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Skid Row To Appalachia: The Forgotten People Of Rural America - Peter Santenello

Peter Santenello is an independent journalist, YouTuber, & author. Who are the forgotten people of rural America? The country’s political and moral divisions may stem not only from disagreement, but from distance, countless communities and subcultures living entirely separate lives, with little understanding of one another. So what is life really like in these overlooked towns, who still calls them home, and do they represent a version of the “real America” the rest of the country has forgotten? Expect to learn what Peter learned about America from traveling to 85 different countries, what’s actually going on in rural America nobody really sees or has forgotten about, what’s actually going on in the drug crisis in America, Peter’s biggest lessons from the Amish, the most misunderstood community in America and much more… - Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get up to 20% off Timeline powered by Mitopure (now at a lower price) at https://timeline.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 15% off your first order of my favourite Non-Alcoholic Brew at https://athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom Get ChatGPT to explore ideas, solve problems, and learn faster at ⁠https://chatgpt.com - 0:00 What Inspired Peter to Travel? 4:57 The Isolation of Living Abroad 10:04 The World’s Most Underrated Destinations 14:41 How Ukraine Changed Peter’s Path 23:44 What Americans Don’t Understand About America 26:19 What We Can Learn From Native Americans 30:44 Do Native Communities Still Hold Resentment? 36:53 Is This the Worse Place in America? 46:14 Is Fentanyl America’s Biggest Crisis? 51:20 The Amish Trick Everyone Falls For 59:18 Inside the Intensity of Jewish Life 01:05:14 Are Company Towns Modern-Day Slavery? 01:11:12 The Surprising Diversity of the US Landscape 01:16:39 What Will the World Look Like in 5 Years? 01:26:14 What’s Really Happening at the Mexican Border? 01:43:22 How the UK Really Sees London 01:49:14 Are People Still Speaking Elizabethan English in Maryland? 01:51:43 Why Strong Communities Matter More Than Ever 01:57:27 Where to Find Peter - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spotify.modernwisdom.com or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.modernwisdom.com Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostPeter Santenelloguest
Aug 3, 20261h 58mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 4:57

    What Inspired Peter to Travel?

    1. CW

      I'm starting an OnlyFans and I'm selling merch. This has taken way too long and I'm very sorry, but it is so worth it. The designs are unreal. We've upgraded the blanks so they're even better quality than last time. And this bursting heart design with Japanese text in the middle is just so beautiful. Also, your girlfriend's new favorite hoodie. I apologize to anybody who buys this because I get the sense that your girlfriend's just gonna steal it. All of it is available right now at mwmerch.com and it's only available for six days. So get it. Once it's gone, you won't be able to buy it again. That's it. Completely sold out, never to be printed in the future. mwmerch.com. What was your original inspiration? What drove you to do this?

    2. PS

      Uh, I was here in Austin. It's so cool 'cause I lived here early 2000s, worked as a waiter at Fleming's Steakhouse, and I just had these dreams of traveling the world. Can't wait to see the world one day 'cause I didn't travel growing up. Our family didn't go anywhere. Always wanted to go to Europe.

    3. CW

      Hmm.

    4. PS

      And then my goal was save $20,000 in two years, go to Europe. Seven months, get a Ducati in Italy, rip that thing through the Alps, send it home, have my life figured out.

    5. CW

      Bro, that's a fucking dream.

    6. PS

      That was the dream.

    7. CW

      That is an absolute dream.

    8. PS

      But then I went-- I did a winter in Switzerland, snowboarding, doing every job imaginable, um, and then flew. I'm like, "What's this re- place called the Republic of Georgia? I've never heard of that."

    9. CW

      Hmm.

    10. PS

      I took a one-way, Republic of Georgia, landed. All the mafioso got off the plane, which was the whole plane. The BMWs were waiting for them, sped off on the tarmac. It was me in the airport. It was so corrupt at that time, had to p- pay a bribe to get into the airport. Like, had to pay a bribe if I wanted to enter. He's like, "$20." I said, "What for?" He's like, "You enter through me, $20." So when you're young and curious and-

    11. CW

      How old were you?

    12. PS

      I was 26, 25 then. 25, 26. So when you're young and curious and adventurous, there's nothing better.

    13. CW

      Dangerous combination. [chuckles]

    14. PS

      There's nothing better.

    15. CW

      That's a fucking dangerous combination, dude.

    16. PS

      So Georgia was like the gateway drug. That would be like the-

    17. CW

      Where is Georgia?

    18. PS

      Uh, the Republic of Georgia, so you're south of Russia, Caucas- Ca- Caucasus Mountains on the Black Sea. Armenia right below. Azerbaijan.

    19. CW

      Hmm.

    20. PS

      Sort of near Turkey. Borders Turkey, actually.

    21. CW

      Okay. Okay.

    22. PS

      So, like, on the east side, let's say.

    23. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    24. PS

      Where Bulgaria is over here on the western side of Turkey, east side.

    25. CW

      Okay.

    26. PS

      Um, but that was the gateway. And then you're like, "Where can I go from here?" And you look on a map and you're like, "Huh, Tajikistan. What's that like?" And so instead of going back in seven months with the Ducati, I scrapped the Ducati idea. I'm like, "Ah, I can always save money, but I'll never be able to travel like this again."

    27. CW

      Hmm.

    28. PS

      Maybe never.

    29. CW

      Hmm.

    30. PS

      So I'm gonna go all the way around, and it was 50 countries, two years. Ran out of money in Uzbekistan. Got-

  2. 4:57 – 10:04

    The Isolation of Living Abroad

    1. PS

      hard work.

    2. CW

      What do you think that young version of you would think if you were able to show him where his life went from there?

    3. PS

      It would be way more than I could have ever imagined. Yeah.

    4. CW

      Beautiful.

    5. PS

      'Cause the world's an amazing place, and living abroad teaches you as you see you're living abroad.

    6. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    7. PS

      Um, I don't know if you consider this as your home country now.

    8. CW

      I'm kind of unsure on that, to be honest. I did-- I, I was telling you I did a little bit of, um, self-work before the meditation retreat a few weeks ago, and as a part of that, one of the questions that came up is, "Where is your home?" And I found myself really conflicted when trying to answer it-

    9. PS

      Right

    10. CW

      ... because I kinda don't know. I kinda don't know where home is. It's like it's here. This is where my business is, and it's a country that I love, and I certainly feel m- welcome here in a way that I wasn't in the UK, but I'm definitely not fucking American, right? Like, the second that I open my mouth, I'm evidently not American. I don't have the same cultural landmarks and, and understandings and, and historical, uh, context-

    11. PS

      Yeah

    12. CW

      ... that, that you need to kind of be able to survive. Something that's really interesting, I wonder whether you've noticed this. People who, uh- Emigrate to other countries that speak the same language that they do natively

    13. PS

      Mm-hmm

    14. CW

      ... their foreignness or the fact that they're an immigrant gets forgotten, and then it resurfaces itself in surprising ways.

    15. PS

      Mm-hmm.

    16. CW

      So if I go to Brazil-

    17. PS

      Mm-hmm

    18. CW

      ... even if you're speaking English with someone, their accent is so evidently, like, perverted-

    19. PS

      Uh-huh

    20. CW

      ... that you're always reminded of the fact that you're a foreigner.

    21. PS

      Sure.

    22. CW

      Always reminded over and over and over again. But you go to a country that speaks your native language, and you kind of forget for a little while-

    23. PS

      Yeah

    24. CW

      ... that you're not from there because it's just seamless communication. And then you try to use a reference, I try to talk about Jaffa Cakes or Cadbury's milk chocolate or The Inbetweeners or fucking, you know, Mr. Bean or whatever.

    25. PS

      [laughs]

    26. CW

      And which obviously those are-

    27. PS

      Geez

    28. CW

      ... the four horsemen of British culture.

    29. PS

      Yeah, sure.

    30. CW

      And, um, then you go, "I, I can't do that. I can't do that." I forget that I'm a foreigner. You forget that you're a foreigner in a country that speaks your own language, and it's really-- it's good because it allows you to integrate very quickly, and you don't feel as alienated, I imagine, as you might do if you weren't speaking the language. But then the alienation sort of jump scares you.

  3. 10:04 – 14:41

    The World’s Most Underrated Destinations

    1. CW

      What are some of the lesser-known but amazing destinations that you think people should go to if they're looking to travel outside of the US? Like a surprising great trip. Are you gonna tell me that Syria is like a, a, a, a hotbed for a weekend getaway?

    2. PS

      [laughs]

    3. CW

      Uh, Jared, can we go to the, uh... We, we made a special setting, so I know that you sometimes go to some dark and mysterious places-

    4. PS

      Yeah

    5. CW

      ... on your travels, so we can change the vibe inside of the studio, and we've made a setting.

    6. PS

      Oh, that's cool.

    7. CW

      You're gonna be the first person that we use this new one on.

    8. PS

      You gonna put some dark music with me?

    9. CW

      Uh, I think just the-

    10. PS

      Okay

    11. CW

      ... the darkness of the stories will probably do enough.

    12. PS

      Oh, cool.

    13. CW

      But-

    14. PS

      Okay, would I say for anyone to, to pack up and go to Syria first trip abroad? No, definitely not.

    15. CW

      Hmm.

    16. PS

      When I went was Christmas time. I flew in from Moscow, 2:00 in the morning, and it was all the lights, the green lights from above, and those were all the mosques, and I got in the cabbie, and this was during George W. Bush. And the cabbie was like, the driver was like, "What do you think of George W. Bush?" And I was against the Iraqi war, and I just knocked off some pejoratives and he loved it. He was like, "Ah." I was like, I was like, "F- F GW," and blah, blah, blah.

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    18. PS

      I'm in Texas, am I gonna have problems with saying that?

    19. CW

      Sure.

    20. PS

      Just checking. Um, he, he was getting excited and all giddy, and then I'm like, "What do you think of Bashar Al-Assad?" And his giddiness firmed up. He got tense, and he's like, "Bashar Al-Assad is a good president." But it, he didn't feel that way.

    21. CW

      Hmm.

    22. PS

      And that was the first time I really realized how important free speech is, how it, if you can't speak your mind, then it, it controls your behavior. I saw him tense up.

    23. CW

      Hmm.

    24. PS

      And I was like, "Here I am in the Middle East, say whatever I want," and this guy's at home and is worried even in his own car-

    25. CW

      Yeah

    26. PS

      ... that this is gonna be a problem. So Damascus, Christmas time, Santa Claus is everywhere. Who would have thought? Christian population there. Old Damascus. Met great people, stayed with locals in their homes. But for Americans getting abroad, I would say you want something that's culturally very different but still easy to travel.

    27. CW

      Hmm.

    28. PS

      Istanbul, Turkey.

    29. CW

      Okay.

    30. PS

      That's a good middle road If you want full on user-friendly, go to where you're from, right?

  4. 14:41 – 23:44

    How Ukraine Changed Peter’s Path

    1. CW

      All right, so you do these, this huge trip around the world-

    2. PS

      Yep

    3. CW

      ... and then realize that America, home country, is this place that you understand maybe the least?

    4. PS

      Yeah, there are quite a few trips. That was the big one. Came back at 26, and, uh, just changed my whole perspective on everything. And, um, fast-forward quite a bit until 38. What is it, 40? No, 42. Living in Ukraine. Lived there for four years. My wife's Ukrainian.

    5. CW

      Okay.

    6. PS

      Uh, pandemic brought us back 'cause I shot roughly 50 videos in Ukraine, pretty much tapped out.

    7. CW

      Pre-war?

    8. PS

      Pre-war.

    9. CW

      Wow.

    10. PS

      Yeah, got some... That's where it all started, actually.

    11. CW

      Tell me about that.

    12. PS

      Uh, it started in the countryside. I was in... I'll give you a li- about just a little context to it. I tried to pitch a travel TV show in 2011, '12 to all the networks in LA. I was flying there every six weeks trying to pitch. I made a teaser reel. "Hey, guys, so I wanna show Americans the world. Here's the concept. We're gonna, we're gonna hang out with locals. We're gonna get into their stories." And the response was, "Wait, who, who are you?" And, "Wait, what's the rising action in that?" And, "What? No."

    13. CW

      Hmm.

    14. PS

      Door closed, door closed, door closed for about a half year. So I gave up on the whole travel concept because this was... YouTube was a thing, but to make your life off YouTube, I didn't-- very few people were doing it. I didn't see it at that time. Um, so I went on different ventures. I had a business that, uh, a small business that pretty much paid my bills, but I was always trying for something more interesting, something I loved. So I developed this app that connected people through common interests. So you're going to Germany, you love running. You date, activity connects you with that person at that time. Who doesn't like to hang out with people that have similar interests? Uh, just way over my skis. I was living in San Francisco. I was pitching that, pitching that. Wasn't working. So around 38, I'm sitting in Golden Gate Park trying to figure out what I'm gonna do with my life. No clue. I'm like, "I have to do something that's interesting and meaningful." I have my business limping me along. It's nothing I really wanna be part of, but I have to do it to pay the bills. I'm reading books about philosophy and just business and trying to come up with something. My buddy moves to Ukraine. He had a dev team over there. He had a startup. I went and visited. He's like, "Dude, why don't you just stay right now?" And, uh, subletted my apartment in San Francisco and moved over to Ukraine. And so the first stories started when I was in Ukraine. I had a Turkish buddy say, "Hey, man, you wanna learn the language? Go to the countryside." And so I went out to the far reaches of Ukraine, which is-- where I was is de facto Russia now, and lived with this family whose apartment got bomb- bombed out in the far east of the country. They moved to the countryside, had zero, nothing, nothing materially. Six weeks there, six videos. We even dug a well by hand. Transformative experience. I mean, I was sleeping on a mattress straight out of the Romanov dynasty, springs going through my back. It was a, "Do you open the window at night and get the room down to 88 degrees and smell the neighbor's trash burning?"

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. PS

      "Or you close it and have a room at 94 and smell less trash?" Okay, so very primitive conditions. But the Ukrainians loved it. They ate it up because I was doing things like selling corn on the beaches in Berdyansk, 'cause, uh, kukuruza, they say, they call it. People sell corn on the beach. So I was walking around, and there's a corn mafia there that controls the beach.

    17. CW

      [laughs] I, I'm-

    18. PS

      I think-

    19. CW

      I know exactly what... If this podcasting goes to shit, I am becoming part of the Ukrainian corn mafia.

    20. PS

      You should. Uh, the kukuruza mafiosa was all over my shtick.

    21. CW

      Wow.

    22. PS

      And they ran me off that beach.

    23. CW

      This gringo selling-

    24. PS

      Yeah, but we made a video of it, and the Ukrainians loved it.

    25. CW

      Right. Cool.

    26. PS

      So posted the-

    27. CW

      So you got big in Ukraine?

    28. PS

      Got big in... [laughs] I got Ukraine famous.

    29. CW

      Yeah.

    30. PS

      I was on all the television and I'm like-

  5. 23:44 – 26:19

    What Americans Don’t Understand About America

    1. PS

      everything in between.

    2. CW

      What do you think most Americans don't understand about America?

    3. PS

      Yeah. Uh, it doesn't sound, uh, really groundbreak-breaking, what I'm gonna say, but just the scale and the amount of different lifestyles we have. You, you do have parts of America where they're still hunting a, a whale, whales every year, reindeer. Uh, you can see Russia. I'm talking about St. Lawrence Island, Siberian Yupik people, three times the size of Maui. America's so-

    4. CW

      Where's that? Where is that?

    5. PS

      Yeah. Way up in Alaska. So huge that as someone doing this full-time, I'm still discovering places I knew nothing about, didn't know they existed. So I found that with Google Maps late night, and I'm like, "What's that on it?"

    6. CW

      You're fucking kidding me.

    7. PS

      No.

    8. CW

      You geo-guessed your way.

    9. PS

      I-- Totally.

    10. CW

      Like just zoom it, pinch and zoom

    11. PS

      Zoom in, zoom in. Okay, two towns. There's USPS and a church

    12. CW

      This looks kind of cool

    13. PS

      There's no street view. What's going on up there? I'll check that out. And then you have Miami's in the same country, capital of Latin America. Two different universes. So I-- We're all in our bubbles. Doesn't matter where you live, we're in our bubbles. My goal is to teach or show Americans about different bubbles that they might not interact with. That could be inner city hoods, that could be the richest hoods-

    14. CW

      Hmm

    15. PS

      ... that could be deep with the Amish, Native culture. We have 576 federally recognized tribes in this country, and they're all different. That's like a whole different parallel universe, whole different world running on its own. You have everything from Navajo Nation in Arizona, size of New Jersey, size of Israel, basically. It's different laws, different rules.

    16. CW

      Just like Israel, yeah.

    17. PS

      [chuckles] Just like Israel. And then you have Cherokee in North Carolina. You put kids from each one of those, those tribes and swap 'em-

    18. CW

      Mm-hmm

    19. PS

      ... it's like a wild cultural experience for them. Native American world is like European countries. You can't just say you're, you're European, yes, but you're not Italian. You're not Norwegian. You got some Viking in m- you maybe. Okay. But you get what I'm saying, right? Every country has... And that's how the Native world is. It's like different countries. They're all Native. They're all, like, just like Europeans are all European.

    20. CW

      Hmm.

    21. PS

      But Ukraine and the UK are two different universes. So that's been surprising, just the amount of depth we have here and how granular it goes when you really look at it

  6. 26:19 – 30:44

    What We Can Learn From Native Americans

    1. PS

      closely.

    2. CW

      Talk to me about the Native v- peoples that you've spent time with, 'cause-

    3. PS

      Yeah

    4. CW

      ... coming over here, I, I've really enjoyed immersing myself in going to different places. I've taken a lot of big road trips, but I've not done anything like what you've done. I've gone from s- like New Orleans, it's so interesting. The French Quarter downtown.

    5. PS

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      Oh my God, I can get a beignet and spill it everywhere. I'm like, "Okay, come on, dude." Like...

    7. PS

      [chuckles]

    8. CW

      What have you learned from the Native tribes and the descendants of them that you've spent time with?

    9. PS

      They're all different, but there's a thread that you, you've-- They're all different, but there's a similarity as in you get in, in the Native world, the stories get more interesting. The pace slows down. There's-- Y- you get a bit away from the capitalistic drum of the Western world. That would be my initial feeling. They're g- they're wonderful storytellers. They can almost put you, like in, uh, the Siberian Yupik, I was with this woman, Adora. It's like she put me in a trance. I was just-- She was, like, hypnotizing me with her stories. They have an ability to deliver a story, and they have a great sense of humor.

    10. CW

      Hmm.

    11. PS

      And they all play hoops. Hoops is the basketball.

    12. CW

      Okay.

    13. PS

      That's what, that k- that's what keeps them together.

    14. CW

      Oh, interesting.

    15. PS

      All the tribes play hoops. It's big rivalry.

    16. CW

      What's their relationship or story like with what America is and has become now? 'Cause you could imagine there's maybe some ancestral resentment in there.

    17. PS

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CW

      Uh, w- do, do you ever sense that? Is that something that comes through?

    19. PS

      Depends who you talk to. So the highest enrollment in the military per capita is Native American.

    20. CW

      No fucking way.

    21. PS

      Yeah. So you have true patriots, flags waving. You have some believe, that believe in traditional beliefs. Other, very Christian. You have some that are piss-

    22. CW

      Would traditional beliefs be more like, uh, animal spirits type stuff?

    23. PS

      Exactly.

    24. CW

      Right. Cool.

    25. PS

      In getting really deep into their clans, they have different clans. There's clan culture. You have places like in Navajo Nation, you get into the hogan, into the hut, and you gotta walk clockwise in the hut. Never, ever go counterclockwise. It's gonna bring so much bad to you. So if you drop your keys here, like for those listening, so to my-

    26. CW

      It's been a fucking circle to navigate in London

    27. PS

      ... to my right, like, don't just pick them up there. Like, circle the whole thing and pick 'em up. I find that stuff fascinating. But no, everyone, there's no consensus, I would say. So sometimes people will say, "Hey, they're not Indians, they're Natives or Native Americans or Indigenous or First Nations."

    28. CW

      Hmm.

    29. PS

      You know what they say they are? The only consensus is there isn't one. Depends who you talk to. Some say, "I'm Indian." Lakota medicine man in South Dakota said, "I'm the Native American," 'cause he was way before it was called America, his family.

    30. CW

      Hmm.

  7. 30:44 – 36:53

    Do Native Communities Still Hold Resentment?

    1. CW

      at checkout. Is there vestigial resentment?

    2. PS

      There's some. I mean, there's some that go back to the, the certain battles like Wounded Knee. Uh, what was it? 300 and something died. I think it was Custer's army took out the Lakota. I believe it was. And that really affected the guy I was hanging out with. It was back in the 1800s. And then some people are like Vietnamese, as in they let it go really quickly. You go to Vietnam these days, you'd think they would hate all Americans. They don't. I was watching a war flick with a bunch of Vietnamese dude, an American war flick. How crazy was that? Um, just really depends. And then s- economically, some tribes are really poor. I mean, the de facto is it's worse on the res materially, economically than off the res.

    3. CW

      It's worse on the res?

    4. PS

      Yeah.

    5. CW

      Why?

    6. PS

      Just less jobs, remote areas, n- not as much industry. But then some reses, it's wealthy as all could be.

    7. CW

      Great gambling.

    8. PS

      You go to the Seminoles in, in South Florida, they own the Hard Rock brand worldwide. I think they paid 800 million for it back in the day.

    9. CW

      Hang on.

    10. PS

      Yeah.

    11. CW

      Hang on. The Hard Rock brand-

    12. PS

      Worldwide

    13. CW

      ... is owned-

    14. PS

      By the Seminoles

    15. CW

      ... by some indigenous Native American descendant people in-

    16. PS

      100%. And their tribe, I believe, don't quote me on this, it's roughly 4,500 people. They started in Indian gaming. They have agricultural operations, I believe gas and oil operations, Hard Rock Cafe.

    17. CW

      So these guys are-

    18. PS

      Their shoe-

    19. CW

      ... just hardcore entrepreneurs.

    20. PS

      Hardcore entrepreneurs. And you know, when I get into these communities, I always want people in my videos-

    21. CW

      Hmm

    22. PS

      ... to want to be on my videos. Uh, I don't want to just show up on a camera, put a camera in someone's face if they don't want it. A tribal council member, I put up, uh, on, on my Insta, I said, "I want to get a Seminole story." I know it was very difficult to get with them. And, um, tribal council member reached out and said, "I'm a council member. I can show you." She watched my content. So I went there. We're talking gates. We're talking background checks with IDs and everything. I'm in the nerve center, the, the offices.

    23. CW

      Oh, you went to the Pentagon of the indigenous people.

    24. PS

      Totally.

    25. CW

      Right.

    26. PS

      And I'm like, "This is the most by-the-book thing I've ever done with video making." I'm like totally official here.

    27. CW

      You actually feel like press. Yeah, I've got credentials.

    28. PS

      Yeah, it's like I'm doing all the right things. This woman takes me out. We show the tribe. We show the world. It was, it was very much a North Korean tour, as in everything, just showed the good for the most part. And, uh, I got a call from their attorney right after that thing posted. They wanted that down immediately.

    29. CW

      Hmm.

    30. PS

      He said something along the lines of, "Are you familiar with the case we just closed with Wells Fargo?" Uh, I believe-- I forget how much they won. It was another, it was like something like 800 million or something. And I'm like, "No, but congratulations on that." He's like, "Well, [chuckles] we're gonna need that video-"

  8. 36:53 – 46:14

    Is This the Worse Place in America?

    1. CW

      What, what's the poorest place that you visited in America?

    2. PS

      Uh, technically, well, I would say two regions really stand out for t- talking wide regions. Central Appalachia, so that's like West Virginia area, Kent- eastern Kentucky.

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    4. PS

      It's out there. You gotta check that out. Great people, but poor. Mississippi Delta would be the other big region. Those two sort of left behind. You don't know US cultural context, you were saying. I think it's changing a little, but back in the day, any, any, the butt of any joke would be, like, the West Virginia hillbilly.

    5. CW

      Hmm.

    6. PS

      Right? Looked down upon, you know, with Hollywood. It's where a lot of the coal, it's where a lot of the industry, the coal came from to build this country. And you have those regions in, in the UK too.

    7. CW

      We do. But you don't have the room. The thing that's fascinating watching your videos is just how much fucking space there is.

    8. PS

      Yeah.

    9. CW

      You know, when you talk about forgotten areas, lost towns, I don't know how much can be forgotten in a place that's got 10 times the population density of the US, right? We've got, um, 50 million people-ish, 50, 60 million people versus 330, 350 or whatever's over here.

    10. PS

      Yeah.

    11. CW

      But the land mass is so much smaller than the amount of people are smaller. It's 10 times denser. So everyone's on top of each other. You know-

    12. PS

      Yeah

    13. CW

      ... you don't drive for that long unless you're really looking for it.

    14. PS

      Yeah.

    15. CW

      You don't drive for that long without seeing something that looks like a hub. On the road trips that I've done around America, it is fucking barren for huge-

    16. PS

      Yeah

    17. CW

      ... periods of time.

    18. PS

      Yeah.

    19. CW

      And then there's some farm that comes past or just some, uh, uh, like caravan park, it's mobile home we would call it in the UK, um, with shit tons of trucks. Like, there's a random tractor there, some guy's got a bike that's just in parts, and then it go- it just leaves, and then something else comes up. So yeah, forgotten towns, I think the opportunity for that to happen in America is much higher-

    20. PS

      Mm-hmm

    21. CW

      ... because you don't just have this sort of stumbling effect. You really can be incredibly detached, and detachment would lead to alienation.

    22. PS

      Mm-hmm.

    23. CW

      And then that's gonna really start to ro- like drive down your ability to earn, to be integrated with the rest of the country.

    24. PS

      Yeah, good point. Out there in, in Appalachia, I mean, there are coal jobs now, not as many as there were, but a lot of young people don't want to get into that, understandably so. You think about those guys, the inner city kid, like living in the hood, the projects, has way more, in, okay, in theory-

    25. CW

      Mm-hmm

    26. PS

      ... way more chance to tap into an economy just 'cause it's literally six subway stops away. Now, you're gonna have to pull up your pants. You're gonna have to work hard. You're gonna have to like, like get the skills. But that opportunity is there, where the kid out in the middle of Appalachia, there's no real opportunity around to go get.

    27. CW

      What are people doing in these places in Appalachia? What do they do for work?

    28. PS

      There's a lot of drugs, unfortunately.

    29. CW

      Selling drugs?

    30. PS

      Using drugs, selling drugs, the full monty.

  9. 46:14 – 51:20

    Is Fentanyl America’s Biggest Crisis?

    1. CW

      Is fentanyl the biggest drug problem in America in your experience?

    2. PS

      Yes. Tranq's pretty ugly too, but I'd say fentanyl and meth are the worst.

    3. CW

      But tranq will, if the distribution can get there, will p- maybe be as bad or worse?

    4. PS

      Tranq is awful because they'll get wounds. I was in, in Kensington, some guy was on tranq, he had wounds, and there was just like f- there were like flies festering on the wounds. And people like brace over your skin

    5. CW

      Like kind of decomposing while they're alive

    6. PS

      Decomposing, yeah. So that's what I mean while it's poor in India, for sure it's poor in Pakistan. Like we have resources here, but it's just the lack of humanity. Now, there are people like Buddy trying to help, but it's this hiccup where nobody can really solve the problem. Then there's harm reduction, which is bring needles out, because the theory behind that is give someone a fresh needle, they're not reusing and spreading disease.

    7. CW

      Hmm.

    8. PS

      And I'd say on the, the argument for harm reduction from the people, it's, it's really impossible to get in with them. I've tried. Um, the argument is, "Hey, if we have someone coming into our facility using clean needles, then maybe we can get them into rehab. Maybe we can sell the rehab on them." But there is a homeless industrial complex in the country. There are a lot of people making a lot of money.

    9. CW

      Who's making money off homeless people?

    10. PS

      Who-- Okay. So, um, there's a lot of housing involved with building out housing.

    11. CW

      How is the housing involved in homeless people?

    12. PS

      Yeah. Isn't it wild? They're building hou-

    13. CW

      What do you mean?

    14. PS

      They're building h- In LA on Skid Row-

    15. CW

      Is this the fucking Bass Pro Shop selling tents? Like w- what is this?

    16. PS

      They give out tents. There's some, there's some grift.

    17. CW

      Okay.

    18. PS

      Okay? There'll be money to give out tents, but that there is housing like in-- that is very expensive housing in Los Angeles built for homeless people.

    19. CW

      Okay. It's a little bit of an oxymoron, but go on.

    20. PS

      It is, yeah. So there's that grift. There's a lot of, a lot of NGOs that get money from the s- from different organizations, from the state, from the feds-

    21. CW

      Hmm

    22. PS

      ... to sort of remedy the problem, and the problem's not necessarily being remedied. I mean, I saw living in San Francisco, the Tenderloin has always been bad. Have you ever been there? Oh. I'm not selling you on America, Chris, am I?

    23. CW

      We-

    24. PS

      We, we're, we're going on how my channel's not all dark, and now I just keep going into the drugstore.

    25. CW

      That's okay. That's okay. Uh, I mean, dude, I mean, I've walked through SF. When did we do Naval? Last March, and that was the first time. I'd been to SF for Mikaila Peterson's wedding, uh, and then I d- hadn't seen the city at all, and then I went to go and do the Naval episode, and we were walking through the financial district, and there's this huge fuck off equino- e- e- equinox.

    26. PS

      Yeah.

    27. CW

      Uh, and it's an old bank. You've got these crazy steps up to the front of it. We went to get a training session in before we, we were gonna go and film, and it was closed on a fucking Saturday. It is so driven The cosmopolis in the middle of SF is so driven by this group of people that do the nine to five or the-

    28. PS

      Mm-hmm

    29. CW

      ... you know, nine to nine or whatever, that it's closed on a weekend.

    30. PS

      Yeah.

  10. 51:20 – 59:18

    The Amish Trick Everyone Falls For

    1. PS

      in Amish country, shooting a series. Like everything, it's nuanced, it's complicated. The Amish have the Swartzentrubers, which are the most conservative. You'd think of the Swartzentrubers when you think of A- Amish. No phone-

    2. CW

      Okay

    3. PS

      ... no electricity. It has the Beachy. Those would be the most liberal. They drive around, okay?

    4. CW

      What makes them Amish?

    5. PS

      [sighs] Yeah. You don't really get a plaque or anything. Um, I guess you just say, "I'm Amish," and you play the game, as in, have you seen how they cut their, their beards?

    6. CW

      Yes.

    7. PS

      Right?

    8. CW

      Yes.

    9. PS

      Like, you wouldn't be able to be Amish looking like you're looking or, or me like I'm looking.

    10. CW

      Okay.

    11. PS

      Be unacceptable.

    12. CW

      Yep.

    13. PS

      But you, you're part of the church, you're part of the Amish church, you live by their ways, and-

    14. CW

      But you also have some technology.

    15. PS

      Depending on the type of Amish.

    16. CW

      Yep, yeah.

    17. PS

      Okay, so in the book, stuff like the ca- I'm in an Airbnb in the countryside, Amish country. Cats are meowing outside. I don't know why there are cats outside, but I go out to feed them. Door closes behind. I'm in my underwear. Sun's coming up. Go to open the door. Oh, shoot, my phone's inside. Code is on my phone. I gotta shoot a video. I hear the, the hooves coming down the road, the steel wheels of the carriages. The Amish are coming, the Amish are coming, and I'm in my underwear, like one of those dudes with a metallic blanket. You know, I'm reflecting pasty white to the world. And so there are two questions in my head. I mean, there's, there's, there's two ways to go about this. I walk to the most conservative Amish people's house, the Swartzentrubers, in my underwear, bald, naked pretty much, you know, pass their kids and say, "Hey, can you help me get into this house?" Or I gotta break through the window of the house where I'm staying, and so I throw a big rock through the window. And-

    18. CW

      Why?

    19. PS

      You would too.

    20. CW

      Why?

    21. PS

      You have to.

    22. CW

      Are they scary?

    23. PS

      Just think. I mean, you're, you're a ripped, good-looking guy, but even you showing up to an Amish home-

    24. CW

      You-

    25. PS

      ... some of the most conservative people-

    26. CW

      You think you'd get shot?

    27. PS

      And you're like, and you're with no-

    28. CW

      What would happen?

    29. PS

      No, they'd just shoot you.

    30. CW

      They're just embarrassed?

  11. 59:18 – 1:05:14

    Inside the Intensity of Jewish Life

    1. PS

      like the videos.

    2. CW

      What about the intense Jewish communities that you've been to see?

    3. PS

      Yeah, the Hasidics, and a- again, they're different sects. You have the, the Satmars would be the most conservative, and then you have the Lubavitch, which I did a Shabbat dinner with. We had to get approval from the rabbis for me to get in there and shoot that video. Um, the wife shops at Gucci.

    4. CW

      Okay.

    5. PS

      Okay?

    6. CW

      Yeah.

    7. PS

      So you have Gucci to so conservative it's like the most spartan living-

    8. CW

      Homespun

    9. PS

      ... yeah, in Brooklyn, in like the center of urban America. So that's fascinating. Um, look, I think Shabbat's cool.

    10. CW

      I think Shabbat's cool as well.

    11. PS

      I, I totally respect that. I think it's awesome. But there's-

    12. CW

      We did a... The guy that does the ads for my show, Sky, one of my best friends, had, uh, his bachelor party. It was a couple of years ago, and he decided to do it in Houston. He likes Asian food, Asian culture, and that was it for the theme for the weekend. We did Shabbat on the Friday evening-

    13. PS

      Yeah

    14. CW

      ... 'cause he was like, "I want everyone to kind of be here in the moment. I want everyone phones away. We'll do food." Um, so I'm like, "I've never done this before." The, like, I guess it's secular Shabbat you could call it. It's basically just don't use your fucking phone for Friday evening and we'll eat some food. Food arrives, and he'd got two pounds of crawfish, and I'm like, "That definitely doesn't fucking work." Also, there's 25 of us, and you got two pounds of crawfish. That's like 100 grams of edible food.

    15. PS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    16. CW

      Um, so immediately I broke Shabbat, got my phone out and ordered pizza for everybody.

    17. PS

      [laughs]

    18. CW

      I was like, "I don't give a fuck about your, about this thing." Um, but we did that, and we did a, a Jeffersonian dinner where you have a single question and you're sort of circling the room and I can see the allure of it. I really can.

    19. PS

      Yeah.

    20. CW

      You know, an equivalent of a, a lot of people are doing a digital Sabbath now-

    21. PS

      Yeah

    22. CW

      ... on a Sunday where, okay, I'm just no screens for, you know, 9:00 till 9:00 on a Sunday. But After coming back from a seven-day silent meditation retreat with no screens, having little doses of that, I think make complete sense.

    23. PS

      Yeah.

    24. CW

      So you can do, regardless of whether you're religious or not, or a part of the culture or not, I think that there's a lot of, like, cultural technology, social technology that you can take and, and bring into your own life. Uh, why wouldn't you want to-- Yeah, maybe the light switch thing might be a little bit much.

    25. PS

      Mm-hmm.

    26. CW

      But okay, a period of the week where you don't think about work.

    27. PS

      Yeah.

    28. CW

      A period of the week where you're just being present. A period of the week where you're away from, from screens. Like, uh, who thinks that that's a bad idea? No.

    29. PS

      Right.

    30. CW

      Yeah.

  12. 1:05:14 – 1:11:12

    Are Company Towns Modern-Day Slavery?

    1. CW

      What was that story in the Appalachian company town where some widow lady had to-- had seven days to remarry or leave or something?

    2. PS

      Yeah. Well, in company towns not that long ago, I don't know if it was like this in the UK, but they were paid in scrip. Scrip was company money. So-

    3. CW

      Like a special currency that could only-

    4. PS

      Yeah

    5. CW

      ... be used in company-run stores?

    6. PS

      Exactly.

    7. CW

      Okay.

    8. PS

      And for your housing and everything.

    9. CW

      It's a horrendous way-

    10. PS

      So you're-

    11. CW

      ... to control the people that are working for you.

    12. PS

      Yeah, you're not leaving.

    13. CW

      Yeah.

    14. PS

      Or if you wanna leave, your money's useless.

    15. CW

      Yeah.

    16. PS

      So if a wife passed, or sorry, a husband passed in the mines, the wife had to bounce out of town or get her kids in the mines immediately, or else you're losing everything, 'cause the company owned all the real estate, and they need workers in that real estate.

    17. CW

      It's getting perilously close to a type of slavery.

    18. PS

      Yeah.

    19. CW

      So like indentured servitude.

    20. PS

      Thousands of, of these places. Do you know we still have company towns in America?

    21. CW

      That use the currency thing?

    22. PS

      Not the currency, but almost everything else.

    23. CW

      W- Okay, what, what is a company town?

    24. PS

      Company town, company owns the real estate. It provides all the employment. Everything revolves around the company. So mer- uh, again, one of those nights I'm looking at Google, Baghdad, Arizona. What? Baghdad, Arizona. Who would have thought?

    25. CW

      Okay.

    26. PS

      I looked into it. What's this town? Freeport-McMoRan owns it, copper mining. They own all the real estate there. Everyone there works in the mines or-

    27. CW

      Still?

    28. PS

      Still. Or some ancillary business connected to the mines. And, uh, I checked it out, and I'm thinking, "Old company town. What's it like out there? People are all tied into this thing." Well, I get out there. The average wage was above the average in America, 90 gra-- It was 90 grand, I believe. Rent, 350 bucks, three bedroom, two bath.

    29. CW

      This is looking up

    30. PS

      Summer-

  13. 1:11:12 – 1:16:39

    The Surprising Diversity of the US Landscape

    1. CW

      What about East LA?

    2. PS

      East LA is great. I love the Chicanos. They're cool. Um, one of those, again, new country in my own country experiences. Didn't know anything about Chicanos really. Got in with these guys. True 100% Chicanos, as in English is the native language with a Spanish accent.

    3. CW

      Why?

    4. PS

      It's the culture.

    5. CW

      Okay.

    6. PS

      A lot of them are bilingual but-

    7. CW

      Spanish?

    8. PS

      Yeah, but a lot have been here generations and they grew up speaking English, but they have a Spanish accent. It's wild.

    9. CW

      Cool. Okay.

    10. PS

      Uh, look, the car culture is awesome.

    11. CW

      They love their cars.

    12. PS

      I get it, yeah. The lowriders, the taco. It's a culture. It's, it's, it's connected.

    13. CW

      Hmm.

    14. PS

      It really is connected well. It's its own universe out there. And again, it's one of those either, either here nor there. The Chicanos will say, "When we go to Mexico, they call us American, but when we're in the US, they call us Mexican."

    15. CW

      They're in the uncanny valley of Mexicans and Americans.

    16. PS

      Yeah.

    17. CW

      Yeah.

    18. PS

      Right in between.

    19. CW

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    20. PS

      So I made a few videos out there with them. Actually a chapter in the book about the Chicanos and I, that, I just... That's what's so rad about America. You have all these different existences coexisting. And my wife says it's a build your own bowl country, as in pick your protein, pick your vegetables, pick your dressing. So pick your-

    21. CW

      Pick your addiction

    22. PS

      ... culture, your addiction, [chuckles] fentanyl or meth. Yeah. Pick your, [chuckles] pick your geography. What do you want? Mountains? You want oceans?

    23. CW

      Yeah. Dude, I mean that-

    24. PS

      You, you want your culture, you want your politics even. Like choose your own adventure almost.

    25. CW

      It's fucking cool. You know, for all that there's problems in this place and it's the misogynistic, capitalistic hellscape that's trying to bigotedly keep everybody down, I understand. But I flew back from-- When I flew back from SF and just the change, that journey from SF to Austin, the change in the landscape looking out of the window-

    26. PS

      Yeah

    27. CW

      ... is fucking unbelievable. This i- it is everything. I've seen everything On Route 2. The only thing I haven't seen is snow. In fact, I probably did maybe see some snow, like San Bernardino Valley if we went over that way. I don't know.

    28. PS

      Sure.

    29. CW

      Um, yeah, you can-- there's places that you can snowboard and ski in fucking May.

    30. PS

      Yeah.

  14. 1:16:39 – 1:26:14

    What Will the World Look Like in 5 Years?

    1. PS

      where do you think things are going? Where do you see things in, uh, in five years? Are you, are you optimistic about things? Are you thinking something has to come to a head or?

    2. CW

      I don't know. I... The div- America is very divided thing seems less true than America is very isolated.

    3. PS

      Mm-hmm.

    4. CW

      I think people are more isolated than they are divided.

    5. PS

      Mm-hmm.

    6. CW

      And that can cause people to kind of become quite deranged in the way that they see themselves in the world.

    7. PS

      Yeah.

    8. CW

      If you don't touch grass that much. I had this question on a Q&A.

    9. PS

      Yeah.

    10. CW

      This guy was asked a question of, um, you say, I say that the bar is very low for most men and that, you know, if you're a well put together guy with a stable job who's nice and takes care of himself, you're in the top like 5% of all men. And like, I think that's true. And he's like, "And yet I see all of this stuff online about how a guy needs to be six foot tall and make six figures a year and, uh, be emotionally intelligent, and he's got to have done 10 years of therapy," and all, all of the... And like, I think this is what happens when you spend too much time on the internet.

    11. PS

      Yeah.

    12. CW

      I think the internet takes the most caricatured extreme versions. It's like WWE for sociality.

    13. PS

      Right.

    14. CW

      And it turns everything into this kayfabe pantomime, and everybody starts performing. And, um, what I think, what I hope is that we can continue to sort of push people into real world experiences. Like, stuff like your travel vlogs I think are really great at reminding people there is a fucking world of adventure out there off the screen.

    15. PS

      Yeah. Mm-hmm.

    16. CW

      Adventure is not a staycation at a local fucking yoga retreat that's 30 minutes from your house.

    17. PS

      Yeah.

    18. CW

      Adventure is taking a left down a road that you don't usually go down. I'll never forget, I did, um, as part of this I want to see the world thing when I was younger, I did, uh, Thailand on my own. I did Bali on my own. The Thailand trip, it was my final full day on Koh Samui.

    19. PS

      Yeah.

    20. CW

      Uh, no, Koh Tao. Sorry.

    21. PS

      Koh Tao.

    22. CW

      Koh Tao. Koh Tao, not Koh Samui. And, um, me and my $1 per day moped, which had one brake on it and was definitely gonna kill me, and I was, I was basically just, uh, doing Thai boxing the whole time I was there. I was going from gym to gym just fighting 'cause I thought that would be fun to do and it would give me a community of people and I'd feel less alone.

    23. PS

      Mm-hmm.

    24. CW

      That worked out great. Final day, I was driving the trip from the smoothie place I like to go to back toward the gym, but I'd already trained. And I was like, "There's a turning here on the left. I'm just gonna see what's down this road." And that took me two and a half hours and nearly ran out of gas, and one point opened out onto this elephant sanctuary that I didn't know was there, wasn't signposted. Saw that, pitched up for a bit, just sat and watched things. Pulled back off, and then there's a guy with a huge truck with all of these, uh, rolls of sort of bark spun up and rolled, tied up behind him. Uh, looked like a scene out of Final Destination, like Thailand's Final Destination. It's all gonna fall off and kill someone. And I was like just watching this person thinking, "I wonder what, I wonder what that guy's-" ... afternoon's gonna look like. I wonder where he's going. I wonder what he does, and I wonder where he lives.

    25. PS

      Mm-hmm.

    26. CW

      And there would be d- just the opportunity to see some fucking real shit-

    27. PS

      Yeah

    28. CW

      ... that is not being fed to you at the velocity that you're used to. I don't know. I mean, I can't tell you basically anything that I watched on the internet last week, but I can tell you a story about Thailand that I remember doing 10 years ago.

    29. PS

      Yeah.

    30. CW

      Like, if that isn't how you make a richer life, I kind of don't know what is. And this doesn't mean that you gotta travel all the way to fucking Thailand.

  15. 1:26:14 – 1:43:22

    What’s Really Happening at the Mexican Border?

    1. CW

      yeah. What, uh, what's actually happening on the American-Mexican border? What's the truth-

    2. PS

      Right now?

    3. CW

      Yeah.

    4. PS

      Okay. Um, I did a follow-up video, 'cause I've done, I don't know, five, six, seven videos, no, seven, eight videos down there. Right now it's chill, crickets. No one's coming over illegally.

    5. CW

      No way.

    6. PS

      Nah, nothing. So I started doing border videos when I was moving from California to Florida, and someone reached out and said, "You gotta come down to the border." And I was in the middle of a move, driving across country. I'm like, "Nah, I'm not gonna do that. I'm too busy." And my wife was like-

    7. CW

      Detour

    8. PS

      ... "Do it. Go do it." We got to Florida, dropped my bags, dropped her, and went right to the border in Texas, so not far from here in McAllen.

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. PS

      And so I went in with some preconceptions of, you know, why would you want a border wall? That's-- I don't, I don't think that's the right, right way to go about this. And then after spending time there during that trip, I left, "Yeah, you want a border wall down there."

    11. CW

      Why?

    12. PS

      Uh, look, if the wall's 30 feet, migrants are gonna get a 32-foot ladder, and they go... And it's not stopping everything, obviously. But for customs and border protection, it pinches everyone. It ma- they put their technology on the wall. They can see better. They can manage it better. You have to see these landscapes to understand how vast they are.

    13. CW

      Do we, do you know how much of the border is covered by protective fencing now?

    14. PS

      I don't know. Um, California, most of California, um, a lot of Arizona, not all of Arizona, not all of Texas.

    15. CW

      It's gotta be one of the longest conjoining borders in the world, I have to assume, coast to coast.

    16. PS

      Perhaps, but there are a lot of people-

    17. CW

      Well, Canada would be more, actually

    18. PS

      ... there, there... Oh, that, yeah, that's the longest border, actually, Canada.

    19. CW

      Yeah.

    20. PS

      And I've done a story up there too, which was interesting. But, um-

    21. CW

      Hang on. There it is. Uh, for the US-Mexico border, roughly 700, 750 miles of it's nearly 2,000 miles-

    22. PS

      Okay

    23. CW

      ... have some form of primary fence or wall, about 35% to 38%. That is not one continuous wall. Much of it has replaced earlier barriers, and the remainder is covered by terrain, patrols, sensors, and other enforcement measures. The US-Canada border [chuckles] is overwhelmingly unfenced.

    24. PS

      Yeah, that's n- that's nothing up there.

    25. CW

      Yeah.

    26. PS

      Okay, so I went down. I'm like, I left that first trip, "Yeah, you should put a wall up there." The second trip I went to West Texas, where the Rio Grande is, and if you put a wall up there, you give Mexico the whole river. It would destroy those places. So I left that trip being like, "Yeah, you wouldn't wanna put-"

    27. CW

      No wall.

    28. PS

      "... you wouldn't wanna put a wall there." Then I went to Tijuana, and there are two walls between Tijuana and California, two mega walls. And it-

    29. CW

      Is it one to keep the Mexicans out and one to keep the Americans out?

    30. PS

      [laughs] No. Double, double-

  16. 1:43:22 – 1:49:14

    How the UK Really Sees London

    1. PS

      Is there a lot of tension between the, the London crowd and the rural crowd?

    2. CW

      Not particularly. At least maybe the rural crowd when it comes to sort of farming and stuff like that. That wasn't something I was integrated in. It certainly felt to me, growing up in Stockton-on-Tees, which is 50 miles south of Newcastle, uh, famous for having the UK's widest high street and the highest teen pregnancy rating in the UK, and then it lost that, so it didn't even have that.

    3. PS

      You weren't part of that or were you?

    4. CW

      I wasn't. I was desperately trying to contribute, but I was a horrendously uncool teenager. And then I never thought of London as being a part of what I was a part of.

    5. PS

      Okay.

    6. CW

      Like, I d- it didn't feel like a part of the same country.

    7. PS

      Yeah.

    8. CW

      It, it was, I guess, and I, maybe I went when I was, like, 17 or 18 a few times.

    9. PS

      Sure.

    10. CW

      But I- It really is south versus north 'cause the, the shape of the country-

    11. PS

      Mm-hmm

    12. CW

      ... is so particular, right? It's long and thin.

    13. PS

      Mm-hmm.

    14. CW

      And you talk about south- no one's talking about east versus west. Like, there is a difference between people that are from Liverpool and people that are from Newcastle, or people that are from Manchester and people that are from Leeds, right? Going left to right, but no one really gives a fuck. Like, it's just people with different silly accents. But north to south, as soon as you get below Birmingham and you start to get toward London-

    15. PS

      Mm-hmm

    16. CW

      ... that's when things-- There, there is definitely a sense that, oh, these are two different cultures. Don't forget, they're two kind of different climates.

    17. PS

      Okay.

    18. CW

      Like, it is different to go-

    19. PS

      Yeah

    20. CW

      ... it's not that far. It's three hours on a train, a pretty quick train, but it's, you know, 400 miles, something like that.

    21. PS

      Yeah.

    22. CW

      And that difference is not insignificant when it comes to the weather. Like, to go from the-

    23. PS

      Mm

    24. CW

      ... northeast where we are to the south coast, 'cause also we're next to the North Sea, that's the coldest sea, I think, in the world, and it's really fucking dangerous. But yeah, um, there is definitely a detachment.

    25. PS

      Okay.

    26. CW

      Um, if you're not in London, you are not really considered much by the press. Press stories aren't bothered about what's going on in fucking Rotherham, right? They don't care about whether Stoke-on-Trent has got, oh, you, some issue that's occurring locally, socially. It will be on local news, but it's not gonna break out-

    27. PS

      Okay

    28. CW

      ... into national news. So it is, it is all of the money and all of the attention is just focused on London, and that's fine.

    29. PS

      What about Isle of Man? Is that when you have big bucks and you're trying to avoid the taxes?

    30. CW

      I don't know whether there's a tax haven out there. I know there's a big festival. I've been to-- I spent a little bit of time near there, and it's a retirement place for a lot of people. I know that's interesting. I mean, dude, if you look at even the UK, the fucking Hebrides, these islands off the northwest of Scotland-

  17. 1:49:14 – 1:51:43

    Are People Still Speaking Elizabethan English in Maryland?

    1. CW

      Yeah. Um-

    2. PS

      Um, did you know there's an island in the United States, in Maryland, that some of the old-timers still speak a, a form of Elizabethan English?

    3. CW

      No, but I completely endorse it.

    4. PS

      Yeah. So I met this guy, I made a video with him. Uh, he's actually in the book too. His name's Jerry. His family's been there 374 years. And he's got-- You're gonna love the accent.

    5. CW

      Is there a video of this guy?

    6. PS

      Well, and he-

    7. CW

      Can we get video of him up?

    8. PS

      Yeah, yeah.

    9. CW

      Okay. What do we search?

    10. PS

      Smith Island. D- I would just type in Peter Santenello Smith Island. A lot of Brits watch my channel too, and they're like, "That, that guy st- sounds straight out of Leeds," or I forget where, where he said it out of.

    11. CW

      Okay. Oh, this is gonna be fucking fascinating. Allow me to diagnose his accent.

    12. PS

      He's ca- He's, he's a waterman. That's a British term, right? Waterman?

    13. CW

      This one? His family lived on-

    14. PS

      Yeah

    15. CW

      ... that one?

    16. PS

      Yeah, that one.

    17. CW

      Cool.

    18. PS

      Hey, how you doing?

    19. CW

      Buddy. [laughs] He's a yarnie too. I mean, this guy-

    20. PS

      He's a yarnie.

    21. CW

      What's a yarnie? Let me-

    22. PS

      We, we call each other yarnie

    23. CW

      Is that a British word?

    24. PS

      Which means-- Which is like an old English word for friend. It means friend. Yarnie. Yeah, yarnie. So Stan's a yarnie.

    25. CW

      [laughs] Hang on. Is this the guy, is this the guy that you're- Thinking it's got an English accent?

    26. PS

      Yeah, I guess not, huh?

    27. CW

      No, no.

    28. PS

      It-

    29. CW

      I'm sorry

    30. PS

      ... it's, it's Southern, Southern with a little-

  18. 1:51:43 – 1:57:27

    Why Strong Communities Matter More Than Ever

    1. PS

      [laughs]

    2. CW

      After all of the different communities that you've spent time with-

    3. PS

      Yeah

    4. CW

      ... like Navajo, Amish, Yupik, which one could you see yourself most living with full-time, do you think?

    5. PS

      Man. Uh.

    6. CW

      You have to up sticks, and you have to spend the rest of your days somewhere with a community of people. Where would it be?

    7. PS

      I like being a free agent so much. You know what I mean? I, I respect and honor all these groups, and I can admire what they're doing, and the, the families that, that's been in a place for 10 generations, that's really cool. But I've always had friends from every background-

    8. CW

      Mm-hmm

    9. PS

      ... and never belonged to a specific group, and that scares me for some reason, like, just being in that group dynamic.

    10. CW

      Do you feel displaced a lot of the time from that?

    11. PS

      No. I, I, I, I... It's almost like I belong everywhere and belong nowhere at the same time. Like, I like learning and like getting into different groups, but to be one, to be Amish, maybe two years, but then after a year or two, you're like-

    12. CW

      Do you think this would be harder-- Obviously, you did this before you met your missus, but do you think this would be harder if you didn't have the unit, like the, the you and another person relationship unit thing? 'Cause it feels to me like-

    13. PS

      Yeah

    14. CW

      ... it could be quite destabilizing. You, you might feel a little un- uncertain, ungrounded.

    15. PS

      Hundred, 100%. So my wife edits, so this is our baby, this whole thing.

    16. CW

      Oh, cool.

    17. PS

      This channel.

    18. CW

      It's a family, a family affair.

    19. PS

      Family affair.

    20. CW

      Yeah.

    21. PS

      We got a mini dog. So that's like, that's the extent of it. So we-

    22. CW

      So it's you and a GoPro?

    23. PS

      It's me and a GoPro.

    24. CW

      Your wife.

    25. PS

      I figure out the story, she edits.

    26. CW

      Wow.

    27. PS

      Um, but we worked-

    28. CW

      Commandeered some Ukrainian workforce. [laughs] They're a hardworking people.

    29. PS

      Yeah, it wasn't, it, it wa- [laughs] It wasn't my intention, but it turned out that way, that we're just-

    30. CW

      Unreal

  19. 1:57:27 – 1:58:16

    Where to Find Peter

    1. CW

      That's the way to do it. Peter Santenello, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, you absolutely fucking rule.

    2. PS

      Thank you.

    3. CW

      I think your content's amazing.

    4. PS

      Appreciate it.

    5. CW

      I really applaud you for trying to bring lightness and, you know, levity to stories that people think is a little bit more dark. Uh, where should people go to get everything?

    6. PS

      Okay. On You- uh, on everything, just Peter Santenello. Tough name to spell, so Peter Sant, and I'll usually come up. I got a website with everything. The book tour coming up. I don't know when you're posting this. Got a book tour. I'm all over the country signing books.

    7. CW

      Unreal.

    8. PS

      Got the book dropping, got the videos on YouTube, so.

    9. CW

      You're the man.

    10. PS

      That's where it's at. I really appreciate you and what you do, so thanks for, thanks for the great conversation.

    11. CW

      It's a pleasure, man.

    12. PS

      Yeah.

    13. CW

      All right. Goodbye, my beauties.

    14. PS

      All right.

    15. CW

      See you next time. Dude.

    16. PS

      Yes.

    17. CW

      Thank you. Fuck yes. [outro music] Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, another one that I know you'll love is just here.

Episode duration: 1:58:18

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