The Carousel Podcast

Another day another based founder. Matt Loberstein built Rhizal Shoes, a “grounded” and “barefoot” shoe company after getting sick of shilling white label DTC crap and wanting to create something actually beautiful. His shoes are the very definition of Anti-Synthetic Capitalism, the term now memorialized via The New York Times article which referenced WILL, Hestia Cigarettes, and I. We also call the movement “The New Natural.” The brand name Rhizal comes from micorrhizal/rhizome, symbiotic relationship between roots, plants, fungi, and the earth. The “Barefoot” footwear movement revives simpler shoe structures; it believes in enhancing muscles, bones, and balance via more direct contact with the ground. The similar-but-distinct “Grounded” footwear movement ups the ante even further, citing electromagnetic reasons for direct terrestrial contact. Encasing feet in thick rubber is somewhat like a wearing a perennial foot condom we never take off. It separates from earthy natural connections that we’ve only just begun to understand.Beyond all that, however, Rhizals actually just look really good and are super comfortable. See my review of them here. I’m not just saying that. They’re now lead off position in my shoe lineup. Perfect for summer.CLICK HERE TO SHOP RHIZAL WITH THE OFFICIAL DISGRACED PROPAGANDIST 10% DISCOUNTThe Carousel is a reader-supported publication. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

On this week’s Carousel, I’m joined by a close friend of mine: ~poldec-tonteg from Urbit and BlimpDAO. He is the voice and face of the Urbit Foundation, and host of Urbit’s Zero K Podcast.We’re here to talk about rise, fall, and rise of blimps. Why is this relevant? What does it mean? Listen now. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Cancellation insurance…we’ve all thought about it. In the world of Patreon, Substack, and Twitter profit sharing, the so-called Creator Economy has never been bigger, or more essential for thinkers and artists outside the ever-narrowing Overton Window of woke popular culture. My guest today Harry Bergeron is a Twitter anon and entrepreneur working on a “cancellation parachute” called Pluribus. I’ve opened up The Carousel to him to share his thoughts, both on the above pod and in the following short article. YouTube version: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Nabokov, Teddy Roosevelt, Ernst Junger: all amateur entomologists driven by the overwhelming urge to know and categorize the natural world. Insect Brah is the Twitter version. His exotic ontological posts recall the Judge from Blood Meridian, “whatever exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."His day job is chef, where he integrates his fascination with nature into every menu. We talk about working in the service industry, our all time favorite meals, the relationship between God and bugs, and discovering new frogs. Insect Brah’s book This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome entrepreneur Charles Mayfield to The Carousel. His skincare company Farrow uses an unprecedented and borderline forgotten substance as its key ingredient: pig lard. Rubbing ultra high-end pig fat on our faces sounds insane only because we’ve been so utterly alienated from the natural animal products that used to dominate our lives. They’ve since been replaced by synthetic chemicals that are cheap to make, but expensive to our bodies. Mayfield explains that synthetic lotions came to exist in the first place only because humans stopped handling animal guts on a daily basis.But animal organs and fats are making a comeback. The “New Natural” movement has organs showing up in Erewhon smoothies, tortilla chips made with beef tallow instead of seed oils, and in the TikTok feeds of organ-shilling influencers like Paul Saladino.Zero Hedge recently interviewed me about this topic.And I’ll tell you something from personal experience: these products really are better than the synthetic crap. I tried Farrow for the first time, expecting just another face cream, and it’s genuinely like nothing I’ve ever felt before; somehow softer and richer than any lotion I’ve ever put on my [already admittedly soft, supple, perfect] skin.Farrow on TwitterFarrow on Instagram This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Should we love billboards or hate them? In this episode, advertising chads Adam Singer and Chris Gadek (founders of AdQuick) expound on the meaning of Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising and tackle the notoriously impossible task of measuring billboard impact.We talk billboard history, including the one that launched the Sunset Strip:We also chat about the death of creativity in the marketing longhouse, the end of ZIRP marketing, and why data reliance produces over-milked nostalgia cows. Check our my appearance on the AdQuick podcast here:Also watch this episode on YouTube:The Carousel is a reader-supported publication. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Paul McNiel is the man behind Wagon Box, a “network state” project in Wyoming. He essentially “bought” a town, and is now retrofitting it as a parallel-economy destination DAO for dissidents and other breeds of opt-outers who want nothing to do with mainstream society. The values of the project are pro-local, anti-corporatist, and anti-elitist: the polar opposite of everything Jackson Hole has become. That being said, he’s well-aware of the prospect of becoming just the type of parachuter he seeks to resist.He and I were both featured prominently in James Pogue's Vanity Fair exploration of the so-called Dissident Fringe.“I drove north toward Montana, where I visited with a man named Paul McNiel, whom I’d first met back during the fervid summer of 2020, at a Fourth of July picnic and anti-government rally headlined “Rage Against the State.” “I think that Livingston has the highest per-capita concentration of contributors to The New Yorker of any city in America,” he’d said when I introduced myself as a writer. McNiel is extraordinarily well read, and friendly with a number of literary types. He is a bit of a prepper, and while he is deeply Christian, he doesn’t consider himself right wing. “I don’t think the division is right-left anymore. It’s us against the machine,” he said, borrowing a phrase from the English writer Paul Kingsnorth—whose writings critiquing the power of tech and money in modern life have become popular among dissident types. He was dismissive of the local armed groups being flooded with new members. “At the end of the day,” he said, “if you’re not willing to shoot federal agents, then you’re not serious about it. They aren’t serious.”McNiel had served in Afghanistan after college, and when he left the military, he’d taken out an almost unbelievable amount of debt, largely on credit cards, so that he could get himself in the position of buying his crown jewel, a trailer park in the small town of Belgrade, Montana, just outside of Bozeman. He now owned trailer parks as far away as Alaska. He had ridden the wave. “I always tell myself: No more deals. I want to stop, and I know I have to. But I can’t.”We discuss how not to become another Jackson Hole, his background as a trailer park magnate, and his experiences as a combat veteran in Afghanistan. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Alex Garner tweets as Alexander the Great. It’s a fitting name, because he reminds me of a roman legion commander, perhaps the modern Miami version. A former Coca Cola employee and founder of the mixed-cocktail brand Yumix, he’s obsessed with the notions of tribes in today’s online/offline world. How do you evaluate someone’s character if you can’t see them in person? But how do you meet anyone interesting if everyone interesting is on Twitter? As Indian Bronson pointed out, and as I have personally experienced (with Indian Bronson himself), is that people in our world all have two names.Alex and I discuss his project Guild of Greats (formerly Based Brotherhood), an attempt to build a tribe of high quality men manifested outside the mainstream. Designed to bring about a new sort of greatness.The mission echoes other similar projects like Palestra Society and Exit Group, the latter of which I discussed with founder Bennett's Phylactery on an earlier episode. There is an overwhelming craving for war bands that can form and occupy islands outside the polluted mainstream. Then to use those islands to build both alternative economies and to use as launching points for raiding missions against the seemingly unassailable forces of globalism. This project necessarily implicates capitalism itself, as entrepreneurships is one of the few areas where genuinely dissident activities are still allowed (just ask Dissident Soaps). The only way to beat them is to outsell them.A defector from the corporatocracy—a CPG cowboy, if you will—Alex sees tribal formation as the only way out. He talks about how to build both groups of men and the pipelines we need to support them. YOUTUBE LINK HERE (it was originally a livestream we did a few weeks ago)The Carousel is a reader-supported publication.***NOTE: ALEX JUST HAD A BABY TODAY! CONGRATS TO HIM AND FAM*** This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

On episode 52 of the Carousel, I’m joined by David Pinsen from one of my favorite publications: Zero Hedge.A finance guy, Pinsen covers the ins-and-outs of world affairs from an investor’s perspective. His column Portfolio Armor deftly combines culture and politics with economic predictions and outlooks, a mixture which I’ve always found to be the best method for understanding why things are happening. As Western culture declines, and the media (even my beloved Wall Street Journal) right along with it, I look to people like Pinsen and publications like Zero Hedge to get the real story.So he’s the perfect guy to chat with about the financial picture behind the Bud Light fiasco. He published a couple stories featuring quotes from me about the issue including “How I’d Save Bud Light,” about how to rehabilitate the brand’s relatable image. Interestingly, our perspectives were born out as accurate, as today Bud Light launched a summer campaign all about relatability. Also per our predictions, the AB InBev longhouse turned a decent strategy into an incoherent mess, insulting audiences even further by painting them as fat bumbling idiots. “Sock tans included…” Oh, because white people get sock tans. Is that it?David and I also cover the decline of commercial real estate, monetizing your Twitter attention, and why Republicans should stop being scared of being called racist (sort of an precursor to this viral Tweet from yesterday).David Pinsen on TwitterDavid Pinsen/Portfolio Armor on Zero HedgePortfolio Armor This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

By now you’ve seen the video of Armenian dads fighting Antifa on the streets of Glendale. If you’re curious about why, listen to this calm and rational Armenian mom describe how the school indoctrinates her children with extreme gender ideology. The dads showed up to voice their displeasure, they were confronted with the Regime’s shock troops: Antifa. One member is a convicted pedophile, which seems to be a common theme. Somebody save us.A couple of years ago, an attorney named David Pivtorak decided to do something. Having grown up in the Soviet Union under communism, he could see the signs better than most Americans. He knew where this was headed. So he shifted his practice to do something courageous, something that very few other lawyers were willing to do: use the Civil Rights Act to hold woke entities accountable for discrimination. Since it’s such a novel and heroic battle, David finds himself often in the news, including appearances on Tucker and Watters. Recent headline cases include:* Lawsuit against American Express for discriminating against white people.* Lawsuit against elite LA private school The Brentwood School for DEI discrimination against Jews.* Lawsuit against aforementioned Glendale Unified School District for firing a teacher who refused to said boys aren’t girls.The Civil Rights Act is marked as the moment the American Dream died—the beginning of the American global rainbow-flag empire—by Christopher Caldwell in his sensational The Age of Entitlement. The Civil Rights Act is now used to force formerly-capitalist organizations to operate the way the government wants. We live under this giant legal fiction called Civil Rights law which allows corporations to discriminate openly against whites, straights, Christians, and men, while simultaneously outlawing all discrimination. It is upon this glaring contradiction that David mounts his attack. He now faces open battle against the forces of darkness. Join me as he talks about tangling with disparate impact, forced arbitration agreements, California’s insane woke environmentalists and much more. Follow David AKA Piv on socials (we need this guy to run for office asap!):David Pivtorak on TwitterDavid Pivtorak InstagramThe Pivtorak Law Firm This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe