The Right Ear is the Gay Ear (with Vinny Thomas)

My Mama told me Presents the Start to Steal Tour. We're very excited about it. Yeah, I'm not about to bite my tongue. We want to sell it out and the dates are coming up fast, and so if you live in one of these areas, we want you to buy your tickets now. It's all available on our instagrams, on our websites, on our link tree. But October seventeenth, we're in La in Hollywood. We'll be in Atlanta on Halloween October thirty first. November one, we're in Houston, November two, Austin,

A good meet and greed. Bro.

Let's be clear, I'll take a weird picture with you for free.

You don't gotta be cool with me, Vinnie, A fellow jin Alpha, myself, me and my friend David, we also hit that woe with the best of them, you.

Know, yeah, goes the fuck amen fellas, And I'm just like you, you know what I mean.

I watched I watched Monk, right, I was like there with you watching watch a lot or.

Mon is a great fucking show. Let's let's have out was a great fucking show.

I'm not stelling a monk. I love monk.

You kids would do well to watch a little monk.

Maybe you would n't act that way if you watched a little monk.

Chips in your.

Nails, A qualms are racist.

The money.

Stuff, I can't tell me.

Gold all in my chain, gold all in my ring, gold all in my watch.

Don't believe me. Just watch nigga, nigga, nigga. Don't believe me. Just watch there it is, there it is.

Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another phenomenal episode of My Mama Told.

Me, the podcast where we dive deep into the pockets of black conspiracy.

Theories and we finally worked to prove that Lionel Richie was only allowed out of his Commodore's contract if he agreed to adopt a white child.

You think they were.

Letting that that that brilliant man's money go back to a black baby, to the black community.

Absolutely not. We're making that white money again.

It's the only way you're getting out of this Commodore's bullshit is make this some white money. And that's what they did. I'm like Ston Kerman, I'm.

David boy, and I've never been more proud to call you my co host. It's Julie. What other explanation is there?

Just two black people adopting a white baby and being like, yep, this is what we got going.

It's I've only ever even heard of it on your television show south Side. I've never even heard of it, and I know a lot of fucking freaks.

It's a bald choice, even for a very rich black man to be like, I'm gonna get a little white girl and keep her.

Is it?

Man?

Okay? Here's would you do it? That's I think how we need to open this. Would you guys do that? Wow, that's a tough question. Would I adopt a white child?

I would adopt the right kind of white child I would adopt. I would say Greek or Italian, I would adopt white child.

Okay, I like that.

I think Greek sounds nice, a little a little stoppy running around.

That seems nice. But if you get an Eastern European he could still bam, oh at you a Luca.

True.

And I don't know the prices of babies racially, but prices I would maybe not be crazy insane. Then you you know, I'm gonna be honest. The Eastern Europeans seem wholesale to me. They seem you know what I mean.

They seem like there's no mark up. You just hit them for what they're worth. And and that's the deal. Anywhere you go.

I think you're play a dangerous game. I think you have a fifty to fifty chance if you adopt an Eastern European person they're going to be a vampire.

Because that's the worry. That's man, right, two minutes in you're already tracking. That is the worry.

They're calling you Papa, and they're biting your neck, and now you're in trouble.

Yeah I got you, but now I got a vampire on the team. Oh, you're saying you can.

You can weaponize this vampire. You can make them into into something else.

I mean, I'm saying that he will have a love of his father that will propel him to help his father out when his father is in need. Much like you, When are you going to be in need of a vampire? Broy eyes coming around? I don't know what's about to happen.

Fair, you're imagining kind of a dexter situation where trainer monster child.

Whoa you suld monster? First of all European, you're putting these labels all my boy. No, we agree on vampire.

We agreed on vampire, and.

I think that qualifies as monster. I'm here with Vinnie. I don't we should introduce our guests. We haven't even bothered introducing him. We immediately launched into speculations about the prices of white babies and vampires. But but our guest today is so funny. We're both big fans of his.

Uh.

He's a comedian, he's an actor, he's a writer, and you can see him currently on on Platonic on Apple TV plus. Give it up for the hilarious Vinnie Thomas.

Everybody that was more ominous than it felt.

It was just they told me to expect sounds, and I still was not prepared, I think, emotionally, spiritual, or physically for sound to occur. And I'm going to do that in the future.

That's the hard part.

It happens at any time, and there's no real way to prepare for that feeling. We grow when we're uncomfortable. Venny, we're excited you're here. You came to us with the conspiracy theory that I actually was surprised we had never covered before. It's such a it's such a formative conspiracy theory. I think in my childhood that I almost think I overlooked it because of how much it felt ubiquitous with my own upbringing. But you said, my mama told me.

If your right ear is pierced, that means you're gay. Yeah.

True, that's all true. Everything you said is true. I think by the time I was in school that that conspiracy theory it was starting to kind of drift away a little bit, right, But there's always that thing in the back of your head is like which year is a homosexual ear? Which year is the heterosexual ear? Ultimately I could not remember which is which, so.

Which when maybe is the gayest thing you can do, not remembering that mean.

For yeah, one thing about gay people is we have Ambiesia was gay? Oh my god? Yeah, dorry from finding Nemo, lesbian fish, short term laws. This is all try.

So my question is first, because I know we all heard it. Did you guys believe it? Vinnie?

I'll let you answer that first, because I do have an answer. I don't want to override.

I don't know if I believed it, but I still was terrified of getting one ear pierced versus the other because I wasn't sure which was which. You don't believe it, but you do trust that other people will believe it, perhaps people who are bigger and stronger than you. And I think that alone is stilled the kind of belief that sense.

I feel almost exactly the same.

I didn't believe it for a second, but I was like, all these niggas do, so who am I? Who am I to jet against their own research? Yeah, I'm gonna make sure I get the correct one, Pierce, so that no associations.

Yeah are It's not the smart who inherit the earth. It's the brutal and stupid, and they make the decisions.

Bory did you believe it when you were a young lad. I think I believed it in the way that I believed a lot of things. I was told of this like of this kind of type where it's like, maybe there's something going on that I don't know, you know what I'm saying, Like I was like, I don't know what they do that could be. Like I didn't have my ears pierced. It definitely wasn't something I was like worried about either way. But I think that I thought

I will say I I was not out in school and I didn't have my ears pierced at all because my parents thought piercings were disgusting. They still do, I don't know what about piercings and tattoos and still kind of a visceral disgust in their minds.

Oh you know, you don't mean disgusting in like a shameful way. You may literally like I think there's like gag reflected.

Yeah, it truly. It produces a sound in them that is like a kind of scoff like what kind of like a you know what I mean?

Are your parents a what older?

No, but my mom My mom is white, but Italian white, and her mother is from Italy like the old country, and so there's a lot kind of wrapped up in there. I guess my dad's a military guy, so I think any kind of departure from you know, having regular ears was was weird for him. But I did get one of your peers. It wasn't the right one, guy, but I did get one of your peers.

Still blew it.

I still blew.

You me, bro brother, we both the piercing.

I did it.

I guess I, in theory chose correctly for myself. But that said, it all was very rooted in a fear of like, yo, I hope I don't get made fun of.

Yeah, here's the thing. When I went to get a pierce, I went with a friend and he got his. He got his rightier piers and I got my left ear pears because we weren't sure which is which and we wanted to cover the basis.

That's what I mean. That's insane.

That's genuinely insane for y'all not to like call it off that day and go check.

And just be like, I'll do one, you do the other. Good luck. My nigga is crazy.

One of us was gonna be right. You understand, one of us was gonna be right.

That's beautiful kind.

Of That's the closest thing to homophobic Russian roulette I've ever heard in my life.

And as a direct result on gay and that is what happened.

That day that a lot of people think you're born with it.

That you just said Claire's was really fucked up?

Was it not a Claire's I didn't get my ears piercedetic.

I'd be terrified when they used the same hole punching that they used to like punch tags in Heffer's in their farming. You know what I mean.

I got news.

I'm a Claire's man, through and through that.

Let's go Claire's gay, Claire's gay, Claire's gay, Claire's get the money dog.

Let you let a teenager stab through your ear and Claire's.

Stab it was.

It was a little gun that they put to your ear with a person who clearly doesn't know how it's worked. It works, or it could not replicate the same hole, even if they wanted to it.

Was it was a huge mistake. Of course, that's not the right way to do it.

But but I'm of a generation where I think I'm thirty seven years old, we didn't have the option to go anywhere professional You went to Claire's or your mom wasn't gonna take you anywhere at all.

Your mom took you to get your ear peers.

That's right, she was a nice lady. I do feel like, and maybe this is this, there's part of this, like just a lack of awareness, But I do feel like when I was young, there were not nearly as many places specifically to go for piercings. Like I don't feel like it was always the tattoo piercing shop combo type of thing. So I do feel like there was Oh yeah, I do feel like there was less. I do feel like there were less places to go to get it pierced. Yeah.

And you, if you were a real man, you went to players and you pre did it.

On the bus.

If you were you pretended it wasn't a business filled with children's jewelry.

You you acted like you belong there.

Did y'all have those friends who did it themselves who like they heat it up a needle with a fire and like stuck it through. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, they had terrible infections. Every time I hear someone tell me about that and they're like, I was oozing. Afterwards, I'm like, what the are you talking about? You were oozing? They were like affected that. It was crazy.

Brother, If your ear looks like it makes a ninja turtle, you did something wrong. That's not how it's supposed to go.

You know.

If it.

So so, you obviously bought into the stereotype. You bought into this conspiracy theory despite what ultimately ended up being. You ended up being a queer person despite that. Do you feel like there were ever were there people in your life that ever told you otherwise? Was there ever a brave soul who stepped up and was like, Vinnie, that's silly.

Be who you want to be. Pierce whatever ear you want to pierce.

No, absolutely not. Sometimes. I mean I had an older brother, do you know what I mean? I would talk about piercing my ear and he'd be like, you better make sure you flip the coin the right way. Dangerous game.

Again, it does not have to be a coin flip. You could have just researched.

With someone else and you each have to get one. That's the way it works research. There's there's no way to know.

Nah.

Yeah, I didn't have anyone who was actively like fighting against it. I feel like it just wasn't as ubiquitous. I feel like this is a very nineties conspiracy theory, kind of a nineties early two thousands conspiracy, and it's it's since started to trail off because now I feel like young guys they got Young guys now are guys who would have been considered very gay, like back in

So my little brother wears two dangling earrings. Yeah.

The stress I would have had wearing this colored shirt throughout most of my childhood was brother so heavy.

Before Cameron Freda's.

Yeah, I would fusia my nigga. Do you know what I'm walking into with this? I don't have the strength. Better be a goddamn school color.

We better be fighting fusion tigers or I'll absolutely You know.

What's funny to me about this conspiracy is like what a terrible signal if it was, because I always thought about it as it was trying to keep like a like a secret society type of you know what I mean, Like it was it was supposed to be a secret signal. What a terrible signal? What I think You don't think it's a great signal. No, we It's like if you're trying to keep something. See I could just look at your face the first thing I look at and be like, oh, he's good. Like it's not, you know.

What I mean.

I mean, it's not.

Here's why I thought it was a better idea. Maybe this is my own stupidity. It always takes me a minute to remember which ear is left and which ear is right when I'm facing somebody. So it's like, ah, you got to sit there and do math, and after you don't want to finish the math, so you just ignore it and you move on with your life. Absolutely, it's like, oh, it's subtle. It's very subtle.

I feel like this has to have come from gay people in I don't know, the seventies, maybe earlier than that. They had they had a language, they had secret little signals, and it was you know, it was gay years it was the hanky code. It was all of this that now is impossible to understand, Like to me, it doesn't make any sense. But back then every homosexual had to be like a Navajo code talker and like a secret breakdown,

Yeah, grinder used to be. You just got to break a branch off of this tree and walk into the alley wait for somebody to notice.

Uh, it is interesting you said the hanky code, because I remember when I first moved to San Francisco that was like a big thing, but it was forever. It was like the color and the placement said what you were into. But I knew a lot of very boring people who also used it, like they really co opted that.

Yeah, some people with the hanky code. I don't think you need a hanky for like missionary and eye contact, you know what I mean that?

Yeah, do something nasty with this? What are you doing?

Did I I'm curious to know how much you felt like something like this slowed your ability to finding your queer self, to fully coming out and feeling sort of settled in whoever you are despite you know, the right or wrong ear piercing quote unquote.

You know, I don't think the the ear piercing. I don't think the ear piercing sloughed. I think it was an eventuality that I was going to get my ear pierced, you know what I mean. Ultimately, I do think it was destiny. And at the end of the day, I don't know if I don't think I ever absolutely believed that what you're afraid of is other people's reaction to it,

Yeah, that's nice. There's something nice that it did. Nice.

Yeah, it is because you fear that like this is somehow an inhibitor to people sort of being able to explore, to find themselves as it were, and so like, hell yeah, if if a bunch of the deeply rooted homophobia from the eighties and nineties did not break anyone's brains, I take solace in that. That makes me feel warm inside.

Oh damn, Come on, sir.

All right, don't want to be ampho again to protect myself because I'm also a coward. All right, We're gonna take a break and when we come back, we're gonna talk more ear piercing right and wrong, right and left, whatever you want to call it. Uh, And it's more of any Thomas more my mama told me, My mama told me. Since the start to Steal tour, we're very excited about it. Yeah, I'm not about to bite my tongue.

All that meet and greets you've been Chris Brown has a good meet and greet.

Bro.

Let's be clear, I'll take a weird picture with you for free.

Back it on up to our conversation about ear piercings. Left right, gay, straight, who knows? Who cares? Who knows? Who cares? That?

So your parents are disgusted by it? What was their reaction upon saying that you had gotten your ear pierced?

First of all, I just like to acknowledge David's left right, gay straight who cares? Which truly sounds like an RFK junior campaigns logan.

But with a shitty voice, and we'll buy in.

Then I'll listen to God. I think they've they've they've calmed down a lot. I think it was when we were kids they were very like their reaction to every now and then my brother or I would float the idea of getting a tattoo or getting a piercing, and my mom would be like, why would you Why would you do that? Why would you mar your skin? And since then my brother's got like he has a giant

You like, yeah, we don't know who you are yet, so here's something to remind us that you're alive a.

Little place older. Now they've chilled out, I think, yeah, I think they're cool enough with it now. I think if I asked my mom she would she would definitely prefer it. I didn't get it, But what do I care about her? He's not a gay guy.

Let's go Bory. Do your parents give a ship? Does your mom? Is she an advocate? Is she anti? Where is she? Oh? No shed at all, which is funny because now I'm thinking about it. Yeah, it would have made no difference. I don't know what I was worried about.

As far as her judgment would have made because you wanted to do it, or.

There's like there's other fashion things I could have done that she would have been a lot more upset about than the.

Gay Year, Like what kind of stuff.

I don't know, man, just like going out being ashy. She hates that. It's just that's not really, that's not really it was. It's not like she rather to be well presented, classic fashion taboo. Being ashy is what she'd be upset about.

Not you know, sometimes I'll go to the beach and I'm just ashy on the right side, to let them know.

The right.

That means I want to have sex in the water.

Yeah, it's an adepted hanky coat. Really, Yeah, as.

On the right with a gray hanky also on the white side. I feel like there are worse things I could have done, Like I think an earring is so tame. I feel like it's a kind of surgical invention, and on the scale of surgical invention, like I could have gotten those insane lip fillers that make it so your upper lip can't move, you know what I mean? Right? Or like, what are people doing now getting their bucle fat remove and they look like corpses? I could have done that.

You know it's your buckle.

Yeah, the bukle fat fellas fellas your bule fat yeaes right here on your cheeks and people are getting it sucked out so they look like whoa.

Yeah, you're just handsome squid word all the time.

Yeah, handsome squidword face. You get it sucked right out. I don't know where they put it.

Whoa, it's none of that.

No, that's nobody, none of my business.

Where they put it, that's hippo.

You don't violate that. Now you take it out, we talk about it. But if you where you put it, that's hipp what but yeah to all that, my mom would be much more angry about that. What about you? Uh no, My mom literally took me to go get uh oh, my piercing. My mom consented for me to get a tattoo when I was sixteen, which was a massive mistake like and remains stupid on my arm to this day.

Tattoo, what does it say? Like hustle hustle.

Okay, you want to hear how bad of a choice I made. I've never told this story before.

This is this Kelly Kelly.

It is. It's a big old picture of R.

Kelly and it says, no matter what he does, I'm a fan. Uh No, it's so. My first tattoo. I used to do performance poetry, and I for at sixteen years old, was playing with the idea of going by

I did.

Devil's Advocate. You can get behind that, bro, I assure you you can't. It wasn't done well enough. It didn't look cool, you know what I mean?

Like all of it was a mistake in every way, shape or form.

You gotta go to the right places you gotta find and grow sees that and she's like, you know, I could speak a language that's enough.

I truly had a bunch of God hearing women around me who were like, you, you should not have done this, sir. This is not gonna make us fuck you at all.

God language sounds like a woman at church telling you not to swear. It just it sounds like a warning.

It was like.

It was I really thought I was doing something, you know what I mean, Like I really thought I was Like no, I.

Thought, process though, is the thing I see where? It like if it was just a little too far over here, if it was just a little back, it would have been the coolest shit ever.

But when I was a kid, when I was in high school, I saved up enough money to get a class ring and I wanted to get the word kraavi written on the side, which is like Latin for I create. But I get the ring. The letters are so close together it looks like cream. I said. So I saved up all his money to get this ring and it looks like it says cream, and I couldn't wear it. The first thing, my friend said, friend Gustava, he looks at it. He goes, what does cream mean?

What the fuck are you talking about?

Talking about?

This is Latin. I create. I'm an artist.

She's like, Nah, that's cream, dog, that's cream. This cream get the money because if not, you're weird as fun.

Yeah, Cream King of Eastern Colorado.

Was damn the cream King. We got to add that to your intro over.

He's locally known as the cream King of East Colorado.

I did a little bit of research Cream King that I'd love to go over with you. Phil reied to agree with the disagree with it. Truly, none of this means anything. But one of the things that there was a quote that I guess I had never heard the official quote, but I guess the official slogan for this was left is right and right is wrong. I don't know if y'all ever heard it phrase so sort of eighty succinctly, but that was sort of the phrase I guess that circulated around this theory.

Wait, can I ask did you read did you read the same Queerity article where there's like, there's a guy on a bench holding a rainbow flag and his faces collapsed into his hands. Because I looked up just as a preliminary thing. I was like, you know, and the quarity popped up. One of the first pictures is this guy holding a little rainbow flag in his hand. He's sitting on a bus bench like this, and it's one of the funniest things.

I say, I did not.

See that, but boy, do I want to please send it to us, because my God, does that What a silly thing to be, like, we're gonna show a gay person, but they're not having fun with it at all.

What's the point?

The left is right and right is wrong was supposedly the the slogan that was circulating, and the theory took the rise took its rise in the eighties and early nineties.

Which is sort of odd.

A more recent study shows that a list, a company that sort of tracks online shopping behavior, says that men getting ear rings rose by one hundred and forty seven percent from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three. So we're being a massive uptick compared to what I guess generally generationally it used to be.

Did y'all ever hear that it might have started in prison? I feel like everything where it was like mighty gay was like, oh, someone would make up a myth where it started, Like when people would sack their pants. They're like, you know what that means, he's sexually receptive.

I don't.

I don't even you know if that's true at all. I think maybe you just made that up.

Yeah, I think that's just a deep, deep fear that you're associating with another deep deep fear. You're like, I don't want to go to jail, and I gotta find ways of making it so that everything could send me to jail or make me jail gay whatever.

Yeah.

I also it's kind of weird to me that the right side is the wrong side in this context because this I feel like the left side is traditionally that's the bad side, right, Like I didn't go to Catholic school, but didn't People in Catholic school used to get their left and beaten if they use the left hand, because that's that's the Devil's quadrant? Is the left part of your body?

As a lifelong leftie, yes, ah no, that doesn't make sense. Yeah I'm left handed. Yeah, I didn't know that. They tried to teach me how to write right. Oh, they like really tried to fix you. Yeah yeah, yeah, mama, my mam had to come in and be like, you're a stupid person. My genius baby boy is left handy, he's gifted, he's brilliant. I think they were just really, really well, They were really willing to crash out on the idea of like, I don't know, man, he's eating glue,

It was that you were writing brilliant sonnets with your left hand. You were being I was also throwing a lot of rocks. Yeah, lady, we got problems.

Here's a list.

And your mom was like, well, he could be left handed, he could be left handed.

Alone about that.

Left hand contains multitude violence on those five fingers.

Yeah, yeah, I think this massive uptick sort of speaks to what you were talking about before, Vinnie of a different generation, right, Like even when I was a kid, I got my I got my left ear, Piers, but I also knew better quote unquote better than to get both ears, Piers. I think that was also considered like gay when I was a kid, to some extent, and.

There was a weird crossover period. Yeah, I remember that too. There was a weird crossover period where it was like, because it feels like we're a little how old are.

You, Vinnie twenty eight?

Yeah, yeah, we can relate. Uh no, the same same.

Hey man, hey man, I love blue Eto. All right, listen, there was a.

Weird dad, the mom. They're all great.

You know their names.

I don't know their names.

That's crazy.

I do want to say though, that to that point, I do remember being really really young and having an earring being kind of more of a statement, and then being having an earring being normalized, but having two being weird, and then that transition because it was like you have to be real fly to pull that shit off at first. Two earrings.

Pluctuations of culture so fascinating because at one point, like it was the high femme like princes, you know, performers of the world that like they were, you know, allegedly the kind of the sexual icons for what a man would look, you know what I mean, Like they were super famous. Yeah, and you know, quote unquote straight, but they all had like earrings, you know what I mean, both ears whatever, they were done the fuck up.

One of Prince's album covers is him butt naked sitting like an angel. You know what I mean, on top of clouds and covering his chest and penis, and he got so much pussy from that. He got an insane amount of pussy off of that.

And that doesn't make sense. They really let a wolf from the henhouse on that one. But he's such a cute wolf.

Well, the fact you went up from fox to wolf and he says everything.

I think he would describe himself the same way.

To your point about sort of like the generational changes. One of the things that I researched or read is it talks about how for thousands of years more than just like since the eighties, for literally thousands of years, it was more popular or at least as popular for

It's crazy.

At some point you have to wear a lot of jewelry to distract from the inbreeding qualities of your face. Sure, it's the Habsburgs would have to put on sapphires on their ears so you didn't see what was going on between the Sapphires.

I got this big ass change, so you don't see my big ass chin.

In the sun. So the Gli distracts.

By Fuck today, I really look like my parents are cousins. I need some ears something, because fuck I look crazy.

It also does feel very if you just think about it on the whole, it feels very American and very Christian. The idea of not allowing that to men. Yeah, you know what I mean, It feels very puritanical, very like I don't even think of it. I don't see why it would be particularly feminine even, you know what I mean.

I think it's a part of men. It's a part of men are Dirty culture, do you know what I mean? Where it's like if a man isn't disgusting, he's not a man. I think it's an extension of that where it's like if you're not you know, bruised, filthy, and you know you don't care at all, which you look like, then you are actually a lady.

H Yeah, which which I think. I don't think people whose whole sense of humor still revolves around that.

Yeah, A lot of stand up comics.

Brother, I think if we if we can pull this out a little bit to almost a bird's eye view, it does seem like a lot of this sort of like damage that we're doing to each other comes from at least some version of like a monarchy to a the crossover of monarchy and capitalist societies, right where like the wealthy can do whatever the fuck they want, but we have to find ways to keep poor people sort

And a really interesting correlation to that is that kind of the uber rich pop stars nigga wear whatever they want, you know what I mean, bracelets, it truly doesn't matter. But at that same time, the people, the normal people, the proletariat, if you will, oh, could not wear your flexibility?

Yeah, no, it is.

You have to remain malleable when you do not have the resources to survive completely off of your own you know what I mean, You just weigh up and you get to eat, so you gotta you gotta stay fucking flexible. You can't afford to show up with signals that sort of make people question your value here.

I think we did it well. I got a few more things I want to run past you guys.

One of the things that that also came up in all of this is that and David, you sort of spoke to the americanness of this. It turns out in Russia it's the exact opposite that. In Russia it's the right ear that you get pierced if you want to signal to people that you like fuck bitches and not uh and not fuck around with dudes. It's like a warning signal in Russia to that like, hey.

This guy's gonna get some pussy watch out.

Don't know that, Hey watch out, fellas, it's a pussy hound here. But more warning to gay men being like hey no, no, no, not over here.

With that kind of that, that's even funnier because that feels even more so. Let me just make sure they know. I mean, they could look at me, I'm dirty as hell.

But I feel like when it goes that far, it goes from you better not to you better not like big point. At some point it becomes you want them to interact with you. You know, you're begging for them to have some sort of confidence. He's like I hope we don't have to wrestle, you know, like you just waiting for a confrontation the ladies.

Guys in here, I don't bet if there's one in here, better not it's all oiled up.

And find a ship. Realizing here, I'm gonna be mad.

I'm gonna grab that neck.

Must record if they also talk about it.

In one of the articles I read that that China similarly associated the right with heterosexuality rather than homosexuality, but has since banned ear piercings completely.

They were, like, I think.

Probably suffering the same thing you were suffering with your friends, Like we.

Don't know which is which.

None of y'all motherfuckers get to do it now, was it?

We can't get on the same page. I'm taking it from everybody.

Maybe that would have been a better policy. I don't know, because if they if they did opposite ears for each like as soon as a baby boy is born, they do right or left, right or left, they end up with a fifty to fifty gay population, and that's ultimately not gonna work out in the long run.

Can't do that.

We already got too many, too many girls as it is. We we we got problems. We can't focus on this. No more ear piercings. All right, we need to take one more break. But when we come back, I have a little bit more research. I want to run past you guys that I think is going to illuminate this conversation ever more. So we'll be back with more Vannie Thomas and more My Mama told me, My Mama told me presents the Start to Steal Tour. We're very excited about it. Yeah, I'm not about to bite my tongue.

All that meet and greets. You think Chris Brown has a good meet and gree bro, let's be clear.

I'll take a weird picture with you for free.

Pot my butt, pop, pop my butt, Pot my butt, pop, pot my butt.

Do you know what pot my butt meant to Harriet Tubman?

Do you know what that meant?

It meant a whip and we are back whipping y'all into shape on.

This Pop my butt, Pop pop my butt.

It's just very funny that she made her read her own lyrics, you know what I mean?

Like, it's awesome.

You gonna watch that video. It's her mirthless grin. It's like, but hop mine butt.

But like, why do you have to read your own lyrics? You're lyrics, baby girl? Just say I'm out loud, Yeah.

And honestly own it. Wrap that ship. You should have wrapped that ship. Yeah, you should have. You should have acted get it? Who did it? Yeah?

Yeah, Fix my life.

Fix my life. One of the one of the the white whales of our podcast. If we ever get her, well, no, we finally did everything we needed to do here.

I think if she actually wrapped pop my butt, Yamla would have fired a gun into the air. Just the reaction to that would have been explosive, you know.

To gone super saying too just lost their.

Okay, there's a few more things I want to tell you about this, uh, this apparent conspiracy theory. One of the other pieces that came up was this question of signaling. Signaling you mentioned David is sort of a way of I guess, showing to other people. It doesn't always have to be gay people, though I think the term is rooted in sort of gay culture, showing other people markings or or indications that we belong to the same community.

I guess you would drop a hairpin.

I don't know, it's that dropping a hairpin And so let me get graze to yeah, to like show a signal without having to get caught kind of thing.

See, this is what I was talking about. There was so much subtlety and signaling. At some point it must have been exhausted because you would have had to speak a whole different language, like in the in the seventies sixties to let people know. My god, just write your name on a bathroom stall, you know, and be like at three pm, I'm.

So glad you said it. I was thinking it. I was like, that seems like of all these things, that seems like the most reasonable way to do it.

Yeah, name number. Go to a bookstore. Go to a bookstore and just stand in the corner reading a stupid book and people know you're not reading You know what, I.

Meant to get a nut.

This Garfield book ain't that long?

You ain't reading that? What are you doing here?

Come on, mondays that much? No one has mondays like that. Put that buck down.

Mondays. You don't have a job, you lasagna eating bitch.

Yeah yeah, I did always. I did always take an issue with that. I never understood what.

Was the the the these days mean nothing to you. Garfield.

He had a job. Garfield worked for the d O J. Garfield worked in the department of justice. He tap phones, she broke into houses, he arrested people. Uh, kind of a badass for problematic life. I think at the end of the day, damn damn Odi did Odie was unemployed because he got kicked in the.

Head by a horse.

Odi was unemployed and he was collecting the check, but he he wasn't making it. One of the things that they said was made complicated for this signaling, right because it originally originally sort of becomes popular in the eighties and nineties. But the reason they claim at least that these signals started to become problematic is because it gets weaponized by pop culture to some extent.

Right.

There's actually an article from nineteen ninety one in the New York Times, no less, an article entitled Piercing Fad turns convention on its ear that basically exposes in a formal way, which obviously it had probably been speculated on for a long time, but sort of exposes in a formal way that the right ear is the quote unquote wrong ear, or the gay ear, and that then makes it a societal conversation and not just this sort of communal one between gay men.

This was this happened in the eighties.

Right, this article is nineteen ninety one. But the trend I think begins in the eighties.

I don't know what it was. I think there was a lot of there was a lot of witch hunt ism, the cultural witch hunt stuff in the eighties. Like remember what they were telling everyone that dungeons and dragons was like demonic. You know, there was just a lot.

Of there was major satanic panic as well.

Yeah, panic, Yeah, And uh, I think it's part of it. I think that's kind of an extension of it. But also I think as gay people kind of moved into just kind of society, mainstream society as a whole, a lot of the stuff that was traditionally gay became popular, and so it started to hell, yeah George Michael and the.

Rest about the other guy and nobody he doesn't even have name, No he doesn't.

That's wham.

Yeah. No, I think that. I think that definitely that. I think also it's just a very conservative time, yeah, yeah, in general in our country's history, and I think that leads to to a fear around these things.

Yeah, we're we're in the middle of Nancy Reagan telling us not to fuck, not to do drugs, not to to do and she is meanwhile, secretly, secretly she who we want to be doing drugs and fucking with you know what I mean? Nancy should have been like, don't fucking do drugs unless you're trying to get the best.

And that's me. Uh, that's say.

Regan to like, tore down that wall.

We miss you, Nancy. That said, I do think you're right that it's court for job.

In that bit is it's still Ronald Reagan telling him to do it to his wife. That's great job tear down Nancy, just busting it open for freedom.

For freedom. That's good because I don't think I could not if I was president. What the stress? The job would way too heavy. I don't think I would get a lot of directions as the president of the United States.

Oh you think you It would really give you a wrect out dysfunction to be president of the United States. I've always felt like that jobs not as hard as they pretend like it is.

Maybe I'm tripping, maybe I'm yeah, and I think I guess I've always thought they were all that, so it's not that stressful of a job.

Me and David are different. We think every president is a hero.

We have hope. We're not like future alarmist. We believe in the good. Yeah.

I just thought they were all monsters. I was like, there's no way these monsters are waking up stressed every day. They're probably I mean, consider the aging effect of it all. I think what's stressful about it is the the the pace, not the work itself.

Do you know what I mean?

Like you have to be a bunch of places and you have to stay up late, but I think you're kicking it most of the time. It's like business school, you know what I mean? Like those people drink all the time. They just happened to be doing fucking school at the at the exact moment that they're doing it.

Could you imagine being the one that got stuck in a bathtub tagging about that all the time. That would be so milliated. If I was tapped, I would be able to show again, that's just great.

President.

They had to get tools to get you out. Are you.

And I'm still gonna raise taxes?

You know it's crazy. I just assumed they asked him to leave after that.

I never really yes, yes, because how are you? How are you good about a man? How are you good about a man he got himself stuck in about them? How's he gonna make a law?

You know what I mean?

Like, I just assume they were like, uh, mister Taff will obviously get you out, but but you're gonna have We're gonna give you twenty five minutes to pass it up and say your eyes to the stadt.

The doors.

Yeah, the oval office that's closed for the afternoon, and you'll you'll find the door is locked tomorrow morning.

And to drag him out, like, no, you.

Finished the thought? You finished, God damn thought over here.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman, but it's half being dragged out the oval.

And then pushed down the steps in a wheelchair.

Yeah, yeah, they like, stop making those bubbles while he's in the tub.

All right, now, I think we did it. I think this morning we did it.

This was this was great.

It sounds like we're all in agreement that the signaling was probably necessary at a point, but certainly absurd for us as children to buy into. But what are you gonna do when you're raised in a toxic culture that refuses to look at itself?

I concur Yeah, all right, Vinnie, do you want to tell the people where they can find you.

Who sees d.

You UGGI. That was just the funniest possible time to do it.

It was great, And I want to believe you were looking for the entire hour that we spoke.

No no I, I had a queue up. I was just like, where do we uh? I wanted to get away from me. That's perfect.

You can find me at v I n N underscore a y Y. That's at v I n N Underscore a y y on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

Hell yeah, follow Vinnie and and watch Platonic on Apple TV plus.

Vinnie's great. This was so fun. Tell the people where they can find you. Cool guy. Joke City seven on Instagram and TikTok. Go to my Patreon, Patreon, dot com, backslash David borigb oh r I E purchase my special Birth of a Nation. Watch all the videos on there. We've made some real funny stuff. Come see us on tour. Start to steal. Wayne Brady said it's the funnest tour he's ever been on. He said, funnest. Yeah, that's how Wayne Brady talks, and that's how then it improvised a song on the spot.

But yes, please come see us on tour. We're on the Start to Steal tour as we speak. We still have dates in Brooklyn, Boston, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Dallas, a whole bunch of fucking places, So go buy your tickets. We would love to see you out in the road. Know it's always. You can follow me at Langston Herman on all social media platforms and if you want to

Bye bitch.

There was due to a feces thrown all over the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and a stunk so bad my mama told me. Is a production of Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network and iHeart Podcasts.

Greet It and hosted by Langston Krekt, co hosted by David Bori. Executive produced by Will Ferrell, Hansani and Olivia Akilom co produced by Bee Wayne, edited and engineered by Justin Koffy, music by Nick Chambers, artwork by Jogon Kreeta.

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