The One With The Prophet

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Trumpets have sounded and the end is nigh,
but have no fear, your prophet is here.

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I'm the Fresh King Benjamin, host of
Vibing the Apocalypse, a podcast that uses

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comedy to bring injustices that I went
through to light.

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I'm an escapee from a Mormon polygamist
compound in Wyoming.

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I was taught that the world was a wicked,
wicked place.

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But now that I've escaped, I want you to
show me all the wicked things and help me

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catch up on what I missed out on.

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Check out Vibing the Apocalypse right here
on Ride the Wave Media.

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This is Sarah Albert with Daybreak
Treasures Boutique, and I would like to

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let you know about some watercolor
workshops coming up.

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We have a Winter Wonderland Watercolor
with Shelly Clough at Biscots Bakery.

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That's 6172 Westlake Avenue in South
Jordan on Thursday, January 18th, 530 to 8

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p.m.

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Go sign up at Dayb art workshops, and book
your spot.

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Hey guys, it's Just Blaine, Bex, and Sarah
here.

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We all three got something in common.

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Take a guess what it is, or don't.

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I'll tell you, we all have been going to
the Daybreak Business Networking lunches.

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Bex, tell us a little bit more about that.

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Yeah, we have.

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That's actually where we met our good
friends, Sarah.

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Thank you for setting those up.

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They have been so much fun.

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Sarah, I know you have some exciting news
to announce of where our group is headed

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in the month of January.

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So go ahead and share those details.

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Yeah, January, we're moving over to Novell
Daybreak Apartments in the Clubhouse.

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So please come on out and meet us there.

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business owners of Daybreak, get out here
you got to.

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This has been one of the best things for
all the business owners that have been a

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part of this for the last couple of
months.

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Don't miss out 1pm on Wednesdays, Novell
Daybreak Apartments.

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See you there.

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The following program is powered by Ride
the Wave Media.

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Introducing the best podcast in Utah,
Radio Daybreak.

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Here are your hosts, Jess Plain and Bex.

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Oh yes, here we are.

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I'm excited.

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I'm really excited.

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It's gonna be a good show, but I'm also
excited because radiodaybreak.com is now

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up, Bex.

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It is up and running.

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We are official.

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Super official.

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Who did that website for us?

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It looks so awesome, doesn't it?

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Doesn't it?

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It looks so great.

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Yeah, so it is Sawyer Norman.

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and Kaylee from Agency.

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They are rock star marketers, love them.

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They did such an awesome job.

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Tweaked our logo up a little bit, kinda
gave us a little bit of a retro vibe and

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let us know you guys, let us know what you
think.

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So www.

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go check it out.

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We're up and running.

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Blaine.

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You're wearing a scarf today.

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I'm just wondering about the scarf.

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Like what's going on?

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I am wearing a scarf and we're inside.

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So we're not recording this outside or
anything, but it's cold outside.

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Like it's cold everywhere.

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Have you looked?

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Check this out.

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There was an NFL game over the weekend.

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It was the Chiefs and the Dolphins.

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First of all, how are you going to get the
Miami Dolphins to come out there and play

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a negative 30?

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I don't know.

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I feel pretty bad for two of them.

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Like what, what?

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It was the fourth coldest game in NFL
history.

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You gotta be kidding me.

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Patrick Mahomes got hit so hard his helmet
got cracked.

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You're telling me that's safe for those
guys, got it?

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Speaking of the NFL, Rock and Wave Media
dropped a sports show talking about all

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this over the weekend.

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Right, yes.

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Former NFL player, former Denver Broncos,
still works for the organization, Nick

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Ferguson, and a good buddy of mine, Alex
Hardy.

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Hey, he's no stranger to the cold.

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He's no stranger to the cold up there in
Denver.

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Look, I asked Nick, what's the coldest
temp you ever played in?

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I asked him while we were watching that
game, and he said 15 degrees and 6

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windshield.

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So...

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That's chilly, but that was not close to
Nick.

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He said I and Nick played in the CFL.

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He played up in Canada at one point.

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Okay, never hit those temperatures like
that.

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He said that would not have been fun in
that game.

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I mean, the Bill's game was canceled,
right?

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Or they just played it a couple days ago.

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Yeah.

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So it's crazy what the weather's doing and
moving stuff around.

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Just wild.

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What do you got going on, Bex?

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Well, I mean, besides falling on the ice
on my front steps this morning, trying to

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shovel the ice and snow off my front
porch.

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No, I'm fine.

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I'm fine.

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Just a little bit of a left knee injury at
this point.

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Speaking of cold, but yeah, we're
recovering.

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But we've got so many fun things coming
up, Blaine.

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We've got so much coming up.

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We've got the Daybreak Business Network
meetings.

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We've got that every Wednesday from one to
two thirty.

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It is awesome.

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We're gonna be introducing our good friend
Ben here in just a little bit, but he also

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comes to those network meetings.

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So come and say hello.

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That's right, yeah.

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We also have some awesome artwork shops
that are coming up every Tuesday evening,

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5.30 to 8.00.

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And those are gonna be beginning the end
of January.

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Check out our socials, you know, kind of
keep your eyes on our socials and we'll

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have more information to come on that.

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And then the third thing that I wanted to
tell you about is Business in Bloom, which

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is tomorrow night, five to seven.

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I am actually sponsoring this.

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I'm super excited.

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So this is women supporting women and
highlighting women's businesses that are

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growing.

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And we are gonna be featuring three
awesome women CEOs with a focus on health

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and wellness, New Year, New Youth.

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So super excited about that coming up
tomorrow night.

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I see Courtney of Prism Healing, Cambria,
Kaya Community, and Lisa Cannella's

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Aesthetics are the ones that are gonna be
there at Business in Bloom, January 17th,

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that's tomorrow if you're listening to
this, on day one, five to seven, Biscots

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Cafe, 6172 Westlake Avenue.

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Get down there, that's gonna be awesome.

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There's gonna be so much fun.

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Sorry you're not invited.

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Hey, it's all right, we're working on
business in dirt.

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We're working on business in dirt events
coming up soon.

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I love it.

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I love it.

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No, I'm super excited.

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But the business networking is where we
met our guest for today.

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Yes.

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He's got a new show.

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It's called vibing the apocalypse.

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It's right here on ride the wave media.

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It came out.

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It's already out.

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There's episode.

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Episode one is out.

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He's got an incredible story.

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But let me set this up.

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Let me set this up for you, because me and
Ben actually are very much alike.

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We grew up pretty much the same way.

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OK.

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We grew up on big farms, hundreds of
acres, middle of nowhere.

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Correct me.

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Correct me if I get off base here, Ben.

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He's with us now.

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Lots of family around.

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I'm sufficient.

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We were living off the land.

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Me and him both left the small town for
the big city, got educated, had families,

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yada yada, but there is one part here
where our Venn diagrams, they don't just

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like they become two separate circles.

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Not even close.

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There's a little big difference here.

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Ben, thank you for coming to the show.

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Tell us real briefly what that difference
is.

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Yeah, the difference is that I have 75
moms.

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I'm just kidding.

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I have three moms.

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I wish it were 75.

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That would make it a lot more impressive.

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Oh, yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, so we've got to dive into that.

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Obviously, Ben, we are going to be or
yeah, we're just going to let's just jump

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into it.

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Version I mean, you can you can catch the
full story on my podcast, Vibing the

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Apocalypse dropped this week.

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But short version is I grew up in a in a
Mormon polygamist cult, which is not as

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much fun as it sounds like we were in a
tiny little compound on outside of a

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little town in Wyoming.

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And we were ready for the end times like
we were preparing for Jesus coming back to

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the apocalypse.

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They sent me out into the wicked world to
prepare the wicked world for his coming.

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And I got wildly distracted by all of the
wickedness and just never went back.

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And now I'm a standup comic and I'm using
comedy to kind of raise awareness about

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some of the abuses in the world of Mormon
polygamy and try to help, try to help make

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the world a little bit of a better place
here in Utah and for anyone that's dealing

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with religious trauma.

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Wow.

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So that kind of answers my next question
for you.

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If you escaped Mormonism, did you really?

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Because you came to Utah.

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This is like the mecca for you.

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That's kind of the funny part, right?

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Is that I tell people, I escaped to the
vast and liberal metropolis of Salt Lake

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City, Utah.

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Oh, yeah.

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The main streets of Salt Lake.

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I get it, yeah.

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It's the mean, hard streets.

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Well, if I remember your history, this is
where you went to school, right?

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So this is where you were.

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I went to school in southern Utah.

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OK.

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I went to southern Utah for a little bit.

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And then I did.

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I came to Salt Lake, actually, for the
comedy scene, because I wanted to break

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into stand-up comedy.

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But yeah, I say escaped.

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And I don't mean that I had to, like,
crawl under a barbed wire fence, you know?

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Like, there were, like, floodlights and
dogs, like, trying to chase me.

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Snipers in the towers and that kind of
thing.

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I mean, there might be that now.

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Now the world has kind of gotten, that
world has gotten a little more extreme

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than it has, than it was when I was there.

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But what I really mean is that I was part
of a, I was part of almost 200 years of

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systemic programming that sort of locked
me into a view of the world that was very

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isolationist, that was very doom and
gloom, that, you know, it taught me that

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there were basically 10,000 righteous
people on earth and that they were us.

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and that we had a direct line to God, God
really only talked to us and everyone else

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was lesser or fallen.

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When you've got all of that programming in
your brain, it really is quite difficult.

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I was telling Blaine earlier, I'm
essentially, I think of myself as kind of

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an internal immigrant, meaning that I
didn't immigrate here from, you know, from

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Mexico or from Europe or from Asia or
anywhere else, but I had to immigrate out

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of...

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a like I didn't have a social security
number when I was a kid.

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I was going to bring that up.

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I mean, you weren't even I didn't even
know that you existed until you.

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Right until I kind of have to figure out
like I have to figure out insurance.

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I have to figure out jobs.

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I have to figure out how to talk to people
without calling them to repentance, which

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is pretty difficult because everyone out
here is.

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I mean, I don't know if you've noticed how
many people out here are showing their

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elbows, but there is just so much wicked
thinning.

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happening.

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Sorry about that.

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Right there.

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scarf around your neck like Blaine.

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00:10:45,132 --> 00:10:46,613
That's what they would say out there
though, right?

244
00:10:46,613 --> 00:10:47,713
They'd say, Oh, yeah, yeah.

245
00:10:47,713 --> 00:10:51,675
I mean, so I grew up believing that it
was, you know, inappropriate to show

246
00:10:51,675 --> 00:10:57,439
anything, you know, other than your hands,
your, your hands, your face, no, like,

247
00:10:57,439 --> 00:11:00,740
basically, the body is so the body is such
a sacred temple that we have to keep it

248
00:11:00,740 --> 00:11:03,221
covered with a burlap sack.

249
00:11:03,278 --> 00:11:08,665
because any amount of skin, which has made
it really a little bit obnoxious as

250
00:11:08,665 --> 00:11:11,890
someone who's out here like trying to date
and stuff, because I get turned on a

251
00:11:11,890 --> 00:11:12,591
little too easily.

252
00:11:12,591 --> 00:11:13,132
Oh, y'all.

253
00:11:13,132 --> 00:11:15,976
You're like, I see her, I see part of your
neck.

254
00:11:15,976 --> 00:11:19,521
Yeah, somebody rolls up their sleeves and
I'm like, oh, mama, stop.

255
00:11:19,521 --> 00:11:20,101
Yeah.

256
00:11:21,358 --> 00:11:23,039
The rest is showing.

257
00:11:23,580 --> 00:11:24,321
Right.

258
00:11:24,881 --> 00:11:28,144
I see a little bit of a clavicle and I'm
like, stop, get me out of here.

259
00:11:28,144 --> 00:11:29,125
Oh my word.

260
00:11:29,125 --> 00:11:36,271
Well, your story is so fascinating and I
see that your name here is the Fresh King

261
00:11:36,271 --> 00:11:36,892
Benjamin.

262
00:11:36,892 --> 00:11:38,253
Can you speak to that a little bit?

263
00:11:38,253 --> 00:11:39,694
Tell me more about that name.

264
00:11:39,694 --> 00:11:40,355
Yeah.

265
00:11:40,355 --> 00:11:45,619
So in the Book of Mormon, which is, that's
something I was raised as believing with

266
00:11:45,619 --> 00:11:46,520
scripture, right?

267
00:11:46,520 --> 00:11:48,546
There's a character in that book who's
called...

268
00:11:48,546 --> 00:11:52,248
King Benjamin, he's the most righteous
king that has ever existed in the entire

269
00:11:52,248 --> 00:11:53,529
existence of ever.

270
00:11:53,769 --> 00:12:00,394
And he is famous for basically building a
tower and then talking from that tower,

271
00:12:00,394 --> 00:12:04,737
like giving a speech, a sermon from that
tower that's so powerful that everyone who

272
00:12:04,737 --> 00:12:07,879
hears him is converted to Christianity.

273
00:12:08,280 --> 00:12:12,623
And I was really bummed that I was named
after him because my brother, I have a

274
00:12:12,623 --> 00:12:14,524
brother who's 13 days older than me.

275
00:12:14,524 --> 00:12:16,585
So we're essentially twins.

276
00:12:16,606 --> 00:12:17,246
Wow.

277
00:12:17,246 --> 00:12:19,747
Because my mom and then my dad's other
wife, they got married.

278
00:12:19,747 --> 00:12:21,688
They got pregnant at the same time.

279
00:12:21,688 --> 00:12:22,309
Yep.

280
00:12:22,309 --> 00:12:24,830
And so he's like, had always been in my
world.

281
00:12:24,830 --> 00:12:26,231
He was named Ammon.

282
00:12:26,711 --> 00:12:30,393
And if you don't know, Ammon in the Book
of Mormon is a badass.

283
00:12:30,393 --> 00:12:33,875
Like he goes down, he preaches to the
Lamanites.

284
00:12:33,875 --> 00:12:36,356
Some of them don't listen to him, and so
he chops their arms off.

285
00:12:36,356 --> 00:12:38,357
Chopping off arms, all kinds of things.

286
00:12:38,357 --> 00:12:39,738
Chopping off arms like crazy.

287
00:12:39,738 --> 00:12:40,759
It's insane.

288
00:12:40,759 --> 00:12:45,101
And I'm like, that seems like way cooler
than like building a tower and giving a

289
00:12:45,101 --> 00:12:46,121
speech from it.

290
00:12:46,202 --> 00:12:52,107
But then I started doing stand-up comedy,
and I suddenly realized that I had sort of

291
00:12:52,107 --> 00:12:56,510
inadvertently not exactly lived the life
that my parents had wanted me to.

292
00:12:56,510 --> 00:13:00,013
Like, I don't, I didn't, they send me out,
they raised me to believe that I was a

293
00:13:00,013 --> 00:13:04,017
prophet that I was supposed to go out and
convert the world to Mormon polygamy.

294
00:13:04,017 --> 00:13:05,538
I'm not doing that, right?

295
00:13:05,538 --> 00:13:08,140
But I am professing, right?

296
00:13:08,140 --> 00:13:13,685
I am, I do get on stages, which are
towers, and talk about my experience and

297
00:13:13,685 --> 00:13:14,885
talk about the...

298
00:13:15,626 --> 00:13:20,510
I try to take a comedic view of religious
trauma and help people process and

299
00:13:20,510 --> 00:13:24,834
understand that that's something that they
can work through with humor, right, with

300
00:13:24,834 --> 00:13:25,654
comedy.

301
00:13:25,654 --> 00:13:27,816
And so when I had that realization, I was
like, I think I'm just gonna lean into

302
00:13:27,816 --> 00:13:27,936
this.

303
00:13:27,936 --> 00:13:31,379
So I had a buddy of mine who was a brander
and he helped me put together a really

304
00:13:31,379 --> 00:13:32,179
cool brand.

305
00:13:32,179 --> 00:13:34,301
And I was like, well, I'm kind of like
King Benjamin.

306
00:13:34,301 --> 00:13:37,003
And then the person that was branding us
with us, she's like, well, you're not

307
00:13:37,003 --> 00:13:39,225
really, like you're really more like a
fresh King Benjamin.

308
00:13:39,225 --> 00:13:40,145
Ah.

309
00:13:40,178 --> 00:13:44,161
And she was playing off of, I guess
there's a show called The Fresh Prince.

310
00:13:44,241 --> 00:13:44,841
Prince, uh huh.

311
00:13:44,841 --> 00:13:45,122
Bel Air.

312
00:13:45,122 --> 00:13:45,722
Yeah.

313
00:13:45,882 --> 00:13:49,225
Which I've never seen, because I haven't
seen most things, but it was kind of a

314
00:13:49,225 --> 00:13:49,806
play on that.

315
00:13:49,806 --> 00:13:53,469
And then also just a play on I'm fresh in
this world, right?

316
00:13:53,469 --> 00:13:55,010
Like I'm brand new.

317
00:13:55,010 --> 00:13:56,691
I haven't done most things.

318
00:13:56,691 --> 00:13:59,814
I listened to Nirvana for the first time,
like six months ago.

319
00:13:59,814 --> 00:14:00,435
What'd you think?

320
00:14:00,435 --> 00:14:01,375
Oh, wow.

321
00:14:01,375 --> 00:14:06,460
I listened to my very first Nirvana song,
Smells Like Teen Spirit, changed my life.

322
00:14:06,460 --> 00:14:06,700
Yeah.

323
00:14:06,700 --> 00:14:09,121
And then after that, I was like,

324
00:14:09,282 --> 00:14:10,483
That changed a lot of people's lives.

325
00:14:10,483 --> 00:14:10,883
The first time.

326
00:14:10,883 --> 00:14:12,024
Yeah, I was going to say, yeah.

327
00:14:12,024 --> 00:14:12,904
Don't feel it.

328
00:14:12,904 --> 00:14:14,786
It's kind of a- Not for anyone.

329
00:14:14,786 --> 00:14:15,346
I believe it.

330
00:14:15,346 --> 00:14:16,127
It was magic.

331
00:14:16,127 --> 00:14:18,749
And so I'm listening to this, and I'm
actually doing it on a live, right?

332
00:14:18,749 --> 00:14:21,731
So I'm doing it on a live on TikTok, and
I've got people like, I'm like, oh my god.

333
00:14:21,731 --> 00:14:26,274
And everyone's like, and I turn to the
people, and I'm like, you guys, is Nirvana

334
00:14:26,274 --> 00:14:26,875
still around?

335
00:14:26,875 --> 00:14:27,615
Do they tour?

336
00:14:27,615 --> 00:14:28,516
Can I go see them?

337
00:14:28,516 --> 00:14:29,997
Whoa.

338
00:14:29,997 --> 00:14:31,217
And everyone's like-

339
00:14:31,362 --> 00:14:33,183
We have terrible news for you.

340
00:14:33,183 --> 00:14:33,863
Yeah.

341
00:14:34,544 --> 00:14:36,766
You can see Dave Grohl, he was a member of
it.

342
00:14:36,766 --> 00:14:37,606
Yeah, there you go.

343
00:14:37,606 --> 00:14:38,867
That's about as close as you can get now.

344
00:14:38,867 --> 00:14:43,351
But yeah, some bad stuff happened with a
heck of a third.

345
00:14:43,351 --> 00:14:45,652
I learned that Kurt Cobain was a thing.

346
00:14:45,652 --> 00:14:46,113
Yes.

347
00:14:46,113 --> 00:14:49,856
And then five seconds later, I learned
that he had killed himself.

348
00:14:49,856 --> 00:14:51,217
I was like, yeah.

349
00:14:51,217 --> 00:14:52,617
Totally crushed.

350
00:14:52,722 --> 00:14:56,205
But I mean, the things that you talk
about, you know, like not having a social

351
00:14:56,205 --> 00:15:00,608
security number, listening to Nirvana six
months ago, maybe kind of not

352
00:15:00,608 --> 00:15:03,891
understanding some of those social norms.

353
00:15:03,891 --> 00:15:07,954
And, you know, Blaine, your whole world is
pretty much entertainment.

354
00:15:07,954 --> 00:15:10,997
So I'm sure when the two of you get
together and talk, there's some things

355
00:15:10,997 --> 00:15:14,400
that are totally lost on you, Ben, or
Yeah, everything that you guys said

356
00:15:14,400 --> 00:15:19,484
earlier about the NFL, I have no idea what
you're even talking about.

357
00:15:20,745 --> 00:15:21,534
But I don't

358
00:15:21,534 --> 00:15:26,015
I watched the Super Bowl once and I didn't
understand what was happening.

359
00:15:26,015 --> 00:15:27,816
And no one really could explain it.

360
00:15:27,816 --> 00:15:29,777
So I was just kind of like, I don't, I
don't know.

361
00:15:29,777 --> 00:15:31,678
It takes years to learn those sports.

362
00:15:31,678 --> 00:15:34,819
Like you can't be sat and taught by
watching it once.

363
00:15:34,819 --> 00:15:38,381
Like, yeah, that's something I really want
to do some days.

364
00:15:38,381 --> 00:15:44,203
I really want to go to a sporting event
with a bunch of like hardcore fans where

365
00:15:44,203 --> 00:15:47,844
it's really important and everyone really
cares about it.

366
00:15:47,844 --> 00:15:50,245
And I just want to get swept up in.

367
00:15:50,574 --> 00:15:54,857
that like in like, yeah, that's that
probably paint my chest.

368
00:15:55,298 --> 00:16:03,126
It might remind you of religion because
that kind of fandom is very comparable to

369
00:16:03,126 --> 00:16:04,267
extreme religions.

370
00:16:04,267 --> 00:16:06,728
Yeah, of course, especially so yeah.

371
00:16:06,789 --> 00:16:09,251
Well, that's actually something that I've
kind of because I've been on an

372
00:16:09,251 --> 00:16:11,813
interesting journey with my relationship.

373
00:16:12,022 --> 00:16:15,068
to religion because when I left the
compound and then I eventually left

374
00:16:15,068 --> 00:16:18,154
religion entirely, I went on kind of a big
science kick.

375
00:16:18,154 --> 00:16:22,281
I was like, I only believe in science and
what's real and what I can test and stuff.

376
00:16:22,281 --> 00:16:24,906
And I was that way for like six or seven
years.

377
00:16:24,906 --> 00:16:26,386
And I learned a lot, right?

378
00:16:26,386 --> 00:16:27,847
I took a bunch of courses.

379
00:16:27,847 --> 00:16:32,789
I tried to fill my head with facts because
I felt like my whole life had been a life

380
00:16:32,789 --> 00:16:34,029
of like lies and myth.

381
00:16:34,029 --> 00:16:36,770
And I wanted to know what was real, right?

382
00:16:36,770 --> 00:16:43,213
And after a couple of years of that, I
started to really feel like it was, even

383
00:16:43,213 --> 00:16:49,436
though I really valued the grounding and
the reality of that experience, I also

384
00:16:49,436 --> 00:16:53,922
felt like that world felt a little bit,
felt a little stale.

385
00:16:53,922 --> 00:16:58,303
for me, it felt a little like sterile,
like a clean doctor's room or something.

386
00:16:58,303 --> 00:17:02,885
There wasn't any kind of magic in it that
I felt I kind of longed for in my soul.

387
00:17:02,885 --> 00:17:03,566
Yeah.

388
00:17:03,566 --> 00:17:07,687
What I realized through that experience is
I actually read this fascinating book by

389
00:17:07,687 --> 00:17:12,389
an Israeli historian, his name's Yuval
Noah Harari.

390
00:17:12,389 --> 00:17:14,030
It's called Sapiens.

391
00:17:14,430 --> 00:17:16,351
And in it, it's a brief history of
humankind.

392
00:17:16,351 --> 00:17:20,513
And he essentially makes the point that
the reason that humans are different from

393
00:17:20,513 --> 00:17:22,494
other species is because

394
00:17:22,494 --> 00:17:24,355
of our ability to cooperate.

395
00:17:24,355 --> 00:17:28,178
And the way that we cooperate is by
telling each other fictions.

396
00:17:28,279 --> 00:17:32,722
That we invent stories, things that are
not literally true.

397
00:17:32,722 --> 00:17:37,126
We invent myths, and those myths enable us
to cooperate.

398
00:17:37,126 --> 00:17:40,789
Like, if you ask what built the pyramids,
it was aliens.

399
00:17:40,789 --> 00:17:47,054
But in addition to it being aliens, it was
the belief that Pharaoh was God.

400
00:17:47,635 --> 00:17:50,678
So if a whole bunch of humans believed
that Pharaoh was God,

401
00:17:50,678 --> 00:17:51,638
they build the pyramid.

402
00:17:51,638 --> 00:17:52,458
They'll do it.

403
00:17:52,458 --> 00:17:56,139
And what that sort of showed me is that
kind of brought me back to belief as a

404
00:17:56,139 --> 00:18:00,760
human tool, that belief is actually
something that we utilize.

405
00:18:00,760 --> 00:18:03,121
It's actually a very human thing.

406
00:18:03,121 --> 00:18:06,542
And so I wanted to be able to step into a
space of belief where I didn't feel like

407
00:18:06,542 --> 00:18:09,183
it was tainted by some of my religious
trauma.

408
00:18:10,003 --> 00:18:11,964
I could sort of let that be.

409
00:18:12,324 --> 00:18:16,785
The experience that I had in Mormonism,
Mormonism is very young.

410
00:18:16,785 --> 00:18:18,046
It's 200 years old.

411
00:18:18,046 --> 00:18:19,686
Christianity is really young.

412
00:18:19,686 --> 00:18:21,787
Christianity is 2000 years old.

413
00:18:21,787 --> 00:18:24,067
Humans have been believing things.

414
00:18:24,067 --> 00:18:27,868
Human belief is hundreds of thousands of
years old.

415
00:18:27,868 --> 00:18:28,889
Yeah.

416
00:18:28,889 --> 00:18:29,089
Right?

417
00:18:29,089 --> 00:18:31,449
It is like baked into our bones.

418
00:18:31,449 --> 00:18:35,330
And so the idea of going to like a
sporting event and actually treating that

419
00:18:35,330 --> 00:18:40,512
as a spiritual, mystical experience and
really letting myself get caught up in

420
00:18:40,512 --> 00:18:45,933
that fervor, like that sounds like a
transcendent, beautiful human experience

421
00:18:45,933 --> 00:18:47,633
that I would love to have.

422
00:18:48,042 --> 00:18:52,464
Okay, well you're talking to your friends
here and you know, my NFL team is the

423
00:18:52,464 --> 00:18:53,145
Vikings.

424
00:18:53,145 --> 00:18:55,446
I know y'all, I know, I know, I know.

425
00:18:55,446 --> 00:18:56,286
You don't need to tell me.

426
00:18:56,286 --> 00:18:57,867
I've already heard everything.

427
00:18:57,927 --> 00:18:59,288
We got to go to a game next year.

428
00:18:59,288 --> 00:19:00,209
I would love that.

429
00:19:00,209 --> 00:19:01,209
We got to go to a game.

430
00:19:01,209 --> 00:19:05,451
The Vikings sound great because I could
wear horns and I could like tear my shirt

431
00:19:05,451 --> 00:19:09,174
off and like it'll be great.

432
00:19:09,174 --> 00:19:10,054
It'll be awesome.

433
00:19:10,054 --> 00:19:13,976
But I would imagine that experience and
what you're talking about and going

434
00:19:13,976 --> 00:19:16,237
through all of that provides for.

435
00:19:16,842 --> 00:19:18,903
so much comedy content.

436
00:19:18,903 --> 00:19:23,867
So speak a little bit to how you got
involved in comedy and tell us a little

437
00:19:23,867 --> 00:19:25,288
what you're involved in.

438
00:19:25,369 --> 00:19:31,013
Yeah, so I've always been, I've always
like held court, meaning that I like being

439
00:19:31,353 --> 00:19:32,394
the funny one, right?

440
00:19:32,394 --> 00:19:37,158
I like, if I'm, I once had this
realization, I worry sometimes telling

441
00:19:37,158 --> 00:19:40,100
people this because I don't want them to
feel scared about this.

442
00:19:40,100 --> 00:19:43,763
But if I have to choose between saying
something that's true and saying something

443
00:19:43,763 --> 00:19:46,886
that's funny, I will always say the funny
thing.

444
00:19:47,626 --> 00:19:50,608
Because to me, funny is actually the most
truth.

445
00:19:50,608 --> 00:19:53,210
Like the most true thing is the funny
thing.

446
00:19:53,210 --> 00:19:56,291
Because comedy is about, comedy's always
present.

447
00:19:56,291 --> 00:19:57,692
It brings us back to where we are.

448
00:19:57,692 --> 00:20:02,615
It helps us transcend pain, grief, sorrow,
like all of the darkness of the human

449
00:20:02,615 --> 00:20:03,536
experience.

450
00:20:03,536 --> 00:20:07,798
If you can find a way to laugh at it, then
you're fine.

451
00:20:07,798 --> 00:20:13,521
So after I left, I had, I would sort of
tell people stories.

452
00:20:13,902 --> 00:20:16,784
about how I grew up and often I would
think that they were pretty funny.

453
00:20:16,784 --> 00:20:20,047
I would tell people stories that I thought
were hilarious.

454
00:20:20,047 --> 00:20:22,910
And then they would look at me like, are
you okay?

455
00:20:22,910 --> 00:20:23,170
Yeah.

456
00:20:23,170 --> 00:20:26,153
Like that's rough.

457
00:20:26,153 --> 00:20:27,434
You got some trauma in there.

458
00:20:27,434 --> 00:20:29,415
Go ahead.

459
00:20:29,415 --> 00:20:31,097
Maybe talk to someone about that first.

460
00:20:31,097 --> 00:20:31,937
Oh.

461
00:20:32,038 --> 00:20:34,380
After a couple of times of doing that, I
had this realization.

462
00:20:34,380 --> 00:20:36,862
I was in, I was at like a business
conference in Atlanta.

463
00:20:36,862 --> 00:20:39,525
I was kind of walking around and I just,
it sort of dawned on me.

464
00:20:39,525 --> 00:20:40,405
I was like.

465
00:20:40,930 --> 00:20:42,830
Oh, I think I'm traumatized.

466
00:20:42,830 --> 00:20:47,692
I think I have unresolved trauma in my
body, in my psyche that I just need to

467
00:20:47,692 --> 00:20:48,472
deal with.

468
00:20:48,472 --> 00:20:53,793
And so I Googled trauma therapist in my
city and I found this really awesome lady,

469
00:20:53,793 --> 00:20:57,074
her name was Stacey and I called her up
and I was like, hey, I'm pretty sure, I

470
00:20:57,074 --> 00:20:58,315
gave her like a rundown of my background.

471
00:20:58,315 --> 00:20:59,935
I was like, I'm pretty sure I'm
traumatized.

472
00:20:59,935 --> 00:21:01,556
And she's like, yeah, I'm pretty sure you
are too.

473
00:21:01,556 --> 00:21:01,636
Wow.

474
00:21:01,636 --> 00:21:03,876
Oh my word.

475
00:21:04,517 --> 00:21:07,217
I went in, I did a ton of work with her.

476
00:21:07,550 --> 00:21:10,591
A lot of psych, so a lot of releasing
trauma from my body.

477
00:21:10,792 --> 00:21:17,877
And what sort of happened after I did that
is that my soul started to express.

478
00:21:17,877 --> 00:21:22,980
So I started to just express what was
naturally inside of me, not what I thought

479
00:21:22,980 --> 00:21:26,903
I needed to do or what other people wanted
me to do.

480
00:21:26,903 --> 00:21:28,964
I just kind of like started to be me.

481
00:21:28,964 --> 00:21:32,827
And as I started to do that, I started to
realize that I'm a really creative person.

482
00:21:32,827 --> 00:21:34,868
I started playing guitar and writing
songs.

483
00:21:34,868 --> 00:21:37,249
I started writing, I started writing
comedy.

484
00:21:37,910 --> 00:21:41,492
And I realized that I had this sort of
experience where I wrote a song that was

485
00:21:41,492 --> 00:21:42,932
really, really sad.

486
00:21:43,213 --> 00:21:45,554
And I played it to a bunch of my friends,
and they all cried.

487
00:21:45,554 --> 00:21:47,735
That was the song that I played at the
show that you guys went to.

488
00:21:47,735 --> 00:21:48,635
It was so good.

489
00:21:48,976 --> 00:21:51,877
Yeah, it was heartfelt, deep.

490
00:21:52,098 --> 00:21:54,779
Yeah, and that was a really true part of
me.

491
00:21:54,779 --> 00:21:59,742
And then after I wrote that song, I wrote
another song that is just stupid and funny

492
00:21:59,742 --> 00:22:00,782
about the same thing.

493
00:22:00,782 --> 00:22:05,065
So it's like I took the same journey, and
I told it in a sad way, and then I took

494
00:22:05,065 --> 00:22:06,865
it, and I told it in a funny way.

495
00:22:06,966 --> 00:22:12,108
because I realized that one of the most
important true parts of my soul is that my

496
00:22:12,108 --> 00:22:14,429
life was never, ever going to be a
tragedy.

497
00:22:14,429 --> 00:22:16,689
My life was always going to be a comedy.

498
00:22:17,150 --> 00:22:20,931
And so comedy humor is just baked into who
I am.

499
00:22:20,931 --> 00:22:25,133
So at that time I was living in Southern
Utah and I knew that the Southern Utah

500
00:22:25,133 --> 00:22:28,274
scene for comedy was, there's really
nothing there.

501
00:22:28,274 --> 00:22:29,975
And so I decided to move to Salt Lake.

502
00:22:29,975 --> 00:22:31,535
That's when I moved to Daybreak.

503
00:22:32,056 --> 00:22:35,537
And I got really lucky because I have a
house in Daybreak that's right close to

504
00:22:35,537 --> 00:22:36,414
the tracks.

505
00:22:36,414 --> 00:22:39,816
I can literally jump on the train and in
an hour I can be at the comedy club.

506
00:22:39,816 --> 00:22:42,037
That's awesome.

507
00:22:42,037 --> 00:22:46,880
And I went and I did my first open mic in
May of 21 and killed.

508
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:49,902
Like I got up there, big laughs.

509
00:22:49,902 --> 00:22:52,243
I got laughs that I didn't even expect
that I was going to get and it was just

510
00:22:52,243 --> 00:22:53,924
electrifying the entire...

511
00:22:53,924 --> 00:22:55,845
I came out of that like buzzing.

512
00:22:56,106 --> 00:22:57,967
And then I met a friend.

513
00:22:57,967 --> 00:22:58,567
His name's Mark.

514
00:22:58,567 --> 00:23:00,989
He's a comedian who does shows around
here.

515
00:23:00,989 --> 00:23:02,649
He's hysterical.

516
00:23:02,894 --> 00:23:04,115
and he coached me for a little bit.

517
00:23:04,115 --> 00:23:05,816
He let me get up and he won.

518
00:23:05,816 --> 00:23:08,899
I told him a little bit about my
background and he was like, you have a

519
00:23:08,899 --> 00:23:10,059
gold mine.

520
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:10,920
Yeah.

521
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:12,401
Because of the polygamy, right?

522
00:23:12,401 --> 00:23:15,804
And it's not that all of my jokes are
about polygamy.

523
00:23:15,804 --> 00:23:20,048
It's that my comedy is all about
observation, right?

524
00:23:20,048 --> 00:23:24,932
So my observations because of my
background are really different.

525
00:23:24,932 --> 00:23:26,453
They're really unique.

526
00:23:26,533 --> 00:23:31,037
I can bring kind of this fresh perspective
that's really never been heard before

527
00:23:31,037 --> 00:23:32,114
because of that background.

528
00:23:32,114 --> 00:23:33,535
And so I started doing that.

529
00:23:33,535 --> 00:23:34,636
I started opening.

530
00:23:34,636 --> 00:23:35,477
I started writing a lot.

531
00:23:35,477 --> 00:23:38,581
I had three minutes, three minutes became
five minutes, five minutes became 15

532
00:23:38,581 --> 00:23:40,583
minutes, 15 minutes became a half hour.

533
00:23:40,583 --> 00:23:44,046
And then- And then 60 minutes set and-
Yeah.

534
00:23:44,046 --> 00:23:47,150
And after 60 minutes, people would have
sat there for another 60 to hear.

535
00:23:47,150 --> 00:23:47,250
Yeah.

536
00:23:47,250 --> 00:23:48,871
So like- Yeah.

537
00:23:49,332 --> 00:23:53,316
And so, and then I started, I did my first
headlining, my first, I headline a comedy

538
00:23:53,316 --> 00:23:54,674
club for a full hour.

539
00:23:54,674 --> 00:23:56,675
March of last year of 2023.

540
00:23:57,736 --> 00:23:59,297
And then I just kept, I kept doing that.

541
00:23:59,297 --> 00:24:02,920
So I'm headlining about once a month now,
usually at the local club here at Wise

542
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:03,681
Guys.

543
00:24:03,861 --> 00:24:05,463
And it's awesome, right?

544
00:24:05,463 --> 00:24:06,443
I'm still very new, right?

545
00:24:06,443 --> 00:24:09,305
I'm two, almost three years in now.

546
00:24:09,726 --> 00:24:10,607
It's a long process.

547
00:24:10,607 --> 00:24:11,468
Like I'm learning a lot.

548
00:24:11,468 --> 00:24:13,949
I'm getting, my skills are growing every
time.

549
00:24:13,970 --> 00:24:16,872
But yeah, it's been really magical.

550
00:24:16,872 --> 00:24:17,753
I just love it.

551
00:24:17,753 --> 00:24:22,897
It's a great way for you to amplify the
trauma that you've been to, to bring to

552
00:24:22,897 --> 00:24:23,638
light.

553
00:24:23,638 --> 00:24:29,001
because not a lot of people realize that
there's child trafficking, child labor,

554
00:24:29,001 --> 00:24:30,322
like all this stuff is happening.

555
00:24:30,322 --> 00:24:31,063
You went through that.

556
00:24:31,063 --> 00:24:31,163
Yeah.

557
00:24:31,163 --> 00:24:32,984
You went through that.

558
00:24:32,984 --> 00:24:36,987
And I love that you called that out and
spoke to that on your show, like at your

559
00:24:36,987 --> 00:24:37,287
show.

560
00:24:37,287 --> 00:24:41,870
Yeah, part of what I want to do, and what
I do is I have a friend, her name's

561
00:24:41,870 --> 00:24:46,073
Sherry, and she runs an organization
called Cherish Families, which there are

562
00:24:46,073 --> 00:24:51,957
several organizations in Utah that try to
help people who exit polygamy because it's

563
00:24:51,957 --> 00:24:53,034
really difficult.

564
00:24:53,034 --> 00:24:58,056
Like it's even, even for me, and I'm, I'm
sort of lucky because I was, I was, I was

565
00:24:58,056 --> 00:24:58,696
pretty smart.

566
00:24:58,696 --> 00:25:02,357
I was able to go to college, you know, and
I'm, I'm also, I'm also a man.

567
00:25:02,357 --> 00:25:04,738
And so I wasn't like married off to an old
dude.

568
00:25:04,738 --> 00:25:08,320
So I had a couple of things working in my
favor and even for me, it's been

569
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:11,161
incredibly difficult and it's not just
difficult.

570
00:25:11,161 --> 00:25:12,602
It's been expensive.

571
00:25:12,602 --> 00:25:19,084
I don't think people understand how, how
much money is a barrier to therapy, to, to

572
00:25:19,084 --> 00:25:22,110
having good housing, to having jobs,
right?

573
00:25:22,110 --> 00:25:26,392
You're just so much on the outside of the
world that you don't know how to really

574
00:25:26,392 --> 00:25:26,893
interact.

575
00:25:26,893 --> 00:25:29,994
And I had to figure out a lot of that for
myself.

576
00:25:29,994 --> 00:25:32,296
That feels incredibly unfair to me.

577
00:25:32,296 --> 00:25:36,919
So many of these kids and so many of these
women, and even so many of these men, they

578
00:25:36,919 --> 00:25:40,741
didn't ask to be born into these cults.

579
00:25:40,741 --> 00:25:44,943
They didn't ask to be born into these
worlds that taught them the things that

580
00:25:44,943 --> 00:25:48,798
sort of isolated and abused them and
manipulated them.

581
00:25:48,798 --> 00:25:50,078
And we don't do very much.

582
00:25:50,078 --> 00:25:52,199
Like, we are really wealthy in Utah.

583
00:25:52,199 --> 00:25:54,139
We have a lot of money.

584
00:25:54,139 --> 00:25:58,200
And very little of that money goes towards
supporting people who are exiting.

585
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:02,682
Because I think that polygamy is kind of
Utah's dirty little secret.

586
00:26:02,682 --> 00:26:04,662
We're all a little bit embarrassed by it.

587
00:26:04,662 --> 00:26:07,443
We're all sort of like, we all kind of
want to pretend like it doesn't really

588
00:26:07,443 --> 00:26:07,743
happen.

589
00:26:07,743 --> 00:26:13,405
But the reality is that there are
literally thousands of children, thousands

590
00:26:13,405 --> 00:26:15,778
of children in the state of Utah.

591
00:26:15,778 --> 00:26:22,363
who are growing up in less than ideal
circumstances, who are, even if the

592
00:26:22,363 --> 00:26:28,148
families are loving and kind and doing
their best, they're still abuse and

593
00:26:28,148 --> 00:26:34,133
they're still neglect because they're
having 15, 20, 30 children and you can't

594
00:26:34,133 --> 00:26:36,174
have, I mean, you guys have kids, you
know.

595
00:26:37,256 --> 00:26:39,758
You can't possibly care for that many
children.

596
00:26:39,758 --> 00:26:41,339
You have children.

597
00:26:41,339 --> 00:26:43,000
How many brothers and sisters do you have?

598
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:43,721
You didn't even give us a number.

599
00:26:43,721 --> 00:26:44,641
I have 15.

600
00:26:45,170 --> 00:26:48,491
I have 15 and that's probably, I'm number
three.

601
00:26:48,491 --> 00:26:48,852
I'm the third.

602
00:26:48,852 --> 00:26:50,452
Number three.

603
00:26:50,452 --> 00:26:51,973
Or I'm the third of 16.

604
00:26:52,454 --> 00:26:54,775
And those are kind of small potatoes.

605
00:26:54,775 --> 00:26:58,457
I tell people that I'm a little bit
ashamed of my dad because he didn't put up

606
00:26:58,457 --> 00:27:00,378
the numbers that he could have.

607
00:27:00,518 --> 00:27:04,360
With three wives and three wives, 16 kids,
that's like 5.9.

608
00:27:05,821 --> 00:27:06,701
Like, what were you doing, dad?

609
00:27:06,701 --> 00:27:07,822
Well, what's your uncle?

610
00:27:07,822 --> 00:27:10,463
Your uncle is Cody Brown from- My uncle's
Cody Brown.

611
00:27:10,463 --> 00:27:13,325
I think he has 20, I think he has upwards
of 20.

612
00:27:13,325 --> 00:27:14,285
Yeah, yeah.

613
00:27:14,730 --> 00:27:18,294
Yeah, I don't know actually, I actually
don't know how many cousins I have.

614
00:27:18,294 --> 00:27:22,359
I stopped counting cousins at 85, 15 years
ago.

615
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:24,081
Can you remember all their names?

616
00:27:24,081 --> 00:27:24,798
No, God.

617
00:27:24,798 --> 00:27:26,878
Family reunions got to be crazy for you.

618
00:27:26,878 --> 00:27:29,279
Family reunions are, they're wild and
crazy.

619
00:27:29,279 --> 00:27:33,520
The kind of the fun part about family
reunions is a lot of my generation have

620
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:34,020
left.

621
00:27:34,020 --> 00:27:37,921
And so there's sort of this, there's sort
of like this underground, like we all go

622
00:27:37,921 --> 00:27:40,882
into the top floor of the Airbnb and
drink.

623
00:27:40,882 --> 00:27:41,202
Yeah.

624
00:27:41,202 --> 00:27:43,083
And have a great time.

625
00:27:43,083 --> 00:27:45,263
But yeah, I mean, there's thousands of
those kids.

626
00:27:45,263 --> 00:27:51,405
And that's just like the best case
scenario, they're isolated, they're

627
00:27:51,405 --> 00:27:52,485
neglected.

628
00:27:52,630 --> 00:27:56,932
And they are they're half into care like I
became a parent, right?

629
00:27:56,932 --> 00:28:03,655
I was I was a primary care provider for my
younger brother when I was like 14.

630
00:28:04,055 --> 00:28:07,877
When I was 15 years old, I went in, I just
went to my parents and I essentially

631
00:28:07,877 --> 00:28:08,978
emancipated myself.

632
00:28:08,978 --> 00:28:11,759
I told them, you don't need to worry about
me anymore.

633
00:28:11,939 --> 00:28:14,640
I've got I'm gonna I'm gonna manage myself
now.

634
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:17,538
Because they were just so overwhelmed.

635
00:28:17,538 --> 00:28:19,059
by everything that they had going on.

636
00:28:19,059 --> 00:28:20,079
And that's what I wondered.

637
00:28:20,079 --> 00:28:24,903
Like the older kids then probably start to
take care of the youngers.

638
00:28:24,903 --> 00:28:28,965
And then maybe the six moms would take
care of the little babies.

639
00:28:28,965 --> 00:28:31,587
But you older kids start raising kids.

640
00:28:31,587 --> 00:28:33,468
They're trying to marry other children.

641
00:28:33,468 --> 00:28:38,331
And then in addition to that, there's a
lot of labor trafficking.

642
00:28:38,331 --> 00:28:40,853
And labor trafficking, that's a loaded
term.

643
00:28:40,853 --> 00:28:41,558
People.

644
00:28:41,558 --> 00:28:45,221
People in my family, some people on the
internet get really angry when I use that

645
00:28:45,221 --> 00:28:46,202
term to describe it.

646
00:28:46,202 --> 00:28:51,547
But the reason I'm using that term is
because it's accurate and because one of

647
00:28:51,547 --> 00:28:56,771
the things that's been the most empowering
for me is to learn that out here in the

648
00:28:56,771 --> 00:29:01,075
wicked world, we have words that mean
things for a reason, right?

649
00:29:01,075 --> 00:29:05,259
So I taught high school for a couple of
years right after I left, which was odd

650
00:29:05,259 --> 00:29:07,341
because I didn't go to high school.

651
00:29:08,094 --> 00:29:10,856
So I just like read the books before the
kids got there.

652
00:29:10,856 --> 00:29:13,157
But one of the things I had to do while I
was teaching high school is I had to take

653
00:29:13,157 --> 00:29:18,861
classes on as part of my certification to,
I had to take classes on how to recognize

654
00:29:18,861 --> 00:29:19,682
human trafficking.

655
00:29:19,682 --> 00:29:20,923
When it's happening, right.

656
00:29:20,923 --> 00:29:24,145
And when people think of human
trafficking, they generally think of like

657
00:29:24,145 --> 00:29:29,129
the Tim Ballard, like kicking down doors
in Guatemala to save kids from, which is

658
00:29:29,129 --> 00:29:33,752
like so rare that it almost never happens
because what usually happens is it's

659
00:29:33,752 --> 00:29:35,973
someone that it's a family member.

660
00:29:36,126 --> 00:29:38,786
And it's usually happening in your own
communities.

661
00:29:38,786 --> 00:29:45,208
And labor trafficking is simply defined as
the use of force, fraud, or coercion to

662
00:29:45,208 --> 00:29:47,309
exploit labor from someone.

663
00:29:48,289 --> 00:29:50,410
And that's what happened to me, right?

664
00:29:50,410 --> 00:29:56,151
I was told as a young child that the world
was wicked and that Jesus was coming back.

665
00:29:56,151 --> 00:30:01,173
And that because of that, we had to work
in a bakery to support a ranch that would

666
00:30:01,173 --> 00:30:04,438
be used as a place of refuge when the last
days happened.

667
00:30:04,438 --> 00:30:07,560
that all of the righteous people could
flee to, right?

668
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:12,825
I was defrauded, I was lied to, none of
that is true, but I was told that it was

669
00:30:12,825 --> 00:30:18,551
true, and then that lie was used to
manipulate me, to force me to work 16 hour

670
00:30:18,551 --> 00:30:21,133
days in an industrial bakery.

671
00:30:21,133 --> 00:30:22,374
And you're how old?

672
00:30:22,374 --> 00:30:24,276
And I'm like 14, right?

673
00:30:24,276 --> 00:30:26,038
I start working there when I'm eight.

674
00:30:26,038 --> 00:30:30,661
By the time I'm 14, I'm working 16 hour
days easily.

675
00:30:30,830 --> 00:30:32,271
and I'm getting injured, right?

676
00:30:32,271 --> 00:30:35,314
That's a really, it's a messy situation,
right?

677
00:30:35,314 --> 00:30:38,057
But I don't see that as abnormal.

678
00:30:38,057 --> 00:30:38,718
If you were to talk about it.

679
00:30:38,718 --> 00:30:41,601
No, that's all you've ever known and all
you've ever been taught.

680
00:30:41,601 --> 00:30:42,842
Yeah.

681
00:30:42,842 --> 00:30:44,684
It's like Plato's allegory of the cave.

682
00:30:44,684 --> 00:30:47,687
I don't know if you guys have ever heard
the allegory of the cave, but it's

683
00:30:47,687 --> 00:30:51,791
basically there's prisoners in a cave and
all they see is the shadows on the wall.

684
00:30:51,791 --> 00:30:53,372
That's their reality.

685
00:30:54,146 --> 00:30:57,967
When one gets out, he finds out, whoa,
those shadows are made by something else.

686
00:30:57,967 --> 00:31:01,249
But the people who are still in there
don't have any, they don't, they don't

687
00:31:01,249 --> 00:31:03,950
care to get out because that's still their
reality.

688
00:31:03,990 --> 00:31:05,631
It's, that's what it sounds like to me.

689
00:31:05,631 --> 00:31:07,732
And that is scary.

690
00:31:07,832 --> 00:31:08,972
It is scary.

691
00:31:08,972 --> 00:31:10,193
And it's, it's really difficult.

692
00:31:10,193 --> 00:31:15,055
And there's lots of, there's lots of the
tragedy for me is that there's, there's

693
00:31:15,055 --> 00:31:15,936
adults, right?

694
00:31:15,936 --> 00:31:17,176
Who are stuck there, right?

695
00:31:17,176 --> 00:31:18,757
Who are kind of chained in that cave.

696
00:31:18,757 --> 00:31:20,718
And then there are, then there are
children, right?

697
00:31:20,718 --> 00:31:24,420
And so in Utah, right, there's, there are
children.

698
00:31:24,420 --> 00:31:28,842
who are being exploited to build homes,
right?

699
00:31:29,443 --> 00:31:35,707
I don't know the exact percentages, but a
lot of polygamists are construction

700
00:31:35,707 --> 00:31:36,428
workers.

701
00:31:36,428 --> 00:31:37,749
They have construction companies.

702
00:31:37,749 --> 00:31:44,393
And in a lot of those crews, there are
underage children who are doing work, who

703
00:31:44,393 --> 00:31:48,436
are probably undocumented, who are
probably not attending school, and are

704
00:31:48,436 --> 00:31:50,797
probably getting little to no pay.

705
00:31:51,058 --> 00:31:54,100
And that is, those are the people

706
00:31:54,100 --> 00:31:56,581
building some of our houses, right?

707
00:31:56,581 --> 00:31:59,523
There, my family did a bakery, right?

708
00:31:59,523 --> 00:32:02,365
So there's that's happening just under the
surface.

709
00:32:02,365 --> 00:32:07,969
And because as a as a community in Utah,
we're so embarrassed and ashamed to talk

710
00:32:07,969 --> 00:32:11,131
about we don't want to we want to pretend
that there aren't polygamous because it

711
00:32:11,131 --> 00:32:13,893
feels like it feels like a dirty little
secret.

712
00:32:13,893 --> 00:32:15,333
But they're here.

713
00:32:15,454 --> 00:32:20,457
When you see them at Costco, it's like,
Oh, you hear the whispers and yeah, but

714
00:32:20,457 --> 00:32:23,539
that's Ben's experience that firsthand,
right?

715
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:26,640
So I would go to Costco all the time and
the whispers.

716
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,581
You know, you guys know, you know what the
people are saying.

717
00:32:29,581 --> 00:32:31,581
Like it's not you at least know that more.

718
00:32:31,581 --> 00:32:34,262
But how do you escape?

719
00:32:34,262 --> 00:32:35,022
How did you escape?

720
00:32:35,022 --> 00:32:36,742
Like, what is that process?

721
00:32:36,742 --> 00:32:40,183
Was it literally you said, Deuces, I'm
out.

722
00:32:40,183 --> 00:32:41,583
What was the breaking point for you?

723
00:32:41,583 --> 00:32:44,023
And when you finally walked away and did
you ever go back?

724
00:32:44,424 --> 00:32:50,745
Yeah, so I would I would sort of track my
leaving very early on where I was always a

725
00:32:50,745 --> 00:32:51,605
really curious kid.

726
00:32:51,605 --> 00:32:53,745
I learned how to read very early on.

727
00:32:53,870 --> 00:32:56,012
And I was always really curious.

728
00:32:56,012 --> 00:33:00,157
And so my mom, my dad had a rule where I,
that I couldn't read any book that he

729
00:33:00,157 --> 00:33:01,659
didn't read first.

730
00:33:01,659 --> 00:33:03,181
And my mom...

731
00:33:04,258 --> 00:33:06,839
She, she, I, I like, I love that she did
this for me.

732
00:33:06,839 --> 00:33:08,960
Cause she, that was like one area where
she went to that.

733
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:10,941
She was like, no, we're going to let him.

734
00:33:10,941 --> 00:33:12,241
So she would take me to the library.

735
00:33:12,241 --> 00:33:15,223
And so she just kind of let me read
whatever I wanted to.

736
00:33:15,223 --> 00:33:21,806
So even while I was in the cult, I was
still, my mind was being exposed to other

737
00:33:21,806 --> 00:33:22,866
things.

738
00:33:23,027 --> 00:33:26,728
And, and so my world was a little bit
bigger than the world that I was growing

739
00:33:26,728 --> 00:33:27,488
up in.

740
00:33:27,529 --> 00:33:32,431
And then when I was, when I was 17, my, my
parents decided that they wanted to send

741
00:33:32,431 --> 00:33:33,531
me to college.

742
00:33:33,712 --> 00:33:37,734
That's a path for most polygamous
children, but they believed that they

743
00:33:37,734 --> 00:33:44,259
needed to have a lawyer in their family to
help protect them and the water polygamous

744
00:33:44,259 --> 00:33:46,060
community from prosecution.

745
00:33:46,060 --> 00:33:46,940
Wow.

746
00:33:46,940 --> 00:33:49,802
They decided to send me to- You were the
chosen lawyer.

747
00:33:49,802 --> 00:33:52,464
I was the chosen lawyer, yeah.

748
00:33:52,464 --> 00:33:54,285
They sent me to college and they were
like, be careful.

749
00:33:54,285 --> 00:33:57,287
Don't listen to any of the wicked things
that they tell you.

750
00:33:57,567 --> 00:34:00,790
Remember what you've been taught, but go
and learn.

751
00:34:00,790 --> 00:34:03,772
I was at college for a couple of years and
that was my first real exposure.

752
00:34:03,772 --> 00:34:05,133
to the broader world.

753
00:34:05,133 --> 00:34:07,874
And it really wasn't even that diverse of
a world because I went from a

754
00:34:07,874 --> 00:34:11,897
predominantly polygamist community to a
predominantly LDS community.

755
00:34:11,897 --> 00:34:13,578
And that was liberalizing for me.

756
00:34:13,578 --> 00:34:17,961
That was expansive for me, even though I
think most people would say that an LDS

757
00:34:17,961 --> 00:34:22,284
community is a little bit like that's
still not the whole world.

758
00:34:22,284 --> 00:34:23,004
Right?

759
00:34:23,004 --> 00:34:26,507
So I was comfortable enough in that.

760
00:34:26,507 --> 00:34:27,847
I felt comfortable.

761
00:34:28,228 --> 00:34:32,271
Oh, it was familiar enough.

762
00:34:32,271 --> 00:34:32,851
And

763
00:34:33,552 --> 00:34:38,795
lucky I was able to go and do a mission
trip in Uganda in Africa for a summer

764
00:34:38,795 --> 00:34:40,076
while I was at college.

765
00:34:41,377 --> 00:34:41,937
Wow.

766
00:34:41,937 --> 00:34:45,420
And the polygamist communities are kind of
their old school Mormon and so they have a

767
00:34:45,420 --> 00:34:50,603
lot of the early sort of racist policies
that were a part of Mormonism that some

768
00:34:50,603 --> 00:34:52,464
versions have kind of moved on from.

769
00:34:52,525 --> 00:34:58,068
They are still very steeped in that and
that had always like really hurt my soul.

770
00:35:00,070 --> 00:35:06,776
I knew what it felt like to be a minority
because I was in this community of like,

771
00:35:06,776 --> 00:35:11,841
we were in this outside of this community
and we were the ones that everyone kind of

772
00:35:11,841 --> 00:35:14,804
talked about and we're the outsider.

773
00:35:15,385 --> 00:35:17,367
We were, I experienced all of that.

774
00:35:17,367 --> 00:35:17,827
Yeah.

775
00:35:17,827 --> 00:35:19,769
And so, so it felt.

776
00:35:20,462 --> 00:35:25,124
weird to me to then direct that same
energy towards someone because of the

777
00:35:25,124 --> 00:35:26,544
color of their skin.

778
00:35:26,544 --> 00:35:28,585
But then I had sort of this conflict,
right?

779
00:35:28,585 --> 00:35:33,588
Of like what felt good and true in my body
and what I was being told by all of the

780
00:35:33,588 --> 00:35:38,210
trusted people who were, you know, the
adults around me who were telling me about

781
00:35:38,210 --> 00:35:42,292
the world and I'm sort of wired to trust
them, what the world is like.

782
00:35:42,292 --> 00:35:47,034
So I go to Uganda and I just fall in love
with all of the people.

783
00:35:47,034 --> 00:35:49,535
And I'm like, there's nothing different.

784
00:35:50,416 --> 00:35:53,338
difference between you're in your early
twenties.

785
00:35:53,338 --> 00:35:55,940
Like you're exposed to this and you're
like 18.

786
00:35:55,940 --> 00:35:57,040
Okay, yeah, young.

787
00:35:58,042 --> 00:36:02,645
And so I come back, I come back and that's
sort of a crack that kind of pushes me

788
00:36:02,645 --> 00:36:07,629
into I can't stay in this polygamous
bubble this world is too small for me.

789
00:36:07,749 --> 00:36:12,353
And so I ended up joining the LDS church,
I tell people that was my diet cult,

790
00:36:12,353 --> 00:36:13,794
because it sort of like weaned me off.

791
00:36:13,794 --> 00:36:14,374
Yeah.

792
00:36:14,495 --> 00:36:18,037
And, and because it allowed me to kind of
maintain

793
00:36:18,070 --> 00:36:24,954
some of the belief structures while also
sort of jettisoning some of the racism and

794
00:36:24,954 --> 00:36:30,017
some of the polygamy, some of the stuff
that had felt yucky to me the whole time.

795
00:36:30,638 --> 00:36:36,002
And so I was LDS for, I got married, I had
a couple of kids, we were LDS for about

796
00:36:36,002 --> 00:36:37,382
five or six years.

797
00:36:37,563 --> 00:36:42,606
And then eventually that world also felt
too small for me.

798
00:36:42,606 --> 00:36:46,489
And so I left the LDS church and left
Mormonism entirely when I was about 25 or

799
00:36:46,489 --> 00:36:47,469
26.

800
00:36:47,874 --> 00:36:52,417
And then that's sort of what catapulted me
into kind of this healing journey.

801
00:36:52,417 --> 00:36:57,800
Because I'd realized at that point that my
entire life had been lived, not from, but

802
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,823
not from like inside of my soul, not kind
of the spark that drove my life.

803
00:37:01,823 --> 00:37:06,706
I'd lived my entire life based on what I
thought God wanted me to do.

804
00:37:06,766 --> 00:37:12,250
God as interpreted by someone, some
prophet, some person telling me what that

805
00:37:12,250 --> 00:37:16,373
is rather than me understanding what my
soul really wanted.

806
00:37:17,454 --> 00:37:22,715
So then you leave and you're on your own
and you're surviving and kind of doing

807
00:37:22,715 --> 00:37:23,095
this.

808
00:37:23,095 --> 00:37:28,757
Were you allowed to come back to visit
your family or is it like once you're out,

809
00:37:28,757 --> 00:37:33,578
like were you shunned and outcast and
parents like, bye?

810
00:37:33,578 --> 00:37:34,979
Different people have different
experiences.

811
00:37:34,979 --> 00:37:39,760
So what I experienced was sort of a
degradation of status, right?

812
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:44,841
So I went from being kind of the chosen,
the chosen, the golden boy to being the

813
00:37:44,841 --> 00:37:45,941
cast off.

814
00:37:46,022 --> 00:37:50,604
I was never told that I couldn't come
back, but the further away I went, the

815
00:37:50,604 --> 00:37:52,585
more I didn't want to go back.

816
00:37:52,585 --> 00:37:58,148
Because the more skilled I became, the
more I realized how dysfunctional my

817
00:37:58,148 --> 00:37:59,729
family of origin was.

818
00:37:59,729 --> 00:38:03,651
And so I went back, you know, for a number
of years, I never went back.

819
00:38:03,731 --> 00:38:06,053
Maybe five or six years after I left, I
did go back.

820
00:38:06,053 --> 00:38:08,914
I took my kids back just because I wanted
them to kind of see.

821
00:38:08,954 --> 00:38:14,317
And that trip was, it was really difficult
for me.

822
00:38:14,317 --> 00:38:15,097
They

823
00:38:15,170 --> 00:38:18,131
they're still living, I mean, they live in
poverty.

824
00:38:18,131 --> 00:38:21,713
They live in these really trashy trailers
that are falling apart.

825
00:38:22,054 --> 00:38:27,097
They're just not caring for their children
in ways that I would want children to be

826
00:38:27,097 --> 00:38:28,077
cared for.

827
00:38:28,378 --> 00:38:30,379
And so it's difficult to go.

828
00:38:30,379 --> 00:38:35,482
So what I've tried to do is to maintain
enough of a relationship with them that if

829
00:38:35,482 --> 00:38:39,165
any of my siblings decide to leave, that
they can sort of access me as an exit, as

830
00:38:39,165 --> 00:38:40,905
an exit ramp.

831
00:38:41,570 --> 00:38:44,251
How were you received by that community?

832
00:38:44,251 --> 00:38:49,954
Like if you can get into that, was it
weird for them to have you come back?

833
00:38:49,954 --> 00:38:53,796
Like, oh, we don't want whatever, you
know, Ben's got getting contagious around

834
00:38:53,796 --> 00:38:54,356
here.

835
00:38:54,356 --> 00:38:57,178
There's definitely like some contagion,
right?

836
00:38:57,178 --> 00:39:01,360
Like there's a view of me that is a
certain way.

837
00:39:02,501 --> 00:39:09,364
And what it does is it sort of makes it so
that it's difficult to have warm,

838
00:39:09,405 --> 00:39:11,318
connective family.

839
00:39:11,318 --> 00:39:18,201
Like I have this image of what family can
be, which is a source of like strength and

840
00:39:18,201 --> 00:39:20,443
comfort and power.

841
00:39:20,443 --> 00:39:22,524
And that's not what family is for me.

842
00:39:22,524 --> 00:39:27,967
Like I don't, when I'm having a hard time,
I don't call my dad or my mom.

843
00:39:27,967 --> 00:39:34,710
I don't, I can't really turn to my family
for support because their view is the

844
00:39:34,710 --> 00:39:38,192
support that I get is, well, you should
repent.

845
00:39:38,252 --> 00:39:39,213
You should do better, right?

846
00:39:39,213 --> 00:39:40,414
There, the reason.

847
00:39:40,414 --> 00:39:45,836
In fact, I had kind of an experiment with
my dad recently over the last like two

848
00:39:45,836 --> 00:39:52,278
years where I tried, I was like, I felt
really deeply the loss of not really

849
00:39:52,278 --> 00:39:56,360
having a dad and really wanting to have
that energy in my life.

850
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:58,681
And so I communicated that to him.

851
00:39:58,681 --> 00:39:59,702
He seemed open to it.

852
00:39:59,702 --> 00:40:02,943
We kind of tried navigating what that
might look like.

853
00:40:03,523 --> 00:40:08,425
And because I'd done a lot of therapy and
I knew what my value was, what I realized

854
00:40:08,425 --> 00:40:09,385
is that he,

855
00:40:09,462 --> 00:40:14,685
He actually didn't have it in him to show
up for me in the way that I wanted to.

856
00:40:14,685 --> 00:40:18,788
To the point where as you, you know, as
you heal, you also have to sort of

857
00:40:18,788 --> 00:40:21,550
reconstruct your life and the
reconstruction of your life is kind of

858
00:40:21,550 --> 00:40:22,271
messy.

859
00:40:22,271 --> 00:40:26,594
And part of that for me was going through
a pretty gnarly divorce.

860
00:40:26,694 --> 00:40:30,737
And rather than getting support from my,
from my family, from that, rather than my

861
00:40:30,737 --> 00:40:34,960
dad being able to give me the energy that
I needed there, which was, Hey, we've got

862
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:36,598
you, it's going to be okay.

863
00:40:36,598 --> 00:40:36,978
Yeah.

864
00:40:36,978 --> 00:40:40,321
You know, eventually he told me that he
thought that all that my life was falling

865
00:40:40,321 --> 00:40:42,102
apart because I went to therapy.

866
00:40:42,482 --> 00:40:47,967
Oh, and I was like, I was like, I mean,
that that's accurate.

867
00:40:47,967 --> 00:40:51,850
I went to therapy and then I realized the
parts of my life that weren't working and

868
00:40:51,850 --> 00:40:53,932
then I've been working to change them.

869
00:40:54,132 --> 00:40:59,257
But but for that energy to kind of go into
like I've been I've been getting I feel

870
00:40:59,257 --> 00:41:01,899
like I've been getting more healthy, more
functional.

871
00:41:01,899 --> 00:41:05,298
I've been becoming more of myself as I've
been healing.

872
00:41:05,298 --> 00:41:10,260
And to have that reflected back to me from
my dad as, yeah, this is, this is a bad

873
00:41:10,260 --> 00:41:14,361
thing that it's happening because you did
this.

874
00:41:14,662 --> 00:41:18,043
It ultimately made me realize that
relationship wasn't a safe relationship

875
00:41:18,043 --> 00:41:18,403
for me.

876
00:41:18,403 --> 00:41:20,344
And I kind of had to put some boundaries.

877
00:41:20,344 --> 00:41:24,526
I was going to say, and then probably
boundaries really to reflect you and then

878
00:41:24,526 --> 00:41:25,686
also your children, right?

879
00:41:25,686 --> 00:41:27,207
Because now there's a next generation.

880
00:41:27,207 --> 00:41:33,049
So you're talking about like they live in
poverty and is it, is it like,

881
00:41:33,206 --> 00:41:34,306
walking into the past.

882
00:41:34,306 --> 00:41:37,727
Like if you show up with an iPhone right
now, does it blow their minds?

883
00:41:38,328 --> 00:41:40,168
Or are they familiar with that kind of
stuff?

884
00:41:40,168 --> 00:41:41,529
I'm not sure.

885
00:41:41,529 --> 00:41:43,770
So they're pretty familiar with that kind
of technology.

886
00:41:43,770 --> 00:41:45,951
So they have phones.

887
00:41:45,951 --> 00:41:47,391
I don't know.

888
00:41:47,551 --> 00:41:49,772
I think they have some smartphones.

889
00:41:49,772 --> 00:41:52,293
And again, it varies depending on which
sect it is.

890
00:41:52,293 --> 00:41:55,475
So they're running a full business, right?

891
00:41:55,475 --> 00:41:56,795
Like you've got to have.

892
00:41:56,795 --> 00:41:57,916
OK, OK.

893
00:41:57,916 --> 00:42:00,016
But I realize and I understand it.

894
00:42:00,016 --> 00:42:02,838
There's got to be somebody there who
knows.

895
00:42:02,838 --> 00:42:04,018
But they're not telling everybody else.

896
00:42:04,018 --> 00:42:06,020
You're not getting taught how to use an
iPad and iPhone.

897
00:42:06,020 --> 00:42:06,760
There's a lot of restrictions.

898
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:09,262
There's a ton of restriction around media.

899
00:42:09,262 --> 00:42:11,163
So media is really restricted.

900
00:42:11,163 --> 00:42:14,145
There's a lot of restriction around
information.

901
00:42:14,145 --> 00:42:16,627
So what kind of information gets to come
in, right?

902
00:42:16,627 --> 00:42:22,431
But technology is sort of used and adapted
to make it work for them.

903
00:42:22,431 --> 00:42:25,673
And they give it to you in whatever way
they want.

904
00:42:25,673 --> 00:42:29,516
So if this movie just popped in my head,
M.

905
00:42:29,516 --> 00:42:32,254
Night Shyamalan, Alon, whatever his name
is.

906
00:42:32,254 --> 00:42:33,714
Yeah, the village.

907
00:42:34,394 --> 00:42:37,315
That's a horror movie with a twist, crazy
twist at the end.

908
00:42:37,316 --> 00:42:40,857
But if you go to a Mormon polygamous
compound, if you're allowed to show

909
00:42:40,857 --> 00:42:43,878
movies, they could show that movie as a
documentary.

910
00:42:44,399 --> 00:42:50,481
So literally, this is this is a it's funny
that you bring that up because my dad did

911
00:42:50,481 --> 00:42:51,281
that.

912
00:42:51,321 --> 00:42:54,243
My dad had us watch the village.

913
00:42:54,243 --> 00:42:54,883
He loved that.

914
00:42:54,883 --> 00:42:56,483
He loves that movie.

915
00:42:56,704 --> 00:43:01,154
And the reason that he loves it is because
he thinks that the that the

916
00:43:01,154 --> 00:43:03,395
Village elders are awesome.

917
00:43:03,395 --> 00:43:04,877
They're the good guys.

918
00:43:04,877 --> 00:43:07,919
Oh my gosh.

919
00:43:07,919 --> 00:43:08,580
I called that out.

920
00:43:08,580 --> 00:43:09,360
I can't believe that.

921
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:11,702
But that's what I picture.

922
00:43:12,563 --> 00:43:13,884
The living arrangement.

923
00:43:14,765 --> 00:43:16,386
Not completely.

924
00:43:16,386 --> 00:43:18,308
And it's not a spoiler, but there's a road
right next to him.

925
00:43:18,308 --> 00:43:19,449
This movie's been out for a while.

926
00:43:19,449 --> 00:43:20,189
But there's a road.

927
00:43:20,189 --> 00:43:20,562
Yeah.

928
00:43:20,562 --> 00:43:22,442
and civilization right next to them the
whole time.

929
00:43:22,442 --> 00:43:23,523
They don't understand.

930
00:43:23,523 --> 00:43:27,465
The way that I would sort of tweak that,
because that's a great analogy, but again,

931
00:43:27,505 --> 00:43:28,725
it's not physical.

932
00:43:28,725 --> 00:43:30,686
The boundaries there aren't physical,
right?

933
00:43:30,686 --> 00:43:33,027
So it's not like they don't have
electricity.

934
00:43:33,247 --> 00:43:37,129
It's not like they don't realize that
there's another world out there, right?

935
00:43:37,129 --> 00:43:37,942
Yeah.

936
00:43:37,942 --> 00:43:41,743
But what they've done is they've over
generations, they've carefully constructed

937
00:43:41,743 --> 00:43:46,226
a, again, going back to this idea of myth,
myth is what makes humans cooperate,

938
00:43:46,226 --> 00:43:46,826
right?

939
00:43:46,826 --> 00:43:52,289
So they've carefully constructed a myth
that places them in a role of being

940
00:43:52,289 --> 00:43:54,369
separate and above the world.

941
00:43:54,650 --> 00:43:56,510
And so they have to shun it.

942
00:43:56,671 --> 00:44:00,633
It's actually really brilliant and a
little nefarious, because it's not even

943
00:44:00,633 --> 00:44:02,553
that they have to limit.

944
00:44:02,978 --> 00:44:04,419
the contact with the outside world.

945
00:44:04,419 --> 00:44:09,601
All they have to do is get you to believe
that any of that contact is satanic.

946
00:44:09,601 --> 00:44:12,083
I was gonna say, it's fear too.

947
00:44:12,083 --> 00:44:14,544
Yeah, because you have to be careful.

948
00:44:14,544 --> 00:44:18,586
They would tell us all the time, like you
gotta be careful what music you listen to.

949
00:44:18,586 --> 00:44:23,449
Because if you listen to the wrong music,
the beat of the music will actually get

950
00:44:23,449 --> 00:44:26,531
you to do, like it's a slippery slope into
wickedness, right?

951
00:44:26,531 --> 00:44:28,112
So you don't do that.

952
00:44:28,112 --> 00:44:31,273
So it's very much based on, it's sort of,

953
00:44:31,598 --> 00:44:36,519
programs people to self-police in order to
maintain their ideological purity.

954
00:44:36,519 --> 00:44:38,139
Wow.

955
00:44:38,139 --> 00:44:43,241
So Ben, I gotta ask you, living on a
polygamous compound in the wicked world

956
00:44:43,241 --> 00:44:49,963
outside, I don't see anywhere that the
wickedness can stay out of.

957
00:44:50,183 --> 00:44:53,584
What kind of wickedness actually happens
within that Mormon compound, the

958
00:44:53,584 --> 00:44:55,004
polygamous compound?

959
00:44:55,044 --> 00:44:59,314
There's gotta be, there's gotta be
wickedness like homosexuality and...

960
00:44:59,314 --> 00:45:04,078
and drinking and smoking and cursing
maybe, if you even know what the curse

961
00:45:04,078 --> 00:45:06,821
words are, like what happens out there?

962
00:45:06,821 --> 00:45:09,002
Like what goes on out there?

963
00:45:09,823 --> 00:45:10,905
There's very little of it.

964
00:45:10,905 --> 00:45:14,588
Hold on, let me preface this by saying I
do not actually think homosexuality is a

965
00:45:14,588 --> 00:45:15,189
sin.

966
00:45:15,189 --> 00:45:16,509
I'm relating this.

967
00:45:16,582 --> 00:45:18,462
Yes, I want to make sure that's clear.

968
00:45:18,462 --> 00:45:19,382
I did growing up.

969
00:45:19,382 --> 00:45:20,122
Four shoes higher.

970
00:45:20,122 --> 00:45:20,783
Yeah.

971
00:45:20,783 --> 00:45:20,983
Oh, yeah.

972
00:45:20,983 --> 00:45:24,524
In fact, that's like, because it's like,
it's like there's polygamy and then

973
00:45:24,524 --> 00:45:26,644
there's monogamy and then there's
homosexuality.

974
00:45:26,644 --> 00:45:27,064
Right.

975
00:45:27,064 --> 00:45:30,945
So like, that's like the furthest opposite
you could possibly go to.

976
00:45:31,085 --> 00:45:31,806
Yeah.

977
00:45:31,806 --> 00:45:36,367
So there's a level of, there's not a lot
of that.

978
00:45:36,367 --> 00:45:38,908
So swearing wasn't something we did.

979
00:45:38,908 --> 00:45:41,128
No smoking, no drinking, no partying.

980
00:45:41,128 --> 00:45:44,429
Very rigid, very, very morally uptight.

981
00:45:44,529 --> 00:45:45,989
It's interesting because I.

982
00:45:46,378 --> 00:45:51,619
I make jokes about wickedness and I call
people out here wicked, but I actually do

983
00:45:51,619 --> 00:45:53,000
think that there is wickedness, right?

984
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:58,161
I actually do believe in evil and I think
that it is happening often in these hyper

985
00:45:58,381 --> 00:45:59,822
isolated religious communities.

986
00:45:59,822 --> 00:46:04,743
And the way that I would define that is
it's teaching humans that they're bad.

987
00:46:05,603 --> 00:46:05,844
Right?

988
00:46:05,844 --> 00:46:12,605
So I was, I grew up believing that my body
was bad, that my natural kind of instincts

989
00:46:12,978 --> 00:46:16,659
as my body, especially as I got into
puberty and started to develop sexually

990
00:46:16,659 --> 00:46:18,159
that was bad.

991
00:46:18,339 --> 00:46:22,500
And, and what that does is it creates a
cycle of shame.

992
00:46:24,001 --> 00:46:28,882
If you, if you villainize the parts of
humans that are natural and normal and

993
00:46:28,882 --> 00:46:33,463
healthy, and then lock them into believing
that that's bad, then they get caught in

994
00:46:33,463 --> 00:46:35,083
this cycle of shame.

995
00:46:35,284 --> 00:46:37,424
And then you can control them and
manipulate them.

996
00:46:37,424 --> 00:46:41,745
So to me, evil, it's interesting because
like Jesus talks about,

997
00:46:42,050 --> 00:46:45,450
you know, woe unto those that call evil,
good and good evil.

998
00:46:46,251 --> 00:46:47,331
I believe that, right?

999
00:46:47,331 --> 00:46:54,173
If you, as an institution, or as a, if you
purport to be a representative of the

1000
00:46:54,173 --> 00:46:58,774
divine, if you purport to be a religion,
and you teach people that their bodies are

1001
00:46:58,774 --> 00:47:04,236
bad and that their natural instincts are
bad and evil, I think that's evil.

1002
00:47:04,236 --> 00:47:04,896
Yeah.

1003
00:47:04,896 --> 00:47:06,317
Because you're not doing that.

1004
00:47:06,317 --> 00:47:09,837
The only reason you're doing that is to
create

1005
00:47:09,914 --> 00:47:14,075
cycles of shame in them that then allow
you to extort and manipulate them.

1006
00:47:14,655 --> 00:47:19,416
Which is what you see in cults all over
the world is locking people into these

1007
00:47:19,416 --> 00:47:23,277
beliefs and then just milking them dry.

1008
00:47:23,277 --> 00:47:24,218
That's crazy.

1009
00:47:24,218 --> 00:47:25,638
That's insane, man.

1010
00:47:25,638 --> 00:47:29,359
I have one more question I want to ask
you.

1011
00:47:29,959 --> 00:47:33,680
What's the most sinful, wicked thing
you've done or seen since you've been out?

1012
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:36,361
You cannot ask that.

1013
00:47:36,361 --> 00:47:37,514
I've been very wicked.

1014
00:47:37,514 --> 00:47:42,535
Let me, let me tell you.

1015
00:47:42,535 --> 00:47:45,676
And part of that too, is that I realized
after leaving, kind of going on a healing

1016
00:47:45,676 --> 00:47:50,957
journey and realizing that like doing
therapy, what I realized is that I was in

1017
00:47:50,957 --> 00:47:55,958
many ways, I was severely underdeveloped,
that I was sort of locked in early

1018
00:47:55,958 --> 00:47:59,679
developmental stages because I hadn't had
experiences, right?

1019
00:47:59,679 --> 00:48:04,161
So I think that now I sort of view it as
that I think there's a really natural and

1020
00:48:04,161 --> 00:48:07,542
healthy way that humans develop and grow.

1021
00:48:07,542 --> 00:48:10,584
which is we do things, our instincts tell
us to do things.

1022
00:48:10,584 --> 00:48:15,588
And we have wild and crazy teenage years
and 20 years where we get a lot of data,

1023
00:48:15,588 --> 00:48:15,788
right?

1024
00:48:15,788 --> 00:48:19,571
We're going around, we're, we're around
and finding out, right?

1025
00:48:19,652 --> 00:48:22,354
That's a, that's a real thing that humans
do.

1026
00:48:22,354 --> 00:48:25,736
And if you don't around, you can't find
out.

1027
00:48:26,077 --> 00:48:29,680
And so part of what you have to do, I
think as a natural developmental stage is

1028
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:32,161
just do wild and crazy stuff.

1029
00:48:32,222 --> 00:48:36,064
And then what you do is you have those
experiences and then you reflect, right?

1030
00:48:36,064 --> 00:48:40,606
And you sort of listen to your body and
you do some things that you're like, Oh, I

1031
00:48:40,606 --> 00:48:42,207
actually didn't like that thing.

1032
00:48:42,267 --> 00:48:43,227
Okay, great.

1033
00:48:43,308 --> 00:48:44,668
Don't do that thing anymore.

1034
00:48:44,668 --> 00:48:48,591
And then you do other things and you're
like, Oh, I really like that thing.

1035
00:48:48,591 --> 00:48:49,091
Okay, great.

1036
00:48:49,091 --> 00:48:49,771
Do more of that.

1037
00:48:49,771 --> 00:48:49,951
Right?

1038
00:48:49,951 --> 00:48:54,454
So maybe, maybe in high school or maybe as
a college, as a college kid, you drink and

1039
00:48:54,454 --> 00:48:55,754
you party a lot.

1040
00:48:56,095 --> 00:48:59,457
And, and then you, and you do that a whole
bunch and it's super fun.

1041
00:48:59,457 --> 00:49:01,197
And then after a while you're kind of
like,

1042
00:49:01,634 --> 00:49:02,834
I'm sort of out of my system.

1043
00:49:02,834 --> 00:49:03,694
I'm kind of done.

1044
00:49:03,694 --> 00:49:04,815
I'm what's next?

1045
00:49:04,815 --> 00:49:06,415
Like, what's the next part of it?

1046
00:49:06,576 --> 00:49:10,737
And so I felt really, I felt like I was
stuck in very early development,

1047
00:49:10,737 --> 00:49:13,278
developmental stages because I'd never had
that.

1048
00:49:13,298 --> 00:49:17,520
And so after I left, after I left
religion, after I left my marriage, I was

1049
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:21,842
like, I'm going to go and, uh, I'm going
to go be as wicked as I possibly can be,

1050
00:49:21,842 --> 00:49:25,743
I'm going to go do all of the wicked
things that they told me not to do, and

1051
00:49:25,743 --> 00:49:27,044
I'm going to do it intentionally.

1052
00:49:27,044 --> 00:49:28,804
And I'm going to do it with a lot of fun.

1053
00:49:28,945 --> 00:49:31,606
And that's how I found myself at Burning
Man.

1054
00:49:31,606 --> 00:49:36,668
Oh, we're not going to go into that.

1055
00:49:36,668 --> 00:49:39,110
Rappers show.

1056
00:49:39,110 --> 00:49:42,372
Episode does have some Burning Man
references and we're going to get more

1057
00:49:42,372 --> 00:49:43,812
talk from being on Burning Man.

1058
00:49:43,812 --> 00:49:48,935
Ben, thanks for joining us on the best
podcast in Utah radio daybreak.

1059
00:49:49,375 --> 00:49:51,817
Make sure you check out his episode.

1060
00:49:51,817 --> 00:49:55,218
Episode one is out right now on ride the
wave media.

1061
00:49:55,619 --> 00:49:57,220
Also, Ben, guess what?

1062
00:49:57,220 --> 00:49:59,401
You're, you're all over the place on ride
the wave media this week.

1063
00:49:59,401 --> 00:50:00,441
You're going to be on.

1064
00:50:00,998 --> 00:50:03,599
A is for adversity with Jen Banks this
week as well.

1065
00:50:03,599 --> 00:50:05,060
So we're gonna get to meet you there.

1066
00:50:05,340 --> 00:50:07,361
Banks, what else do you have for us?

1067
00:50:07,361 --> 00:50:09,382
What else we got going on here?

1068
00:50:09,983 --> 00:50:11,343
I just wanted to say thank you.

1069
00:50:11,343 --> 00:50:15,646
Thank you so much for the insights and
everything that you've provided today.

1070
00:50:15,646 --> 00:50:19,308
I know our listeners, their minds are
gonna be blown.

1071
00:50:19,308 --> 00:50:22,470
I think a lot of what you've shared are
the insights that people don't know.

1072
00:50:22,470 --> 00:50:24,151
So just thank you.

1073
00:50:24,151 --> 00:50:28,993
Thank you for being a voice to, especially
those kiddos that...

1074
00:50:29,874 --> 00:50:33,036
and will never have that opportunity
because of, you know, where they were

1075
00:50:33,036 --> 00:50:33,416
born.

1076
00:50:33,416 --> 00:50:38,459
So Ben, let's get the people out there to
give their 10% tithing this week to the

1077
00:50:38,459 --> 00:50:39,600
charity of your choice.

1078
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:40,440
What's the charity again?

1079
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:41,741
Can you give us that info?

1080
00:50:41,861 --> 00:50:44,143
Yeah, the charity is called Cherish
Families.

1081
00:50:44,143 --> 00:50:48,605
It's based in, it's actually based in
Colorado City in Southern Utah.

1082
00:50:48,605 --> 00:50:51,387
When Warren Jeffs got sent to jail, they
came in and they took all his.

1083
00:50:51,587 --> 00:50:54,049
So they have, they actually have his
church building.

1084
00:50:54,049 --> 00:50:55,310
That's their headquarters.

1085
00:50:55,310 --> 00:50:56,290
Oh wow.

1086
00:50:56,290 --> 00:50:58,370
They're just a really cool organization.

1087
00:50:58,370 --> 00:51:02,071
Cher is where people can find them.

1088
00:51:02,071 --> 00:51:05,792
Cher go give your 10% tie this week to
them.

1089
00:51:05,792 --> 00:51:10,514
We won't be knocking on doors if you
don't, but we would love to have that.

1090
00:51:10,694 --> 00:51:12,954
Make sure you check out Vibe in the
Apocalypse.

1091
00:51:13,395 --> 00:51:14,075
This show is amazing.

1092
00:51:14,075 --> 00:51:16,335
You gotta really check it out.

1093
00:51:16,335 --> 00:51:17,156
Ben, again, awesome.

1094
00:51:17,156 --> 00:51:18,636
Thank you so much for being on the show.

1095
00:51:18,636 --> 00:51:22,937
Before we let you go, we do want to ask,
it sounds like you've got a couple events

1096
00:51:22,937 --> 00:51:24,446
and some things coming up.

1097
00:51:24,446 --> 00:51:27,949
Yeah, I've got a couple of shows coming up
at Wise Guys here in Salt Lake City.

1098
00:51:27,949 --> 00:51:30,951
If you guys like what I heard, what you
heard, and you want to come laugh with me

1099
00:51:30,951 --> 00:51:35,035
about religious trauma, I have some shows
coming up end of January.

1100
00:51:35,035 --> 00:51:38,978
And if you're, if you want to follow me on
my social media, that's the Fresh King

1101
00:51:38,978 --> 00:51:41,100
Benjamin on Instagram and TikTok.

1102
00:51:41,180 --> 00:51:46,445
And if you want to book me as a comedian,
you can check out my website, fres where

1103
00:51:46,445 --> 00:51:48,807
you can also join my cult.

1104
00:51:48,807 --> 00:51:49,928
Oh, I love it.

1105
00:51:49,928 --> 00:51:50,689
Join the cult.

1106
00:51:50,689 --> 00:51:51,946
It's so awesome.

1107
00:51:51,946 --> 00:51:55,406
the cult man and check out vibing the
apocalypse right here on ride the wave

1108
00:51:55,406 --> 00:51:55,707
media.

1109
00:51:55,707 --> 00:51:56,707
It's a weekly show.

1110
00:51:56,707 --> 00:52:00,028
It features Ben as the host and that show
is going to get real crazy as we go along

1111
00:52:00,028 --> 00:52:02,028
too because we're going to get some guests
in there with him.

1112
00:52:02,028 --> 00:52:05,249
We're going to have a lot of people come
in and show him the wickedness that's out

1113
00:52:05,249 --> 00:52:05,509
there.

1114
00:52:05,509 --> 00:52:09,791
So we'll see you guys next week.

1115
00:52:09,791 --> 00:52:10,371
See you next week.

1116
00:52:10,371 --> 00:52:12,951
Thanks guys.

1117
00:52:12,951 --> 00:52:17,013
Do you want to unleash your inner power
and heal your past wounds?

1118
00:52:17,013 --> 00:52:20,606
Do you want to learn the secrets of Celtic
wisdom and magic?

1119
00:52:20,606 --> 00:52:24,627
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align with your true purpose?

1120
00:52:24,627 --> 00:52:28,148
If you answered yes to any of these
questions, then you need to listen to

1121
00:52:28,148 --> 00:52:34,069
Practically Magic, the podcast that shows
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1122
00:52:34,069 --> 00:52:34,389
way.

1123
00:52:34,389 --> 00:52:39,631
Join me, Courtney Earl, a self-proclaimed
witch, healer, and Celtic priestess, and

1124
00:52:39,631 --> 00:52:44,872
let me guide you through the dark cauldron
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1125
00:52:44,872 --> 00:52:46,893
with a new vision of yourself.

1126
00:52:46,893 --> 00:52:49,674
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1127
00:52:49,674 --> 00:52:52,637
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1128
00:52:52,637 --> 00:52:57,824
Tune in every week and get ready to
experience massive healing, balance and

1129
00:52:57,824 --> 00:53:00,087
peace for your soul and body.

1130
00:53:00,087 --> 00:53:02,509
Listen on Ride the Wave Media.