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Where the homeless went before the convention came.

A note before this one: near the end John talks about two people who were shot, and about the videos of it. He raises it himself, in the middle of an argument about deportation, and it sits here where he put it.

Seventeen minutes on a Denver street with a man who has lived here a long time and is not enjoying the present. It starts mid-conversation, on his daughter, who is two kinds of doctor, internal and GP, and her husband, a surgeon who is retraining because of what he expects software to take. “within 3 years, AI is going to be operating on people”, John says, which is why the son-in-law is moving to burns: “AI cannot assimilate burn victims because they’re all different.”

Then the question he had been asked before the tape rolls, about what people actually said out loud in a conservative white town during the civil rights era. His answer is that the words were the quiet part. “they would work around it”, he says. “But they would still subject people to like not being able to do what they should be able to do”. And: “And they kept it quiet.” Asked what the motive was, he does not decorate it. “Because they’re racist.” He is plainly unhappy to be saying it. “I never thought I would be saying this 10 years ago”. “We’re just racist, man.” “I hate to say that cuz I want people to be better than that.”

What he thinks it is really about is arithmetic. “Within 20 25 years, Hispanics will hold the majority of the people in our country”, and against that, “we’ve got this last bastion of older white traditionalists”. He finds the whole position absurd on its own terms: “it’s ironic because we stole the United States in the first place”, and, flatly, “Texas was Mexico for Christ’s sake. So was Louisiana.”

The middle of the tape is lighter and local. He is off the grid by preference, no Facebook, “I’ve never gotten a thing from Amazon”, still writing letters, “Which is stupid. I admit that. Compared to email.” He has opinions about the new art museum building, which he compares to something a Martian spat out, and a tip worth having: “First Saturday of every month, they’re all free.”

The Clyfford Still Museum leads him into the story he clearly came to tell, about a former Denver mayor who became a governor and then a senator. The way John tells it, when the Democratic National Convention came to town the people he used to serve food to at a church on 16th disappeared, and when he asked, he was told “he actually did move all the homeless out”. “Greyhound buses moved their asses out. So, the Democratic National Convention looked good.” When the man stopped being mayor, he says, they came back. He offers no documentation and does not pretend to: “we all heard it. Okay. But no proof.” His own summary of what it means is the sharpest line on the tape: “we’re liberal here and we still did that. So God knows what happens in conservative places.”

Asked what he would ask the rest of the world, he asks how they put up with America right now. “I’m embarrassed to live here right now. And I live in a liberal city and I’m embarrassed to live here.” On deportation, a number he carries around: “even like illegal aliens paid over $86 billion in tax last year”. Then he says he is going home to talk to his cat.

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Transcript

Transcribed and speaker-separated with AssemblyAI from the original audio, so nothing is masked. The letters are the model's speaker labels, not names; fillers are dropped by the model. Names corrected. Published in full so it can be read, searched and quoted. Search every transcript →

0:00AYeah, because if we’d be talking about it afterwards like that, no, you gotta still keep it on the down low. Okay, yeah, yeah, fuck those guys. Who are they?

0:10BYeah, yeah, yeah, it’s not even worth the time.

0:14AYeah, yeah, and that is the coolest thing I’ve done in my fucking life besides raising my daughter to be a doctor.

0:22BWhat kind of doctor is she?

0:23AShe’s 2.

0:26BShe’s 2 different kinds of doctors? Oh wow, which ones?

0:28AInternal and GP.

0:32BOh wow, that’s cool.

0:34AAnd her husband is a surgeon, and because of AI, they’re switching everything.

0:43BOh, interesting. I believe that.

0:44AOkay, because within 3 years, AI is going to be operating on people.

0:50CImagine.

0:51ALike, seriously, okay? I mean, they told me that, okay? So they’re moving to burn. Well, AI cannot assimilate burn victims because they’re all different. That’s how come they’re doing it.

1:06CMmm.

1:08AAnd I feel horrible for my son-in-law because he’s going to be working on burn victims.

1:14CHmm.

1:15ABut he’ll have a job.

1:17CYeah, that’s true. Yeah, you know, what do I say?

1:22AI’m sorry, I probably talked too long. I apologize.

1:25BNo, no, you still didn’t answer my -- the one question I had though, right? Like, how did you see, like, in the civil rights movement, the opinions of people being challenged? What was that discourse like in a conservative white town in North America? Like, what is the public discourse actually like there? Like, in that moment, what are people saying about what’s going on?

1:44AIt’s different now because of Trump. They’re more vocal.

1:47BYeah, but I’m saying at that time, right? Do you remember what people were saying?

1:50AOh, oh, oh, they, they would work around it. Okay. But they would still subject people to like not being able to do what they should be able to do. Okay. And they kept it quiet.

2:03CWhy?

2:04BLike, what’s their motivation to do that?

2:05ABecause they’re racist. And I’m sorry, I’m just going to break it down to that. And I never thought I would be saying this 10 years ago, but Trump proved that we’re a whole lot more racist than what I ever realized.

2:25CMmm.

2:27A’Cause I thought like, like, like with, well, hell, even Bush. Bush wasn’t racist. Okay, Obama obviously. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, we’re just racist, man.

2:43CMm-hmm.

2:46AAnd I hate to say that. I hate to say that because I want people to be better than that.

2:54BWell, how do you feel like people become racist? Like, how do they assume this position of like, I am -- I am better or they are less? What do you think that’s like culturally?

3:01AI honestly think, and this is getting proven, And now we’re gonna go past black, let’s go to Hispanic.

3:09CMm-hmm.

3:10AOkay? Within 20, 25 years, Hispanics will hold the majority of the people in our country. And we’ve got this last bastion of older white traditionalists. They don’t want that shit to happen.

3:28CMm.

3:30AAnd that’s how come You got the pushback, and like with Trump, Trump’s helping accelerate that. And that’s how come, okay, they think -- and it’s ironic because we stole the United States in the first place, right? Yeah, I mean, Texas was Mexico, for Christ’s sake. So was Louisiana. And but people forget that, okay? We stole the fucking place anyways. That simple. You know, but, but, you know, if you’re a white traditionalist, you don’t think that way.

4:09BSo it’s just, it’s just a desire to maintain at least the majority power.

4:13AWhite power.

4:14CYeah.

4:15AWhite power.

4:16BAnd once you become minority, power is a lot less certain. Well, because you’re outnumbered. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

4:22AWhich is why they’re fighting so hard, because like I said, within 20, 25 years -- and I ain’t talking African Americans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talking Hispanics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and they’re gonna be -- how we doing, my friend? Glad to hear. Uh, yeah, yeah, that’s how come we’re having this big-ass fight right now.

4:46BYou mean in terms of ICE? You mean in terms of the whole world?

4:49AWell, mainly US. Okay, they This is the last stand for what? And I, and I don’t believe in it before I say it, but white America.

5:01BThis is the last stand for white America.

5:03AYeah, yeah, because we are this close and these guys are realizing that and they still have power. And yeah, yeah, like I said, I apologize for Perfect. Okay, now how did you decide to come from Philly to here?

5:25BI came out here for a tech conference.

5:27AAnd you’re just sticking around?

5:29BYeah, my car broke down in Lyman, so I got it towed from --

5:33AOkay, 75 miles.

5:34B100 miles.

5:35ANo, no, no, no, no, no, 75 miles from my hometown.

5:39BOh, oh yeah.

5:39AIs what I’m saying. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 76 to be exact.

5:43BYeah, yeah, yeah, I was 76 miles past then.

5:45ASo you broke down in fucking Lyman?

5:48BYeah, my engine seized, so I don’t have a car anymore. And I didn’t really -- I came here looking for a job, I didn’t get a job. I got some leads, I have a meeting up for a job lead tonight, which is exciting, but I should be prepping. I’m kind of procrastinating right now. But, you know, this is a worthwhile moment in my journey, honestly. It’s like really cool to hear what you have to say, I have to say. It’s really cool.

6:05AWell, I apologize if I talk too much.

6:08BNo, I mean, my YouTube’s just gonna be an archive of people around the world doing this, and so there’s no such thing as talking too much. I think my goal is like people can go on my YouTube page and always be like, oh, there’s a video nobody’s ever seen.

6:18ALike, oh, okay, I gotta ask this. Yeah, okay, because I’m not even on fucking Facebook. I’ve never gotten a thing from Amazon.

6:28BYou don’t use AI at all? No crypto for you?

6:34AOkay, no, I’m old school.

6:36BOkay, so is that email?

6:39AEvery now and then.

6:39BOkay, you write letters? Yeah, yeah, okay.

6:44AYeah, I do. I do. Okay, which is stupid. I admit that compared to email.

6:49BNah, it’s more intimate. More personal.

6:51AWell, but still stupid. Okay, but, but yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m old school. What do I say?

7:01BThere ain’t nothing wrong with that. I think I encourage you to try out the AI. I use Claude. You can use it for free, I think, without even having an account.

7:09AOkay, all I know is about ChatGPT. Yeah, whatever. Okay, you said Claude?

7:16BOh yeah, Claude. It’s like the -- like Claude Monet wrote some like theory of intelligence or some shit like that.

7:21AAs in Claude Monet the artist?

7:22BClaude Monet is an artist. Yeah, I’m wrong. It’s like a something Claude. I don’t know. I don’t know.

7:26AOkay, because I love Monet. Because I love Monet.

7:28BThat’s cool. I’ve seen some Monet paintings in Philly. That’s where I’m from, Philadelphia.

7:32AYou said that? You said that? And hey, I’ll do this. Okay, like, uh, I’ll get high and I’ll go to the art museums, man. And yeah, I love that. Hey, cool thing about here, first Saturday of every month, they’re all free.

7:51BOh really? That’s coming up. That’s this coming Saturday.

7:55AYeah, yeah, you can go to whatever the fucking art museum you want, which, well, hey, down this street, yeah, yeah, you can see the asteroid. Okay, which by the way, horrible.

8:06BYeah.

8:06AOh, it looks like, it looks like a Martian spit out something. Okay, but I will say this, inside it works because of the walls, because it’s so weird. The, the art actually does stick out.

8:22BOkay, well, that’s cool. Maybe it’s for the inside, not the outside experience then.

8:25AWell, yeah, because not the outside in my opinion.

8:28BIt looks like a skate park.

8:31AGood point.

8:31BIt looks like it’s trying to be like the, the Sydney, Australia thing. Well, it’s not that, but we can stop harping on it.

8:38ANo, no, and you’re totally correct. Hey, hey, I’ve been knocking it, right? I’m knocking the fuck out of the place, okay? But hey, right next to that, like, do you get high at all?

8:50CYeah, for sure.

8:51BOkay, I’m out of weed though, but yeah.

8:53AOkay. Uh, right past the art museum, like the weird thing, is the Clyfford Still Museum. Okay, abstract artist. Jackson Pollock thought he was God. Okay, and for some reason our mayor, who is now a U.S. senator, he decided --

9:13BThe mayor of Denver is a U.S. senator at the same time?

9:15CNo.

9:16BThe former mayor is a U.S. senator?

9:19AYeah, he went from mayor to governor to U.S. And to his credit, okay, dude, okay, like, uh, ’98, that’s when Obama ran against Hillary Clinton and the National Convention was here, Democratic. Okay, all our homeless disappeared.

9:40BTo his credit. That’s a facade though, no?

9:47AYeah, no.

9:49BWhere’d they go?

9:49AI’m getting there.

9:50BOkay, I’m listening.

9:51AI’m getting there. Okay, literally down this street, same one. My first place was on 17th, that is 14th right there. Okay, and on 16th was a church, and I go serve there like once a week. Okay, and Hickenlooper, that’s the guy’s name, he goes from mayor to governor. And then all of a sudden I start seeing like all these people like getting food.

10:20CMm-hmm.

10:21AAnd I know everybody there until these new people. And so I asked like one of the guys I know, I said, hey, what the fuck? He goes, oh, well, Hickenlooper’s not mayor. I said, so he actually did move all the homeless out? He goes, oh yeah. Yeah, they put them on fucking buses all the way to Texas.

10:44CDamn.

10:47ASo that it looked good on TV.

10:49BTo Texas? They just deported them from Denver.

10:51AYeah, yeah, you know, I, I would like to argue with your word, but yeah, you’re totally correct. Okay, and yeah, yeah, and then once Hickenlooper became governor instead of mayor They move back?

11:07BThe same people. When was that? You said ’98?

11:13AWell, no, I’d say 2000 by then.

11:16B2000.

11:17COkay.

11:17BOkay. I’m gonna see if I can ask people and get somebody’s take on that. Like, I’d be really curious to get somebody’s actual take on what that whole thing was like, if I could find anybody.

11:24AWell, like I said, officially I didn’t tell you, but go ahead. Okay. Because yeah, And hey, my old man, like in my small town, okay, he did the same shit, okay? Like if somebody like showed up on I-70 and like they crashed like in a deserted house, oh, they’d move them 30 miles away to Kansas.

11:47CI imagine.

11:48ASo yeah, yeah, he did that. And I always thought it was bullshit, okay, until all of a sudden all these people are moving back.

11:57CMm-hmm.

11:58BLook where they come from.

11:58AThat’s pretty crazy.

12:00CTexas. Yeah.

12:02AYou know, Kansas. It wasn’t just Texas. Yeah, yeah, Greyhound buses moved their asses out so the Democratic National Convention looked good.

12:13BYeah, yeah, yeah. So Denver looked good.

12:15CYeah.

12:15BThat’s crazy.

12:17AYeah.

12:17BTrying to usher more capital here, I’m sure.

12:20AAnd hey, we’re liberal here and we still did that. So God knows what happens in conservative places.

12:29BYeah, that’s true. That never gets talked about. Never gets reported. Never publicized.

12:33AYeah, well, hey, this wouldn’t have either. I just happened to notice.

12:36BYeah. Oh, it wasn’t a thing people knew happened. It just happened and there was nothing on it.

12:40AWe all heard it. Okay, but no proof. No proof. Okay, and all of a sudden, like, these people are moving back. So, bitch, it’s true. It’s fucking true. Yeah, what do I say? Like I said, I’m sorry I talked so much.

13:05BNo, it’s all good. So do you have any questions you’d ask people around the world?

13:09AHow did the hell you put up with us right now?

13:13BAs America?

13:17A’Cause it’s clusterfuck, son. It’s clusterfuck.

13:21COh yeah.

13:23AI mean, just this past weekend you had 9 million people protesting across America, the No Kings thing.

13:30CMm-hmm.

13:32AWell, that’s a point now, isn’t it?

13:34BMm-hmm, absolutely. We’re just like Israel now with Bibi. We’re like all like, what do we do? All go outside and do a protest.

13:40AIt’s horrible. It’s horrible right now. It’s horrible. I’m embarrassed to live here right now. And I live in a liberal city, and I’m embarrassed to live here.

13:54CIt’s wrong.

13:56AIt’s just wrong. People shouldn’t be treated that way. And like the deportation, all this crap. Well, first of all, I said this earlier, we stole the goddamn land anyway.

14:12CMm-hmm.

14:14AWhat’s wrong with people coming in? And I do know this number, okay? Like, even like illegal aliens paid over $86 billion in tax last year.

14:26BImagine.

14:26ABecause they’re on the -- well, they’re on the rolls. They came over illegally, but they’re on the rolls now. And so is that a bad thing?

14:40CNo, no, no.

14:44AThey sit there and talk about, oh, we just want to get like the drug dealers and like the criminals out. Well, there’s not that many of them. And then, and you know what, thank God for the state of Milwaukee, how they stuck up and like literally opened everybody’s eyes.

15:02CMm-hmm.

15:02ABecause beforehand, well, a year before the shit happened, like in, uh, you know, Wisconsin, Um, uh, Minnesota.

15:12BI was thinking you meant Minnesota and you said Milwaukee.

15:14AYeah, yeah, I’m sorry. Yeah, uh, there, there was a guy in Texas got killed for no reason, and now we’re seeing the video, okay? But until, until Minnesota, like, just said, hey, fuck this, okay, we’re gonna stand up, and you know what, we might get shot, and you know what, 2 of them did, we wouldn’t know. So God bless the people of Minnesota, which is why this past weekend Jane Fonda, okay, and Bruce Springsteen singing that Minnesota song now, they go down there to protest, okay.

15:57CBut --

15:57BI didn’t know Springsteen was in Minnesota.

15:59AYeah, so was Jane Fonda. Yeah, and he played a song, okay, which Trump hated, obviously.

16:09BWhich song?

16:09AWell, he -- protest song about, uh, the -- oh, this is terrible, I can’t remember the guy’s name. You know, the girl got shot, then the guy. Okay, it was about the guy, and he wrote a protest song.

16:25BI didn’t know that. I didn’t know the guy got shot. I knew the girl got shot. I didn’t know the guy got shot.

16:31AYeah, not doing nothing. Not doing nothing. In fact, the guy -- the girl they claim said she was like driving in a haphazardly way, and 30 seconds beforehand they film her, oh hey, you guys are good, you know, etc., etc. Within 30 seconds they shoot her ass to death.

16:50CYes.

16:51AOkay, but at least she might have been moving wrong. The guy, oh no, no, he was on it. He was on his stomach, okay? Wasn’t doing nothing, and they put 6, 7 bullets in him.

17:08BYeah, imagine.

17:09AOkay, and thank God for the people of Minnesota. They just kept fucking protesting, so good for them.

17:19BDefinitely good for them.

17:21AYeah, once again, I’m sorry, my friend.

17:23BNo, I’m sorry for holding you, but it’s been almost an hour.

17:26AOh, but I live up here, okay? Yeah, I’m gonna go talk to my cat, okay? So you be good.

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