03/20/08 – Shane and Amy Bugbee – The Scott Horton Show

I, I, I'm eight days old.
Got on the pirate radio.
Land of the free and home of the brave.
That's DC crawling your grave.
I, I, I'm eight days old.
Got on the pirate radio.
Land of the free and home of the brave.
That's DC crawling your grave.
Crawl in there you stinky slimy slugs.
I, I, I'm eight days old.
Got on the pirate radio.
Land of the free and home of the brave.
That's DC crawling your grave.
I, I, I'm eight days old.
Got on the pirate radio.
Land of the free and home of the brave.
That's DC crawling your grave.
Crawl in there you stinky slimy slugs.
Here, let me figure out a way to make room for you guys here.
I got Shane and Amy Bugbee are here.
Uh, we're in the, uh, of course broadcasting live from the penthouse suite at the Chase Manhattan Morgan Guarantee City Group Trust building here on Lavaca Street in downtown Austin, Texas.
Uh, thank you Mr. Rockefeller for the space.
And, uh, we got Shane and Amy Bugbee here.
Uh, guys been a year at the wheel is the name of the project.
Oh shit, I'm on TV.
This is it.
This is it.
Uh, a year at the wheel.
And the guy's holding a wheel with a video camera on it right in front of me right now.
It's like the stabilizer bar, which is probably the, the, the star of the trip.
The stabilizer bar, the dog and the turtle, you know, the actual videos we shoot.
All right.
So here, I guess I better stand up too.
And maybe we'll just try to figure out a way that three of us can share this.
Here, we can close this thing.
Barbershop quartet now almost.
Yeah, there you go.
So, hey, nice to meet you.
I'm Scott.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, man.
Yeah.
Welcome to the show.
I'm a big fans of the show.
I don't know if we're big fans of always of your opinions.
Oh, that's all right.
Yeah.
Well, I'm less than 1% as far as that goes.
I understand.
But, uh, yeah, I know you guys are big fans of radio chaos, so.
Well, that's for sure.
Glad we can have you here.
It's amazing.
So tell us about, what's this thing?
A year on the road.
You tell us.
Uh, get up close to this microphone where they can hear you.
We're spending a year on the road with.
At the wheel.
A year at the wheel with the dog, the turtle in the truck driving around.
What's the dog's name?
Cheyenne.
Cheyenne the dog.
And, and y'all started.
Myrtle the turtle.
And Myrtle the turtle.
And y'all started where?
And you've been where?
And you're halfway through now or more or what?
Almost halfway.
We're, we started in Chicago on November 4th.
We've been through most of the South now, the Midwest.
And now we're headed to the Southwest.
You know, we had a great debate.
We were on this atheist radio show.
Atheism, Answers in Atheism.
And I thought of you.
We had this great debate about voting.
And I'm a non-voter.
I'm proud of it.
Yeah, good for you, man.
Are you a non-voter?
Well, I aspire to be a non-voter.
I actually voted this time because it's Ron Paul.
But, uh, other than that, no, I'm, I'm over it.
In fact, uh.
Good, good.
I'll direct everyone to libertystickers.com.
You can get a great sticker.
It says voting is for suckers.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
We have one.
Friends don't let friends vote.
Good.
Well, then we have nothing to argue about.
Because I was coming in here ready to poke a stick at you.
But you're right about Ron Paul.
You're right.
But I don't know if I like Ron Paul.
But you're right.
He's a good person to throw a vote for.
Just to throw a vote at the, an alternative.
Well, I, I, uh, mean for.
I, I, I really wish my last vote had been for Harry Brown, actually.
But I'm proud now that my, my last vote ever in my life will have been for Ron Paul.
I don't even know who Harry Brown is.
That's amazing.
You're, and he's.
Oh, he was the libertarian candidate for President in 96 in 2000.
Anyway, uh, what's your beef with Ron Paul?
I'm curious to know.
I don't know, really.
I just know he's a politician first and foremost.
So fuck him right there.
Good for you.
And now you guys have a radio show of your own, right?
Yeah.
We have at certain points.
And we're doing podcasts and stuff on our show.
Everything's on a year at the wheel right now.
Um, we did, I used to do three ring radio.
Amy did, uh, the hour of power on radio free Satan, but we're just doing this trip only.
You know, we sort of do podcasts once in a while.
We'll do audio.
And now the whole road trip is true crime stories and rock and roll.
It's more about covering the election.
It's election year.
It's election year.
It's election.
It's about using the power of new media.
It's really about that and trying to empower other people and saying, this is what you should be doing.
Taking a camera voting doesn't matter anymore, but you know, you could take a camera and go show what your local police are doing maybe and throw that on YouTube and create immediate change.
Yeah.
Little brother watching the state back is what you're talking about.
Yeah.
And you can create immediate change in the neighborhood.
Not just talk about how the police are getting paid off by the drug dealers, but you can videotape this now.
And we're talking to people in America about how they feel about the election.
And it's weird.
It's like even without trying, most of the people we've met are non-voters or sad voters.
Yeah.
When I explained the trip to someone, you brought up a photographer from the depression era.
What was her name?
Oh, Dorothea Lange.
And you brought up, because that was sort of how I was exploring, we're trying to take a snapshot of America that the journalists, the real journalists as they call them, aren't taking.
They seem to be taking just a one dimensional snapshot of the country.
Yeah.
If even one dimension.
Now that we have this great new, we have the great opportunity to get cameras and go and videotape and those resources are pretty cheap.
That's what we're sort of taking advantage of.
Well, so what have you learned from the American people as you're traveling around?
What kind of questions are you asking them?
What are they telling you?
Well, people are a lot better than I thought.
But then again, I think, I don't know if I'm against politicians anymore as much as I am against the people who vote for them.
So I'm sort of, I was really jaded against politicians before the trip.
But now I think, you know, the people, the people are really voting for him.
And I wonder if that should be a birthright voting.
You know, maybe.
People who get behind the lesser of two evils, are they really making a good, solid choice?
Yeah, on the atheist show, I have this great respect for Edwin Kagan, this atheistic, atheist lawyer.
And, but my problem was, I'm like, you're voting for a Christian.
You're an atheist and you're for the atheist, but you're voting for the lesser of two evils.
Obama, he'll say, or Hillary, because they're the Democrat and he has to vote that way.
I just think it's disgusting.
Well, you know, sometimes though, the evil is so evil.
Like in John McCain, I think is so, I think he has such a tenuous grasp of reality mixed with such arrogance and assurance of his position and such a militarist mindset that I pretty much support, if not endorse anyone against him to keep him out of power.
I learned driving a cab in the year 2000 that this was universally true.
Okay.
There were no exceptions to this.
And of course I talked politics with everybody.
All the Gore supporters said, yeah, exactly.
Don't let Scott Horton in the fucking party.
Bring it down.
Yeah, exactly.
That's why I'm just here getting high.
I'm not even at the party.
But no, they all said, oh no, I hate Al Gore.
Let me tell you how much I hate Al Gore.
But I cannot buy the idea of the Bush's being back in power.
And the people who supported Bush said, I hate the guy.
I know he is an idiot and has contempt for liberty.
He's already said, I wish I was the dictator and things like that.
But you know what?
It just, we got to put an end to this Clinton Gore.
No more, no more Gore years.
And so it was only voting in self-defense.
No one was for either of these guys in the year 2000.
And you know, it is sad.
You know, it is sad.
See, here's the thing, though.
In our whole culture, we're told that if you didn't vote, then shut up.
And it's hard to get to, you know, like Jeremy Sapienza says, where, no, if you voted, this is all your fault.
The only people have the right to complain are the people who don't vote.
That's what I say.
I've been saying the whole fucking thing.
I've been saying exactly.
We're the only, the non-voters are the ones who have no right to.
But what's the change, Scott?
What's the, how can we do anything?
Like, I say it's through almost art, like expression or video cameras, new media.
I think there's an opportunity we can seize the reign of power.
Maybe not power, but we can.
Well, you know, I'm really not that optimistic about changing anything other than maybe the minds of individuals as far as, you know, the course of which war is going to be started next.
You know, I can't do a thing about that really other than try to inform people.
I know that there are people who wish they knew what the hell was going on, so I try to give them a place to go where they can get it honestly, even if I don't really have it all right.
You know, I'm not sitting here trying to spin for my corporate masters who have, you know, jet engines to sell to the state.
You know what I mean?
We all know chaos is in corporate jet engines.
Well, you wouldn't believe how many accusations I get of being a gatekeeper for this or that for not focusing on this or that topic, you know.
You know, we went to a Halliburton barbecue.
That's the other part.
On our trip, we thought about it a couple times.
A Halliburton barbecue.
Amy brought you up.
She's like, Scott Horton would have a field day here.
Well, that's fine.
Was the brisket good or how was it?
It was awesome.
Great.
Texas in Texas, Halliburton.
25 of the best briskets ever.
We now know why the gas prices are so high, though, because they spent almost $200,000 on a little barbecue.
Yeah.
And there were two stacks of brisket.
Like, here, would you guys like another lobster tail with that?
They took a lot of it to a church or something or a home shelter.
Maybe, hopefully.
Yeah.
Halliburton, home of the $900 toilet seat, right?
It's all tax money.
It was amazing.
Great barbecue, though.
Yeah.
And a congressman these days dime a dozen, senators two bits.
Exactly.
So tell me about your adventure some more.
I want to know about what it's like a year at the wheel.
This is something I've always wanted to do, only, of course, in my fantasy, I have an RV full of skateboarders and we're hitting all the fun spots.
But I want to know what it's like driving around America on a permanent vacation like this.
You guys sound like you must be having fun.
There is no vacation about it.
Oh, come on.
No, we're working in the city.
Yesterday was vacation-y.
Yesterday we took a break.
Austin's all slack.
Yeah, we've been slacking a lot in Austin.
But for the most part, it's been a lot of work.
Really?
A lot of just running around, taking naps in the truck, you know.
No RV.
No RV.
No RV.
That's all right, though.
Jobs in each town.
Bottling rum in New Orleans.
Austin's been sort of dry in the gigs.
It's been good to get an inside look at a city when you're working for people and talking to them.
Yeah.
But, yeah, nobody feels good about the election, and that's really the saddest thing of all because all the people in America are much smarter than I anticipated them being, and they're all feeling like, what a waste this election is.
See, I have to bring up my man Ron again.
I mean, there was a quote from him the other day.
They said, well, why didn't everybody support you then?
And he said, because.
I threw a rally where 5,000 people showed up in Philadelphia in front of Independence Hall, and I didn't get any media at all.
If Barack Obama had had 5,000 people, it would have been on the front page of the New York Times.
And the main media, even though as much as I complain, I was just thinking earlier about what you were talking about, the new media, as much as I complain about them, I don't watch the nightly news or whatever, but most of the people still do.
TV is what, you know, the Internet's important, but it's still all about TV, and if TV is not telling the people, hey, you can vote for this guy who wants to end the war and bring the troops home and shore up the dollar and end the drug war and all these things, then the people don't know.
They won't vote for him.
They won't show up.
That's why voting shouldn't be a birthright, because people vote based on sound bites off of a TV, and they're not educated like you.
Bring back the literacy test, huh?
Yeah, well, when it gets down to it, I'm a political person, and I couldn't really debate with you why I don't like Ron Paul necessarily, because I've been far removed from politics now.
I just, you know, don't like him based on him being a Republican from Texas.
Well, I understand that view.
I liked Kucinich, and I think I like Kucinich and Ron Paul for more that they illustrate the problems with politics than anything because of how he gets the shaft.
Ron Paul gets the shaft, and it's obvious, and I'm not a supporter or a non-supporter.
I'm just, like, but I can see that he's getting the shaft.
Like, Kucinich got the shaft from his own party.
Like, the Democratic Party didn't stick up for their own voters.
They invited him to be part of the debates.
Because he had a certain amount of people behind him, a certain amount of Democrats, and they fucking— And the Republicans and the Democratic parties both sicced people on them in the primaries to try to dethrone them both in the primaries.
Both attempts failed, but still, I mean, that just goes to show the mindset.
They tried to beat Kucinich and Paul out in the primaries just a few weeks ago.
Kucinich's brother was killed in a car wreck just after that one debate he was a part of.
Oh, really?
Is there suspicious things about that?
I don't know the story, really.
I heard the headlines.
Ron Paul has some heat, though, for whatever reason.
Kucinich couldn't get that, you know, and it's a shame because they seem to be very similarly upsetting the system.
Well, and they're both friends in Congress.
A lot of times it'll be 433 to 2, and it's those two saying this is not right, you know.
I can't believe that.
That would be great.
Wouldn't that be great, those two together?
Yeah, well, there's a lot of could-have-beens about this campaign.
But, you know, ultimately, the purpose of the Paul campaign and ultimately the purpose of the Kucinich campaign are education.
I mean, they're really about the same thing that this show's about, the same thing that what you guys are doing is about, which is, you know, just trying to get ideas across to people.
And, you know, that's why there's a Libertarian Party.
It's not because the Libertarian Party's ever going to have their nominee elected president, but it's because that's the only time you can get people to pay attention to politics at all.
You have to have a political party and a candidate running to do the explaining in order for people to even hear it.
I mean, and hell, even at that rate, nobody even watched the debates or even heard it.
There are people who turned out to vote here in the Texas primaries a few weeks back who never even heard the name Ron Paul because they never spent more than five minutes of their life looking into it before they went to go vote.
Well, right, they pick people based on their hair.
But it shouldn't matter who our president is.
It should matter that we, the people, demand certain actions from our leaders, and we don't do that, and that's the problem.
They should have to bend to the will of the people no matter what, and they don't because, you know, because we don't make them.
That's a good point.
That's true enough.
Man, I wish y'all had come to that Motorhead show the other day at Stubbs.
It was awesome.
You know what?
We went to all the anti-South by Southwest stuff, and since we're on this trip, we sort of really have a budget of time and money, so we can't even afford the $5 in gas to go across town to see Motorhead if we're going to go see another show that night.
It's one of those things.
Right.
Yeah, I understand.
We've seen Motorhead 20 different times.
We picked this great thing, Charles.
Evil Charles?
Charles, one of these guys, Charles, and his friend.
Yeah.
His friend, erroneous Sean O'Shaughnessy, the KSDJ.
His alter ego.
Yeah, exactly.
He's been taking us around, and we went to a skate park with him, and it was rad.
It was fucking better than any Motorhead show could have been.
Oh, was that over there?
The Broken Neck over there on the east side with that ramp?
Yeah.
Yeah, I went to his show there when the ramp was first put up, and it didn't have decks, and so it was a total snake session from the flat bottom, and there were like 30 people in all elbows racing to start the run from the flat.
It was insane.
It was just the Texas death match.
It was insanity.
Well, that was a great show.
I had a great time there, dude.
I want to go back.
And what other shows did we see the first night?
Long Brunch, Easy Action.
No, the big band with the big boys.
We just saw some incredible.
The Moist Boys.
Dickie Roberts.
We saw some incredible music, is all I'm saying.
It was all anti-South by Southwest gigs, so it was a good time.
Yeah, right on, man.
That's good that y'all have been able to have some fun while you're here.
And that's sort of what we're covering in Austin as far as politics.
What we found here that we felt like covering wasn't South by Southwest.
It was all the anti-South by Southwest stuff that's going on here, which is pretty funny.
There's this backlash of my yard by your yard or fuck by fuck you or whatever.
Those were the better things to cover in Austin.
And then hearing some of the horror stories that South by Southwest actively sends out squads to bust kids that are doing parties like that, and they actively do things to hurt people.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, well, last year, actually, there were a lot of busts where somebody tips off the cops.
They're exceeding the fire code here at the party they're having.
And how greedy does South by Southwest have to get?
They can't take those parties as a tribute.
We're right here at the core of the problem again, too, is where people can think of nothing easier or better to do, and they can't think of a reason why not to pick up the phone and call the state on each other all day long.
You know, I once drove the 911 operator lady to work, and she said that 75% of the calls that they get are just, you know, this guy borrowed my lawnmower and didn't bring it back in time, or my neighbor's grass is too long.
These are the 911 calls, is get revenge on someone I hate for me.
And that's literally, at best, it's a quarter of these people actually have an emergency of any kind that ought to be dealt with by police.
And, you know, I'm trying to remember if I asked, well, how many out of the 75% that are bogus, how many times do the cops go out and do that revenge getting anyway?
It's a lot.
I mean, that's the thing.
As long as we refuse to settle our differences among ourselves without calling 911 on each other, they're going to keep having an excuse to exist.
We're the demand, and they're the supply.
You know?
It sucks, too.
All right, that's it.
We're out of time for Antiwar Radio.
Thanks for coming in the studio, man.
That was awesome.
My first in-studio guests here at the new studio, at the top of the Chase Manhattan tower, the Chase Manhattan JPMorgan Guarantee Trust City Group skyscraper here in downtown Austin, Texas.
There'll be no 911 here.
Yeah, right.
All right, now watch that sleeve, because I've got to play this song for the good people.
It's Chaos Radio 959 in Austin.
Thanks, everybody, for listening.
Be back here tomorrow, 11 to 1, Texas time.
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