Matt is the speech-picker and Mike and Landon are along for the ride--across Teddy's fatherly absence in the Dakotas and his butt-whooping distaste for that dogged curse of "indifference". Read the full speech text from Sorbonne University on April 23rd, 1910 here: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-sorbonne-paris-france-citizenship-republic Reference was made to a documentary called "The Century of the Self", produced by the BBC and aired in 2002. You can view that legally, free on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s Episode thumbnail comes from here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt
This episode is rated PG-13 for a "graphic" clip from the film Calvary (2014) which contains one bleeped out instance of f**k, gun violence, and reference to clerical sexual abuse. The clip is approximately four minutes and begins at approximately the 50 minute mark. Landon, Ross, Matt, and Mike discuss Father Mike's 2019 SEEK Conference talk entitled "Share" and how his recognition of his own indifference challenges us to rise above our own. The thumbnail comes from https://bulldogcatholic.org/about-contact-us/about-fr-mike-schmitz/. The speech audio comes from https://youtu.be/9CF7GpW8rNQ?si=u6czK3DWt0J3Wyee.
Doug Johnson introduces the cast and recalls, with Ross, the (micro)speech he gave to his son before his first football game in the twilight of the 20th century in Springfield, Illinois. Ross and Doug might not remember if he scored, but they remember the speech. And now, you will too. Thumbnail image comes from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/father-son-playing-football--462604192944860833/.
Landon, Mike, Ross, and Matt close out the "Speeches That Got Someone Killed" quad. Some political candidates might be a threat to America's democracy, but this episode isn't--unless you think a Speech Guys oligarchy could make American great again. Full text of speeches discussed can be accessed here: https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/robespierre-revolutionary-terror-1794/ AND here: https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/robespierre-virtue-terror-1794/ Our country's national debt was discussed. Review current value here: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/ The episode thumbnail comes from here: https://www.historyskills.com/classroom/year-9/9-hist-french-revolution-reading/
Mike, Landon, Ross, and Matt consider how John Lennon's interview in March 1966 with London's Evening Standard influenced Mark David Chapman and the legacy of Christianity, the Beatles, and musical counterculture that persists today. The speech can be read here: https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/1966/03/john-lennon-is-quoted-saying-were-more-popular-than-jesus-now/ A blog by Mr. Robert Rosen was discussed and can be accessed here concerning the significance of "Chapter 27" in The Catcher in the Rye: https://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/01/roots-of-chapter-27-including-chapter.html Thumbnail comes from here: https://www.businessinsider.com/john-lennon-facts-you-didnt-know-2020-12#lennon-didnt-get-his-drivers-license-until-he-was-24-10 Lennon's song, "God" comes from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCNkPpq1giU
Fact Check: Landon references a comment made by Former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, that "eight trillion dollars was lost track of", and speculates that the attack on the Pentagon was to obviate the federal government of responsibility toward that amount. See this addressed here: https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/rumsfeld-did-not-reveal-loss-23-trillion-day-before-911-2023-09-14/ Mike referenced a podcast hosted by Catholic apologist, Jimmy Akin, that comments on popular 9/11 conspiracies. Listen to that podcast here: https://sqpn.com/2021/09/the-9-11-attacks-conspiracy-911-truth-september-11-attacks/ Thumbnail image used from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/exclusive-new-photos-show-bushs-response-to-911-attacks/. Speech audio comes from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA8-KEnfWbQ
How does the Sermon on the Mount help the Speech Guys pursue a worthy spiritual frontier? Listen in as Ross, Matt, and Mike cheer for the arrival of Faye Frye and consider what might set Jesus of Nazareth a story worth believing in.
Does art inspire life or life inspire art? Landon, Ross, Matt, and Mike team up for Orson Welles' 1941 campaign "to rid the politics of this State of the evil domination of Boss Jim Gettys". The thumbnail image comes from https://theasc.com/articles/realism-for-citizen-kane.
Listener discretion: "a**" is used several times throughout the episode Is paying for runs really what America's baseball heart beats for? The Speech Guys and special guest, Theus Brown (BAJ and BROWN Podcast), discuss the contemporary consequences of the "moneyball" model via the dramatized speech by Boston Red Sox owner, John Henry, in the 2011 Oscar-nominated film, Moneyball.
"You think I know the first thing about being an orphan because I read Oliver Twist?"... Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) begins to tear down the intellectual and academic walls that Sean (Matt Damon) built up around himself in this famous speech from the 1997 Oscar-nominated film, "Good Will Hunting". Ross, Landon, and Mike contemplate their own walls they've had to and need to break down to have real knowledge from life experiences.
This episode is rated PG-13 for language and discussion of sexuality. Anne Marie rejoins as guest host to discuss the good, true, and maybe not so universally accurate observations of women and men in Gloria's speech to lift Barbie out of the existential doldrums. Thumbnail image comes from https://people.com/read-the-powerful-barbie-monologue-about-being-a-woman-that-america-ferrera-performed-30-to-50-times-7565806
Merry Christmas from the Speech Guys! Talk, think, and laugh about your favorite holiday fare... fruitcakes, George and Mary Bailey, and the real life Hallmark tradition that took place each season at Johnson's Market. Read the November 2019 article on Ross's family grocery business from the New York Times here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/us/rural-farm-market.html Episode note: the nature of Santa Claus' existence is discussed.
In 1986, author and Holocaust-survivor, Elie Wiesel, was awarded for his humanitarian work on behalf of the Jewish community and other historically-oppressed groups. The Speech Guys discuss the legacy of those words, particularly in light of heightened tensions between Israel, Hamas, and Palestinians. Special thanks to a listener who pointed out that the principal reason for Mr. Wiesel's receiving the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize was on account of his work in liberating Jews in the Soviet. You can learn about one Soviet Jew's experience here: https://lithub.com/on-the-liberation-struggles-of-the-soviet-refuseniks/ The thumbnail image of Mr. Wiesel is used from https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/elie-wiesel-hmd-2017/. The speech audio comes from https://youtu.be/tu-63eViNPo?si=YC8X0vA8b53enMxc.
Apollo Creed helped Balboa get his body ready for the Heavyweight title against Clubber Lang. But his wife and partner, Adrian (Talia Shire), had to retrain his heart. "I'm afraid alright! For the first time in my life, I'm afraid." Bonus content: Matt's Brooklyn-styled Rocky impression
Who said AI was a new conversation we should be having? Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) and Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) were paving the way for the rest of us all of the way back in 1982. Mike's the speech-picker. Matt and Landon tag along for a trip to the future in... 2019. Or would that be the past? Thumbnail image comes from https://www.exrey.tv/blade-runner-1982/.
The Speech Guys try to imagine a world just before the dawn of their births as they step back into the 1980s with President Reagan's speech following the space shuttle Challenger explosion on January 28th, 1986 over Cape Canaveral.
Mike, Landon, Matt, and Ross finish out the Speeches By Prisoners series with Socrates' speech before his Athenian jury considering whether or not he ought to be executed for crimes of "corrupting the youth" and not properly worshiping the traditional gods of Athens.
The Speech Guys share a common collegiate origin along Illinois' Interstate 74. Here, Landon and Mike recall their coming together merely months before Mike's University of Illinois graduation in spring 2015. The moral of this episode? You never know what treasures are in store until your car is packed and ready to pull away from one of life's stages. So be a good friend all of the way through and don't exit through the garage.
In 1978, Russian exile, Alexander Solzhenitsyn gave the commencement address to Harvard graduates. Unlike most commencement speeches, it painted Western culture in macabre, depressing descriptions of its decline in courage, legalism, direction of freedom and the press, socialism, loss of will, thinking with only respect to what's 'fashionable', short-sightedness, pervasive secular humanism, and its doomed similarities to the communist government under which he'd been exiled. So, don your cap and gown and let's listen and think about what he had to say to those Harvard graduates four decades ago. The speech rendition can be accessed here: https://youtu.be/QC_3xnVOBjk The thumbnail image comes from here: https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/timeline
It's the second episode of the Speeches By Prisoners series and the Speech Guys contemplate the stoicism and devotion to ordinary life Mandela seemed to demonstrate as a South African political prisoner from 1964 to 1990. Listen to the full speech Mandela gave before his 1964 trial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQvlxnWELHM The SG spend a lot of time comparing and contrasting Mandela's decisions to Blessed Franz Jaagerstatter (1907 - 1943). His life was recently depicted in Terrence Malick's film, A Hidden Life. Watch that trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJXmdY4lVR0 Thumbnail image is accessed from here: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw243541/Nelson-Mandela