Right. But you know who you should have faith in?

[Sophie Lichterman]

Is it our advertisers.

[Robert Evans]

It's our advertisers.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Our advertisers know about that, but.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, who would never, would never bring America into World War I after promising not to. If our advertisers say they're not going to send US troops to World War I, they're not going to send US troops to World War One. You can. You can take that as a promise.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I Wish I believed you, but time machines just around the corner.

[Robert Evans]

You probably shouldn't. They might, they might, they might.

[D]

Life comes at you fast, which is why it's important to find time to relax a little. You time. Enter Chumba Casino. With no download required, you can jump on anytime, anywhere for the chance to redeem some serious prizes. So treat yourself with Chumba Casino and play over 100 online casino style games, all for free. Go to Chumbacasino.com to collect your free welcome bonus. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW group void where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply.

[Robert Evans]

And we're back. We are Learning, unfortunately, that HelloFresh has committed to send 150,000 US Marines into France.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Robert it's like one of the least evil sponsors that we have on our show.

[Robert Evans]

Sophie. They're necessary to stop the Kaiser's men, you know, who are largely sponsored by meundies, if I'm not mistaken.

[Margaret Killjoy]

I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

Podcast. World War I's gonna be a trip, everybody.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, but if you want to gamble on it, go ahead.

[Robert Evans]

But if you want to gamble on it. Yeah. So Woody was the third of five kids, and his first memories were of comfort and, you know, like a degree of wealth, if not outright opulence. He later wrote, our house was full of the smells of big leather, law books and the poems of pomp and high dignity that he, his father, memorized and performed over us. Charlie was into music as well as racial murder. And he and Nora would sing hymns, old spirituals, and songs about saving the lost and homeless. Woody later recalled the color of the songs was the red man, the black man, and the white folks. And he's saying there that it was like, we learned songs that were like, of the common people of this country. I don't know that I trust Charlie to give him a great example of all of that, but that's what he later called and what he's also going to. There's a period of time where he's really whitewashing his background. And his father. Right. He's going to make claims that he was mentored by a young black musician during kind of in and around this period when he's a little kid. Those don't seem to have been true. He later admitted they were false. I think they were kind of part of this period where he's trying to invent a better backstory for himself.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Well, and there's also this, like, long standing way to claim legitimacy.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Of claiming blackness.

[Robert Evans]

Right? Yes. Especially within, like, American folk tradition, right? Yeah.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

While his early years would have been comfortable, things began to change quickly for the worse. His father paid to construct a nice family home, which burnt down when Woody was a toddler and damaged the family finances. In 1919, another fire hit the home they lived in, and his sister Clara burned to death. Nora had gotten increasingly unstable as she aged, and it's likely that we would have. I mean, we definitely have a diet. We learn what she's got. Right. And we'll be talking about that some in part two, because it becomes relevant for Woody. But at the time, they were just like, oh, she's crazy. She's got bad nerves. You know, she's losing it. Right. Like, that's. That's the way they talk about this at the time.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

After Clara burned to death, Woody later said, my mother's nerves gave way like an overloaded bridge. An essay on Woody by the Library of Congress notes she even had occasional violent episodes and may have set Charlie on fire in 1927, a situation that resulted in a long and painful convalescence for him and a commitment to the state mental hospital in Norman for her. We can't know exactly what happened here. The best account we have is that when he, like, wakes up to the sound of kerosene being splashed on his chest and then is on fire, and he manages to put it out although he's injured, and the first thing he sees when he puts it out is Nora standing over him, watching quietly.

[Sophie Lichterman]

That's intense.

[Robert Evans]

Now, Woody never was able to really admit that this was what happened. Right. That his mom lit his dad on fire. And he certainly didn't admit, like, well, maybe his dad needed to get lit on fire. Right.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Oh, yeah. No, no, no. Crime was committed. It's fine.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I think that's more or less where I land here. But obviously, this. This breaks up the family, right?

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, fair enough.

[Robert Evans]

And Woody's never able to really kind of come clean about precisely what happened. And also, you know, he's young enough that maybe he doesn't fully know. Right. Maybe this is kind of a mystery to him as well. Yeah. Because his dad probably doesn't want to admit it. Right. It's framed as an accident within the family. The most Woody would ever say of his mom's mental state during this period is that her mind went, quote, way over yonder in a minor key, which is, you know.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Wait, did he write that song Way Over Yonder in a minor key?

[Robert Evans]

I think so, yeah.

[Sophie Lichterman]

That's one of my favorite songs. And Every time I pass a minikey, I'm like, I need to get a picture with me here. But I never do it.

[Robert Evans]

Yep. Woody Guthrie. Yep. I like that song covered by Billy Bragg. Like a lot of Guthrie songs, I.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Mostly know the Billy Bragg version.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. I think most of. At this point, most of us do. But that's like, kind of how Woody's music has been brought down to us, too, is by guys like Billy. By guys like Bob Dylan, too.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Totally.

[Robert Evans]

So things get worse very rapidly for the Guthrie family after this point. Charlie's business interests folded and his land collapsed in value. He had trouble finding good work after recovering from his injury. And the Guthrie family starts to fall through the bottom of their society. Charlie was forced to leave Oklahoma in search of work with his two youngest children. Thus, Woody and his older brother Roy had to stay in their hometown alone to support themselves. They are 15 or 16, both when they're kind of left like, hey, figure it out. Right now. Woody is largely unsupervised and also traumatized during this point in time. He works a series of odd jobs, polishing spittoons and scavenging for scrap metal. So again, this is a kid who was born into an emerging wealthy class, but he never really gets to live that way, Right. Like the bottom falls, he has early memories of when the family had money, but very quickly, like at 15 or 16, he is polishing spittoons and living on the streets. He's homeless for a significant period of time. He discovers the wonders of both tobacco and hard liquor. For a period, he would hustle for money drunk, playing his harmonica. One remarkable performance earned him $7, which must have been a memory that stuck with the young man that, like, oh, I actually have the ability to, like, do okay based on, like, playing and performing for people.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I bet that's like a hundred bucks at least right now.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know. Good money for a 16 year old kid. He starts riding the rails and traveling hobo style down to the Gulf and back. People begin referring to him as a tramp. Ed Cray, one of his biographers, writes, Woody scrounged home cooked meals wherever he could. His friend Colonel Martin invited him home often enough. Guthrie would live with the Martin family for three months. He moved in with the Price family, quarreled and moved out for a week. He slept in an unheated packing case converted into a hillside gang clubhouse until two members of his gang brothers Casper and Floyd Moore, pleaded with their parents to let Woody live with them. Tom and Nora agreed, and Woody moved in with A wardrobe of two shirts and a pair of mended overalls. So he's living on the edge here. He's like. Again, he's a tramp. Right. But he's pretty liked. You know, a lot of families in town, you know, they like Woody, their kids like Woody, and they'll take him in for a period of time. And he's also.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I think this was like, a kind of common way that the, like.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Sophie Lichterman]

The. Like, my grandfather was a hobo fairly shortly after this in kind of the same region and.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Sophie Lichterman]

You know, and it wasn't like. Yeah, you're like. It wasn't a full. Oh, I totally just live outside and ride the rails. It was like, sometimes I ride the rails and sometimes someone gives me a ride, you know, like.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, sometimes I'm living in an unheated, like, fucking packing crate, and sometimes I've got, you know, a room where I get to crash on the equivalent of a couch.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And he's. He's, you know, he doesn't have great hygiene. He's famous for his shabby looks, but he's also in demand for his musical skills. One of his hosts recalled a night when he brought home $60 in coins from dancing and playing for the American Legion. Nora's husband suggested he buy some new underwear with the money, and Woody's response was, no need to. I wouldn't wear it. Instead, he bought candy for their kids. He's a crust punk. He is a crust punk. Yes. He absolutely is a crust punk. And he uses his money to buy candy for his friends who got him a place to crash.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Hell, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Now, one interesting aside is that this particular family I'm talking about had the last name Moore, which is my mom's maiden name. And my family lived in Oklahoma in this period. Maybe it should. There's a good chance it's just. Probably is just a coincidence, but I don't know all the branches of kin I had floating around down there.

[Sophie Lichterman]

That's cool. I like that you have this connection.

[Robert Evans]

I will have a more direct family connection to Woody Guthrie later in these episodes. Okay. Nora Moore said this of young Woody. Sometimes he was sad and didn't talk much. He often sat for long periods as if he were in deep study. Then again, when he was with the gang of boys, he was lively, he seldom laughed, and if he did, it was short and quick. But he was witty and smart. So, you know, you've got a thoughtful kid who's a little, you know, definitely traumatized as well. And there's something kind of magnetic about this young man too. Right. Like you, you get that feeling just whenever you read people who knew him in that period kind of talking about him.

[Sophie Lichterman]

He also. Okay, like, yeah, one, he moved in with another Nora, which is, I mean.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, there's a lot of Nora's on the thick on the ground in this period. Yes.

[Sophie Lichterman]

But also I was think putting it through that. So his mom probably set dad on fire and I'm like, eh, whatever. Yeah, his sister died in a horrible fire.

[Robert Evans]

Uh huh.

[Sophie Lichterman]

His mom might have killed his sister.

[Robert Evans]

He has bad luck around fires. His family, his whole family does.

[Sophie Lichterman]

He's just kind of flammable.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, the Guthrie's are unfortunately quite flammable. Okay. There's gonna be a really unfortunate story involving that in part two as well.

[Sophie Lichterman]

All right.

[Robert Evans]

In 1928, his father called for him to move to Pampa Texas, near Amarillo, where some other members of the family, including his Uncle Jeff, who's quite a character, lived. Before leaving, Woody visited his mother in the state hospital one last time, and she didn't recognize him until the very end of the visit, which is deeply traumatic to this kid. Traveling to East Texas was not a simple thing for a teenaged boy. In 1928, Woody had to busk and work odd jobs to make his way down. Mostly he sang and played harmonica for workers on their lunch break at the railroad and hotel lobbies, and most often outside of whorehouses. He learned as he went, picking up tips from every musician he came across. He later wrote, I followed the religious street singers up and down the sidewalk and learnt of all the songs they sung. I never did learn how to make tips offed religious folks because the best ones are always broke. But some of the best songs I ever heard and some of the best feelings I ever had was when I catch some girl's eye beating on a skin drum tambourine singing, hi hallelujah. I love the way he talked and wrote.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I know, I know, it's poetic as hell.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Texas provided Woody with both relief and an outlet when his Uncle Jeff taught him how to play the guitar. Jeff was an award winning fiddle player, and once Woody felt like he had a good bass line, he went looking for other amateur musicians and they formed a band called the Corn Cob Trio. He fell in love with the sister of one of his bandmates, Mary Jennings, and the two were eventually married. Now Uncle Jeff was one of those sorts of men you'd best describe as a real character. Ed Cray described him as a country fiddler. Great Dreamer in a family of dreamers. Fingerprint man, parlor musician, and sometime faith healer. When Woody met him, Uncle Jeff was a cop. But his ambition was to leave that job for a career in music. In 1930, he lost it anyway when a guy he wasn't friends with got elected sheriff. Jeff made himself quite a fella. Police officer. Faith healer, yeah. Fingerprint man, whatever the fuck that means. Jeff made himself the manager of Woody's amateur musical outfit after he gets fired as a cop. So he's like, well, being a cop didn't work out. I'm gonna try to turn these teenage boys into a money ticket. And he starts booking them gigs. He hatches a scheme, cause Jeff's a schemer to get him a slot performing with a traveling show put on by a wealthy rancher because he was trying to entertain on a budget. Music was just one of the things they were hired to do. Woody was expected to do stand up comedy and to act as a magician as well. And the only thing I need to tell you to make a point of how cringy this would have been is that his routine involved the use of flesh colored grease paint. Now sometimes he does seem to be dressing as a different kind of white guy. He's got a freckle pencil and I think he's like dressing as a redhead or something like that sometimes. But he is doing blackface. He is doing a lot of blackface. This ad there are Minstrel show and Medicine show, which are very racist, right? These are shows that where the comedy hinges a lot on the way white people think that black people talk based on again, racist jokes. Right? That is a big part of the comedy he is doing at this stage in his life.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Oh, Woody, huh?

[Robert Evans]

And this is very like, this is a very normal. This is going to be in some, to some extent a normal kind of comedy. You know, it gets, every couple of years it gets a little bit like whitewashed, just a little bit more, if you'll forgive the term. But like if you watch the old Christmas movie, White Christmas, like there is a non blackface minstrel show that they do in that because. And it's them talking about like, oh, the music that we grew up with. Right. The comedy that we grew up with, right. This shit stays a lot longer than I think a lot of people are necessarily aware, but.

[Sophie Lichterman]

And want to admit to themselves. Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And want to admit to themselves.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Or want to admit to their grandkids.

[Robert Evans]

Uh huh, yeah. And again, at this stage in his life, Woody is as racist as you would expect for A boy raised by a Klansman who lynched people. Right. Like he is a very racist little kid. Not out of step with white kids in the area, but not better in any way, certainly. That said, most of his act did involve fairly safe comedy. Here's one representative example. I stopped with a family that had two twin boys. One was named Pete and the other repeat. And at another place they had two twin girls. One they called Kate and the other duplicate. Anyway, it's like bits like that, right? I love repeat.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I've heard the Pete and repeat.

[Robert Evans]

I love that. It's, it's. Yeah. And they don't do well. Right. This is these. He's not, he's not like a successful. He's not, you know, a breakthrough comedy star. Right. He's also not what you'd call political at this point. Right. He's not talking about a lot of left wing stuff. Life is too lean in general for him to have much time for reading tracts. But he is aware of poverty because it's the very air he breathed. And he does start tailoring his jokes to an audience that's in the same position socioeconomically. Here's one related in the book Ramblin man, they have raised the price of meat until it's getting so a working man can't eat meat. The nearest thing he can come to eating meat is oxtail soup and beef tongue. That's the only way he can make both ends meet. Get it? Cause it's like from the front and the back of the animal. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Not a bad little bit. So the traveling show is a catastrophic failure. Though 1931 and 32 are bad years to try and convince people to pay for amateur entertainment in rural Texas. Woody did not need to search hard for an explanation as to why his life was difficult. He had only to step out and look at the road each morning where an endless stream of climate and economic refugees had begun tramping vaguely west looking for any hope of survival. He wrote most everyone that come had just recently lost everything they had in the world. The others were fixing to lose it. This caused a lot of fights and feuds to break out between husband and wife and caused sweethearts to haul off and quit. The crops was all dried up and the banks was taking the place. It looked like there wasn't no hope down here on Earth. So, you know, this is the start of the Great Depression. This is the start of the Dust Bowl. And for a while, as he's watching other people's lives fall apart and the evidence of that, you know, and his life isn't, you know, going to stay together that much longer than this. But for a while, he, he does have some hope, courtesy of his uncle Jeff, who after losing his job as a cop, had also sought work as a faith healer to survive. And we're gonna talk about faith healing and weirdly enough, we're going to talk about a book that relates kind of directly to our immediate future precedent here. But first, you know what doesn't relate to the President is these ads.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I hope not.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Jesus Christ. I hope fucking not.

[D]

Life comes at you fast, which is why it's important to find time to relax a little. You time. Enter Chumba Casino. With no download required, you can jump on anytime, anywhere for the chance to redeem some serious prizes. So treat yourself with Chumba Casino and play over 100 online casino style games, all for free. Go to Chumbacasino.com to collect your free welcome bonus. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group void where prohibited by law, 18 terms and conditions apply. Looking for excitement? Chumba Casino is here. Play anytime. Play anywhere. Play on the train. Play at the store. Play at home. Play when you're bored. Play today for your chance to win and get daily bonuses when you log in. So what are you waiting for? Don't delay. Chumba Casino is free to play.

[Robert Evans]

Experience social gameplay like never before.

[D]

Go to Chumba Casino right now to play hundreds of games, including online slots.

[Robert Evans]

Bingo, Slingo and more.

[D]

Live the chumba [e-mail] VGW approved. No purchase necessary. Void when prohibited by law. See terms and Conditions.

[Robert Evans]

There's a guy when we talk about Donald Trump, who was a big influence on him, Norman Vincent Peale, who was a big advocate of something called the power of positive thinking, right? And this relates to a lot of modern sort of grift culture, right? You know the secret? This idea that if you just start thinking hard enough about the things that you want, right? Just start making affirmations, right? That will influence reality, right? And so as a result, if you're not getting what you want, if you're not rich, if you're not successful, it's a failure of yourself to believe in yourself, right? You're the only one you have to blame for not succeeding. This is the underpinning of the prosperity gospel. This is the underpinning of MLM culture, right? And Woody Guthrie at the start of the Great Depression through his uncle Jeff, gets hooked on the very first sort of vector for this kind of nonsense, right? In American culture. And it's through a series of pamphlets, the Secret of the Ages, published by an American self help author named Robert Collier. Right.

[Sophie Lichterman]

What a good name.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes.

[Sophie Lichterman]

The secret of the ages is to write things called the Secret of the Ages and then sell it to gullible people. That's the secret of the Ages.

[Robert Evans]

And that's exactly what Collier does. Right. It comes in seven parts, it's a mail order thing and it's all this kind of shit that's going to get wrapped up in the power of positive thinking, Prosperity Gospel, MLM nonsense and kind of modern America.

[Sophie Lichterman]

And like subscription based services, they were ahead of the curve.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, they really are. They would have had pod. He would have been listening to this podcast, right? Collier would have had a fucking podcast if things had been a little bit further along. Right. Technology wise by this point. Now the gist of the message in the Secret of the Ages is the power of positive thinking. If you just fix your mind, you can bring yourself abundance and success. And if you aren't enjoying success, well brother, that's on you. And I'm gonna read a quote from. Oh, this isn't from the pamphlet that Jeff would've ordered, but it's from a book that he later makes based on the pamphlet. All cause is in mind and mind is everywhere. All the knowledge there is, all the wisdom there is, all the power there is, is all about you. No matter where you may be, your mind is part of it. You have access to it. If you fail to avail yourself of it, you have no one to blame but yourself. For as the drop of water in the ocean shares all the properties of the rest of the ocean water, so you share in that all power, all wisdom of mind. If you have been sick and ailing, if poverty and hardship have been your lot, don't blame it on fate, blame yourself. Yours is the earth and everything that's in it. But you must take it. The power is there, but you must use it. It is round about you, like the air you breathe. You don't expect others to do your breathing for you. Neither can you expect them to use your mind for you. Universal intelligence is not only the mind of the creator of the universe, but it is also the mind of man. Your intelligence, your mind. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. So start today by knowing that you can do anything you wish to do, have anything you wish to have, be anything you wish to be. The rest will follow.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I love it. It's so politically confused. Are you a Drop in the water? Or are you completely an individual and everything is your fault if you fail? I love it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's definitely leaning more towards the other side of that. And Woody early, and it's worth noting he falls hard for this as a kid, right?

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It was, I think, going to be part of. He's a little bit less vulnerable to this as an adult is because he kind of gets inoculated by this bullshit with his uncle, you know? Yeah. Now what's remarkable to me about this book which enraptures Woody and his uncle as their dreams die around them, is how similar it reads to a lot of modern self help claptrap. It's also, and this is one of the weirdest things that I was not expecting to see as I go through this book. It's focused on immortality in a way that you could take passages out of this and put these into like 21st century Silicon Valley, like fucking Peter Thiel shit, and it wouldn't sound out of place. And I want to read you a quote from that because this really does sound like some shit Peter Thiel would have funded. Why is it that the animals live 5 to 7 times their maturity when man only lives 2 to 3 times his? Why? Because man hastens decrepitude and decay by holding the thought of old age always before him. Dr. Alexis Carroll, Nobel Prize winner and member of the Rockefeller Institute, has demonstrated that living cells taken from a body properly protected and fed, can be kept alive indefinitely. Not only that, but they grow. In 1912, he took some tissue from the heart of an embryo chick and placed it in a culture medium. It lived and grew for some 30 years until they tired of tending it and threw it out. Dr. Carol showed a moving picture of these living cells before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. They grew so fast, they doubled in size every 24 hours and had to be trimmed daily. The cells of your being can be made to live indefinitely when placed outside your body. Single celled animals never die a natural death. They live on and on until something kills them. Now scientists are beginning to wonder if multicellular animals like man really need to die.

[Sophie Lichterman]

We've come full circle to vampires.

[Margaret Killjoy]

We have.

[Robert Evans]

We've come back to vampires, baby. That's right. That's right.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Everyone just needs a blood boy.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we all do want a blood boy, Margaret, but for different reasons, you know, for different reasons. I want a blood boy for purely humanitarian reasons. Oh, really?

[Margaret Killjoy]

What's that?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Want to go into that further?

[Robert Evans]

I like blood and I'm a human wow, groundbreaking. Yeah, so I do. One of the reasons I love reading shit like this, and incidentally folks, one of the best reasons to read history, even the history of hokum like this, is because when you're going through, like, if you spend part of your day job looking at the fucking network state Silicon Valley nonsense coming out right now about how like, oh, you know, Brian Johnson's found a way to reduce his fucking biological age back down to 18, right? All this shit that people who like to portray themselves as like geniuses based on the fact that they have money and are good at finding desperate people to like, market themselves to, it's the same shit that the same kind of people have been peddling forever, right? Honestly, since the days of fucking ancient Egypt, right? But like, there a lot of people who think these folks are intelligent, who think that they're special, who think that there's something new with our new Silicon Valley overlords, right? They're just too ignorant to know that these people have been peddling the same bullshit to hook rubes for a century, right? It almost sounds identical. Cool stuff.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, Cool, cool, cool.

[Robert Evans]

I love it. So Charlie's new wife, Betty Jean, a nurse, fell in love with the book as well, with Collier's book, and she starts faith healing patients that medical science had failed to save. Everyone agreed she was a great faith healer. And more importantly, she made money with her magnetic massages. And it's one of those, like, everyone talks about what a great faith healer she is and how even the rich men come to her for healing, and then it's like, well, what's her method? Magnetic massages. Okay, yeah, uh huh. Okay. I think I might know what's going on here.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Two of the oldest professions are now interacting with each other again.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I think I might have an idea as to why this works.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Kirin. Male hysteria.

[Robert Evans]

Uh huh. Woody is enthralled enough to start faith healing as well. Like Betty Jean, he often worked for free, but in short order he was making more money doing this than he had at the whiskey store where he'd been working before. So he decides to go into business himself as a faith healer with a sign that read faith healing mind reading, no charge. Right? And obviously sometimes he gets a charge, but he's willing to work for free a lot. He's not like a. He really does, I think, believe for a while that he's got some ability to heal people and ability to read their mind. I don't think he's a. He's a grifter here. I think he's a kid who's kind of gets really excited by this shit that has enraptured all of the adults in his life, too. And he's like, well, maybe I'm special. I've always felt like I was kind of special. My ability to draw attention, to get people to pay attention to me. Maybe it's because I've got these magical powers. Right.

[Sophie Lichterman]

He's more of a busker than a grifter anyway.

[Robert Evans]

He is a busker. Right. And that's the other part of this.

[Sophie Lichterman]

When I used to busk all the time for a little while, we would just go and set up, like, a Lucy's advice stand, and we would just, like, set up. We'd build a little thing out of cardboard boxes, and it'd be like, advice $1. And people would just come up and ask us for advice. It was really fun.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And Woody, that's what I get that vibe from. Woody, too. He is later in life, embarrassed about this period. And he'll start to claim that, like, oh, I only did faith healing by accident. I never wanted to get into the business. Quote, hundreds of people got my name mixed up with Papa's new wife and come to my house by mistake. Finally, I hung out a sign telling him to come on in and talk it over. I decided that faith was the main thing, but that's not really true. This is Woody massaging his history again.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Magnetically, Ed Krey found strong evidence to the contrary. In 1935, Woody, who had started a local newspaper called News Expose, wrote an article announcing that his pseudonym, Alonzo M. Zilch, had become a psychological reason. Guthrie advised readers to take your troubles to zilch. He's an expert worrier. The eyes of lots of people are on this man, for good or bad. So he's writing under his real name about a psychological reader with a fake name he's created who is also him.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Oh, I love this. I love this. I identify way harder with Woody Guthrie than I expected, even though he's been doing a lot of stuff I don't approve of.

[Robert Evans]

He's a petty con man and a punk kid. Right. You know, not in a way where I think he's like a predator, but.

[Sophie Lichterman]

In my first book, I've interviews all these people. One of them is me under another name, and I just didn't even tell my publisher.

[Margaret Killjoy]

I fucking love you, Magpie.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It's another Good Bastard's Pods character who has a lot of similarities to Margaret Killjoy. As a young person did that make sense? Uh huh. He was reasonably popular as a faith healer, which probably owes more to his charisma than psychic powers. Still, by the time the mid-30s turned to the late-30s, times were bad enough that Woody had started to wonder if maybe his future might lay elsewhere. The Dust bowl had kicked off in the early 1930s due to nearly a decade of drought. It lasted until 1939, right? This is like 31 to 39, something like that. Is the Dust bowl. Like it's a fucking a long time that everything is just covered in dust, right? And it's the result of this, the fact that this huge number of people had moved to these vast plains in the American interior and started farming. And they had over farmed. They had plowed too much of the native grass, which had like led to this situation where when they have this drought and things dry out, there's nothing really keeping the topsoil together. And then you get these huge windstorms which cause these epic apocalyptic waves of dust like ocean tides to sweep over small towns and blacken the sky. Now, economic collapse was happening kind of independently, but also related to this, right? These things feed into each other even though they are not like entirely, you know, independent of each other. Farmers lose their farms, people lose their homes, factories close and despair and desperation becomes the normal state of affairs for everyone in Woody's life. Woody has a front seat for all of it. Writing there on the Texas plains, right in the dead center of the Dust bowl. With the oil boom over and the wheat blowed out, and the hard working people just stumbling about, bothered with mortgages, debts, bills, sickness, worries of every blowin kind I seen, there was plenty to make up songs about. Like hundreds of thousands of Americans trapped in the Dust Bowl, Woody decided his last best option was to head west. He became one of 400,000Americans to make his way to California. The horror of the situation and his ultimate response to it contributed to one of his early songs, for which we have an actual recording and I'm gonna play the whole thing. Both because at this point it's clearly in the public domain, but also Woody had an understanding of copyright law and refused to copyright things for the vast majority of his musical career. And in fact, here I want to read you. Have you ever read the copyright notice that Woody Guthrie put in his early songbooks? Magbi?

[Sophie Lichterman]

No.

[Robert Evans]

This song is copyrighted in US under seal of copyright number 154085 for a period of 28 years. And anybody caught singing it without our permission will be mighty good Friends of ourn because we don't give a durn Publish it, write it, sing it, swing to it, yodel it. We wrote it. That's all we wanted to do.

[Sophie Lichterman]

What I used to write, as the copyright notice in my early zines, was for those who believe in copyright. This scene is copyright. Everyone else is free.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, Woody would have liked that. So, anyway, I'm gonna end this by playing you our first full Woody Guthrie song, and we'll hear a couple over the course of these episodes. But here's so long it's been good to know ya.

[E]

So long it's been good to know you so long Been good to know you so long it's been good to know you this dusty old dust is a blowing me home I've got to be rolling along I'll sing this song but I'll sing it again of the place that I lived on the West Texas plains In the city of Pampa, the county of Gray here's what all of the people there say well, it's so long it's been good to know you so long it's been good to know you so long it's been good to know you this dusty old dust is a blowing me home I've got to be drifting along Anyway, like I told you, the old dust storm hit there. These people all congregated in their little houses. And in the room, in the house that I was in, there was 12 or 15 people. And while we was there telling each other so long it's been good to know you Dusty old dust is blowing me home and I ain't got long to stay I've got to be drifting along well, here's what happened. The telephone rang and it jumped off the wall. That was the preacher paying his call he said, look at the shape that the world is in I've got a cut price on salvation and sin so long Been good to know you so long it's been good to know you so long it's been good to know you this dusty old dust Is driving me home and I've gotta be drifting along the church houses were jammed and packed People was sudden from front to the back it was so dusty the preacher couldn't read his text so he folded his specs and he took up collections that so long it's been good to know you so long Been good to know you so long it's been good to know you this dusty old dust Isn't rolling me home Gotta be drifting along.

[Robert Evans]

Ah, Woody, it's a good one.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I like it. Also, when you see those photos of him or anyone who saw the video of it, my assumptions are that man has been in a lot of fights and he's not particularly good at it, but that has never stopped him. No, that's my read.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. No, that's a guy who does not back down from many fights and doesn't win any of them.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, man. Well, Margaret, you got anything to plug here?

[Sophie Lichterman]

My most recent book is called the Sapling Cage. It came out from Feminist Press in October, and it is about a young trans girl who goes off and becomes a witch and helps alongside other people save the world. And I have a podcast called Cool People Did Cool Stuff, which I totally didn't rip off of from you with the Christmas episodes. Totally not. Not at all. It's like Christmas every day over on Cool People who Did Cool Stuff.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Damn straight.

[Sophie Lichterman]

And, oh, if you listen to it could happen here and. Or Cool People did cool Stuff every Sunday in December 2024. We're dropping podcasts from the future 30 years from now, in the middle of the Dino War. That's what Cool Zone Media. We have tapes from the future and we're playing them all. And General Lichterman is there, and something's going on with Robert, but we're not quite sure yet. And you can hear about the Dino War every Sunday.

[Robert Evans]

Excellent. All right, everybody, that's the episodes. Well, part one.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Behind the Basterds is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube.com behindthebastards.

[Robert Evans]

You wake up, put on your Ray Ban meta glasses. You're living all in. You realize you need coffee, so you say, hey, meta, how do I make a latte brew two shots of espresso? After Meta AI gets you caffeinated, you're ready for some beats.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Hey meta.

[Robert Evans]

Play hip hop music.

[D]

You head to meet some friends but.

[Margaret Killjoy]

Can'T remember the place.

[Robert Evans]

Hey meta. Call Eva Ray Ban Meta glasses.

[D]

The next generation of AI glasses.

[Robert Evans]

Just say, hey meta.

[D]

To harness the power of Meta AI, shop now at meta.com smart glasses looking for excitement. Chumba Casino is here. Play anytime. Play anywhere. Play on the train. Play at the store. Play at home. Play when you're bored. Play today for your chance to win and get daily bonuses when you log in. So what are you waiting for? Don't delay. Chumba Casino is free to play.

[Robert Evans]

Experience social gameplay like never before.

[D]

Go to Chumba Casino right now to play hundreds of games, including online slots.

[Robert Evans]

Bingo, Slingo and more.

[D]

Live the chumba [e-mail] BGW Group no purchase necessary. Void Web Prohibited by law. See Terms and Conditions.