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(upbeat music)
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This is "I'm Daunted Life of Man's Podcast."
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
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All right guys, today we are gonna be talking
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about the documentary film that has been in the news
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literally since the moment it came out.
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And we're obviously talking about leaving Neverland.
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So this thing came out as of the recording
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of this podcast, it came out, you know,
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a week and a half ago, but it's still in the headlines.
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Every day you go to Google News
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or any type of a news source,
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you still see some sort of an update on this.
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So if you haven't heard of it,
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this was the explosive four hour long HBO documentary
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that details specific sexual assault
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and pedophilia allegations
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against the deceased pop star Michael Jackson, okay?
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So these allegations specifically came from Wade Robson
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and James Safechuck.
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So both of these guys are kind of the center points,
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the center pieces of this four hour long documentary.
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And if the name Wade Robson sounds familiar,
1:02
this guy really rose to fame.
1:03
I guess this would have been what, early 2000s
1:06
or something when in sync and Britney Spears
1:08
are really kind of hitting stride.
1:09
He was the guy I guess did all their choreography
1:12
and stuff like that.
1:13
So if you watched MTV around that time,
1:15
you would really make sure,
1:17
you would probably remember this guy.
1:18
So I remember watching the documentary and be like,
1:19
"Who is this guy?"
1:20
And then finally it hit me.
1:22
But basically in this documentary,
1:24
there was the claim that these two boys weighed in James
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that they were sexually assaulted by Jackson
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at his home, Neverland Ranch,
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in addition to several other places,
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including when the boys would be on tour with Jackson.
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And so the age ranges of when the abuse happened
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was kind of the same for both boys.
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It was like six, seven, eight years old
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through 13, 14 years old, that type of a thing.
1:47
And here's the thing,
1:48
the families of the boys were also a part of this documentary.
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So if it was just focusing on the boys,
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which it was mainly focused on them,
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that would be one thing.
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But they did a lot of diving into the parents
2:00
and the siblings as well,
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but mainly the mothers of these two boys.
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But the thing about these families is,
2:07
especially the parents,
2:08
is the families were essentially groomed by Michael Jackson.
2:12
So the families were apparently taken
2:14
on these lavish trips, given money, houses,
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really it was the good life.
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One of the mothers talked about,
2:20
really was like we were living the good life, right?
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So he's kind of romancing the entire family.
2:26
And the thing about Michael Jackson is as you can remember,
2:29
even while the allegations were swirling,
2:31
Michael Jackson was constantly seeing traveling
2:34
and interacting with young boys.
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I mean, there's just video and audio
2:39
and pictures of him interacting with these young boys
2:42
all the time.
2:44
And I mean, as a little kid,
2:45
whenever Michael Jackson was really, really famous,
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I was a little, little kid.
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And I didn't think anything of it
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'cause there was nothing to think of it, right?
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But many people that have defended Michael Jackson
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over the years in some of his sexual assault allegations,
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many of them said that, you know,
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Michael Jackson, he's just a kid at heart.
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You know, he just, he never really had a childhood.
3:05
And you know, so maybe he's kind of living out
3:08
his boyhood fantasies now as an adult.
3:10
You know, he's, he basically lives at a theme park
3:13
and he's got all these different rides and, you know,
3:15
zoo animals and all these different things.
3:17
But that, there's really no issues, right?
3:19
That, you know, it might be weird
3:21
if a guy down the street from you
3:22
and your neighborhood was doing some of the things
3:24
that he was doing, but not Michael Jackson.
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I mean, this is Michael Jackson we're talking about, right?
3:28
So those were some of the things that people would give you
3:30
in terms of their excuses whenever people would start
3:33
to question why he was hanging around these young boys.
3:36
But really a lot of this came to head in 1993,
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whenever Michael Jackson was investigated
3:41
for sexually assaulting a boy named Jordan Chandler
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and the boy was 13 years old at the time
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of the alleged assaults and those allegations.
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And the thing about this is this was the most explosive story,
3:52
right in the early 90s.
3:54
And so again, I was a little too young
3:55
to really understand the news cycles and things like that.
3:58
But it was, it was international news,
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but it kind of went away quietly.
4:03
And the reason it went away quietly is because it was settled
4:05
out of court for $15 million.
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That's in 1993.
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That's not that long ago, but still that, I mean,
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that's huge, huge money, right?
4:14
Even for today.
4:15
Now the defenders of Michael Jackson around this time,
4:18
you know, they basically said that this was a money grab
4:20
by the Chandler family and that most people,
4:23
basically universally, they believed Jackson's story.
4:26
And we'll get more into that a little bit
4:28
as to why maybe they wanted to believe that.
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But about a decade later, there was a documentary release
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in 2003 called living with Michael Jackson.
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And so it kind of brought these allegations
4:39
and things back to light.
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Basically this documentary in the early 2000s,
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it detailed Jackson, you know, sharing a bed with young boys,
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amongst other things.
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And so some of these things, whenever you're seeing a guy,
4:50
you know, walking around with these young boys
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and, you know, holding hands with them or, you know,
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taking pictures with them, it's like, okay,
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you can kind of suspend belief.
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But when you start hearing about a grown man,
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you know, literally sleeping in bed with young boys,
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like boys are seven, eight, nine years old, right?
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That started to basically bring these things up again.
5:07
So because of that documentary,
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Michael Jackson was actually charged with child molestation,
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serving alcohol to a minor conspiracy and kidnapping, okay?
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So these are huge charges.
5:17
Again, international news all over again,
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because the only thing that had happened from 1993 to 2003
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is that Michael Jackson had become an even bigger star, right?
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He was the biggest star, maybe ever to live
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other than maybe Elvis or the members of the Beatles
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before the before 1993, but by the time of 2003,
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he's kind of in an era of his own, right?
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Like he's kind of ascended to a place
5:38
that no one really has ever ascended to
5:40
and maybe won't ever again.
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The trial actually began in 2005
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and without getting too much into the details of the trial,
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'cause I'm sure you don't really give a crap about that.
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And also it's kind of old news.
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He was found not guilty on all charges,
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but you kind of had the famous video of him
5:56
at Neverland Ranch wearing his red shirt, his face,
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you know, being all weird from all the different surgeries
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he had gotten basically saying how he would never
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hurt a child and, you know, these allegations are bad.
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And, you know, I can't believe anybody would think
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I would do this and, you know, it's so embarrassing for me.
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The police came in and took pictures of my penis
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and my buttocks and my lower torso and all these other things.
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And you just remember all these things happening.
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And you also remember kind of feeling bad for the guy.
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Because, I mean, I think I've mentioned this before
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in other podcasts, there's not really much worse
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a treatment that you could get in life
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than to be non-credibly accused
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of sexually assaulting a minor, right?
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Like that's one of the craziest things
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I could possibly, possibly happen.
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But this is something that's just part
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of the Michael Jackson story.
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Now, going back to the documentary a little bit,
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the two main subjects of leaving Neverland,
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they basically detail the abuse that they suffered.
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And it sounded a lot like the other alleged abuses
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by other boys, right?
6:54
So we see a lot of the same things from the 1993 case,
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the same thing from the 2003 case
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and other ancillary things that have come up here and there.
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And guys, this is gonna be graphic,
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the description I'm about to give.
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So if you are listening to this with your children
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or something like that, perhaps you can pause this
7:08
or you can skip over it or something like that,
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because the thing about it is,
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we don't sanitize anything here on this podcast
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and we're certainly not gonna do so with this.
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So what these two guys said that Michael Jackson would do,
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it was kind of the same progression.
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So it would basically start with them,
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hanging out a lot together,
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it would start with them sleeping in the same room, right?
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So when you think of room,
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you're thinking probably the room that you're in right now.
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But when Michael Jackson had a room,
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it was like, his one room might have multiple stories to it,
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right?
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So he might be in his room,
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but you know, there's a bed downstairs
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and there's a bed upstairs, that type of a thing.
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But then it would eventually get to the point
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where he and the boy would be sleeping in the same bed, right?
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Then Michael Jackson would apparently start to fondle
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the boys' genitals over their clothes, right?
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And then that would go into fondling their genitals
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under their clothes, showing the boys how to masturbate,
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showing them how to masturbate each other,
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basically jerk each other off.
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Jackson would eventually suck the boy's penises.
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And then as you could probably imagine,
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he would eventually convince the boys
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and show them how they could suck his penis.
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He would make them watch hardcore pornography.
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At different points, he would serve them alcohol, right?
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To, I guess, get the inhibitions of a seven year old boy
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to be a little bit more acquiescent.
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He would also make the boys sit naked
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on the end of the bed and they would be on all fours,
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basically exposing their anuses.
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And so he would basically be staring at their anuses
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while they would master, while he would masturbate.
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And at different points, he would come up
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and lick the boys' anuses.
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And all of this kind of led to what he would eventually
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try to do, which was eventually,
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annually penetrate the boys with his penis, right?
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I know that that's really, really uncomfortable
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to kind of go through.
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But that's essentially the behavior
8:57
that Michael Jackson was exhibiting here.
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These are some of the things that he did.
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'Cause I think we're kind of past the point now
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of calling these things alleged crimes, right?
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I mean, the evidence is just pretty damning.
9:08
At this point, I really just don't think we can get away
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with calling these things alleged crimes anymore.
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And that's something that this guy was doing.
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This was a normal behavior for him.
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And he did this literally every day.
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'Cause one of the things you get from this documentary
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is he had a constant, you know,
9:23
basically wheel of boys in his life.
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And when boys would kind of age out, as it were,
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I guess they were no longer very attractive
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to Michael Jackson, he would kind of have a new boy come in,
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right?
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And he would kind of take him through the same thing,
9:37
kind of woo the family and go from there.
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But the behavior that was being exhibited here by Jackson
9:43
was that of someone that knew what he was doing was wrong
9:46
but had this compulsion that he couldn't stop
9:50
but also wanted to take precautions
9:53
to ensure that he wouldn't get caught.
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The documentary does a great job of going into some
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of these precautions and some of the practical precautions
9:59
he had where, you know, he would have rooms.
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So initially, you know, if you were in a hotel,
10:04
like if the family was traveling with Michael Jackson
10:06
on tour or something like that, you know,
10:07
they would have hotel rooms be right next to one another.
10:10
But then on subsequent trips,
10:12
the parents' rooms would become further and further away
10:16
from Michael's rooms, right?
10:18
Just slowly but surely, right?
10:20
In his residences, he had multiple locks on the doors, right?
10:23
So if you could kind of hear somebody jostling
10:26
with the locks if you were gonna be doing something.
10:28
He also had a hallway that led to his room
10:32
and it had, he rigged it up to where there were like sensors
10:36
and bells.
10:37
So if anybody was coming down the hallway,
10:38
it would alert him in his room.
10:40
So if obviously he was raping a kid at that point,
10:43
he could, you know, have him take care of it
10:45
but also one of the things he did with the boys
10:46
and one of the boys actually detailed this
10:49
in the documentary.
10:51
He basically said he would do dry runs with Michael Jackson
10:54
where basically they would, you know,
10:56
take all their clothes off real quick
10:57
and then they would see how quickly and quietly
11:00
they could put all their clothes back on.
11:01
And so Michael kind of treated it like it was a game, right?
11:04
But obviously Michael Jackson was being practical
11:06
in that if they heard or saw someone coming, right?
11:10
Someone might reasonably get into the room
11:12
before they were able to put all their clothes back on
11:15
and then the jig was up at that point, right?
11:17
So at that point, he was basically grooming these kids
11:19
to, you know, basically in a practical way,
11:22
get all their clothes back on
11:23
and pretend like nothing was ever happening.
11:25
But in addition to basically some of the practical preparation,
11:28
Michael Jackson was doing,
11:29
he was also doing psychological preparation.
11:31
So he was convincing the boys
11:33
that they were in a loving relationship.
11:36
So that was some of the psychological parts
11:38
that he was doing is he would always talk about them
11:41
in these glowing terms.
11:43
And again, you got to remember,
11:44
these little boys were fans of his, right?
11:46
I mean, they literally worshiped the ground
11:48
that this guy Moon walked on,
11:50
but at the same time, like he was doing these things to them
11:52
but they're little, so they can't really reconcile the two,
11:55
right?
11:56
He also started basically planting these seeds of discontent
12:00
in the minds of the kids when it came to their parents.
12:03
So he was kind of helping drive a wedge
12:06
between the boys and their parents
12:07
and specifically the moms
12:08
'cause the moms were the ones that were around more often
12:11
in both of these cases.
12:12
And so just basically these little comments basically saying,
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you can't trust anybody, especially women.
12:17
You know, he would say things like no one on the outside
12:20
would understand us, you know, talking to the kids, right?
12:23
No one's gonna understand us.
12:24
So we need to keep this a secret
12:26
because if we let this secret out,
12:28
people just aren't gonna get it, right?
12:30
They don't get it like you get it and like I get it.
12:32
And you know, if something happens to us,
12:34
you know, we're gonna get in a lot of hot water, right?
12:37
If these things come out and he just kept reminding them
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that, hey, if you tell anybody,
12:41
then I go to jail for the rest of my life
12:43
and you'll go to jail for the rest of your life, right?
12:45
So you're putting two types of psychological dangers
12:49
in the mind of the kid, one, that their idol
12:51
is gonna go to jail forever,
12:53
which is a terrible thing to think about,
12:54
but then also they themselves would be going to jail.
12:57
So the thing about this is the documentary came out.
13:01
In terms of a documentary, it's well done
13:05
and no one can really go against, you know,
13:07
how it was made or something like that.
13:09
But this has not stopped Jackson's fans
13:12
from coming out of the woodwork
13:14
to defend their dead favorite pop icon, right?
13:18
Now, the thing about his fans that have come out after this,
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basically, you know, shouting down
13:23
and flaming this documentary is that none of them,
13:26
of course, have any firsthand knowledge
13:28
of the incidents, right?
13:29
None of them are even ancillary connected to anybody
13:32
that's in the Jackson camp or Jackson family
13:34
or any of those things.
13:35
But they just like his music, right?
13:38
And we'll get more into that in here just a second
13:41
because that is really, really pertinent
13:42
to what we're gonna be talking about.
13:44
But they're basically outraged
13:46
that these allegations came up after Jackson had died, right?
13:49
As if the first time anyone had ever made these allegations,
13:53
it was after the man had been dead.
13:54
I think he's been dead for almost 10 years, right?
13:56
And so there's outrage that these allegations
13:59
would come out against the man
14:00
who's not there to defend himself
14:02
as if, you know, that's kind of the main issue, right?
14:05
And both the accusers in the documentary
14:07
had previously testified on Jackson's behalf
14:10
during his court cases, right?
14:13
And so here's the thing where I kind of like, you know,
14:15
I can kind of see their perspective is both of these men
14:18
that have since come out and said that Michael Jackson
14:20
did all these terrible things to them,
14:22
came to his defense in a court of law
14:25
with threat of perjury hanging over their heads, right?
14:28
And at those times, they basically said, no,
14:30
Michael Jackson never did anything like this to us
14:32
only to later come out and change their stories.
14:35
So some say that these two accusers
14:37
are just after money now because we don't know a whole lot
14:40
about these guys and kind of what they're worth,
14:43
but we can assume they're not worth
14:44
nearly as much as Michael Jackson is,
14:46
so they're trying to get some of that MJ money, right?
14:48
But the thing about it is,
14:51
and I think it's fair to say in this documentary,
14:53
whenever you look at the documentary,
14:54
you can see that these boys were under a complete amount
14:58
of mind control and it was coming from Jackson,
15:01
that even years after, even as they were adults,
15:04
they were still kind of under his spell
15:07
to a certain degree, right?
15:08
And so were the families, right?
15:10
That Michael couldn't possibly have done this
15:12
and it's just, they were still so enamored with the guy,
15:15
so in love with them, like really, in real terms,
15:18
a familial type of love, but also a romantic type of love,
15:21
they were in love with this guy,
15:23
and they were willing to do anything to protect him.
15:25
Michael Jackson had done such a fantastically astute job
15:29
of making sure that these boys
15:31
would never be able to come out against him.
15:33
And in large part, they didn't, right?
15:36
There were two boys that were able to come out
15:38
and make credible allegations,
15:39
but Jackson never really served any time for it.
15:42
He died at the age of 50
15:43
and he spent basically no time behind bars.
15:46
But these boys, it wasn't that they suppressed the memories.
15:51
I know that's a psychological phenomenon
15:53
that you can actually suppress incredibly hurtful memories
15:55
from your past because your brain doesn't really know
15:57
or your subconscious doesn't really know
15:59
how to deal with those things.
16:00
But at the same time, this was not something
16:03
that these boys conjured up later.
16:05
I just didn't get that sense whatsoever
16:07
in watching the documentary that these boys
16:09
were doing something, in cahoots
16:11
with one another.
16:12
Oh, we're gonna get paid by a documentary
16:13
and then we're gonna sue the Jackson family,
16:15
make all this money and all that.
16:16
I literally just think it was one of those times
16:18
and one of the accusers actually said this wait.
16:20
He was like, look, I was at a point where I could not,
16:23
I was not in a mature enough place
16:25
to where I could deal with these emotions, right?
16:27
Because whenever Wade came forth
16:30
and actually testified at Michael Jackson's trial,
16:32
I think he was like 20, maybe 21 years old at the time.
16:35
And need I remind you guys what you were like
16:39
at the age of 20 or 21,
16:41
maybe you were emotionally stunted,
16:42
maybe you were immature,
16:43
maybe you had some really, really stupid opinions.
16:45
I mean, I talk about that all the time.
16:47
Your brain is not fully developed until you're 25.
16:50
So all these massive amounts of emotions
16:53
and decisions that you have to make,
16:55
you know, always make them great.
16:56
And if other people are viewing it
16:58
or even you're looking back and trying to have, you know,
17:01
2020 vision on the subject,
17:02
it's not really gonna work out for you.
17:04
So the whole time I'm watching this documentary,
17:06
I just didn't get the sense
17:07
that these guys weren't being truthful,
17:09
especially in the face of all the allegations
17:11
that we had seen before.
17:13
Now, as you can imagine, Michael Jackson's estate,
17:16
they're obviously very, very concerned
17:18
about Jackson's legacy.
17:19
Believe it or not, the Jackson estate has made billions,
17:24
billions with a B dollars since the man has died.
17:27
Like, so they've got a lot to protect here.
17:30
So Ergo, I mean, basically his fortunes on the line,
17:34
the Jackson estate has actually filed
17:35
a hundred million dollar lawsuit against HBO,
17:38
which I mean, if you're HBO, you knew this was coming, right?
17:41
HBO's got lawyers too, and you know,
17:43
they had to know that this was gonna be coming down the pike.
17:46
Now, apparently they can't file the Jackson camp.
17:48
They can't file a defamation suit against Michael Jackson
17:52
because he's dead.
17:53
But what they're doing, this is really, really strange,
17:55
but they're claiming that this documentary,
17:58
Leaving Neverland, actually disparages Jackson's public image,
18:02
which it clearly does.
18:04
But apparently back in 1992, HBO, in part of the contract
18:08
to get the rights to show one of Jackson's
18:10
live concert performances on their channel,
18:13
they had to basically sign something saying
18:15
that they would never disparage Jackson's public image
18:18
in any way.
18:19
And so they're basically filing a hundred million dollar
18:21
lawsuit to say that that's exactly what HBO did
18:24
with this documentary.
18:26
So no idea how that's gonna work out.
18:27
Honestly, I don't give a crap.
18:29
Now, the thing that we've seen though,
18:31
is that other people have acted and reacted to this documentary
18:35
in a more appropriate fashion.
18:37
So there are radio stations all over the world
18:39
that have stopped playing Jackson's music,
18:42
The Simpsons cartoon.
18:43
I mean, they pulled a Michael Jackson themed episode
18:46
from circulation.
18:47
There was actually, I guess, a statue of Michael Jackson
18:50
at the National Football Museum,
18:53
basically the National Soccer Museum
18:56
over in Manchester, England,
18:57
which why was that up there anyway to begin with?
19:00
You've even seen guys like Drake.
19:01
He had some different performances
19:03
that were centered around Michael Jackson
19:05
and sampling some of his songs.
19:07
He's pulled those from his concert.
19:08
The Lakers, you know, had something to do
19:10
with their in stadium entertainment
19:12
that had his music on it.
19:13
So they pulled that.
19:14
You know, there's people that are Michael Jackson
19:16
impersonators and performers.
19:18
And, you know, for the time being,
19:19
they're pausing their performances
19:21
and blah, blah, and all this different stuff.
19:23
You know, it is what it is.
19:24
So those are those people
19:25
that are kind of reacting on that side.
19:26
So to kind of wrap up the synopsis
19:28
just about the documentary itself,
19:30
the documentary is really, really well done, guys.
19:32
So in my opinion, I think it's worth the watch.
19:35
But it is four hours long.
19:36
So really, the only reason that I watched it
19:38
is because I really wanted to talk to you guys about it.
19:40
It was still really pertinent.
19:42
So that's why I took four hours out of my schedule
19:44
that I didn't really have to watch this crazy documentary.
19:47
But as with anything that we're gonna bring up here
19:49
on this podcast, there are some important things
19:52
that we need to think about as thinking Christians,
19:55
but specifically as Christian men,
19:56
that this documentary really helped kind of suss out.
19:59
And so you may have heard some of these questions
20:01
basically put out in the public sphere
20:02
and you're hearing a lot of different opinions
20:04
on it right now, but I'll kind of give you mine on it.
20:05
So the three questions,
20:07
I'll just go with the first one here.
20:09
So the first one is does celebrity or fame blind us?
20:14
And I think the answer is very, very clearly, yes, right?
20:20
Because here's the thing,
20:21
quick bit of advice to the parents out there.
20:24
Keep your head on a swivel, please.
20:27
I mean, go back to episode 37 in 63 of this podcast
20:30
where we talked about the devil in the Catholic church
20:32
and the Southern Baptist Convention, right?
20:35
A lot of this abuse is happening right under our noses,
20:38
right?
20:39
We notice things, we see things that we don't like
20:41
in certain people, but ah, you know, we just kind of like,
20:43
you know, play it off as if it's nothing.
20:45
And guys, again, this isn't just happening
20:47
in the Catholic church.
20:48
It's not just happening in the Southern Baptist Convention.
20:50
It's happening at public schools.
20:52
It's happening at private schools.
20:53
It's happening in Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts.
20:56
It's happening in sports teams.
20:57
It's happening with family members
20:59
at reunions, it's happening all the time.
21:01
So the thing about this documentary
21:04
that has been universally the same
21:06
is the reaction to the parents.
21:08
I mean, these parents seem like adults.
21:12
It's like, are you kidding me?
21:15
As adults with children, seven, eight, nine year old boys.
21:21
At what point did you get the idea
21:23
that leaving your little boy with a grown man
21:27
and allowing him to sleep in the same room with that man
21:32
to just say that that's okay?
21:34
'Cause that's the thing.
21:36
These parents were not out of the loop.
21:38
It's not like they didn't know that was happening.
21:41
They basically signed off on it.
21:43
I mean, there was one parent, I forget which mom it was,
21:48
but at one point, Michael Jackson was asking this mom
21:53
if he could have the boy for a year, right?
21:58
Basically, because again, he was gonna help him
21:59
with his dancing and help him get commercials
22:02
and things like that.
22:02
Again, kind of romancing and wooing the entire family.
22:05
But like, that was the straw for this mom.
22:08
How dare you ask me to keep my son for a year?
22:11
That is my son.
22:12
We're going back to our town.
22:13
You're not coming with this blah, blah, blah,
22:15
that kind of thing.
22:16
That was the final straw.
22:18
But hey, you guys go on your family vacation
22:21
to the Grand Canyon and leave your seven year old son here
22:24
at Neverland Ranch with me.
22:27
No big deal, okay.
22:29
All right, son, we'll see you in a week.
22:31
And this was not in the days of cell phones
22:34
where you could just get a quick text or a quick update.
22:36
You basically didn't see that boy for a week.
22:39
No big deal.
22:40
So the thing about this question does celebrity
22:43
and fame blind us, of course it does.
22:46
Because you want to believe that these people are good people.
22:49
You just want to.
22:51
And it blinds us to make really, really bad decisions
22:54
that have had really, really dire consequences.
22:56
And the second question that this documentary begs is,
23:00
are we consistent in how we view situations like this?
23:04
Are we consistent in how we view them?
23:07
Because the way that you need to look about this,
23:09
and there's a lot of different examples out there,
23:11
is it's when we like someone or something
23:14
versus not liking certain other somethings or people, right?
23:19
So the first example I guess that came to mind for me
23:22
is, you know, Mark McGuire.
23:24
So growing up being a St. Louis Cardinals fan,
23:27
being called Lil Mac, having red hair, you know,
23:29
Big Mac having, having red hair
23:30
and doing all those different things, you know,
23:33
I defended him for so long on these steroid allegations
23:37
because I was like, look, we've seen no evidence.
23:39
There's nothing to suggest
23:40
that this guy would have done these things,
23:42
but you know, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens
23:44
and Sammy Sosa and Andy Pettit
23:46
and Rafael Palmero and Jose Conseco,
23:48
those guys clearly did it.
23:51
And so it wasn't until Mark McGuire came out
23:53
and said, yeah, I actually did do those things.
23:55
And when Tony Russo had, you know,
23:57
hired him to be the hitting coach,
23:58
I guess one of the caveats was,
23:59
hey, Mark, you're gonna have to come clean with this
24:01
'cause we don't want this following our team around
24:03
for the next 162 games, right?
24:06
But I defended him the whole way,
24:07
but I didn't defend those other guys
24:08
'cause I didn't like those other guys.
24:09
They didn't play for my team, right?
24:13
But now I consider Marvin Wired
24:14
to be just the same as the rest of those guys.
24:17
It's not worse.
24:19
I mean, I feel like, you know,
24:20
he didn't have the storied career that Barry Bonds did,
24:23
but his 70 home runs,
24:24
basically saving baseball in 1998
24:26
along with another juicer, Sammy Sosa.
24:28
I mean, that's a problem for me.
24:30
And here, the problem has gotten so bad now
24:33
for me when it comes to cheating.
24:34
I just, I don't have any sympathy for these guys,
24:36
but St. Louis Cardinals fans voted
24:38
and Mark McGuire into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
24:39
And I was sick to my stomach at that.
24:42
Same thing whenever you see Barry Bonds come out
24:44
at AT&T Park or whatever it's called now on San Francisco
24:47
and get into standing ovation.
24:49
You know, when these dopes in Milwaukee,
24:51
you know, we're cheering for Ryan Braun,
24:52
who basically tried to ruin a guy's career
24:54
by lying about the testing,
24:55
calling the guy basically an anti-Semite,
24:58
because, you know, Ryan Braun's Jewish,
24:59
like I just couldn't stand any of that.
25:02
But then the thing is, is again,
25:03
I'm trying to think about how we can be consistent.
25:05
So I have all this crazy anger towards a guy like,
25:09
you know, Barry Bonds,
25:10
who's kind of like the poster boy for cheating.
25:12
But at the same time, I love Chael Sonnen.
25:16
So for those of you who don't know who Chael Sonnen is,
25:18
he's an MMA fighter.
25:19
He fought in the UFC.
25:19
Now he's fighting in Bellator.
25:21
He's gotten a lot of title shots.
25:22
He's lost him all,
25:23
but he's had a lot of title shots, you know,
25:25
considered to be the greatest trash talker
25:27
in the history of MMA.
25:28
Yes, even over Conor McGregor,
25:30
who will, you know, talk about here in just a second.
25:32
But basically, Chael Sonnen,
25:34
he was, he was basically one eighth Tropicana at some point.
25:38
He was on so much juice, it was ridiculous.
25:40
And he kind of details the parts.
25:42
I mean, even after he almost beat Anderson Silva,
25:44
you know, he got triangled at the very, very end
25:46
of the fifth round,
25:46
even if he had won that fight,
25:48
taken the belt,
25:48
he would have had to concede the belt back to Anderson
25:50
or just, you know, back to the ether
25:52
because he had popped the Chael Sonnen cheated
25:55
for the overwhelming majority of his career.
25:57
He's still fighting in Bellator,
25:59
but he's fighting at a higher weight class.
26:00
There's no real signs that he's continued to cheat.
26:02
But this guy knows everything there is to know
26:05
about cheating and he admits that now.
26:08
But every time Chael Sonnen fights,
26:10
I'm rooting for him.
26:11
You know, it's just like, I'm really inconsistent there.
26:17
And here's the point out even more of my inconsistency,
26:20
I cannot stand Floyd Mayweather.
26:22
And the specific reason that I can't stand Floyd Mayweather
26:24
is because he hits women.
26:26
He beats women.
26:27
And yes, he's gone to prison, he's done his time,
26:30
but he's not really repentant.
26:32
He's not really living a life of somebody
26:33
that is repented of that, right?
26:35
And so I'm very big on the fact that like,
26:38
I don't wanna watch Floyd Mayweather fight.
26:40
I don't wanna pay for his fights.
26:41
I don't wanna go to a bar where his fights are playing
26:42
where I'm actually buying food.
26:44
That's gonna support him.
26:45
But at different points in my life,
26:47
I've been cheering for Anthony Rumble Johnson,
26:50
UFC fighter, that's been brought up multiple times
26:53
on domestic abuse charges.
26:55
Now again, he was not convicted of those charges,
26:58
but he was, the evidence was not really in his favor.
27:02
So I root for Rumble Johnson,
27:04
but I can't root for Floyd Mayweather.
27:06
Here's another one, Chris Brown.
27:08
I really, really like Chris Brown's music, right?
27:10
So judge me, judge me harshly.
27:12
But for whatever reason, his songs
27:14
and whoever's doing most of his production, it just fits.
27:17
I just love it.
27:18
This guy beat up Rihanna.
27:20
He hit women too.
27:21
But I still listen to his music and enjoy it.
27:24
He's kind of been a jerk, even since then.
27:26
He's kind of been getting in and out of trouble,
27:28
basically being rain bunches.
27:30
And guys, literally, less than an hour ago
27:32
before I hit play on this, on this, you know, recording,
27:36
Conor McGregor, my favorite fighter, probably, of all time,
27:40
one of the greatest fighters of all time.
27:42
And clearly, the biggest star in the history
27:44
of mixed martial arts and like top five biggest star
27:47
in the history of combat sports,
27:48
he just got arrested today.
27:50
Apparently, a fan was getting his face down in Miami,
27:53
so he took the fan's phone and broke it
27:55
and then took the phone and all that.
27:56
So he was arrested for, you know,
27:58
basically stealing the dude's phone and breaking it.
28:01
And like, that's my dude.
28:04
The next time he fights,
28:05
I guarantee you I'm gonna be rooting for him.
28:06
There's not anyone that you could put him
28:08
in the octagon against that I'm gonna root for the other guy.
28:10
There's not a guy out there.
28:11
So consistency, there's not there.
28:14
Or with that situation, it's not there.
28:16
Also, for those of you guys that know,
28:17
I'm going in a lot of different subject matters,
28:18
but I just wanna kind of show you,
28:20
what about the band Azalea Dying?
28:22
So a lot of you guys know the band Azalea Dying,
28:24
and if you know the band, you obviously know the story.
28:26
The lead singer of that band several years ago
28:29
was caught trying to pay a hit man to kill his wife, right?
28:34
It's just crazy situation.
28:36
The guy at the gym that, you know, he thought was,
28:38
you know, a hit man was actually an undercover cop,
28:41
which thank God that he was talking to an undercover cop
28:44
and not an actual hit man.
28:45
Because if he was talking to an actual hit man,
28:47
his wife's probably dead today,
28:48
but the thing was, is he was caught.
28:50
He went to jail, he served several years in prison,
28:52
but now he's out and wouldn't you know it,
28:54
Azalea Dying's back together.
28:56
So I'm kind of in this quandary right now
28:58
to where it's like, well, if they do a show in Oklahoma City,
29:00
do I go to it?
29:01
I mean, should I follow them on Instagram?
29:04
Because the thing is, the other four band mates,
29:07
it wasn't their fault what the lead singer,
29:08
Tim Lambysus did, it wasn't their fault.
29:10
But again, I have to think about the fact
29:12
that this guy who was gone to jail,
29:15
but this guy thought he was paying a guy 1,200 bucks
29:18
to murder his wife.
29:19
And what if he, what if it worked?
29:21
Like, that's really inconsistent of me.
29:24
But here's another one for you guys to think of
29:25
before I belabor this point too far.
29:27
What about pastors?
29:28
So we've got pastors out there that, you know,
29:32
they've maybe cheated on their wives
29:36
or they've abused patrons or they've abused, you know,
29:40
poise or something like that.
29:41
Like think about those people.
29:43
Everyone's kind of got their favorite pastor,
29:46
people that they don't really want a lot of their things
29:49
to kind of go out the window.
29:50
And that kind of leads us into this third question
29:53
that I want to set up for you guys.
29:54
So again, the three questions it begs is one,
29:56
does celebrity slash flame blind us?
30:00
The second is, are we consistent in how we view situations?
30:03
And the third is kind of a two-part question,
30:05
but the first part here is kind of the micro side,
30:07
which is, can we separate the art from the artist?
30:09
And this is that question that is on everybody's mind.
30:13
This is what blogs are being written about.
30:15
They're doing, you know, sessions on shows
30:18
and they're doing podcast episodes on this exact subject.
30:21
And Michael Jackson being the center of an house.
30:23
Can we separate the art from the artist?
30:26
And this is, this is that big question.
30:28
But in my opinion, guys, I say yes, we can do that, right?
30:33
So specifically talking about Michael Jackson,
30:35
I remember loving Michael Jackson when I was a little kid,
30:37
right?
30:38
I can't even remember which music was out at that time,
30:40
you know, and all kinds of run kind of runs together.
30:42
But I do remember us kind of gathering around the television
30:45
and there was this Michael Jackson special
30:48
that was showing on one of the big three channels
30:49
or something like that.
30:50
But in this specific dance thing, you know,
30:53
I think he was dancing on top of a car
30:55
and he like punched the car windows out.
30:56
But he apparently grabbed his crotch like a hundred times
30:59
or something like that during this short little performance
31:01
on television.
31:02
And from that point forward, my parents were like,
31:04
nope, we're not doing Michael Jackson anymore.
31:05
You can't listen to his music, you can't watch any of his videos.
31:07
No more Michael Jackson.
31:08
Again, I'm a little kid.
31:09
What does it matter?
31:10
My parents can take away whatever they want
31:12
because I'm living in their house.
31:14
But, you know, fast forward to being a senior in high school,
31:17
I danced to Michael Jackson in front of the entire school.
31:21
Me and a group of guys, we danced to beat it.
31:24
Yeah, we danced to beat it.
31:25
And I did the same thing as a freshman in college.
31:28
The same song, the same routine, different crew of people.
31:31
You know, I used his music to basically entertain my friends
31:35
and entertain a bunch of strangers, you know,
31:38
jammed out to his music at a lot of different points.
31:40
Really, really have enjoyed it.
31:42
But the thing about it is we've got to be able
31:46
to separate the art from the artists.
31:48
And the big reason is it's 'cause we don't know these people.
31:54
So the example I want to point out for you
31:56
is how many people are you currently fans of?
32:00
So let's think of artists, let's think of singers,
32:02
let's think of rappers, let's think of dancers,
32:04
let's think of actors and actresses,
32:06
let's think of pastors as we brought up earlier,
32:09
let's think of athletes, let's think of politicians,
32:11
people that you just like.
32:13
Guys, you have no idea what level of depravity
32:17
exists inside that person.
32:18
But we can assume that there's not like zero depravity.
32:24
Everyone's got their skeletons in the closet
32:26
and things like that, right?
32:27
You know, some guys just, you know, maybe they work too much
32:29
or they're a workaholic or maybe some guys drink
32:31
a little bit too much.
32:32
And some people rape boys.
32:33
But the thing is, is we don't know these people.
32:37
Just think about it, what if no one ever came forward
32:41
against Michael Jackson, right?
32:43
So we don't have the case in 1993,
32:45
we don't have the case in 2003,
32:46
we don't have that first documentary
32:48
and we don't have this HBO documentary.
32:50
It doesn't erase the things that he did,
32:53
but billions of people around the world
32:56
just wouldn't have known about it.
32:58
And I can guarantee you, there are guys in your life
33:00
in my life right now, things that you're fans of,
33:02
you know, directors that have certain movies
33:05
that you just love, every single thing that they put out there
33:07
that are horrible, horrific people,
33:09
that have done unbelievable, unspeakable things, right?
33:13
We don't know these people.
33:15
So we have to suspend the art from the artists
33:20
because almost all of us don't know any of those artists.
33:23
So I know some people are making a lot of different
33:26
declarations on both sides of the issue,
33:29
but no, I don't think that's a problem.
33:31
I think we can absolutely separate these two things.
33:33
But the second part of this,
33:34
and this is kind of like part three,
33:36
or you know, part two of the third question,
33:38
this is more the macro idea,
33:40
is is it possible to sanitize history completely?
33:44
So again, the micro side is,
33:45
can we separate the art from the artists?
33:47
The macro side is, is it possible
33:48
to sanitize history completely?
33:50
And obviously the answer is no, we can't.
33:52
So look at the movement right now.
33:54
You see a lot of people in the political left
33:56
that are wanting to whitewash history, right?
33:59
So we've got to remove Confederate statues.
34:02
We have to remove all mention of George Washington
34:05
or Thomas Jefferson or any of those guys
34:08
because they own slaves, right?
34:10
So since those guys own slaves,
34:12
we need to take their names off of streets.
34:14
We need to take them off of universities.
34:16
We need to take all their statues down.
34:18
But here's the thing is if you use that philosophy,
34:20
you have to take all the people
34:22
into account with that philosophy, right?
34:25
So what do we do with Martin Luther King, Jr.?
34:28
Because if you guys didn't know,
34:29
that guy was a horrific husband.
34:32
Not only did he beat his wife,
34:34
he cheated on her innumerable times.
34:36
That was just something that Martin Luther King, Jr. did.
34:38
And as a pastor, he didn't even believe in the Trinity.
34:41
So what do we do with Martin Luther King, Jr.?
34:45
Do we just get rid of the, I have a dream speech?
34:48
Do we just get rid of the letter from Birmingham Jail?
34:51
Do we get rid of all the amazing things he did
34:53
for all people, including people of color in this country?
34:57
Can we do that?
34:58
What about Gandhi, Mohammad Gandhi?
35:01
That guy, Mr. Pacifist, not gonna hurt a fly.
35:05
He beat his entire family mercilessly.
35:08
What do we do with Gandhi?
35:11
Do we just get rid of all the great things
35:13
that he contributed to humanity?
35:16
Do we get rid of his celebrity?
35:17
Do we get rid of the historicity
35:19
around the things that he did and accomplished?
35:21
So again, this is why we can separate the art
35:25
from the artists.
35:26
Because we can't know these people
35:28
and we can't sanitize history.
35:30
We can't make the sin go away.
35:32
I mean, look at Bill Cosby.
35:33
Are you telling me that if somebody put on
35:34
one of those old Bill Cosby comedy records
35:36
that you wouldn't sit there and laugh?
35:38
The stuff's funny.
35:39
He was a horrifically evil man.
35:42
Or he, he's still alive.
35:43
He is a horrifically evil man
35:45
that did crazy evil things.
35:48
But his art that he contributed is still okay, right?
35:53
Now we look at it differently and to a large degree,
35:56
I agree with that.
35:58
But it's gonna be impossible for us.
36:00
If we got rid of every single piece of art or entertainment
36:04
that came from somebody that was depraved,
36:06
we would have no art or entertainment left.
36:09
Because we've all sinned and fallen short
36:11
of the glory of God.
36:12
There's a lot of people that have done things
36:14
that are way far beyond anything that you've ever imagined.
36:16
But again, we can't just whitewatch it.
36:19
So guys, in totality, there's no biblical issue here.
36:23
There certainly no salvific issue here
36:25
as you're kind of thinking, you know,
36:26
what do I do with Michael Jackson?
36:27
What do I do with Bill Cosby?
36:28
What do I do with all these people?
36:29
There's none of that here.
36:31
The thing I would caution you guys, if we're being honest
36:33
and we're breaking it down to a very specific level,
36:36
is, you know, where you put your dollars?
36:39
'Cause you know this, you've heard every pastor
36:40
on the planet say something along the lines of
36:42
where you put your dollars, that's also where your heart is,
36:44
right?
36:45
Where you put your attention is where your heart is.
36:47
And so I kind of have issues
36:50
going back to the Azalea dying example.
36:51
I'll probably never see that band in concert.
36:54
'Cause that's a direct way of contributing to them as a band.
36:58
And I just don't feel good about that,
37:00
supporting that lead singer who's sort of repentant,
37:03
but you can't really know if he's actually repented.
37:05
So that would be the thing I would caution you guys.
37:07
So again, the documentary was very well done.
37:09
I think it's worth your time to take a look.
37:11
But there's a lot of things that we can glean from it,
37:13
that as-thinking Christians,
37:14
we should be able to apply in our everyday lives.
37:16
All right, guys, I'm gonna do a quick resilience boost.
37:18
As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry
37:19
and our mission is cultivating mainly resilience.
37:21
And specifically, we do that by providing content
37:24
that forges spiritual, mental, and physical toughness.
37:26
And so I don't have an exact link for you guys
37:28
to check out today in terms of what type
37:30
of resilience boost that we're gonna do.
37:31
I am just gonna encourage you to go to HBO.
37:34
So for those of you that have HBO,
37:36
I'm sure it's just gonna be playing on loop
37:37
on their different stations.
37:38
If you have just a subscription of any kind,
37:41
you can go to HBO Go and check that out.
37:43
So I just wanna leave some capacity here
37:44
if you guys actually did wanna go in
37:46
and take down that documentary.
37:48
All right, guys, thanks as always
37:49
for listening to the podcast.
37:50
If you would, please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud,
37:53
or Google Play and refer your friends to listen
37:55
and make sure to share this on social media.
37:57
If you use the hashtag on Daunted Life,
37:59
we'll be sure to find the post and give it a thumbs up.
38:01
Guys, if we deserve a five-star review,
38:02
please leave us one here.
38:04
That's how this podcast is gonna continue to grow
38:06
is if you guys let us know you like the content
38:08
and leave us a few sentences letting us know why.
38:10
I'm currently booking speaking engagements
38:12
for the entirety of 2019.
38:14
So if you want me to be a guest on your podcast,
38:16
if you want me to come speak at your men's event,
38:18
talk to your team, talk to your business,
38:19
just hit me up, my email is info@undaunted.life,
38:23
again info@undaunted.life.
38:25
The website is www.undaunted.life.
38:27
You can follow us on Instagram,
38:28
and Twitter @undauntedlife or Facebook.com/undauntedlife.
38:33
Check out our free devotionals on the U-version Bible app.
38:35
Just search "undaunted life" under plans.
38:37
And as always, we want to thank the band August Burns Red
38:39
for allowing us to use their entire music library
38:41
for our content.
38:42
The intro outro track on this podcast
38:44
is our song "King of Sorrow,"
38:45
which is off their latest record entitled "Fantom Anthem."
38:47
The links to all of this are in the description.
38:50
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
38:52
Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience,
38:55
keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical toughness.
38:58
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
39:01
(upbeat music)
39:03
(upbeat music)