Transcript

Part Two: Behind the Bastards Live Show: The Ballad of Bo Gritz | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

From Behind the Bastards · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 41 min · 7,520 words · 172 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Part Two: Behind the Bastards Live Show: The Ballad of Bo Gritz | BEHIND THE BASTARDS", an episode of Behind the Bastards published November 21, 2025 (41 min, about 7,520 words). It mentions 9 people, works and ideas, including Bo Grites, Terry Smith, Almost Heaven, Populist Party, Operation Velvet Hammer.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Operation Velvet Hammer, Pico Ayer
  2. – 10:00: Terry Smith
  3. – 15:00: Terry Smith, Operation Velvet Hammer
  4. – 20:00: William Shatner
  5. – 25:00: A-Team, Populist Party
  6. – 30:00: Populist Party
  7. – 35:00: Ruby Ridge
  8. – 40:00: Almost Heaven
  9. – 41:16: Almost Heaven

Notable quotes from "Part Two: Behind the Bastards Live Show: The Ballad of Bo Gritz | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"

  • Stories. and yeah, after months of raising money, he launches what he calls Operation Velvet Hammer in 1981.
    about Operation Velvet Hammer · at
  • He launches Operation Velvet Hammer in 1981. Writing for Time magazine, Pico Ayer reports that Bo gathered up quote 21 drifters, dreamers, and desperados, recruited a psychic, a hypnotherapist, and some reporters, and began.
    about Pico Ayer · at
  • So, one of his volunteers is a guy named Terry Smith. Now, Terry is a former Green Beret, so that's good, right?
    about Terry Smith · at
  • WILLIAM SHATNER DONATED 10 NOW, TO BE fair to our boy, Bill Shatner sends 10 grand if in exchange for the rights to grits to Bog Wright's life.
    about William Shatner · at
  • Of rescuing PS overseas. And here's my favorite side fact. The character Hannibal Smith on the A team inspired partly by both serious.
    about A-Team · at
  • And in 1988 agreed to run as the vice presidential candidate for the Populist Party. Anybody know the Populist Party?
    about Populist Party · at
  • Bo played what would be arguably his one positive role in US political culture, which is when he kind of ended the Ruby Ridge standoff. So, if you're if you're vaguely…
    about Ruby Ridge · at
  • Of land in an intentional community from members of the militia movement called Almost Heaven.
    about Almost Heaven · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Companies & orgs

Concepts & topics

Full transcript with timestamps

Okay. Like a like a grown-up. I'm going to sit normally now. Going to sit like a grownup.

Give a hands up to uh I feel like that was for me. You don't [ __ ] control me.

I feel like I got They booed you turning the chair around. No, they don't control you, but clearly I do.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There you go. There's never been a question about that. You control us all. Also, shout out us graduating our our booze.

Not me. Yes. Yes. We've moved up to hard liquor. We've moved up. You're on to bourbon brown. I'm on that brown

because I got to walk in the crowd later and I'm very afraid of falling. Oh, that part's going to be fun. So,

till we return to the sto the story of Boes, right? So, when we last left off, Bo was touring the country, telling lies that he didn't need to tell about Vietnam and raising money to try and send a bunch of goons back to Southeast Asia to rescue a bunch of guys who were not in Southeast Asia.

Is he bored? Like, I mean, this seems more fun than like getting a job. What would you rather do? Lie to television about Vietnam and take a bunch of money to go vacation in Thailand or work? I mean, yeah.

Look, I'm lying about, but I don't think I would like actually do the do the gun. Like, I would just go vacation. That's the part.

That's what I'm saying. Like, I'm like, "Yeah, I'd go and just never come back."

Unfortunately, Bo does not have that governor in his head. No, no. When you and I start our Vietnam Grift, it's going to go a lot better. It's going to go a lot better.

There will just there'll be a lot of time shares involved. It's going to be hard convincing people in 2040 that there's still US soldiers trapped in Vietnam. Yeah.

You can't tell me I'm wrong. Deep down, Bo is just a podcaster. So B's touring the country. He's speaking on different TV shows. He's talking at churches at veterans organizations. He's telling all these stories. Um, and yeah, uh, after months of raising money, um, he launches what he calls Operation Velvet Hammer in 1981. I know. Okay,

that's a good one. That's a good draw, fam. I would use that title. I If I was writing a screenplay called Operation Velvet, that is it would be about a strip club that had to arm themselves.

Yes. I was like, this is a porn. Yeah. In order to care. No, not a porn. What velvet hammer?

Yeah. One one of the employees at the strip club gets kidnapped by a mafia and the others have to form a commando unit to rescue them.

So it's like a stripper escape room. Yes. Kind of. Yes. Yes. It's Portland. We probably have that exist.

No. No. It's like it's like Taken, but instead of there being one Liam Niss, there's a bunch and they're all strippers, right? Like that's the story. That's not a bad idea for I'm I'm just Yeah.

green lit. I do think I do think an adult escape room might actually be a viable business.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh a viable business that will immediately get like the lawmati the lawsuits. Oh my god.

Immediately. Yes. Uh he launches Operation Velvet Hammer in 1981. Writing for Time magazine, Pico Ayer reports that Bo gathered up quote 21 drifters, dreamers, and desperados, recruited a psychic, a hypnotherapist, and some reporters, and began practicing.

OKAY. OKAY. OKAY. I might be here for this one. I'm like, I'm kind of on his team now.

If I'm putting together a platoon of of of veterans in order to like rescue guys, what do you need? Well, you need some drifters. Obviously, you're going to need some dreamers, some desperados, a psychic, clearly

a psychic. You're not going to get far without a hypnotherapist, and of course, some reporters.

I might be I might be on his team for this one. Okay. And so, they start training together to go to go into Lao and to rescue or at least find proof that there's men being held prisoner across the border in Vietnam. Now, prop. If you're training a roughly a platoon's worth of guys who are already combat veterans, but if you're training them to insert themselves without any support into some of the most dangerous terrain on Earth in order to rescue prisoners from a heavily guarded camp, where would you do that training?

I I mean, caveat would be I wouldn't be doing this training. Right. If you were dumb thing to do, I promise you, you don't have the right answer.

Oh, I know I don't. Where would I do this? Yeah. Where would you train these guys to go into Lao?

Uh, somewhere similar to Lao. That's a good answer. That's close. But if you're Bogue writes, the place you pick is the American Cheerleading Association Academy in Leburg, Florida. Obviously,

WHERE WHERE WOULD YOU GUYS GO? RIGHT. You made that. That's not what that's saying.

Bo, ain't no way in the world that's what your script say. Sun Sue says, "Know your enemy and know yourself and you need not fear the result of a thousand battles." B knows the North Vietnamese.

I think he also said, "Br. It's cold in." So, I was going to do a bit about how North Vietnam based all of their fighting strategies on cheerleading, but

I mean, you already took it from me, so we're good. We're good. I was one step ahead.

Oh my gosh. Just like the cheerleaders. Just like the cheerleaders. Cheerleaders middle name is Lynn.

One of both to give you an idea of the caliber. That was a throwaway joke. Y'all catch that one? Y catch that Joe away joke. The middle name is Lynn.

She's Kaye Lynn. You know what I'm saying? Dang. Sorry. I can't I lit. So, I apologize.

We should I should give you an idea of the kind of men that B's working with. So, one of his volunteers is a guy named Terry Smith. Now, Terry is a former Green Beret, so that's good, right? Probably want someone with that kind of experience on the team. Now, before getting involved in Velvet Hammer, Terry had been training to become a college football player, and he quit spring training to go to Lao with Bo. He told Time when they asked him why, I gave up something I've always wanted, but there were at least a dozen Green Berets on operations in that area in Lao who never got out. When I shoot the first commie, I'm going to have an orgasm. I'm gonna come out.

Wait, this has gone off the rails. Okay, I'm gonna come out with a P or die trying. I figure we'll either go down in history or start World War II.

That's a beautiful mind. You need a beautiful mind. I'm sorry. You need to stay home.

You need to not have a gun. You need to not have a gun. Look, I've, you know, we could talk about the Second Amendment, but that should get your guns taken away.

I feel like Nope. Nope. Nope. Hand them over. I'm sorry. Yes. Absolutely not. This person is unwell.

Yeah. Very Oh, you haven't even we have not finished with Terry Smith. So, that's that's that's the name. Terry Smith.

Terry Smith. That's very Terry behavior. Yeah. Sorry if there's any. Are there any Terry's in the audience?

Thank God. Wow. Thank God. Thank God it's a Terry Free zone. I'm now very those [ __ ]

I'm now I'm all There's There's 500 people in this room and none of y'all are Terry.

It's not a real name. That's an interesting stat. Yeah. Yeah. It's a fake name. I think Terry was a CIA plant. Anyway, um

especially with that type of talk cuz like right that's some very much some like blacks rule energy. You know what I'm saying?

So, you know, we don't call ourselves that, right? like we would never write black's rule. Okay, I'm just

Bose. That's true. Roughly two dozen guys, right? Uh Smith, you know, this guy we quoted from purportedly a combat veteran, but no one's checking up on that. I I say he said he was a Green Beret. All these guys say that they had been involved. No one's checking.

Wait, was he not Was he not? I don't know. NO ONE KNOWS. NO ONE LOOKED. No one asked. Terry,

these are men who showed up at a cheerleading academy in Florida and said, "I'm willing to travel to Lao to kill strangers."

Like, God is what they did for a minute. That there might be one of our friends there.

Maybe our buddies there. I'm just saying Eric Prince is foaming at the mouth. Oh, beyond foaming. And not just at the mouth. So,

my mom is here. Hi, Sophie's mom. Hi, Mom. Um, so Terry told reporters a lot of beautiful nonsense. Not beautiful nonsense, a lot of nonsense. One of his stories that he would tell the news was that when he was in Vietnam, he watched a whole platoon of NVA soldiers stop and cut up a pregnant woman together. Quote, I wanted to rip their heads off, but I couldn't do nothing about it. Now, look, no side in any war has a monopoly on war crimes. But 30 guys all stopped to cut up a single pregnant woman is just not the sort of war crime I'm going to believe happened unless you have some evidence.

Right? That's just a weird move, right? What was the situ What was the situation where you couldn't do anything? These guys are all occupied and you're just W LIKE WHAT are you claiming was going on here, Terry? I don't know. That said, do drink because it is a war crime. So get on it, folks. Now, I think that this is the kind of nonsense that fits in less with what actually happened and more with the fact that all these guys are now telling tall tales about the things that actually happened in order to express their fantasies and like ju they're trying to justify the fact that they want to go murder a bunch of strangers in the jungle, right? Like so you have to tell like what's the worst thing I can imagine? Well, this would justify me doing whatever, right? This summary of that Florida gathering um by Time magazine really says a lot. Quote, "They were just high on the idea, adrenaline,

and the ballot of the Green Beretss blaring over the loudspeaker at all of them. An ex- special forces sergeant still embittered about losing his son in Vietnam." And Terry Smith humping a rucksack, urging them on, "Suck that clean Florida air." Just just a maniac. All these guys maniacs. And oh man,

their plan, the go the plan that they're training for is nuts from the jump. Bose's idea, we're all going to fly in to Lao as tourists. And then we'll rent a house on the Mikong Delta across from Vietnam and we'll pretend to be providing humanitarian aid to Cambodian refugees. We'll get smuggled a bunch of machine guns, which should be easy obviously. And then we'll embed with friendly anti-communist guerrillas fighting the Vietnamese state across the border, right? And they'll help us find these PS. If we're captured, we're going to travel with gold so we can pay our ransoms. And we're going to bring with us just in case what they called get out of jail free cards. These were self-printed IUS promising $1,000 if someone took them in the bearer to a US embassy. The embassies had not agreed to validate these. First of all,

these are just I carry one of those in my pocket now. Like Yeah. First of all, they America didn't send you. Number one.

And number two, you are going to be robbed immediately. Immediately. Oh crap. YOU'VE SEEN WHERE THIS IS GOING.

YEAH. LIKE, so the next part of the plan is once they find a P camp, we will either break everyone out or we'll take pictures depending on the situation. And then we'll send the proof back to DC and that'll convince the president to send air support from the seventh fleet in. Right. We will start the war in Vietnam right there. He's going to immediately call in an air strike and we'll free these guys. Now, bro, this is like pre like this ain't no internet. Like how long you going to call the president from Laos?

Yeah, you're going to call the president from [ __ ] Lao and you're going to get him to send the seventh fleet to bomb Vietnam again. again

10 years after the warrants. Okay, great great idea, guys. Amazing. And Bose's plan is that like obviously we'll win a second time, right?

Like, you know, it's like it's like when you're like playing your brother or something at Smash Brothers and like he he like gets you, but he just like he just mashed buttons, you know? He's not going to mash those buttons the same way again. Vietnam was like that,

right? Maybe you pick Samus the next time. That was Bose. Your brother beat Yeah, your brother beats. Your brother beating the brakes off you every time, right? Yeah. Got it.

So, unfortunately, the money that Bo raised telling pointless lies about his time in Vietnam did not extend past partying in Florida. One member of the group, cuz so they run out of money at the cheerleading academy.

Oh, really? And one member of the group, Terry [ __ ] Smith, suggests, "Hey guys, I know how we can get some extra money. We're in Florida. It's the 80s. Let's go murder a bunch of Coke dealers and take their money. I WAS LIKE, AND BOTH FUND OUR TRIP TO VIETNAM, WELL, to allow the Coke dealer money.

I said to myself, they going to say they're going to sell Coke. And I was like, no, that'd be dumb.

No, that'd be dumb. They're going to take money from Coke dealers. I was like, "Oh, you going to rob coke dealers?" "Oh, yeah.

We're going to start an independent war with the cartels so that we can start an independent war with Vietnam, you know,

at at their base." This man is not paying attention at all. Out of the cheerleading base.

Now, Terry Smith told the Time magazine, "If I got to kill a hund 20 American bad guys to get a 100 PS out of Vietnam, I'll do it."

Of course, Terry. Absolutely. Terry said, "Go fight Roar." That was good, Sophie.

Thank you. Mhm. Thank you. That was so go fight. Operation Velvet Hammer worked out about as well as an actual Velvet Hammer. After this, Bo doesn't give up. That's one thing the military taught him. How to The military taught him two things. One is how to stick to a plan and the other is how to not win a war in Vietnam. Right? Those are the two things he learns from his service. So Bo organizes a smaller group to hunt for clues in Thailand. And I have to assume that the word hunt here means smoke and the word clues here stands for tie sticks. Anyway, they find no information about any PS hunting in Thailand.

He's just shooting out arbitrary countries that are like close to where you know what we say that actually prop if you guys want to donate some money, you know, really really coughing and give deep. I think we could find some PS in Thailand.

I'm pretty sure we can. We're We're going to need like 6 weeks at La Meridian in Bangkok. And I think we can knock it out. I really think we can knock it out.

I was a little specific. Yeah. It's just one boat. It's just It's just Look it. It's just one bus into the into the bush, right?

But we could stay out there and based in the La Meridian. Based Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do some do some like mental health work and look massages.

This podcast is not sponsored by Meridian. guys aren't aren't all in in intel, but let me tell you, as a CIA man, all of the good all of the real information comes from massage artists.

So, my plan is to get like eight hours of massages a day, right? And that then I'll figure out where all of the prisoners are.

So, it's a good idea. And most of them most of them speak English right? I don't know.

Speak English. Also, as a side note, as I've been sitting here, I thought Velvet Hammer also sounds like a Prince album. Yeah, that would be a pretty good name for a Prince.

Be a Prince album. Anyway, yeah, also not a bad band name anyway. How are they not out of money completely at this point?

Well, they're continuing. Well, actually, we'll talk about who's giving them money because that's fun, Sophie. That's really fun. So, Bo keeps raising money and public awareness of US PS that are definitely still trapped in Vietnam. He succeeds in securing several high-profile celebrity donations.

Wait, who do you think it is? Yeah. Who do you think it is? Give me Give me two names.

Kissinger. No, celebrities. Celebrities like movie star, movie star. Movie or TV?

I was like John. I was like John Wayne, Robert Redford. Who Who uh not is not a TV star or a movie star at this point in time.

Very close, but you're not there yet. No. Yep. Who sign? Someone said Eastwood. Clint Eastwood sends $30,000 and allegedly promised to get Ronald Reagan's blessing. Clint allegedly Bose says Clint said, "If you can find proof of a P, I'll make sure Reagan sends in an air strike." Right. I don't know if Clint Eastwood did other than he definitely sent the money. Right. Um, and then

no one's going to guess this. WILLIAM SHATNER DONATED 10 NOW, TO BE TO be fair to our boy,

Bill Shatner sends 10 grand if in exchange for the rights to grits to Bog Wright's life.

Okay, never mind. Right. Bill's got an angle. We know. I see the play. I see the play.

Captain Kirk knows what he's doing. Respect. Like actually respect. You know what I'm saying?

I think 10K is a hilarious amount for his life rights. Yeah. So, the money that they raise is enough that in November of 1982, Bo finally succeeds in taking a commando team to Lao, where the most obvious thing happens. And I want to quote from Bruce Franklin's book MIA here. Almost as soon as they arrived in Lao, they were ambushed, routed, and forced to flee as fast as they could back to Thailand. The ambushers, contrary to their initial assumptions, were not even treacherous communists, but a rival anti-communist Le Oceanian group whom Gres's men had offended in Thailand, and to whom Grites, ironically enough, reportedly had to pay $17,500 ransom to recover a captured American teammate. The Raiders, of course, encountered no PS. Now, there's a couple of things about this. First off, they did kind of succeed in rescuing a P.

Yes. Touche. Did they bring that P with them? Yes. But they did save him. Uh, second,

that is glorious. It's time for another drink because also two of his local La Ocean guides die in the ambush, which is very sad. Although, you have to imagine the guys who are taking him into the jungle probably not great,

right? The dudes who were working with this guy, I don't know. Anyway, that said, still sad. Take a drink. That is so funny. So,

not the debts. Not the debts, but but the fact that they immediately get ambushed from ransom. Super funny. Now, if you're keeping track, the only American captive they've encountered is someone they brought with them. But the very next month, Bo tries again, flying to Thailand and renting a $1,000 a month safe house. And $1,000 a month in the 1980s, that is a nice [ __ ] safe house. That's a lot of money.

Again, prop, we could find some information. Listen, in a $1,000 a month safe house.

Some of y'all could throw money today. You're staying in a nice Well, thousand a month. I don't know. Yeah,

we'll see. Safe houses, you know, they're on a sliding scale. So, one of those comrades claims to have totally seen bad guys across the border drilling with weapons. Sure, maybe. Like, it's Vietnam. They have an army now. Like, like they're their country, right? Like, they're allowed to do that. He's like, I was so angry I couldn't fight. IT'S THEIR COUNTRY. WHAT are you doing over there?

You came You he flew all the way from Florida. Yeah. Yeah. Well, presumably from Florida. Yeah. Um so, uh Bose's last attempt was in the spring of 1983, and it ended when Thai police immediately arrested two of his commandos for possession of illegal radio transmitters. So,

did nobody ask y'all to come, fam? No one wants you here. You did not need to be here. Okay. This is not a success by any definition, but it got attention. People do pay attention to what Bo is doing. He gets hauled before Congress in March of 1983. Now, Congress had concluded, as I said, in 1976 that there were no more PS being held by Vietnam. So, Bo is asked, "What evidence do you have to counter these conclusions?" And Bo answers, I have the same evidence that might be presented to a convention of clergymen that God exists.

So like none. Wait. So like none. That's not a bar. No evidence. That's not a bar, fam.

I'm not I'm not anti, you know, faith or whatever, but we don't invade countries based on Well, we do actually a lot. Actually, we do all the time.

That's actually often why we inv Okay, point to Bo. Um, now in another interview, one of Bo's former volunteers, Tom Smith, said of gripes, "I wouldn't cross the street with this guy. He's suffering from the early stages of burning a bush complex,

which first off, it's not burning a bush. I don't understand why he said it that way. No, that's a real burning bush. It's a burning bush.

Yeah, you're not burning. Maybe he's saying he was lighting a bush on fire to like fake it. I guess that could be

I don't know. Maybe it's some slang. We just don't know. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. This is some old

There are more important things here. Continue. Sure. Yes, ma'am. Now, the attention that Bo drew mattered though to someone. Well, to a group Hollywood Bose's story inspired and did legitimately inspire Rambo First Blood Part Two, in which John Rambo is sent to a secret US base in Thailand to invade Vietnam on his own and rescue rescue PS. Uh, there's other movies that were inspired by Bose's story. Chuck Norris's missing an Action series and the Jean Hackman film Uncommon Valor. RIP Jean were also inspired by Bose's fantasies of rescuing PS overseas. And here's my favorite side fact. The character Hannibal Smith on the A team inspired partly by both serious.

Yeah, I know. Hannibal. And the real number one, the real Hannibal would have found those P.

They were there. Absolutely. And number two, I would have pied them fools. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Sorry. I do love the A team. You can tell Props added half a drink. Yeah, this was like this was like he poured this like a glass of water.

It was a thick pour. Like shout out whoever like Yeah, you trying to put me up under this table

as thick as the C4 necklace around that guy's neck. So what? I didn't do it. You're supposed to say no.

Yeah. No. All right, everybody do your drink. So after 1983, Bose seems to have largely and quietly given up on his plans to rescue these totally real P USPs in order to become an influencer in the growing militia movement. He joined the Mormon church, starred in a direct

No, no, you got to wait for the sentence to finish. Start in a directto video ripoff of Charlie's Angels called Rescue Force. I know what everyone's watching tonight. And in 1988 agreed to run as the vice presidential candidate for the Populist Party. Anybody know the Populist Party?

Anybody heard of these guys? Well, they were the political party of a group called the Liberty Lobby, which was founded by a guy we've talked about on Behind the Bastards, a Holocaust denier and Hitler fan, Willis Cartau. Right. There we go. Yeah. It all together, guys.

Willis Cartau is like I mean he is like the grandfather of American fascism as an organized political movement that is like working within like mainstream conservatism and attempting to radicalize and influence mainstream conservatism. Right. Cartau is the guy. He was the dude who was a lot smarter than like the neo-Nazis. He was like, "No, no, no, no, no, no. You got to you got to dress this [ __ ] up a little bit if you're going to do it." And Cart sees Bo and he's like charismatic, war hero, good at getting media attention. And Cartau kind of scouts him to be the VP candidate, right? Bo says that he was poached directly by Willis Cartau.

Although Bo would then later claim that he was shocked and appalled when at that year's convention for the populist party, the presidential nomination was won by another fellow you might have heard of, David Duke. Uh,

I'll tell you what, man. This Cartau guy must be really smiling in hell right now.

Oh, he's having a great time. He's having a great time in hell right now. Yeah.

So, now I will say this in interviews because Bogue writes as with other parts of his life gives two different stories. the one that he gives at the time and the one that he gives years later when people ask him years later he will be like oh I was horrified the instant I heard that uh that uh David Duke was the presidential candidate within 48 hours I'd resigned I was not I would absolutely never have have uh worked with with such a racist at the time in news articles written immediately afterwards B said he was okay with working with Duke because he met with David Duke and made him promise a solemn swear promise not to be a racist in the campaign in the campaign not to have a racist campaign. And David Duke said it wasn't going to be a racist campaign. What more can you ask? You know,

he said he wasn't going to do it. Seems sounds fine to me. Take a man by his word.

He promised a clansman's prom. Okay. Well, you know, all right. Jesus Christ. Um, so the good news is that after they lost, Bo complained to

Cart. You could stop that sentence right there. The good news, the good news is that they lost. They lost for now. Yeah.

I know, right? Let's not think too much about what's happening on Yeah. Yeah. Um, so the good news is that Bo complained uh after they lost to Willis Cartau that David Duke did quote more harm to the populist party than Hitler would have. Now, okay, this this I'm give you a second. This kind of insinuates to me that Bo would have been okay with running as the VP for Hitler.

No, literally that's exactly what he said. Everybody say a little bit. At first I was like, "Okay, let him cook. Let me like what are you trying to say here?" Like help me understand

and get cuz my first thought was Yeah. Like so you'd be cool. See, you might you might have run with Hitler if he promised not to run a racist camp.

As long as Hitler don't do a racist campaign. Hitler's on his best behavior. We can go to Olive Garden. No, I'm sorry. I don't know what or or Golden Corell.

Are you hungry or something? What's happening? I just think Hitler and Olive Garden is a funny image, Sophie.

Cuz when you're there, you're family. So, bro, you are on a roll today, dude. Do you think he was a super salad guy? I think salad

think he he was a salad guy canonically. He salad and unlimited bread sticks. bread sticks. That man is not ordering a plate.

I'm actually in the in the audience is a very dear friend of mine who we decided at some at one point, I'm not really sure why, to come in at Olive Garden one day on a Tuesday, the very minute they opened at 9 or 10 in the morning. Now, we were both wearing skirts that we'd sewn each other and we both had t-shirts that had our favorite conspiracy theory on them. I do forget what mine was, but H just said Michael Jackson was murdered written on the front of a white t-shirt and Sharpie and we proceeded to the hell going on, MAN.

NOW, OLIVE GARDEN, are you bro? The reason why we showed up is Olive Garden sells 3 L bottles of wine. So, we ordered two of them and then we nothing but six lers of wine and bread sticks. And the experiment cuz we also brought with us a big roll of butcher paper and we started outlining the conspiracies that we like believed ruled the world. So, we were drawing like a big flowchart talking about the Freemasons and all of these different conspiracies. And the goal was, when will they stop serving us bread sticks? And eventually, it did get to the point where we got half a bread stick on a plate and I was like, "Yeah, it's probably time to bounce."

Hey, let me ask y'all this. Let me ask y'all this. As as fans of the show, how many times have you thought to yourself, "How has this man survived?" Like, how are you still alive? I'll be thinking that like like how are you still alive, fam? Yeah. I I will say as soon as we got back to my house, my friend who was in the audience vomited so much on the floor.

I almost made it to the toilet. So, I'm just bragging a little bit. Pretty close.

Not at all. Not at all. Like literally like 3 and 1/2 ft further. Anyway, yeah,

back to the story. So what the good news is, well not the good news, uh he runs again in 1992, uh this time as the presidential candidate for the populist party and he does twice as well as David Duke, winning.1% of the national popular vote to Duke's 005. So you know, not bad. That same year, ' 92, Bo played what would be arguably his one positive role in US political culture, which is when he kind of ended the Ruby Ridge standoff. So,

if you're if you're vaguely familiar, there's this guy Randy Weaver and his friends in the area nations. Uh, he gets paid by a dude who turns out to be an ATF agent to saw off some shotguns. And then they raid his house and an agent is shot dead by I forget which member of his group killed the agent, but an an ATF agent's killed and the ATF kills his young son who's a child and his wife, right? And a big st this is called Ruby Rich, huge standoff. This is like a seinal moment in the [ __ ] militia movement. It's a big deal. And because Gites is a really famous figure in the militia movement, um he gets like the he basically I think he reaches out directly to the feds actually. But anyway, he winds up flown in and talks to Randy Weaver and talks Weaver down and the siege ends without further loss of life. This is a legitimate thing that Bo did. And it's good, right? It's good that more people because Bo had or Randy

had his kid like I'm not I don't care that much about Randy, but he had another kid, right? But he did nations and because Gres's 1992 campaign was seen as a watershed moment for white supremacists in the US, Bo was accused of himself being a racist. Can you believe it? Now, Idaho State University professor James Aho told the SPLC, the Southern Poverty Law Center, that as far as he could see, Gres wasn't quote an outandout racist. And Gres himself repeatedly emphasized that he had two Asian-American children. So, he of course he did.

Now, of course he did. He was in them huts. He was in that hut. Yeah, he was in them huts.

Yeah. You can't be racist. YOU IN THEM HUTS. THE HELL are we talking about, man? Now, I think it's accurate to say that Bose's primary motivation wasn't white supremacy, but it's kind of weird to say that he wasn't an outand-out racist given some comments he made about people of the Jewish faith. per the SPLC.

Earlier this year, this is uh 2005, I think, in a lengthy diet tribe falsely alleging Jewish control of the media and financial institutions, he wrote, "Why is there such an intense effort toward Jewish control? I don't think it is right for such a small special interest group to control our nation." Elsewhere, 2005, how old is this article? He's still alive.

God. Yeah, I know. It's a bummer. Dang it, man. Elsewhere he wrote, "Do you see the sign, the scent, the stain and mark of the beast on America today? Are you willing to submit and join this seed line of Satan? Look to those who are openly Antichrist. Who in the world is promoting abortion, pornography, pedophilia, godless laws, adultery, new age international banking, entertainment industry, and world publishing? Wherever you find a perversion of God's laws, you will find the worshippers of Bal with their roots still in Babylonian mysticism.

What the WHAT ARE YOU TALKING? SO, YOU KNOW, he's not an out and-out racist. God,

this man named and just even his racism being just broken. This man naming all the enemies,

right, of the Israelites. You know what I'm saying? I guess. Yeah. I'm I'm look look I grew up in church y'all.

Well, he's he is arguing that that's Judaism is worshiping ball. That's the That's what I'm trying to say. I'm like, bro, that's the opp Never never mind.

We argue with Boes on theology. Um but the point of it is that like I mean to be fair in rural Idaho that is kind of middle of the road racism, right? Like he's not an extremist for rural Idaho. He's a free trial version, right? Yeah. Um, in January of 1993, after losing his second presidential election, Bo pivoted to a new grift. He started Spike. S P I ke him name things.

I know. He's so annoying. Spike is a was a training program that stood for specially prepare prepared individuals for key events.

That means nothing, bro. I swear I was I was so worried you was about to say like Spike TV.

No. Yeah, he founded Spike TV. I was like, HE'S FOUNDING SPIKE TV. I WAS LIKE, "YEAH." SO, the idea was he was bringing in experts to teach classes that would turn reg you could like order VHS tapes off the internet and it will turn you into a special forces operator if you watch enough of them. Right. That's all that standing in between you and being a Navy Seal is watching enough VHS tapes. That's actually true. Um, buy the VHS tape cassette series I've got going on. I don't know what to call it. I didn't think of an acronym. Sorry. Anyway, Spike winds up ultimately building a video library of about a hundred hours of content that they would ship to anyone willing to pay. Now, by the early 90s, Bo had also relocated to the Pacific Northwest, where we all call home.

Uhhuh. Yeah. Cuz this is coincidentally right around the same time as the so-called Northwest imperative really gets going. This is the idea of moving white people on moss to this part of the country in order to create a new white homeland. Mhm.

Now, it starts to really pick up. It doesn't start at this. It starts to really pick up steam in the '90s. Right. And coincidentally, this is also when Bo launches a new business venture.

Well, I'm telling you, he sells parcels of land in an intentional community from members of the militia movement called Almost Heaven.

Stop letting him name things. Build as a constitutional covenant community, Almost Heaven was a way to take the underlying ideology of the Northwest imperative and extend it beyond stock Nazism to something palatable for a wider but still far-right audience. He claimed to have picked the location by studying maps of nuclear fallout and military bases to determine the safest place in America.

Wow. I think it's where the land was cheapest. Um he announced the start of this new venture by crashing a Cameo town hall meeting in 1994 and declaring the public school system a cesspool and incur accusing the local government of being run by and then he uses a slur for gay people that starts with f. Local resident and activist Larry Nims later claimed came here and made a lot of noise. He told people that if they didn't like him then get out of dodge. And I'm thinking who is he to tell people around here to get out of dodge?

He didn't even live in Dodge yet. And Nims, my heart goes out, Nims is like a progressive activist in rural Idaho in the early 90s who's like we'll talk about like Bo is the one who brought a lot of guys with guns out here, right? Like this has not not been a problem before him, but he really makes like the current state of affairs is seriously influenced by, right?

It's amazing. Yeah. I said I'm just like learning like that's Yeah. Yeah. Like I'm really learning.

The area nations had been out in Hayden Lake previously. So, it's not entirely undergrads, but he does play a significant role in this because of how famous he is, right?

I still just wonder and it's like I this this sounds like a joke, but I'm like dead serious. I'm like,

man, what what do they eat? I'm like Nazi. Oh, no guys. Well, but like if you were going to make a almost heaven cuz I'm like I'm thinking about I used to live in Portland. So, yeah. So, I used to live in Portland. I lived in Portland a while back. You know what I'm saying? But like I mean this like the the the double dragon joint with the like the this pot. Like I'm like there's so many good places to eat here. I'm like you you don't want that. Like no no he's living in the woods eating dried food that he bought off of uh what's his name? Baker.

The [ __ ] uh uh weirdo. Weird. Yeah. Jim Baker. Jim Baker. Thank you very much. I recently movie by the way about him that came out Garfield. Good.

Why your heaven got no like old o bay like just right season. That's why it's almost heaven.

It's almost heaven. They forgot the seasoning. It's low sodium heaven. So, wow.

Almost heaven worked for a little while. Unfortunately, Bow and his business partner made the bad decision to buy their land as a common law trust. And I don't know a lot about this, but the way in which they did this made it very difficult for their customers to get titles and basically impossible. They couldn't get titles to their property in their names and they couldn't get property insurance in their own names, which is a problem. A flurry of lawsuits follow followed by people who thought that they had been conned pretty true accurately. And problems escalated as contractors started suing Gites and his business partner for failing to pay for road construction and other infrastructure work. They kind of took a leaf out of the truck, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The slow collapse of Almost Heaven was escalated both by incompetence like this and the fact that more than anything, Bo wanted to make money, not fund a right-wing revolution. And a lot of his critics on the right are like, "Bo, aren't you making the army that's going to like liberate us?" No. Oh. So, the other problem is that Bo keeps taking calls throughout the late 90s from the FBI to try and talk down militia groups like the Montana Freeman, which ultimately alienated his third wife, Claudia, a former karate instructor.

Did I miss the second wife? Yeah, that was the that was the the he now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That for shockingly didn't last. No. Who knew? I marriages that start in Vietnam. Yeah,

stay in Vietnam. Oh, that's a good one. So, like all those PS, um, by the end of 1998,

that was good. That was very good. By the end of 1998, Bose's business partner had stolen nearly all of the money made by Almost Heaven, and Claudia left him after 24 years of marriage.

Claudia did 24 years. She did 24 there a while, girl. She stuck it out. Bo attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest in December of 1998, but he survived and is still alive today. God,

I don't have a happy ending here. He did shoot himself. Again, for whatever reason, a through line in this guy's story is people shooting themselves in weird ways. The chest. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to backseat kill Boes to Boes, but however,

however, yes. All right, that concludes the Behind the Bastards episodes. Jeez.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Part Two: Behind the Bastards Live Show: The Ballad of Bo Gritz | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"?

In order: 0:00 Operation Velvet Hammer, Pico Ayer; 5:00 Terry Smith; 10:00 Terry Smith, Operation Velvet Hammer; 15:00 William Shatner; 20:00 A-Team, Populist Party; 25:00 Populist Party; 30:00 Ruby Ridge; 35:00 Almost Heaven; 40:00 Almost Heaven.

What is mentioned in this Behind the Bastards episode?

9 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Bo Grites, Terry Smith, Almost Heaven, Populist Party, Operation Velvet Hammer, Pico Ayer. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Part Two: Behind the Bastards Live Show: The Ballad of Bo Gritz | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"?

The episode runs 41 min; the transcript is about 7,520 words in 172 timestamped sections.

More from Behind the Bastards

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.