EPISODE 7: SISSIES & FLAMING QUEENS
Lee: I mean, if me and you were best friends, I'd still tell you "you're a damn flaming queen."
Dylan: I'm a flaming queen, [Lee laughs] and I would tell you right back, "I am a flaming queen." In fact-
Lee: And you'd probably call me "a redneck fag."
Dylan: So, the thing is actually, I don't think I would, and maybe it's because I'm a helplessly politically correct liberal coastal bubble person.
Lee: Yeah, I'm not very politically correct.
[Instrumental of ‘These Dark Times’ by Caged Animals begins to play.]
Dylan [VOICEOVER INTRODUCTION]: Hey, I'm Dylan Marron, and this is Conversations With People Who Hate Me. The show where I call up some of the folks who have written negative or hateful things about me on the internet.
Now before I begin, I wanted to share two pieces of exciting news with you. First, we passed a million downloads in our first month of release. This is so cool! Thank you! A bunch of you have written to me to share that this podcast has encouraged you to have difficult conversations of your own. And I can't tell you how much that means to me. To keep it balanced though, I should also share that one person wrote to me complaining that this show was featured as an editor's pick. And she wanted me to change the algorithm because she doesn't like the show. Now full disclosure, I am not that powerful or cool, and I don't control algorithms. But if you want to blame me for being an editor's pick, you do you.
Second piece of news, you know how at the end of every show I say, "Remember, there's a human on the other side of the screen"? Well, Rob Wilson, the amazing artist who designed the show's logo has illustrated that phrase, and it's now a sticker that you can own. Stick it on your phone or your computer. Or, I don't know, stick it on the palm of your hand as a gentle reminder that there are humans who read the comments we write, and humans who write them. Another artist that I'm a huge fan of, Jessica Hayworth has designed a couple of tee shirts, including one of the phrase, "Hurt people, hurt people," which you might remember was the title of our second episode. All of this and more is available at our merch store at www.conversationswithpeoplewhohateme.com. Your purchase supports the show, so that we can keep making it.
Okay, enough business, let's get to the episode. Friends, it has finally happened. My guest on today's show wrote a comment about this show. Well more accurately, he wrote it about me, and the opinions I've expressed on this show. And not to brag, he called me a "flaming homo," a "sissy," and a "flaming queen." I should also tell you that he himself is a gay man, and his name is Lee. A few weeks ago, Lee publicly wrote this comment. "I listened to it and in my opinion, he is an idiot. I could write a 1,000 page essay on all the ways I disagreed with this flaming homo. Words do not hurt unless you're a tinkerbell that has lived a protected life. I am gay, and a conservative classic Libertarian. People like this young man is the reason everyone thinks all gays are sissies and flaming queens." So, I am going to call Lee right now.
[Phone rings. Music fades. Guest picks up.]
Lee: Hello.
Dylan: Hi. Is this Lee?
Lee: Yeah. How you are you, Dylan?
Dylan: Hey, good. How are ya?
Lee: Good. Sitting out on the porch enjoying this nice fall-like weather.
Dylan: Oh, you're sitting out on the porch? I'm jealous of you. I'm indoors and it's pretty cold up here. How about down there?
Lee: It's like fall.
Dylan: Well, how are you doing today?
Lee: Pretty good.
Dylan: Hold on. I'm getting a note from our audio producer.
Vincent Cacchione: Is there any chance that he can move indoors?
Dylan: Oh, yeah. Lee, would it be possible for you to move inside just so we can hear you a little more clearly?
Lee: Yeah, I can do that. [Lee moves, audio significantly changes] Okay. How's this?
Dylan: "Million times better," says our audio producer. You've just made his day. So Lee, let's just start off. What prompted you to write that comment?
Lee: Anna, who was on your show, and I are friends, because I listen to Anna's podcast, and the whole time I'm listening to it I'm like, "Oh, my God." I was ready to just scream at my iPad the whole time I was listening to it.
Dylan: Because of me?
Lee: Mostly, yes. [laughs]
Dylan: [laughs] Okay, great. Great. What an honor. I'll put that on my resume. I'll say, "I made Lee want to scream."
Lee: "I made some redneck from Georgia on the scream."
Dylan [VOICEOVER]: Here is a clip from the conversation that Lee is referring to. For context, Anna and I are talking about whether or not catcalling on the street counts as harassment.
Anna [CLIP FROM ‘EPISODE 4: FACTS AND FEELINGS’’]: But if they're just standing on the street whistling at me, or are across the street yelling something at me, then I'm not feeling in danger.
Dylan [CLIP FROM ‘EPISODE 4: FACTS AND FEELINGS’’]: I would absolutely call words an assault, because I feel unsafe.
Lee: I spoke a little out of turn when I said you're an idiot. But I do think that some of the way that you think is built on living in a bubble. Having never experienced things outside of your bubble, as far as dealing with ... Like, you're from the north, I'm from the south. I think we disagree a lot on people, and people's intentions behind a lot of the things they do. So that's kind of what prompted it.
Dylan: You said something interesting at the end of the comment. You said, "People like this young man is the reason everyone thinks all gays are sissies and flaming queens." Why did you write that specifically?
Lee: Well, I'm a 46 year old male, gay, and nine times out of 10, or actually probably 10 times out of 10, in a conversation with someone, invariably, the thing that's always said to me is, "I'd have never known you were gay if you didn't tell me." I'm 6'4, I weigh 300 pounds, have long blonde hair, a beard, very country. People tend to stereotype people. They believe that all black people speak in broken ghetto-speak and dress like hoodlums. They think all rednecks are illiterate, gun toting, hate everybody in the world other than themselves. They think every person that lives in a trailer park is trash. And they think every gay person wants to be a unicorn that dresses like a fairy and talks real loud.
Dylan: And you thought I was that person?
Lee: You have that very high pitched voice, and people tend to go, "Oh, well, that's the way all gay people are." It's aggravating.
Dylan: But I also just wanted to let you know, that I have spoken this way and acted this way all my life, from before I was even actively consuming and aware of media and stereotype. So, the way I speak, the way I act is very natural to me. And if that means that I'm a sissy, or a flaming queen, then so be it. I'm a sissy and a flaming queen. [Lee laughs] I guess, and maybe this is because I'm a coastal liberal living in a little echo chamber, but this is how I speak. This is how I act. I'm not going to try and act in a way that society tells me is "manlier," because that's just not who I am. And yeah, I just wanted to say that out loud to say that it wasn't like, I was like, "Ooh, there's a stereotype. I want to fill that stereotype because that's who I am." [Lee chuckles] Do you know what I mean?
Lee: Oh, no, totally understand. Okay. Even though, you've always talked that way. You've always acted that way. But the unfortunate part is, it does fit into the stereotype, and it's not your fault. It's the way we as a community, the gay community, have been presented to the general public. Again, most of what we're getting this from is news, TV shows. They're always going to portray ... 99% of the time on a TV show, they're going to portray the guy as the effeminate male in the group.
Dylan: Lee, before we continue, and only as much as you're comfortable sharing, tell me about you.
Lee: [chuckles] Let's see. I'm 46 years old. I... Born and raised in the south. I've never lived more than 45 minutes from where I was born. I was, from two years old till I was an adult, my grandparents raised me. Had full custody of me. My father was shot and killed when I was 21 months old. He was actually-
Dylan: Do you remember that at all?
Lee: I do not. From what I'm told, was that he was actually shot mainly because of me.
Dylan: Whoa. Well, take me through that.
Lee: When I was born, they used to be an, I don't know what the actual term would be anymore, but it used to be called pigeon-toed or clubfooted. Where most people, if you lay them flat on their back, their feet are pointing straight up. With me, my feet turned in, so my toes pointed at each other. Nowadays, they do, if a child's born that way, they actually ... Excuse me, do a corrective surgery, where they will literally go in and break bones and correct the foot. With me, I looked like Forrest Gump till I was about seven years old. I grew up wearing braces. I had to have special shoes that the graces locked into. They went all way up and wrapped around my waist, where it had a little belt.
Dylan: So, very much like Forrest Gump, right?
Lee: [laughs] Yeah. I don't remember a lot about it. Then, as I got older, six, seven years old, I can remember that it was pretty painful. Because literally I had pieces of metal turning my feet the way they were supposed to go.
Dylan: Right. That sounds not fun.
Lee: Yeah. So, do you remember growing, or when you have growth spurts, and you'd have the pain in your legs and stuff like that?
Dylan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Lee: Well, multiply that, and that was me.
Dylan: And that's constant, right?
Lee: Yeah, in a constant ... As long as the braces were on, it hurt. So, my father drank a lot. At the particular time this happened, my father was abusive to my mother. When, I guess she finally got a belly full of it, she went and bought a pistol. He came home one night drunk. Two of my brothers were gone. One was at one grandparent's house and the other one's at another grandparent's house, and there were two of us at home. I was sitting on the porch in a chair. And from what I'm told, was always told, was I would whimper, but I didn't really cry all the time about it, unless my dad was home. And the reason I would cry when he was home was because ... Children are smarter than people give them credit for being. He would make my mother take the braces off.
Dylan: Oh.
Lee: So, I learned at a very young age, that hey, if I start crying when he's around, he takes the pain away. So, I would start crying. Well, he came up home. I was sitting on the porch. I started crying. He slapped me out of a chair, and my mother stood up to him about it. And he picked up a pipe, started at her, and she shot him in the chest three times.
Dylan: Jeez.
Lee: He later died in the hospital due to loss of blood from gunshots, not actually from the gunshot wounds themselves.
Dylan: Right.
Lee: They didn't hit any vital organs. And my mother went to jail. She got 14 years for involuntary manslaughter. They didn't have domestic violence laws then.
Dylan: So, she didn't get off on self defense?
Lee: No, because he never actually hit her that time. And like I said, back then, this was in the early 70s, they didn't really have domestic violence laws.
Dylan: Right.
Lee: Meaning that, back then the cops couldn't prosecute unless she pressed charges. It wasn't a matter of ... If you call the policemen, they show up and they see that he's beat her, they can press charges based on what they see now, at least in Georgia. Back then they couldn't. If she said, "Nope, don't want to press charges," there wasn't nothing they could do about it. Even if she pressed charges, if she come trial time decided, " You know what? I don't want to testify against him." So, no, the DA would have to drop the charges. So anyway, she shot him. His mother, my grandmother was Jehovah's Witness. They don't believe in giving fluids, bodily fluids, blood or anything like that. So, his mother refused to let them give her son blood and he laid on a bed in the hospital and died from loss of blood.
Dylan: Jeez.
Lee: So, my grandparents on my mother's side took me in, took my three brothers in, and they raised us. At 18 years old, I decided I ... Well, at a very young age, I decided I wanted to be a policeman. So, at 18 years old, I actually left high school, got my GED, and went to work for the Sheriff's Office. I was a policeman from 18 to 30. I worked as a deputy sheriff in the small county I lived in, all the three years of it. Then, I went to work for a local police department the last two or three years. I left policing when I was 30, and glad I did. Police are just like anybody else. They joined the profession, like doctors and EMTs and nurses, they joined that profession because they truly want to help.
Dylan: And that's what you wanted to do, right?
Lee: And that's what I wanted to do. When I finally started to realize, you know what, nothing I do ... I got burned out. You get tired of arresting the same guy for whipping or beating his wife, or for selling drugs, or for breaking into houses. You lock him up. He goes to court, the court slaps on the wrist. He goes out and does it again cause he knows he's not going to get ... there's no true consequence to what he does.
Dylan: What I also would love to hear about is when did you come out?
Lee: I actually came out when I was early 20s, 21, 22.
Dylan: And what was that like?
Lee: [laughs] It was an experience. I've faced discrimination at work when I was a policeman. I can tell you that story. I was a deputy, and I was seeing a guy, he was married and had a kid. He was gay, but had done what h thought was right, got married, had a kid, ended up divorcing his wife and living as gay guy. But anyway, I was seeing this guy. Well, one of our investigators noticed me spending a lot of time with him. And I guess picked up on the fact that I spent a lot of time at his house. The way he and I talked to each other wasn't necessarily the way one else did.
Dylan: [laughs] Right.
Lee: I'm sure something slipped out, in saying ... You'll slip up and say, "My boyfriend," in public or something, and he picked up on it.
Dylan: Got it.
Lee: So he went to the sheriff of our county, that I had known since I was a baby, and actually asked the sheriff if he could start an investigation on me for being gay. Because in a lot of states back then, and this was in the early 90s, sodomy was still against the law. And the sheriff told him basically to mind his own damn business. That what I did in the privacy of my own bedroom was my own business, and to let it go. I'm sure the fact that he had known me my whole life, might've had something to do with that. So the sheriff called me to his office and told me what had happened. One of those, "Just be on the look out. Don't do anything to get in trouble," type thing. Because again, sodomy was against the law. So I decided the best way to handle it was to confront the guy. Even at 21, 22 I was slimmer, but I was still 6'4, and I weighed probably 230, but it was 230 pounds of solid muscle. I went to the gym every day and ran and worked out and all that stuff. So I walk into the guy's office and walk up to his desk and politely asked him if he wanted to know anything about my personal life. And I pressed it with "who I sleep with is my damn business. It's none of yours. If you're that damn interested, why don't you come watch?"
Dylan: [laughs] And he did not take you up on that?
Lee: [laughs] No, he did not take me up on it. And politely told him if he had a problem, then me and him could settle it man to man. That he didn't need to run to the sheriff. That solved that problem, but at that point I'm out to the whole department. Hell, I'm out to the whole county at that point.
Dylan: Right, seriously.
Lee: So, rock on, a couple of years later, I get into a foot chase with a prisoner, or a guy I'm trying to arrest.
[BREAK]
Lee: Rock on, a couple of years later, I get into a foot chase with a prisoner or a guy I'm trying to arrest. I called in the chase to the dispatch office. They cleared the channel. The proper procedure would be if you get into a chase, whether foot or on car, you call into dispatch and they clear the channel. Meaning no one else is allowed to talk on your frequency as long as you're in chase. So that you can't accidentally get covered up and be calling saying you're shot or you've had shots fired, or just been hit with a stick or whatever. So, they couldn't cover you up and they couldn't hear it. So I get into a chase, it's about 5:30 in afternoon. And I called for the chase, called for backup, and no one on my ship responded. [crosstalk]-
Dylan: You were just alone?
Lee: I was alone, by myself. I was in the city, and a city cop saw me get into the chase. I was out helping him with a wreck, and he saw him to get into the chase. The wreck was off the road, so there was no reason he couldn't come help me as well.
Dylan: Right.
Lee: Two deputies that were on the night shift heard my call, and they were up getting ready to come to work, and they responded. And they helped me catch the guy. So when I got him to jail, it was right at shift change, I walked into the shift change office in the deputy's office and I said, "Is there a reason none of you son-of-a-bitch's come to help me?" They were all like, "Uhhhh... we didn't hear it." I'm like, "Okay, let's go ahead and get something straight." Now, don't get me wrong, I know in the stories I'm telling, I sound like I'm the world's biggest badass. I'm not. [Dylan laughs] But, I stood up for myself. I walked in, I said, "Let's get something straight. You need help, I'm going to come help you. I need help, you better come help me. If you don't, the next time you better hope whoever I'm chasing kills me. Because if he'd doesn't, one at a time, we're going to fight. When I whip your ass, it's going to be all over this county that you got beat up by the gay guy. [Dylan laughs] And I'm not going to have it. We all are here to help one another, and if you don't want to help me, then don't expect me to help you." And then after that I never had another problem. They may not like me, but they damn sure respected me.
Dylan: Yeah. I don't want to over analyze this, but it sounds like throughout your life you have gained respect and gained standing with people by asserting your masculinity. Is that fair to say?
Lee: Yeah. I mean, I would agree with that. I mean, law enforcement back then was extremely a male dominated field of endeavor, and I was the gay guy. And they chose to disrespect me by not backing me up. [crosstalk ]-
Dylan: Yeah. I mean that's worse than disrespectful, that's dangerous, right?
Lee: Well, it was putting my life in danger.
Dylan: Yeah. But it really just seems like you and I are the product of our circumstances, right?
Lee: I'd agree.
Dylan: And I am, as you say, a "sissy" or a "flaming queen," [both laugh] because that is who I am. And I also think that you are this person who believes "men should be men. This is the type of guy I am." You're a masculine, masc, masc-presenting guy. So I think it's not that one is right and one is wrong, but instead that both can coexist together. Do you believe that they can?
Lee: I do.
Dylan: Well, in that spirit, I actually did want to share something with you.
Lee: Sure.
Dylan: I'm bringing this up because you're talking about stereotypes, and who gets to represent gay people in the media, Or, who the media chooses to represent gay people. And in many ways, that's almost exactly why I do this work that I'm doing right now. Or, rather why I worked so hard to be in the media. It's because when I was younger, and even still in my young adulthood, you're told so many times by the gatekeepers of the entertainment industry that "you are not the right, this kind of person." "You're not the right kind of Latino person. You're not the right kind of gay person." And I would get that a lot because I'm gay, and I'm a effeminate. And a lot of times I felt like I was too effeminate be a public gay person. I was not stereotypically brown enough, stereotypically Latino enough to represent Latino people. And so I feel like, SJW term coming your way, get ready. [Lee laughs] But at the intersection of those two identities, I felt that because those identities intersected in a nuanced way, I was prohibited from doing public work. Because I was not this prototype of what a gay person was, or what a brown person was. Essentially, a lot of the ... I guess the fire that is lit within me is driven by this desire to bring nuance to what people think of a brown person, what people think of a queer person, a gay person. And so I guess, even though we, um, very different people, we do share that, which I think is kind of ironic because that's exactly the reason you wrote me this comment. I am a very, effeminate high-voiced gay guy. But I also don't see many people like me represented in media, and I want to make media that I don't see happening. I wanted to make a podcast that did have two people's different opinions, but it wasn't this yelling, screaming, debate match.
Lee: Right.
Dylan: Which, as you know, that's not what this is.
Lee: And I applaud the fact that you do that. We, as a people are all very ... everyone's complicated. Everybody, when you sit down and you talk to them, you find out that they're not as two dimensional as you would think. Everyone has multi facets of their way of thinking on one thing. Again, life determines how you think, what's happened to you in your life. Would I still say you're a flaming queen? Yeah, sure. But, by the same token, I'm a big old redneck, and I own the fact that I'm a big country redneck. I grew up fishing, hunting, killing animals during hunting season. Do I do that now? I hadn't been hurting in ... Shit, I ain't been here 30 years, or almost.
Dylan: Well look at us, a flaming queen and a redneck [Lee chuckles] on the phone together.
Lee: But I'm as down to Earth as anybody you'd ever want to meet. Unfortunately, just like everyone else in the world. my opinions a lot of times are based on just what I see. Something I see the most that everyone does, you see something, you form an opinion based on it, and you don't research. In this case, I formed an opinion. You contacted me. We talked to one another, we talked on Facebook messenger quite a bit. And then we switched to a phone conversation. We spoke for almost two hours, basically recounting pretty much everything we did here. Therefore, my opinion of you changed, just like I would hope your opinion of me changed. But at the end of the day-
Dylan: Yeah. Well, I just think you're a real person now. You're not just a Facebook comment.
Lee: Right. The one thing that I think we all hate are those keyboard warriors, that who are not willing to get on, and face-to-face, which we're not, but we're on the phone, that face-to-face are not willing to back up what they say. And they don't have a true reason for what they said. Do you fit the stereotype? Sure. Is that necessarily a bad thing? No.
Dylan: Yeah. I do just want to ask this though.
Lee: Sure.
Dylan: Lee, do you regret writing this comment?
Lee: It's hard to go back in and regret something. Did my opinion change? Yes. It did, at the time, and unfortunately you can't go back and fix it as far as ... Because that was my opinion, my opinion has changed. If I'd done more research on you, and maybe tried to converse with you before I were to comment, would I written it? No, or at least not in the terms I used. I mean, if me and you were best friends, I'd still tell you, you're damn flaming queen.
Dylan: I'm a flaming queen, and I would tell you right back, "I am a flaming queen." And, in fact-
Lee: And you'd probably call me a redneck fag.
Dylan: The thing is, actually, I don't think I would, and maybe it's because I'm a helplessly politically correct liberal coastal bubble person.
Lee: I'm not very politically correct.
Dylan: But that's okay. And look at us, we're on the phone together. I try to be politically correct, maybe you don't. And here we are just living our best lives, a flaming queen and a redneck together.
Lee: You can be truthful and be tactful. And unfortunately, in my comment, I was not exactly tactful.
Dylan: But that's okay. You're being very tactful now. I mean this is what matters. This is how I'm always going to remember you, right? Not from your comment.
Lee: Oh, yeah, I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversations, and I hope I didn't come across as a blubbering idiot.
Dylan: No, not at all. You come across as a person who's you.
Lee: Or, a lot of people would probably say, "The uneducated redneck from the south," and that's not untrue. But just because you're uneducated doesn't mean you're not intelligent.
Dylan: Right.
Lee: Everybody should be willing to do what you and did, and that's sit and talk. I would enjoy meeting you, if you ever come to the south. I can almost promise you I'll never come to New York. I've been to New York, didn't like it. Too many people.
Dylan: Yeah. It feels like that for me sometimes too.
Lee: If you ever come to the south, I would enjoy meeting you.
Dylan: I would love that.
Lee: Because this is not typical of me, as far as, I'm not a person that talks on the phone. I despise talking on the phone.
Dylan: Oh, my God, that's surprising to me. Maybe that's the most surprising thing you've said all the call.
Lee: [chuckles] The unfortunate part is so many people aren't willing to do what you and I did, and that's sit and talk.
Dylan: Right, right.
Lee: Most people, again, they have their opinion, that's all they're going to listen to. And the minute you stray from their opinion, they shut you down and quit listening. I wish more people were as open-minded about discussing differences as you have been.
Dylan: Oh, well, yeah, I mean that would be great. Thanks for saying that.
Lee: It would make for a much easier world, if people were willing to sit down and discuss their differences.
Dylan: Thank you for saying that.
Lee: And I appreciate the fact that you're willing to do that.
Dylan: Oh, well thanks, Lee. So, Lee, I have one final question for you.
Lee: Sure.
Dylan: I think I know the answer, but hey, I want you to be the one to answer it. As you know, this podcast is called Conversations With People Who Hate Me. Do you hate me?
Lee: I didn't hate you to begin with. [Dylan chuckles] I disagreed with you, but I didn't hate you. There's very few people in this world, I'd say I hate. And it takes somebody doing a lot more to me, than me disagreeing with their viewpoint.
Dylan: Or being a flaming homo.
Lee: [laughs] You ain't letting that one go, are you?
Dylan: I'm not, I love it! [Lee chuckles] I'm a flaming queen! Let me be, you know?!
Lee: Well, I guess if that's what you... The number one thing is, as long as you're happy with yourself, that's all that matters. I'm telling you live by the three F's. If you ain't fucking me, feeding me, or financing me, your opinion doesn't matter. As long as you're happy with yourself, that's all that matters.
Dylan: Well, I think that's a great note to end on. Lee, I think we disagree on a lot of things and we see the world differently, but our circumstances were also very different. But, I really, through all of that, I really appreciate you taking the time for this phone call, so thank you.
Lee: Thank you. I've enjoyed it.
Dylan: Me too. Well, Lee, I will see you on the Internet, or maybe we'll get that beer. And you said you're not coming up to New York, but maybe if ever I've venture down to the south, I'll see you there.
Lee: I have no plans on it. I'm not saying, I won't ever, but at this moment I have no plans.
Dylan: Okay. Well, if I find myself in the south, maybe we'll grab that beer. Okay?
Lee: All right, buddy.
Dylan: Okay. Bye, Lee. Thank you.
Lee: All right. Bye-bye.
[Phone call ends with a hang up sound. The drumbeat from ‘These Dark Times’ by Caged Animals kicks in.]
Dylan [VOICEOVER CLOSING CREDITS]: Conversations With People Who Hate Me is a production of Night Vale Presents. Christy Gressman is the executive producer. Vincent Cacchione is the sound engineer and mixer. Alen Rahimic is the production manager. The theme song is These Dark Times by Caged Animals. The logo was designed by Rob Wilson. And this podcast was created, produced and hosted by me, Dylan Marron.
Special thanks to Night Vale Presents, Director of Marketing, Adam Cecil, our publicist, Christine Ragasa, and also Dustin Flannery McCoy, Rob Silcox, Mark Maloney, and production assistants, Alison Goldberger and Emily Moler.
Thank you to all of those who gave encouragement throughout this process. And also thank you to those who warned me against doing this project. I did it anyway. And yes, thank you to those who wrote the hateful messages, comments, and posts that inspired me to turn one way, negativity into productive two way conversations.
Thank you so much for listening and we will be back with another conversation next week. If you loved this show, tell all of your friends about it. And if you hated this show, maybe write to me and tell me why you hated it. And who knows, maybe you'll be a guest on the show.
Just remember there is a human on the other side of the screen.
[Chorus of ‘These Darks Times’ by Caged Animals plays.]