Part One: Behind the Bastards Q&A: Year's End Edition

Robert and Sophie sit down to answer your most burning questions and also maybe light some of you on fire depending on the questions you asked. (2 parts) See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:10Robert Evans?

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• 2:14Robert Evans?

  Hey everybody, I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast by a man who is preparing for the entrance of the new regime, the need to go underground. So I'm in my chud block today. You know, if you're a tall white man and you wear a hoodie with a deer head on it, you're effectively invisible. So I'm prepared for the new world. Are you?

• 2:40Speaker 04

  You look great.

• 2:41Robert Evans?

  Thank you, Sophie. I love my chud sweater. It's actually incredibly comfortable.

• 2:45Speaker 04

  I know.

• 2:46Robert Evans?

  Every year after deer season, this exact hoodie comes on for sale at a store near me. And so I can get like three for five bucks each or some shit like that. And they're crazy comfortable.

• 2:55Speaker 04

  And per usual, I spent the last hour trying to make myself look nice enough for the camera. So people aren't mean to me on the internet.

• 3:04Robert Evans?

  Yep. Yep. Very different, very unequal situation. But I'm also not going to spend any more time caring about my appearance.

• 3:11Speaker 04

  Fair enough. What are we doing today, Robert?

• 3:14Robert Evans?

  Uh, well, Sophie, the same thing we do every night. Try to take over the world of podcasting. Oh, wait, we already did that.

• 3:23Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 3:23Robert Evans?

  I guess let's answer some Q and As from our fans.

• 3:26Speaker 04

  Yeah. So we put out a post on our Instagram at BastardsPod. And many of you sent in questions. And so we're gonna try to answer a lot of them.

• 3:35Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah. The gist of the situation is, folks, it's the end of the year. This is when all of the companies that buy ads are really buying ads. And it's, it's, you know, when everybody wants to get as many people listening as possible. And we decided rather than doing something that's zero effort and like, you know, running more episodes, which we do when we take a break, we wanted to give you guys a chance to ask us some questions and also make sure that we're providing you with new stuff, because you crave new stuff. You won't stop demanding it. Every instant of our lives, Sophie and I think of nothing but pleasing your insatiable appetites. So Sophie went on Instagram and asked if you guys had any questions.

• 4:16Speaker 04

  Robert?

• 4:18Robert Evans?

  Yes?

• 4:19Speaker 04

  What was your least favorite episode to do? And why?

• 4:25Robert Evans?

  Least favorite to do. I assume they're asking ever.

• 4:30Robert Evans?

  I hate, I really, unless it's a place where I have a specific interest. I really hate the foreign leader episodes, like, obviously Stalin's a foreign leader, but I've been reading about Stalin my whole life. Hitler's a foreign, I've read more books about Hitler than anybody who's not a Hitler scholar, but like Jair Bolsonaro, right? Like, I don't know much about Brazilian politics coming in Netanyahu. I don't know much about, you know, politics over there. So like, getting up to speed, not just, because you can't, it's not just enough to like, learn, what was Netanyahu's childhood like? You also have to know, like, the dynamics of politics prior to him coming into power and like, the part like, and catching up on all of that in a way that you don't totally

• 5:11Robert Evans?

  embarrass yourself is a, is a lot of work. And it's also nerve wracking. Cause like, especially, again, to go back to Netanyahu, this is a guy who, I mean, who had been involved in genocidal activity prior to, uh, to where we are right now. But like, certainly, like, it was the kind of thing where like, because of how high the stakes are and how bad the things he was up to were, like, oh my God, the anxiety about fucking that up. The same with Bolsonaro, right? This guy who's fucking around the Amazon with indigenous peoples, this dude who is a very important part of this authoritarian trend, but also me, a guy who doesn't know much about Brazil. Um, I'm always very anxious about those episodes. It's, they're important to do. We'll be doing more of them next year. I just, I, I always like stress out over, because there's no not

• 5:56Robert Evans?

  getting some stuff wrong, right?

• 5:58Speaker 04

  Of course. It's, it's especially with history because it's so subjective.

• 6:02Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 6:03Speaker 04

  For sure. I really fucking hate when we do the like, uh, wilderness camp school things and

• 6:11Robert Evans?

  Oh, I love that shit.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  Just like horrific.

• 6:13Robert Evans?

  I eat that shit up.

• 6:13Speaker 04

  Horrific, uh, kids.

• 6:15Robert Evans?

  Sophie, I love suffering children.

• 6:17Speaker 04

  Kids think they're in a safe place and then they get, you know, insert horrible thing here. Those, those episodes, I really, really fucking hate those.

• 6:26Robert Evans?

  Mmm, I'll eat them up all day.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  We did get this question quite a bit and people want to know how you celebrated the passing of, uh, Henry Kissinger.

• 6:34Robert Evans?

  You know, to be honest, that was a pretty normal day for me. Like, there's not a lot. I'm glad he's dead, but like, he lived an incredibly long life and got to do most of the things he wanted and never really suffered. So it's like, how much, like, let's, let's say I had a beer, you know? Let's say I had a beer.

• 6:58Speaker 04

  Let's say I had a beer. So cryptic. What the fuck? You sound so unwell. Um, Robert, is there an episode, topic, or individual that you have covered that has left you shaken up or angry long after you completed the episode?

• 7:17Robert Evans?

  Everything we do on healthcare.

• 7:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:19Robert Evans?

  Every time we have done a healthcare, I know this is the week that it is. Every time we talk about the US healthcare system, I'm fucking livid. Industri- the Hawksnest Tunnel disaster, Union Carbide in Bhopal, India as well, like, both of those are Union Carbide affiliated disasters. Those drive me fucking insane. Like, to some extent, I find those guys more offensive than a guy like Hitler, which is not saying that they're worse than Hitler, because Hitler did kill more people than, like, Union Carbide. But Hitler was like a guy who very honestly was about murdering people, whereas these guys are all pretending to be decent men, family men, you know, just, you know, all I'm doing is trying to make jobs and provide a, you know, valuable part of the economy, and they

• 8:03Robert Evans?

  are just killing people by fucking the city full. So, yeah, I, those make me very angry.

• 8:10Speaker 04

  I'm gonna ask you one that won't make you very angry. Robert, what is your opinion on modern Star Trek? I love most of it. That's what they say.

• 8:17Robert Evans?

  Uh, okay. Lower Decks is my favorite Star Trek thing since DS9.

• 8:22Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 8:23Robert Evans?

  I've seen some episodes of Strange New Worlds, and there's, I can see why people like it a lot. I'm kind of exhausted with that time period in the Star Trek timeline. Like, I want new stuff. I want fucking A. Like, do one where Riker's like an old Admiral and we're fucking dealing with Starfleet politics back on Earth in San Francisco. Give me anything where we're moving forward on the timeline, but we're not leaping into like weird future war shit. Like, I'm not mostly interested in that stuff. I'm mostly interested with actually, part of why I love DS. I love TNG because it's really looking at like, what is, would a utopia be in a sense that's actually imaginable as something

• 9:07Robert Evans?

  real, that like something that could exist in some ways? And then Deep Space Nine is asking, what would the dark sides of that utopia be in particular, not even the dark sides, because it's less that and more kind of like what the Culture Series, you know, dealt with. Like, what happens when this utopia and the people in it inevitably make contact or collide with reality, or not reality, because they live in reality, but with, but with places that are not utopia, with places that are different, that are worse, that have different values? Like, what are those clashes like? And that's what I love in my Star Trek. I don't, Star Trek's never had good space battles. I'll say that right. I mean, every now and then you get like a Wolf 359 or something. There's some pretty cool shit there, but like, fucking A, there's that one scene in

• 9:52Robert Evans?

  Serenity is a better space battle in terms of like, an interesting, cool looking space battle than ever got shot in Star Trek. But I don't watch Star Trek for space battles. I've got other shit for space battles.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  That was very thorough.

• 10:06Robert Evans?

  Thank you.

• 10:07Speaker 04

  Uh, I like this question. Who is your fantasy guest?

• 10:14Robert Evans?

  Fantasy guest? Uh, Marisa Tomei during the, My Cousin Vinny? Uh, if she, what are we talking about? What do we mean by fantasy here?

• 10:27Speaker 04

  I think they, wow, very specific. I think they mean, if you could have anybody come and guest on the podcast, who would your dream person?

• 10:36Robert Evans?

  I know what they meant. Um. I would love to have, I don't even know if I'd do an episode. I would just love to talk with either Alan Moore or Werner Herzog. Like specifically, if I had Herzog, the thing I'd most want to do with Herzog, I guess we could record it, but I don't really care if we do, is I'd like to cook a meal with Werner Herzog.

• 10:54Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 10:54Robert Evans?

  But I, I think, uh, yeah, in terms of funny people, uh, I think Will Ferrell would probably be a really good guest. He's far too famous for us, but, uh, he seems like he's got a good sense of humor about these kinds of things.

• 11:08Speaker 04

  Can you guess who mine is?

• 11:10Robert Evans?

  Who's yours?

• 11:10Speaker 04

  Can you guess?

• 11:12Robert Evans?

  Yours is Harry Styles?

• 11:14Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 11:16Robert Evans?

  Okay.

• 11:17Speaker 04

  There's only one obvious answer.

• 11:19Robert Evans?

  Cause it would be, it, it would be like really funny to bring Harry Styles on and then just do like, "Unit 731", just like, non-stop, four hours of the most nightmarish stories of torture.

• 11:31Speaker 04

  And you'd just be like, "Treat people with kindness. What are you talking about?" Uh, no, that's not who it is.

• 11:36Robert Evans?

  Uh huh.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  There's only, there's only one person it could be.

• 11:40Robert Evans?

  Okay. Who?

• 11:41Speaker 04

  I'm waiting to see if you know.

• 11:43Robert Evans?

  No, I don't. I, I gave you my guess.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  The listeners are disappointed.

• 11:47Robert Evans?

  Okay. They're list disappointed.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  It's, it's LeBron James.

• 11:52Robert Evans?

  Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, we could try, we could talk about basket, two experts like us. I mean, I think a lot of people would enjoy hearing our different feelings on ball handling, on three pointers, other basketball stuff. Those aren't the only two basketball related terms I know, guys.

• 12:05Speaker 04

  I think a lot of people would want to hear your opinion on ball handling, Robert. Anyways, it's time for an ad break.

• 12:11Robert Evans?

  Sophie.

• 12:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:13Robert Evans?

  The subreddit's going to be very uncomfortable today.

• 12:19Speaker 01

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• 14:00Speaker 04

  We are back. Robert, this question was asked 552,000 times. When can we expect a sequel to After the Revolution?

• 14:07Robert Evans?

  Uh, well, the book's done. Basically, I'm almost, I finished the rough draft. I'm almost through with the first draft, which is when I read through the rough draft chapter by chapter and make the edits that occur to me to make it make sense. I think probably in January, I'll put out the first three chapters just as kind of a teaser, uh, but I'll be, you know, working with my editor to get it in the shape, but, but very soon, very soon. It's taken much longer than I had hoped it would. Uh, in my defense, both my parents died since publishing the first one. So, you know, that's not really an excuse, but it's got to make you feel bad. And so you're not going to like follow up with complaining that the book's not out yet. I'm manipulating you, you know? I'm a monster. I know it, but I'm good at it.

• 14:51Speaker 04

  You're allowed.

• 14:53Robert Evans?

  Thank you.

• 14:54Speaker 04

  You've referenced that there are people who start to look into, but ultimately find that there isn't really enough there for an episode. Who came the closest to being worthy of doing a whole episode about, but who was the most disappointing person that you weren't able to do an episode about?

• 15:11Robert Evans?

  I know that's happened.

• 15:13Speaker 04

  It has.

• 15:14Robert Evans?

  You've, you've. There's been, and usually when that happens, it's not that there's not enough, it's that there's just like not enough information about what they did. You'll hear like a reference to like some CEO who did this like really fucked up thing. He was like fucking eating poor people or whatever shit, but it's like, well, all I've got is like three sentences from an old newspaper. I can't really get an article out on that. Honestly, names aren't coming to mind. The closest I can come in terms of what I remember is like, I almost didn't get to do the Bo Brummel episodes after hours of research because I, I did kind of come to the conclusion, you know, there's some bad side effects as a result of what he did, but that's nothing like, not that morally reflects on him in a negative

• 15:53Robert Evans?

  way. Like he wasn't trying to make generations of men more limited in their fashion choices. He just like, liked what he liked. And likewise, I guess, uh,

• 16:03Speaker 04

  There's been a handful of people where you've been like, where people are like, it's not necessarily that you've looked into them. People are like, why don't you do an episode on so and so? And you're like, because they're fucking boring.

• 16:13Robert Evans?

  Like, like Ben Shapiro, what am I gonna say?

• 16:15Speaker 04

  What are you gonna say?

• 16:15Robert Evans?

  What is, what is there really to say about Ben? You know, I have looked into him. I did think about it. And like, at this point, he does have a negative impact. He's just boring. And like, that's a big, I will say, when it comes to, if your question is ever, why haven't you done so and so? The answer is usually either, I think they're boring. And if it's someone where that you're like, well, there's no way he thinks this guy's boring. This guy's objectively interesting. It's because that's going to be a shitload of work. And like, I'm always triaging the, like the Lawrence of Arabia episodes, which seemed to have gotten a good reaction. I think I had to read like five books for.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  You worked on that for like a year.

• 16:51Robert Evans?

  I was, I was working in the background, slowly getting through material for, yeah, starting in like January. And not everything is like, but like Kissinger was like that Kissinger was like a year of background work and the current big one that I'm very slowly working on is doing another Nixon, doing a Nixon, probably six parter because it's fucking Nixon, but at least a four parter. And that's going to take me a while because I really don't, there's so many stories, because you could put that much effort into everybody, but it's a lot of folks, you would just be reading stuff that's largely repeating similar bits with slightly different takes, whereas with Nixon, everyone who digs into him, there's so many stories, there's so many people who know crazy shit about Nixon, you really

• 17:35Robert Evans?

  almost can't come to an end of collecting fucked up Dick Nixon stories. Like it's almost, it's almost like our most renewable resource on planet earth is stories of Richard Nixon being a freaking weirdo. So it takes some time.

• 17:52Speaker 04

  Which episode received the most backlash from fans?

• 17:56Robert Evans?

  Backlash. I, you know, I had some, there was some frustration over an episode we did that was, I think it was mixed. It's always really mixed, even when there is like, about that doctor who was like doing really bad surgeries for trans people. There were some folks who had some specific frustrations with that and then some folks who didn't. And, you know, ultimately it's one of those things where when you're dealing with stuff like that, there are probably multiple right ways to do it. But, you know, it's tough. I think like the biggest thing that I, the biggest thing that frustrates me in terms of like, feedback from listeners is when people will be like, obviously figure this

• 18:40Robert Evans?

  person has autism. Why didn't you bring that up? Or that's an explanation for this behavior? Why didn't you bring that up? And the answer in every case is that person has not been diagnosed with anything. All I have is the behavior. Multiple other things could explain the behavior. I am not going to just declare Jeffrey Bezos to have autism based on my zero experience as a diagnostician because he didn't like music. Right? Like, there are other reasons people might not like music. And it's just kind of an interesting detail about how he's sort of disconnected from a lot of the people around him. That can be explained by many different things, but it's not my job to be like, this is what I believe is going on with Jeffrey Bezos. And now we all have to act like it's true

• 19:24Robert Evans?

  because it's probably not.

• 19:27Speaker 04

  Hey, Robert.

• 19:29Robert Evans?

  Uh huh.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  Where can I read up on Robert's Warzone Journalism? Or whatever older pieces may be out there?

• 19:35Robert Evans?

  Man, there's, I mean, most of it was on cracked.com. Some of it found its way into It Could Happen Here, at least my conclusions based on it. There was a, a video that you could view in VR that was like a 360 video documentary of some of my time in Mosul. That was published through the EW Scripts Network. I think that one was called 24 Hours in Mosul or something like that. They was broadcast also on a bunch of TV networks. I don't actually know if the link is up. A decent number of things that I wrote back then for like local news have become lost media because that's how that shit be.

• 20:10Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 20:11Robert Evans?

  But you could, you should still be able to find some of the stuff on cracked that I did. So yeah, I would say, check that out there.

• 20:20Speaker 04

  Let's, let's do a fun one before the next ad break. Robert, if you were a Spice Girl, what would be your Spice Girl name?

• 20:28Robert Evans?

  If I were a Spice Girl, my Spice Girl name would be, doesn't want to say anything mean about the Spice Girls because I am close to several women who grew up in love with the Spice Girls.

• 20:40Speaker 04

  Yes, but what would your, so your, your Spice?

• 20:43Robert Evans?

  That was my name, yes.

• 20:44Speaker 04

  Your Spice?

• 20:44Robert Evans?

  I gave my name.

• 20:45Speaker 04

  Your Spice Girl name is Afraid of Women Spice?

• 20:48Robert Evans?

  Specifically afraid of the women that I like Spice, yes.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  Afraid of women I like Spice, got it.

• 20:54Robert Evans?

  Yeah, afraid of offending them based on making, having a bad take about the Spice Girls, Spice.

• 20:59Speaker 04

  I think, I think I would be Producer Spice.

• 21:02Robert Evans?

  Yeah, that's probably fair too.

• 21:04Speaker 04

  It's time for ads again. We'll be back.

• 21:09Speaker 01

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• 22:13Speaker 04

  Robert, we're back. Can you believe it?

• 22:17Robert Evans?

  No.

• 22:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know. It's crazy. When did you decide BTB was going to be your next thing? Was it something you'd been building towards in your life? Was it becoming a pod a major goal? Or did it just sort of happen?

• 22:29Robert Evans?

  I'm going to explain this to you in a way that also explains some questions that we can't answer directly about, why do you guys work for X? Or are you involved with such and such company?

• 22:40Speaker 04

  We can kind of answer that.

• 22:43Robert Evans?

  We can, yeah. That's what I'm going to do. Yeah. So, when I was late into my time at Cracked, I was getting bored of writing, doing the kind of articles I'd been doing for years there, these personal experience pieces where I'd interview someone and then turn their life experiences or the reporting that I'd done into a listicle. And podcasts were starting to blow up. I was interested in the medium. I'd done one through Cracked and found aspects of it pleasant. And the thing I had pitched was something based on my special interest, which is the Nazis. I had done an article that had done very well on things you don't know about the Nazis that had delved into things we've touched on in some episodes of the podcast. All of these very weird things. I talked about Carl May

• 23:28Robert Evans?

  and Hitler's obsession with these cowboy novels and how that impacted the Third Reich. And so that sort of stuff. And I was like, I want to do a series where every season I talk about a different dictatorial regime and all of the crazy weird facts about it. So, season one would be 10 episodes on these weird things you don't know about the Nazis. We'd move on to Saddam Hussein or Stalin and then we all got shit canned. And I remember, you know, you know, you have good friends among your coworkers when like, as we're all getting drunk, one of the people who hadn't gotten laid off was Alex Schmidt, good old Schmitty. And Schmitty and I are talking and I'm like, oh, so I had this great, and Schmitty's running podcasts at Cracked and is still employed. And I'm like, I have this great idea for a show. And Schmitty, being a very good friend, is like, don't tell it to me.

• 24:14Robert Evans?

  So I didn't. And, you know, I spent the next couple of weeks getting fucked up like you do when you get laid off. And then had a call with Jack O'Brien and Sophie was on that call because Jack had left a few months earlier to work at Stuff Media, which is the company that was producing shows like, you know, Stuff You Don't Know.

• 24:36Speaker 04

  Stuff you should know.

• 24:37Robert Evans?

  Stuff you should know, stuff they don't want you to know, all that stuff.

• 24:40Speaker 04

  Stuff they missed in history class. It's the How Stuff Works team that was originally out of Atlanta.

• 24:46Robert Evans?

  Yeah. And our boss is actually the guy who started Mental Flaws. So like, this is, these are all folks.

• 24:50Speaker 04

  One of the guys, yeah.

• 24:51Robert Evans?

  Yeah, one of the guys. These are all folks who came out of the same era of digital media as me, who are all pivoted, had pivoted to podcasting a little earlier. So I had my meeting with my old boss, Jack, and I tell him my idea for this dictator show that I want to do.

• 25:03Speaker 04

  Let's pause for five seconds.

• 25:06Robert Evans?

  Uh huh.

• 25:07Speaker 04

  When Robert says, I've mentioned this previously before, but Robert says he tells his idea for a dictator show. First of all, this is my fir-, this is my first interaction with Robert, is he's like running through a wind tunnel.

• 25:21Robert Evans?

  I was jogging in San Francisco underneath a bridge, as I'm often doing, near Dog Patch, if you're curious.

• 25:27Speaker 04

  And he, I could hear, you know, half the words. And it was like, bad guys, history, worst. And I was like,

• 25:35Robert Evans?

  Yep.

• 25:36Speaker 04

  I would like to produce that. Thank you so much.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  And,

• 25:40Robert Evans?

  Unhinged, unhinged.

• 25:42Speaker 04

  Good old Jack O'Brien was like, okay.

• 25:45Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 25:46Speaker 04

  Cause Jack actually had stolen me.

• 25:48Robert Evans?

  Jack Julie.

• 25:49Speaker 04

  Jack, Jack, Jack Julie. Jack actually, Jack actually stole it, stole me. I can't even say that.

• 25:55Robert Evans?

  No, nobody can. It's a terrible word.

• 25:57Speaker 04

  So I worked at a company that bought How Stuff Works. And I was working at that company doing like project management stuff, which is kind of like why it makes sense. Why I'm so, so able to control the amount of shows we have. Cause a lot of my background was in that. And Jack, when Jack came on to run the LA version of, and it was originally just comedy of the How Stuff Works team, he stole me from that other company. Thank you, Jack.

• 26:25Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  And soon after that, I got to meet Robert and changed my life.

• 26:32Robert Evans?

  Yeah. So yeah, that's, that's the, well, and, and during that meeting, again, my show had been, my idea had been seasons about like each season about a different dictatorship. And Jack was like, what if every episode you just switch and give a different, you know, a couple of episodes about a different monster and you can go back and forth and revisit different aspects of topics, which is a much better idea. It would not, the show would not have worked as a, in a seasonal format, the way that it does as a weekly, even though making a, this into a weekly show has destroyed my life. But in a good way.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  Well, it's not even just that. It, cause it started as weekly then, and then you're like, man, wouldn't it make sense if we like split things into parts?

• 27:14Robert Evans?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  So now it's, now it's a twice weekly show at least. But yeah. Oh, our origin. That's so cute. But yeah, anyways, we worked at this company called How Stuff Works. And for Stuff Media, whatever, whatever. They went publicly by How Stuff Works and then the company was called Stuff Media. And then all of a sudden, one day they were like, oh, hey, by the way, we just got bought by iHeart Radio. You work for them now. And we were like.

• 27:41Robert Evans?

  Yep.

• 27:42Speaker 04

  Cool.

• 27:44Robert Evans?

  Well, I don't know. Nothing to do here. And that's how life is when you're in media.

• 27:50Speaker 04

  When you're in media. And like, you know, I really, I really like our team. And um, that's all I'm going to say about that.

• 28:02Speaker 04

  Robert, can you give us a cat update?

• 28:06Robert Evans?

  Cat update. I mean, they're cats, so very little changes in their day to day life if things are doing well.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  There is many questions about your cats, then just, you know, anything interesting?

• 28:17Robert Evans?

  Uh, I mean, Saddam Hussein had a problem, uh, two years ago.

• 28:22Speaker 04

  Are you telling this story?

• 28:23Robert Evans?

  Yeah, he tried to have, there's a blanket he likes to have sex with. It's usually on my couch. I mean, he's been, he's been neutered, but he like still tries to have sex with it. And that blanket got a seed that's like a sharp seed. It's one of those seeds that's like sticks to your pants in it. And he's, he managed to get wedged inside his urethra and it nearly killed him, but he's fine now.

• 28:45Speaker 04

  He's fine now.

• 28:46Robert Evans?

  And there haven't been reoccurrences of any urinary issues, which are very serious in male cats. If your male cat isn't peeing, get it to the vet immediately. Hours matter.

• 28:54Speaker 04

  Hours matter. Um, the most amazing thing about that story is I once made Robert during this time shortly after, after we knew Saddam Hussein was gonna be okay, uh, joined a call with a, well, just call him an entertainment person that was not being a chill guy. And, uh, do you remember the story? On a project we decided, we ultimately decided not to work on.

• 29:20Robert Evans?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. On a project we ultimately decided not to work on.

• 29:25Robert Evans?

  Yes.

• 29:26Speaker 04

  But, um, it was like, it was going to be a very unpleasant phone call and Robert gets on and Robert has maybe spoken to this man for 10 seconds once and he's like, hey, how's it going, Robert? And Robert's like, my cat got a seed stuck up his urethra. And, um, I really cherished that moment.

• 29:46Robert Evans?

  Yeah, so do I.

• 29:48Speaker 04

  That was beautiful for me. Um, let's do, let's do one more.

• 29:53Robert Evans?

  Okay. I love questions. I love answers. I love answering questions. I love questioning answers, you know, all of those things. A good time.

• 30:03Speaker 04

  Robert.

• 30:05Robert Evans?

  Sophie.

• 30:06Speaker 04

  I don't know why I say your name like who else would I be asking? I mean, besides Anderson. Anderson. No. Um, what activities do you, oh, this is for both of us. What activities do y'all do to ease your mental health after researching and hearing about awful things?

• 30:22Robert Evans?

  That's an option?

• 30:23Speaker 04

  This is mine. This is my answer, right here. This beautiful dog I'm holding. And for the audio only people, I'm holding up Anderson and she looks quite beautiful. Yes, you do.

• 30:33Robert Evans?

  Unfortunately, tragically, I've been sober for a while and will be staying sober. So I just get depressed and then get better and better at shooting a gun. That's how I spend my free time.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  Jesus Christ, do you want that on the internet?

• 30:50Robert Evans?

  Why not?

• 30:50Speaker 04

  I don't know. You could have, you could have said, I go for runs most days.

• 30:56Robert Evans?

  I go for runs most days. I lift weights. I push a heavy sled while wearing my body armor and dry firing a handgun. Yes, I do all these things.

• 31:06Speaker 04

  You have farm animals that are wonderfully magical.

• 31:10Robert Evans?

  I do have farm animals. I go hunting, in which I train at hitting moving targets in the woods.

• 31:16Speaker 04

  You have wonderful friends.

• 31:18Robert Evans?

  Yeah, sometimes I train to shooting stuff in the woods with them.

• 31:21Speaker 04

  Your business partner is a very supportive person.

• 31:24Robert Evans?

  Sure, yeah, lots of that. I miss drugs, Sophie. I hate being sober, but it's okay. I've been doing it for years. I'll keep it up. It's just miserable.

• 31:33Speaker 04

  You're doing great, buddy. Um, well, give the people a Boston Rob and then we'll be on our way. And we'll.

• 31:41Robert Evans?

  Oy, I'm not your Boston monkey. Is that good enough for you people? Does that make you happy? Is that what you want? No one's ever happy when they get what they want.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  We'll be back on Thursday with another round of questions.

• 31:54Robert Evans?

  Questions. That's how they say it in Boston.

• 31:58Speaker 04

  At this point, Robert, what percentage of them do you love?

• 32:03Speaker 04

  That number went down from 40. That's for fucking sure.

• 32:07Robert Evans?

  No, that's probably still about right. That's close, close enough for government work.

• 32:13Speaker 04

  For me, 32%.

• 32:15Robert Evans?

  Thirty-two percent. Wow, you guys really gotta pump your Sophie numbers up.

• 32:19Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:19Robert Evans?

  I don't know. I feel, I feel fine about our fans, you know? Look, there's a lot of them, and so some chunk of them are always going to be doing something weird and off-putting. But usually when I encounter our fans, it's in the context of them, like, doing something nice that's helpful to people out in the world. Like, run into a lot of fans handing out food, run into a lot of fans being street medics, run into a lot of fans protesting genocide. So I'm generally very positive towards our fans, especially the ones who are forklift certified. You are really the ones that we do this for, you know? Whenever I close my eyes before sitting down to write an episode that I know is gonna really take it out of me,

• 32:59Robert Evans?

  I think of you guys, driving your forklifts, and, uh, you know, that, that, uh, that gives me the fuel I need to go on.

• 33:07Speaker 04

  Bye.

• 33:09Speaker 04

  Behind the Bastards 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 slash at Behind the Bastards.

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