55. I Better Have a Balloon Coming

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, eat like the president.

Speaker AHello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga. Challenge. Coming in hot. Coming in hot.

Maxchallenge Max is in a good mood

AlexI can't imagine why

MaxI'm about to ruin my day what is this Merlin explain the challenge

Merlinthe challenge is that I already have a wobbly tummy this morning and I probably should have had three Imodium but this is going to be a scene man

Maxwhat is it like 3500 calories of McDonald's in the next hour whose challenge is this

Speaker Ait's yours

MerlinIt's your challenge. Which one am I?

MaxYou're Merlin.

MerlinHello.

MaxWell, you're kind of the Scott of this podcast, though.

MerlinScott? You think I'm the Scott?

MaxYeah, I'm definitely the Merlin, and Alex is definitely the Adam. Oh, okay. I know that show.

MerlinThe challenge this week, which I guess is mine. I must have been in a fugue state. The challenge this week is to do some personal recognizance on a reported story about what the current inhabitant of the White House,

Speaker Aeats. Eat like the president! Eat like the president! Oh, very excited.

MerlinWhen you hear it, I've gone through a lot of waves of feelings about this challenge, because at first you're like, wow. I've never

Maxeaten. Here comes the first Big Mac. Oh, already! Already! Oh my gosh, we haven't even... Okay, here's the second Big Mac. What do we got here? Oh, I got a fries, too. That's not technically

Speaker Ain the president's order.

MerlinWe need a treat. I got a treat on mine, too. I got a quarter pounder in fries,

MaxBecause that's what I actually want.

AlexWhat a tiny treat.

MaxI don't know what the way to go to McDonald's and not get a fries. I mean, I'm willing to suffer. I mean, I'm willing to suffer only so much for this man.

MerlinThe story that has been reported in, I believe, the Corey Lewandowski book, the story is that the president is a garbage person who eats garbage. And that his go-to order from McDonald's consists of two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish, and a medium chocolate shake. And the challenge for this week was to acquire this from McDonald's and try to eat it.

AlexOh, wait, a medium chocolate shake. Yes.

MaxNow, I've also got the chocolate shake here.

AlexOh, I need to adjust my order.

MaxAnd now that costs $16.77 for McDonald's. That's the most money I've ever personally spent at a McDonald's.

MerlinI spent $45.26. I'm going to expense it. Wait, how is that even possible?

MaxWell, it's DoorDash, which I like. I like the DoorDash service. I dash myself to the McDonald's to get the McDonald's. And I'll drive.

MerlinOne quarter pounder with cheese with fries because Daddy's treat. They took away your license after your holiday party.

AlexThat's not funny. Drug driving is not funny, kids.

MerlinI was going 116 in a 20-mile-per-hour zone. The two Big Macs cost $10.22 before expenses. A filet of fish is $8. so two filet of fish my filet of fish

Maxis five dollars

Merlinwell you know it's the gig economy anyway that's all coming and Timothy T is I'm doing my live real time update it's in progress oh my god I hope he's not coming from too far away because the only thing that could make this worse is that it's really cold and gross they never shut the bag I hate that I hate that they don't close the bag One little fold.

MaxGive it one little fold. It keeps the heat right in there.

MerlinQuality, service, value. You always do two turns at the top of the bag. Otherwise, that heat's just escaping. It's like not putting a hat on.

MaxNow, what do you think the right strategy is here in terms of eating?

MerlinOkay, well, let's put ourself in his head maybe. How do you think? I imagine he tears into – so he probably takes a couple hits off the shake. Don't you think?

AlexI don't know if he starts with a shake. I bet he starts with a Big Mac.

MerlinYeah. Well, I mean, if you were doing it like a progressive dinner or like a like a like a bourbon tasting, you'd start. I mean, a gourmand, a more learned trencherman would probably start with that delicious, that delicious filet of fish, which I made so many of at McDonald's and never ate. The only person I ever knew who ordered a filet of fish was my late grandmother. It's it was really an afterthought at McDonald's.

AlexWell, the thing is, though, their sales spike every year during Lent. This is a real thing. Is that true?

MerlinIs that a turns out?

AlexNo, no. Okay, I have been to Hamburger University and asked this specific question. If you happen to work at McDonald's or are a graduate of Hamburger University, please let us know.

MaxBut what I'm thinking about is, is there some sort of strategy in terms of, do I tack these?

MerlinSimultaneously, a bite of each? Right. You're supposed to finish one before you start another.

MaxBecause you know what they say is fish before a burgle, you're going to hurl.

MerlinOh, I see. I see.

MaxBut burger before fish, now that's a dish.

MerlinFish before mac, that's a kick in the sack. Mac before fish, holy shit, you better wish.

MaxI've been kind of sipping on this chocolate milkshake. I don't think I've ever had a chocolate milkshake from McDonald's in my entire life. It's a very good chocolate milkshake.

MerlinIt's not bad.

MaxIt's a really good chocolate milkshake.

MerlinIt's part of the Met Cafe family of products now.

MaxYeah. Now, what I saw in the news report was so that— So, I guess what Corey Lewandowski said the president did is he gets a chocolate malted, which is not an item on the McDonald's menu. That's a totally different thing.

MerlinThere's no such thing as a malted at McDonald's.

MaxBut now that I'm drinking the chocolate milkshake from McDonald's, it does have a little bit of a malted flavor to it, although they don't advertise it that way. I think it's just a good milkshake. It is a really good. It's a great milkshake. A good editor would have caught that, though.

MerlinAnd I have to imagine Corey Lewandowski has an excellent editor. I just have to imagine. I'm sorry. I'm cutting you off here. Give me the play-by-play, Max. What is it that you're shoving into your gaping mouth?

MaxWell, I'm eating the fries. I mean, I'm starting with the fries. Oh, you're starting with the treat.

MerlinOkay.

MaxI'm having the fries I'm having the fries and a chocolate milkshake Let me hold it all So you're barely into the challenge Oh I haven't even opened these boxes yet Oh Jesus

AlexLook at this volume of food Really dreading this So it's

MaxWhat did I put in the chat? It's like 3,000 calories

AlexYeah it seems to be I think it's like 3,500 3,500 calories Now I have a new theory though

MaxNow the president doesn't eat the bread you don't think no you didn't see this hang on all right god damn it i don't know my laptop or anything this week all right hang on um um what do i remember this is more than i would eat on four trips to mcdonald's trump mcdonald's bread let's see there was another there was a follow-up

Merlinhere we go because if in last week just to be clear last week we did a little mental calculation we did some what they call arithmetic on this and if he did eat all of this food and who knows he might be like my kid he might pick off certain parts but if he if he ate everything that was on his uh his royal plate he would be having 10 pieces of bread yes now now here's what cnn says

Maxformer campaign manager cory luandowski wrote about it in his book about the campaign saying trump would order two big macs two filets of fish sandwiches and a chocolate milkshake the basically the the little spread the smorgasbord that i've assembled for myself this morning and then, quote, well, he never ate the bread, which is the important part, Lewandowski told CNN's Allison Camerata. Quote, he was busy campaigning. We didn't have time to sit down for a meal. Now, here's the part that doesn't check out about that, which is if Trump— Okay, I'm with you.

Trump's busy. He's on the run. He's got to move. He's moving. He's in motion. He's in the car. He's on Air Force One. He doesn't have a lot of time. He's got to go, go, go. Now, if you are down to the second and you're like, what is the fastest way for me to eat this thing? Are you going to try and eat a burger on a bun or a burger not on a bun? Based on what gets it into your mouth the fastest. Oh, I see what you're saying.

MerlinYou're saying it takes extra time to deconstruct it.

MaxI mean, what do you have, like a handful of, like, special sauce and lettuce, and you're trying to get it into your gaping maw? Does he eat it with a fork and knife? Oh. Like, let me read this Lewandowski quote again. He says, quote, well, he never ate the bread, which is the important part. What do you mean that's the important part? How could that be the important part? What does that mean? He was busy campaigning. We didn't have time to sit down for a meal. What does that happen? I don't understand that. You have to eat it with a fork and a knife if there's no bread.

AlexWell, what if it was during the commercials of Fox and Friends? Because this was pre-White House when he didn't have a Super TiVo, and that's the only thing I can think of.

MaxThere's no conceivable way that I can eat this much food. I'm staring at the first Big Mac. Mine's not going to arrive for another half hour, and I'm already nauseated. I mean, this isn't it's not possible. Like, I don't know that it's a it's a big hamburger with a lot of bread.

MerlinI mean, like just I really there's so much people say don't normalize Donald Trump. And I tend to agree. We need to really sit on the fact that this is not something he did one time when he was drunk. What we are describing here is a typical order for a 70 year old man to eat. I just I know that's really I just want to really sit on that fact for a minute. He's 70 years old and there's never a point when he goes, oh, you know, And actually, I think I'm good with just the two Big Macs and one filet of fish today.

AlexThat's the thing that baffles me is I know some people that eat McDonald's every single day. And if this was split up into separate meals, then it's like, okay, it's still appalling, but it makes a little bit more sense. This is just one meal during the day.

MerlinOh, my God.

MaxReal-time follow-up, Timothy T. is on the way. Some of this bread is coming off the Big Mac already.

Merlinit's too bready it's too bready well this was my go-to when i was trying to do something like atkins when i was working downtown my go-to it's been well documented i'm a man who is not uncomfortable eating a sandwich over a sewer i think we've covered this uh no wait you never heard that story uh no no oh um well i am not i am not above buying a bunch of subway sandwiches for the group and then eating them if nobody else wants them and in one case i see i did do this over an open sewer in front of Jonathan Colton.

But I digress. What I would do is I'd go in there and I would get me a double quarter pounder with cheese. This is so disgusting to imagine this. And standing by the Montgomery Street Station, I would throw away the bun and I would hold the two condiment slathered beef discs and eat it like that basically over a garbage can.

Speaker AMerlin, you're out You're a busy man campaigning. You don't have time. You're on the run.

MerlinI'm busy project manager on the go.

Speaker AI was campaigning. No, all this bread's coming off.

AlexOh, God.

Speaker AI can't do this.

MerlinThis is the thing. This is the point of the challenge. Now, wait a minute. Hang on. Peanut butter. Alexandra, what are you eating?

AlexIt's on the way, but I'm having a disagreement.

MaxAlex is having her first Diet Coke of the day of the 12 Diet Cokes that we're all going to have today.

AlexWow. Great challenge. Thanks, Alex.

MerlinYou're kicking it up a notch. You're getting it in a different container than usual.

AlexI'm having some issues with my Uber Eats order, which is the only place I could order McDonald's from, and he's like, change the address in the app. I'm like, the app tells me to change the address with you.

MaxYou know, Alex, I'm going to file a complaint here. Because not 10 minutes ago, I texted you, and I said, I'm at the McDonald's. Do you want me to get your order, or do you have some other plans? And what did you say, and you said, I have other plans.

AlexI had already ordered it at that point. and also the president doesn't get he gets his food delivered to him

Maxwhat are you talking about I was delivering it to you

Alexthat's fair

Maxnumber one but number two you know the amount of food that I ordered was really embarrassing because I do think it's an amount of food where when I went through the two windows that they looked at me and they sized me up I think when I ordered at the window they probably thought this is for a there's a bunch of children in this car there's a party

Alexoh god

MaxOr one 70-year-old man. It's like a van from a retirement home or something, and they're ordering as a group.

MerlinYou know what you're going to do? You've got to play it off legit. You go, just give me a minute. Let me check. Let's see. How about, can I get, let's see, one Big Mac, and can I get a, let's see, let me look, a Flare Fish and another, did you want a Big Mac? Another Big Mac.

Speaker ALet me get a meat and chocolate shake. Keep it down back there. I can't order. Turn down Fox and Friends.

MaxSo here's the deal. Get Don Lemon off this TV.

Speaker ABut here's the deal.

MerlinHe learned that people think he watches too much TV from watching TV.

Speaker ARight.

MaxAnd tweeted about it during a Fox and Friends segment about how much he watches TV.

Speaker ABecause he doesn't read the New York Times.

MaxSo here's the situation. So the lady who operates the robot, she's the same lady who takes my credit card. And I know that she was expecting a minivan full of six-year-olds to pull up to that window.

And that did not occur. What happened was like a sad 30-year-old man who was really stressed out, like pulled up in his rental car.

Speaker AFancy electric car. Scoot, scoot.

MaxIt's like, we'll require four sandwiches. And looked me up and down. that I could see the surprise on her face of like, oh, I'm not doing well with this Big Mac. I'm less than one Big Mac in. I'm not doing well. She looked me up and down, and she's like, whoa, I was expecting more here. And then I got the same thing when I went to get the bag. She was handing me multiple bags of food, and she kind of craned her neck out and looked into the car, and she was like, oh, it's empty back there. So here's the deal. They definitely thought that amount of food was all for me.

But had I gotten food for Alex, if I showed up and gotten four Big Macs and four Filet-O-Fishes, I'm sorry, I'm dying.

I think my body is revolting.

MerlinOh, no. And you're only part of a sandwich in?

MaxWell, I'm like one Big Mac in minus the buns. I think that had I gotten Alex's four Big Macs and four Filet-O-Fishes, then they would have been like, no, he's just a nice friend and he's getting food for the whole office. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No one would think I was eating eight sandwiches. Four, they're like, this is a highly obese man.

This is one sad, fat man.

Speaker AFour sandwiches is the amount of... Shall I drive around to the first window? Yeah.

MaxGive me four...

Speaker AWhen you get that fat guy voice.

MaxThey need four fillet of fishes. They're all for me. Don't bother packing any extra utensils. It's just one sad fat man who's going to be eating all of this food. First I'm going to start by having some of the milkshake on the way home. How is the fish in that?

Then I'm going to begin by methodically peeling the bun off of one Big Mac and trying to get that down while the flays of fish are still hot.

AlexJazz break, jazz break, jazz break. Anything else? Anything else?

MaxWell, here, Alex, let me make you proffer an offer here. Take one of these sandwiches. No, no. Because here's the deal. No. Here's the deal. Then you trade me back when yours come. Because you're, right? These are just getting cold.

AlexBut that's the point. You need to experience it as you would.

MaxThe president doesn't do Uber Eats. He doesn't own any app on his phone except for Twitter.

AlexBut you have, on his plane, his Big Macs are going to get cold. Maybe that's why he takes off the bread. He doesn't want the sogginess. Why am I trying to rationalize this? Because it breaks your brain.

MerlinIt breaks your brain to think about anybody choosing to do this more than once. I'm not against being a glutton. I will get all of the steak. I will eat the large, large steak. This particular, a man who has access to pretty much anything he wants,

Maxthis is what he chooses. What, is this a normal filet of fish?

AlexI am going to assume that that's tartar sauce.

MaxI've never ordered this before.

AlexOn top of the...

MaxIt's a square. I don't know why that's so upsetting to me. And it has American cheese on it?

Speaker AOh. What shape is the fish? How is it dressed? Is the bun, is the soft bun? Is it the soft bun, lightly warm? Oh, boy. It's like a... It's like a...

MerlinOh, this is... Oh, God, I'm getting excited. Timothy T is really close. I'm watching his progress on the map. I mean, have you ever had a Filet-O-Fish, Merlin? Yes. Yeah, I have. I have. Well, you've got to remember, the Gather Round Chillins, I worked at McDonald's in a different age, during the age of Live Aid.

And so Filet-O-Fish were very much like an afterthought. The burgers, it was a franchise, not a corporate McDonald's, so it was not a good McDonald's. We did not have a lot of really high-quality stuff, especially when it wasn't super busy. Because I think as we stipulated from the beginning of all of our shows, McDonald's is great when it's really, really fresh. And, like, you know, any corporate McDonald's that's busy has pretty good food as fast food goes. But these would sit in this little, like, we had these little drawers of pain that, like, the nuggets lived in.

You'd make the nuggets and put them in the warmer drawer. They spray them with that lighter fluid. Is that what they do? Yeah. Huh. Okay. And that keeps the crispness in. It seals it in. Holy shit. He's so close. I can see him right now. He's coming up the street.

AlexI don't know why you're so excited. He's not like having an orgasm. You're acting as if you are making this happen.

MerlinI did. I said, Timothy T, please dash me. He's so close. He's coming up. Okay. I'll leave the mic on, but I got to go deal with Timothy. You guys talk for a minute.

AlexSalsi is mating mating Max at what point do you think you're going to start like breaking out into a sweat

MaxI feel very bad right now I feel slow I feel bad I just feel slow like I don't want to keep eating the amount of food that's in front of me is it's a it's bad it's a bad amount of food and yet i have to keep eating it because that's the

Alexchallenge the i like how you're willing to do this but not get a flu shot i was sick i was really

Maxsick well that's why you should have gotten a flu shot oh i feel i'm like getting congested which is just like i've just like eaten too much my whole head feels very full and heavy it's like hard to keep my head up. I'm crashing. I'm not going to get through this. I have had, I just had the fish from the foia fish. Look at how, look at

Alexthis. Oh, oh, oh.

MaxLook at the leavings. You had

Alexa lot of, I'm surprised at how much sauce you consumed off of that. Like, you didn't wipe any of that off.

MaxWell, that's the best part. That's the only part with any

Alexflavor. That's why, that's why you're congested. You just ate a ton of cream and some chocolate.

MaxI feel, my My blood feels very thick.

AlexYou need to get a boy.

MaxI feel like I'm, I mean, I feel fluey. I feel like I'm getting sick from eating this food. I mean, I ate it quickly, too.

AlexChris, can you hear us in here? Okay, how much would it cost, how much would your rate go up if we just took some of your blood? Like, just a pint.

MaxOh, you think Chris is our, producer Chris could be our blood boy?

AlexYeah, I mean, you know. He's just sitting right there. Oh, I think I hear Merlin coming.

MaxI hear a little something on Merlin's line.

AlexIs he really enjoying his conversation with Timothy T that much?

MaxI don't know. It's going on for quite a while.

AlexHow's Timothy?

MaxVery confused. Why? What was confusing?

MerlinWell, for some reason, sometimes these delivery services.

MaxDid you show them your kombucha bottles from March?

Speaker ANo, no.

MerlinThey're mostly empty. The one I'm worried about is the one that's still in the fridge from back then, because it's a living beverage. Rejoice.

Speaker AOkay. Oh, shit, dog.

MaxHow many bags did you get?

Speaker AAh, I got a very large grocery bag. This needs to be microwaved. I want my food piping hot. I don't need this many ketchup. It's only one person. This is very, very normative.

MerlinI'm going to heat this up a little bit.

MaxCan you hear me while you're heating it up, or do you have to go somewhere else?

Speaker ANo, no, no. I'm right here.

MaxOkay. So chicken nuggets. The most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is it's called tertiary butyl hydroquinone.

MerlinThat sounds a lot like lighter fluid.

MaxOr TBHQ, which is derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to, quote, help preserve freshness. According to a consumer's dictionary of food additives, TBHQ is a form of butane, i.e. lighter fluid. The FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food. It can comprise no more than 0.02% of the oil in a nugget, which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of TBHQ

can cause nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium a sense of suffocation and collapse ingesting five grams of tbhq can kill that can't be right like so how i read it on a i read it on a website it says right here on this website r.i.p snopes um so 0.02 you would have half a gram if you had 25 nuggets yeah but they sell 20

Alexpiece nuggets, which

MaxRight.

AlexOkay.

MaxBut that's probably, 20 piece nuggets is probably over the serving size for one person. I like to put my fries in the bag. I'm sure that's stopping people. If you ate 200 to 300 nuggets in a single sitting, it could kill you. I feel very bad. Big Mac. This was a

Merlinmistake. Oh, no, no. Oh, there's so much special sauce and bread. Oh, goodness. Oh, the lettuce.

MaxI feel like I'm sort of standing in a wave pool Like it's kind of You know Can I get that Boyant rocking feeling

AlexChris could you please bring in my McDonald's

MaxThis is way better than I remember What are you having right now

AlexBig Mac Right now we have our producer and engineer Chris and my boss Trent Garreton It's got a lot of sauce

MaxWe thought it would be funny. funny.

AlexThat's really the only reason I would accept. It required two people to bring it.

MaxWhy do you have this much Diet Coke? This is Alex. What is that? What is that? What is that? What did they bring you?

Alexsomething terrible okay we got my two i'm not gonna eat do you want a flay a fish do you want an unsullied big mac this is the worst episode we've ever done okay what the what is that alex what is that i think i know what happened um i put in an order through Uber Eats did not cancel it.

I thought I canceled it. But I've just received an order from Uber Eats and Postmates. So now I have.

MaxOh, you got to eat all that. You got to eat all of that.

AlexIt was one of those things where it was cheaper to order a meal instead of just the individual foods.

MaxAlex, you have to order all of that.

AlexSo here, okay.

MaxYou have to eat all of this. Eat it all. Merlin, I have to send you. What do you dare me to put my Filet-O-Fish on? Alex, you're doing like a Mook Bang challenge. of Dubai Friday. You've really taken this to the next level. I admire your commitment and also your steadfast refusal to let any food go to waste.

Speaker AIt's so bad.

MaxOh, thank God I don't have to edit this episode.

AlexI am loving these new Mac Pros, guys.

MaxAlex's computer crashed. I think it was trying to take the bullet for her. It saw the camera. Some sort of AI algorithm saw the amount of McDonald's on the table and was like, Alex, don't end your life like this. Let me shut down to distract you.

Speaker AI will permit you to die.

MerlinI finished my Big Mac and I'm halfway through my filet of fish

Maxnow are you eating these bon on

Merlinso far yeah yeah I was thinking though for the next one for the second Big Mac and fish I'm thinking I'll put the filet of fish onto the Big Mac

Maxoh a Mick a Mick gangbang

Speaker Aoh god

Maxthat's what the kids call it now

Alexthis is a very good chocolate shake now

MaxI'm pretty I'm kind of lowgy from eating all this food I feel very bad. You guys ready to make some decisions about the future of the free world and review a bunch of documents in rapid succession? Busy day of campaigning.

AlexHe has a lot of documents.

MerlinNo time. No time for TV.

MaxYou should do a huge bump of coke and go on stage.

AlexCook it, Hillary.

MerlinDid they still call it 10-1 meet, Alex?

AlexI don't know. What does that mean? What does 10-1 mean?

MerlinWell, you're the one who's showing off your fancy fucking degree. When I worked at McDonald's, they called these patties 10-1 because they're one-tenth of a pound.

AlexOh, I see. No, I don't have that information from Hamburger University. I did not go. I went there and that I visited.

MerlinOh, okay, great. Yeah, I got a Harvard shirt.

AlexThey did. They gave me a McDonald's shirt.

MerlinA thing to know is that I think this is still the case. In the classic days, you had the fanciest, nicest thing they had before the McDLT was the quarter pounder. And one of the things that distinguished the quarter pounder, it didn't have that yucky shredded lettuce, but it did have quote-unquote fresh sliced onions. The onion on a 10-1 burger is basically you get these dried onions in an envelope, and then you put them in a big thing of water, and then you put your hands into them all day. That's the onions you got on this one right here.

Also, these pickles are touching. That would not pass muster at a true corporate McDonald's.

AlexYou did not work at a corporate McDonald's, correct?

MerlinNo, no, but I knew what we were doing wrong, and that's really the important part in life. Okay, I got my second Big Mac here. The Flay-O-Fish, I would call somewhat uneventful. It's fine. I can see why my grandmother ate it, usually while smoking. It might have made it better, but okay, going into the second Big Mac.

MaxSo I came across last night, I was on Twitter until very late, refreshing my political Twitter list, watching the Alabama election results come in. Holy fucking shit. I really did not predict that. I really was braced. I really had hardened my heart. I was ready for the upsetting loss. I actually thought we'd get killed.

MerlinI thought Moore was going to win and win big.

MaxI thought it was going to be like we'd lose by 10 points kind of a thing and whatever. And, you know, I'm almost a little bit troubled by some of the news today because now there's a lot of pushback of people saying, oh, the Democrats don't need to do anything different. And, like, we shouldn't change anything. And, like, you know, it's like we're back, baby. Like, we just need to, like, ride this thing out. And, like, it's all going to be like Mueller and we're going to win elections from now on. Like, I actually don't think that's the case. Like, I think if the guy wasn't a pedophile, we would have lost.

MerlinEverybody's got a hot take on how it proves whatever their POV is.

MaxRight, right. But my POV is that the party's pretty fucked up, and we don't really have a good offer to make to the voters. We don't really have a good program to reach voters with that they can imagine affecting their lives. There's kind of a lack of imagination on our side, which is why we nearly lost to a pedophile.

AlexYep.

MaxWe shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back that hard for becoming that close to losing the election to a pedophile. But all that aside, I was on Twitter last night and I was reading all, you know when you're on Twitter and it's like, do you guys ever have a band that you listen to and you've listened to all the songs on all the albums and then you start to get into the B-sides and the live recordings and then you, and at some point you're like, you're like feeling around for the crumbs in the bottom of the Big Mac box and you're like, there's no more, there's no more crumbs for me to eat from this, from this meal or this band. That's what I was doing with political news last night.

Like I was eating the sad, upsetting crumbs. I moved on to the quarter pounder, by the way.

Speaker ANo, that's not even part of the challenge. I know. I don't know if I went to the Flay of Flesh. Go ahead. I got stuff to say about what you're saying, too, but continue. So you're eating bad quarts.

MaxBut I invented a new... I just found really compelling evidence that we're living inside of a William Gibson cyberpunk novel. But it requires me to read five news stories. So before I start going down my conspiracy theory rabbit hole, I'll give you a chance to respond.

Speaker AYeah, okay. I'm going to stop eating on air because people don't like that.

AlexOh, really? Okay, so

Merlinthere are two podcasts I never thought I would listen to and I love both of them now. One of them is My Bam Bam and the other one is Chopper Trap House. There's a lot to enjoy about Chopper Trap House.

MaxHow did you find out about those podcasts? That's so cool that you have two podcasts that you really like that you got into this year.

MerlinSomeone who really fought for it. I'm almost done with my quarter pounder. Wait, you just started it. I know. Presidents are fast eater too. They beg him. They beg him to slow down. Lost about a quarter pounder. Done.

Speaker AOh my God. So I don't. Oh my God.

MerlinOkay. I've had two Big Macs on a quarter pounder with cheese. Now the nihilism, the raw nihilism. I now understand why you're the way you are in some ways, Max. I know you're basically a broken person, but listening to this program, I think has helped make you more broken. And to be candid is making me a little bit more broken. And I don't want to talk about this publicly. I would only discuss this on a podcast that not many people listen to, which is to say that, holy shit, you know, we're struggling so hard to find some kind of victory in the progressive movement and then find some way to show how that is a win for the Democratic Party.

I think the Democratic Party has a lot of problems right now. One thing that the Republican Party has had going for it for a long time is it will do anything to hold on to power, including finding allies amongst people you hate and disagree with. And this goes back a long way. This is a classic 80s formula for success in the Republican Party. Whereas not only are liberals very happy to tear each other apart over very, very minor differences, but there are substantial differences in the Democratic and progressive movement that are going to be very, very difficult to get past. And there's one thing that sits in the middle of all of this, which is that I feel like the most energy and genuine heat and enthusiasm comes out of things like Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street, which is the sense of no.

I mean, this is not just a typical like bomb throwing tear it all down. We're saying that in order for substantive things to happen, we have to have fewer 70 and 80 year old classic Democrats in office. And I'm not going anywhere too specific with this, except to say that that's made me think a lot in the last year. And I'm not saying we should start throwing bombs, but I do. I am very reluctant to see any tiny non-loss as a huge victory for the Democratic Party, because I don't think it is. And in this case, if it wasn't for a bunch of black ladies showing up and a bunch of white men not showing up, this would have gone a completely different way.

Can the Democratic Party claim credit for that? Not really. is the progressive movements that got out there and said to those people, it's really important that you go out and vote in spite of voter suppression, that they would go out and win that. So, I mean, I want to hear about your crumbs, but I don't have anything conclusive to say except that I think the Democratic Party

Maxhas got some serious problems. So it's depressing that the things that I care about and that motivate me to work in politics are this idea of, like, we could attack this on to the... put this at the bottom of the stack for later, But when we did our wealth redistribution day for cards, we get these, frankly, heartbreaking letters from people where it's like, yeah, I have medical debt and it destroyed my life because I had to have some life-saving procedure and now my life is shitty for as long as I live because I can never afford to make ends meet because I'm in this crushing medical debt.

But it's like, well, like, can't, isn't someone in this country, isn't there something other than, isn't someone other than Cards Against Humanity in this country able to stand up and say that that's unjust and wrong and it's not fair and that they deserve better and come up with some policy alternative where their life doesn't have to end because they had to have a medical procedure?

MerlinTo at least acknowledge the tragedy of that in more than a thoughts and prayers way. Right. Even before you fix it to go, you know what, I don't know what the answer is, but there's no excuse for that.

MaxOr have some sort of means tested. It's like, well, it's like she wasn't working at this time or that time. It's like, what about the fact that it's your fellow man, right? It's like a person with dignity. But anyway, all that aside, it's really depressing to me that we only ever get to talk about this stuff when Republicans are taking it away, right? Suddenly everyone loves to talk about programs and benefits and get into the substance of politics when it's almost taken away from them. And now everybody loves ACA, and they are mad that it's being taken away, and they're calling their congressmen and stuff.

And that's great. I don't begrudge anyone for getting involved. They should get involved. That's healthy, and we are slowing down the Republican agenda and having a good show of force. But it's a total failure of the left and the Democratic Party that we're not able to articulate these things in a positive way when it comes time to election year and say to people, you deserve better. You can have these things, right? Like, why, like, that is a compelling message. Like, look at how it's getting people fired up.

This tax bill, right? Look at people getting mad about Chip. Chip is on CNN. Who knew what the fuck Chip was six months ago? Nobody. Nobody knew what Chip was unless you were directly a recipient of it. Nobody knew what the fuck Chip was, and now it's almost gone, and everyone's mad about Chip. Well, that's great, but what about when it's not almost gone? Where's the part where we have principled leaders who stand up and say, people, we should expand Chip. We should have new benefits. We should take care of people. Where is that?

MerlinWell, there's another problem, and it's easy for me in the peanut gallery to say this, but there's not much that I see in terms of a proactive and widely agreed upon philosophical standpoint or sort of moral standpoint behind the Democratic Party that goes much deeper than, well, we're not Donald Trump, which everybody's acknowledged. Everybody knows that that's an issue. It's just that anybody who has anything close to a big story about this is either somebody who's just making shit up because they're a three-term congressperson, or it's somebody over here with black skin who talks about why can't we stop shooting black people.

Like they have a much larger story about justice. And that is a that big story is not palatable to a lot of the people who feel like they're barely clinging on to power as it is. And it's one reason I'm finally realizing why there were some, I mean, I love Hillary Clinton in her way, but, like, it was bad timing in some ways because she really represented a lot of this, oh, they're there. We'll get to that. You know, let's rally the black people for this one thing, but then don't cause too much trouble because we're having a tough time.

MaxWell, you can be a great person and an admirable person and also be the wrong person for the wrong time, right? Like, anyway. All right. So what are the crumbs you found? All right. You ready for my conspiracy theory? I'm going to start by reading a story from Yahoo News. This is from last week. Oh, good. Rupert Murdoch's home and winery are in the Bel Air enclave of Los Angeles. Hang on. Redo.

I got sauce in my mouth. I'm feeling very slow. I have to think very consciously about how I move my jaw and my tongue.

MerlinI feel actually remarkably good for having eaten three McDonald's sandwiches and half a bag of fries. I haven't touched my shake.

AlexLast night, I went to bed. Well, I put on the movie Elf and got off Twitter, and I'm like, I can't watch this. And this morning, I woke up. I'm like, shit, okay.

MaxWe should talk about what our comforting TV shows that lower your IQ by 50 points when you watch them are at some point. I put that on the stack.

AlexReal quick, one thing about Elf. Have you seen this movie, Merlin?

MerlinYes, we watched it with the family last week.

AlexI don't think I ever put this together, but essentially it's about a woman who falls in love with someone mentally challenged. And no one's questioning that. No one's like, hey, hey, guys.

MaxYeah, but she's poor.

AlexOh, OK. Forgive me.

MaxIt's like Finding Dory for another age.

AlexI was so... OK.

MerlinBut she's not... No, I'm answering your question, Alex. She had her water cut off. She's poor. so it totally makes sense for her to like a guy who is as you say in a very kind way mentally challenged that totally works for a movie

Speaker Ashe's shouting at the office and singing in that way

Alexoh now it's woke to like that song again did you hear

Merlinoh yeah okay save it for the show

Alexmax what i want to hear about your cyberpunk reality

Maxyahoo news here we go Rupert Murdoch's home and winery in the Bel Air Enclave of Los Angeles are under threat from nearby wildfires. Murdoch bought the 16-acre property called Moronga Estate for $29.5 million. It includes a large five-bedroom residence as well as a winery and vineyard, which Murdoch uses to produce and sell wine. Bloomberg reported that the property is within the current evacuation zone, and NBC is reporting that it has caught fire. So Rupert Murdoch, who runs climate-denying Fox News, his $30 million home and vineyard are burnt down from the Los Angeles fires.

You guys with me? Yes. Okay. Now, here's a story from this week from Business Insider. in san francisco autonomous crime-fighting robots that are used to patrol parking lots sports arenas and tech company campuses are now being are now being deployed to keep away homeless people the san francisco business times reported last week that the san francisco spca and animal advocacy and pet adoption group put a security robot to work outside its facilities in the gentrifying mission neighborhood the robot's presence is meant to deter homeless people

from setting up camps along the sidewalks. Have you guys seen these things? They look like little Daleks.

AlexDaleks, really? And they putter around?

MerlinIt looks like a Dalek, but it's got a cute picture of a Chihuahua on it.

AlexYou're being removed. Max, have you seen what it looks like?

MerlinWho's ready for a quiz?

Speaker AExcuse me, I'm a Chihuahua, and I need you to move your tent with the Saints.

MaxI don't like a confrontation. Could you please move your camp off of my sidewalk?

Speaker AWhat, I'm standing here like a jerk having to ask you five times please to move. What is this, a hotel? Why was I giving self-consciousness? All right. It's got a real cute. It does look like a Dalek, a little bit.

MerlinIt's like an R2-D2 Dalek, and it's got a sweet, sweet little chihuahua on the front. And it looks like something out of a low-budget 70s dystopian movie.

MaxIt looks like one of the bad robots from RoboCop. Or WALL-E. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. It looks like something out of WALL-E.

Speaker AThis is the bitchy E. Are you ready? So basically, so they've got these robots. No, no, wait a minute. I got it. Three, two, one. Leave.

MerlinClassified. Directive. Leave. Classified.

Speaker AI just made myself laugh. I ate three hamburgers.

MaxSo they've got these robots clearing homeless people, right? You've got one in four people who are at risk for hunger in San Francisco.

And they're...

Speaker AThanks, that makes me feel real good right now. I feel great right now.

MaxAnd you've got... And, you know, it's San Francisco. It's Silicon Valley, baby. They're blue sky solutioneering out there. They're looking at this problem and what do they see? What is that? Homelessness? What is that? Oh, what is that? Is that a problem or is it an opportunity? It's an opportunity for a startup. Get me the street sweeper robot. Get these bums out of here.

Or you can upgrade to the premium package where it deploys a gentle Pavlok-esque electrical shock to them and encourages them to move off of your property.

MerlinIt's a complicated problem.

MaxOkay. Now, here's my final.

MerlinWhat this thing does. First of all, okay, so that's funny and it's true and it's sad. Okay, there's a lot more texture to this, unfortunately. I mean, one thing is that this thing is not literally sweeping people off the street. It's really more of like a night watchman than a robot that's forcing people to leave. It's mainly using detectors and probably IoT-ish technology to let people know there's somebody here who shouldn't be here.

MaxOh, it goes around and humanely chips them. So we can see. I mean, they travel in pods, and you want to track the location of the pod.

MerlinThat's going to happen. I just want to make sure we have a stake in the ground that that's not precisely what this does. And it's a very complicated problem.

AlexOkay, of the three of us, the fact that you are defending the scary Beverly Hills Chihuahua robot.

MerlinI'm defending what? How did I defend that? I said what was true about it rather than what's funny about it. That's not a defense of that. It's a clarification that this shit is really fucking hard. and I would challenge you guys to go spend $10,000 a month on a place in the mission and be okay with what's going on there. I'm not saying what they're doing is right, wrong, or indifferent. I'm saying nobody is fucking right about this. And if you lived in the middle of it, you would know what a shit show every single aspect of this is. This is a terrible story.

MaxActually, it's called ephbophilia.

MerlinPeople who read this in Poughkeepsie are going to go, that's really sad, and then turn it over to the crumpet. But this shit is really fucking complicated and horrible. It's a horrible situation.

MaxWell, who can say, I mean, in this crazy mixed up world that we live in, who can say whether having a robot, a very expensive robot that sweeps homeless people off the street is good or bad? I mean, a lot of factors to consider. I think that's a great point. All right. And then here's my. So, OK, so Rupert Murdoch's 30 million dollar home and winery burnt down. You've got the robot, the expensive robot sweeping the homeless people off the streets. Now, here's my final story from the L.A. Times. The blaze that swept through the hills of Bel Air last week, destroying six homes and damaging a dozen others, was sparked by a cooking fire at a homeless encampment in a nearby ravine, Los Angeles officials said Thursday.

MerlinThese are actually really good crumbs. This makes a hell of a story.

MaxThe encampment was nestled in a canyon several hundred feet from Sepulveda Boulevard and the 405 freeway, hidden from passing cars. For several years, it had been a home to an unknown number of people, officials said. You guys seeing? Are you guys starting to see it? Mm-hmm. Isn't that fucking crazy? Rupert Murdoch's home, his $30 million vineyard was burnt down because of a trash can fire that some hobos started to cook their beans.

AlexWhy didn't you go find the happy crumbs of, I mean.

MaxOh, well, there was that delightful young lad who was bullied and his mom made the video. And then Captain America said, hey, buddy, don't let it get you down. I was bullied, too. And I want you to come to the Avengers premiere. and then that's the end of the story and nothing else occurred. Nope. And that kid and his awesome family and his very cool mom are going to get to go to the Avengers premiere.

AlexOh, God.

MaxWhat's his name? Colby? Caleb?

AlexKeaton Jones.

MaxKeaton, my man. Keaton, my main man, Keaton.

MerlinApparently he was bullied. So now we bag on that kid because his mom was kind of a selfish dick.

Speaker ANo, no. It's not that she was a selfish dick.

MerlinShe was a selfish dick. I saw the interview with the MMA guy talking into his iPhone about calling and all she wants is money.

Speaker AWell, I don't know about that.

MaxI don't know. I didn't follow that, but all I know is that she was a milkshake duck pretty bad. She's extremely racist, and they have Confederate flags and stuff, and apparently the kid was bullied because he called some black kid the N-word.

Speaker AOkay. Wow.

MaxSo just proving once again that the Avengers do need some sort of government oversight because they can't even get this fucking bullying case right.

MerlinI know. I know they need Nick. Nick Fury, he knows where the bodies are buried.

MaxRemember the clock kid, Ahmed? and Obama was like, pretty cool clock, Achmed. You should come to the White House.

MerlinRight. I remember clock, kid. I do remember that.

MaxI think a friend of the show, Neil Dash, was very involved and he was on the case. He was on the beat. Do I get a vote on that? This episode is never getting released.

Speaker AIt's all good.

MaxSo Obama invited the clock kid and he goes, pretty cool clock, Achmed. You should come to the White House.

Speaker AI'm going to call you clock, man.

MaxYou know Trump is going to go, pretty cool, a Confederate flag, Colby. You and your family should come out to the White House and meet Jeff Sessions.

MerlinOh, my God. He went and did a racism.

MaxWhoopsie-daisy.

MerlinYep, yep, yep. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. I don't know, man. I don't know. I don't know. I've had a lot of burgers. You know what? One downside of constantly looking at political Twitter, probably the only downside of constantly looking at political Twitter, is you realize maybe it's the nature of the news business. Maybe it's the ADD addled nature of the people who are posting on there. But there is a strange kind of mass desire for stimulation combined with sometimes a surprising amount of incuriosity.

And so that ends up leading to more and more of the stimulation, because then you get the milkshake, Doug. It's one thing to go, oh, my God, finally a heartwarming story. Like fucking Joe Biden is talking to John McCain's daughter on TV and everybody's happy. Yeah, yeah, but John McCain was mean to Anita Hill. Yeah, but Anita. And it's just it just feels like it's this this endless desire to feel fucking anything through the Internet that leads people down these paths where they then draw conclusions about how the world works. from these kinds of crumbs. And I pick up the crumbs too.

I just, I don't know.

MaxAnd it's that you're guilty. It's that you're an accomplice. You're an accomplice to the guilt of the bad party if you don't adequately shame them. That's where I think, that's part of the cyclone where it just gathers, you know, it's just out there in the Pacific Ocean like gathering force, right? Where it's like people get mad. They like, people get mad if you like follow someone, right? If someone's in trouble or they're mad, you know, whatever, everyone's mad at someone, they'll, like, look at your followers. Or at least I get this.

And they're like, I can't believe you follow this person. And it's like, hey, fuck you, buddy. Like, you know, I follow lots of people that I don't like. Like, I used to follow Bill Mitchell. Like, that's my business. Like, don't follow shame me. Like, you have no idea why I'm following people.

MerlinBut, like, and again, when I say I'm guilty of this, I mean, I'm super guilty of this. We have this whole funny podcast about this kind of stuff. But like, for example, like and I see this on political Twitter, if you're following the account that you put on there that shows you the social media activity of the Trump family, mostly Don, Ivanka, Kellyanne and Eric. Eric mainly just favorites things about his dad's wine. It makes him very happy. But like, you know, what you'll see on there and the way that bot works, I mean, they've tried to be really clear about this is like they say, OK, so you'll see Ivanka.

Ivanka shows up for a minute. She's having some kind of tea cleanse. And she goes and she favorites three things. And she follows three people. And you see these little patterns. Suddenly she's following these three congressmen. Hmm, that's really interesting. Does that mean that there's collusion? Well, probably not. But okay, sure. But then you'll see like, oh, Don Jr. has stopped following ABCD hot-headed FM radio DJ. And then, of course, everybody retweets a screenshot of that and goes, hmm, interesting. And then the bot will say things like, well, the bot says right on it, we don't know if this is because this person stopped following.

We don't know if it's because of a block. We don't know if it's because of a suspension. We don't know why it happened. But then that becomes this little clue. And in the same way that Jon Stewart used to get off on lots of stuff by saying, I'm not a journalist. I'm just a comedian. We're all just gathering string and trying to find something meaningful out of all of it. But I just wish there was a Democrat I could get excited about. That's what I really want. Are you excited about any Democrats right now?

Nationally?

MaxLike in the country? Like Cory Booker. Does Cory Booker excite you? He seems very polished. Yeah, I mean, like, I don't have a candidate for 2020 yet. I'm sure I'll talk about it on the podcast as we start to learn who's running and who's not.

MerlinPeople like that Gillibrand lady.

MaxI don't. I mean, nothing against her. She's a fine senator. I just, she's, you know, it's one of those things of, like, I know it when I see it. Like, you know, it's like like like I knew.

I knew in 2004 that John Kerry was never going to beat George W. Bush because he was Bush light. There was no contrast between those candidates. Right. And there was this whole thing that if we nominated a square enough guy with enough, you know, unimpeachable, you know, I don't know, military experience that these Republicans would see the error of their ways and they'd come over. But meanwhile, like no one on our side wanted to leave their house to vote for John Kerry. I couldn't vote, but I was in high school, and I was not excited at all about him.

MerlinDid you watch the MSNBC coverage at all last night? No, I was just on Twitter. They had this guy on there who's doing this thing that you've seen lots of different places. You used to see this a lot on CNN. CNN was always trying to innovate with this, where when there's an election, they've got a big map, sometimes an interactive map, and there's a guy whose job it is to do stuff with the map and talk about it. And the guy at MSNBC is this very enthusiastic guy named Steve Kornacki. And I've enjoyed his work before.

I like when he sits in for hosts on MSNBC. But it wasn't until last night that I really, I was so completely blown away by how fucking smart and talented this guy was. So he's fucking on live TV with an interactive map. he is able to know the name of a county in alabama he knows which one to click on he generally does it like like pretty well they've come a pretty long way with that touch technology he's able to tell you and i certainly some of this he's being coached with through

through monitors and stuff but he's able to draw i said this on twitter last night but he's able to in the moment on live tv standing in front of a screen that he can't actually see because i think it's like a weatherman thing he's probably looking at a screen that's not the one that he's touching He's doing all of that on live TV while combining. He's using the tech. He's bringing in math. He does really fast, like arithmetic in his head. A history of what has happened historically in that county. Oh, by the way, yeah, he knows the name of that county in Alabama. The geography and the stats. And he's doing it all live and doing a pretty good job.

And it's easy to look at that and laugh and go, oh, gosh, what a ding-a-ling. What a circus monkey. But I was just sitting there going like, all right, all right, let's take everything I can imagine about this. That he's rehearsed this. let's imagine that he's getting lots of help in his ear let's imagine he's got screens that he can refer to let's assume like almost everything you think about what that guy accomplished past fucking midnight last night still holding all that stuff together and being able to collate data he's flipping through papers the whole time explaining things and then i'm thinking about like and then you got the guy eating the mcdonald's and it just kills me it just kills me that this one

guy reporting on this has so much uh maybe he's broad i don't think he's too shallow but he's very broad to have somebody who knows the names of all those things the president doesn't know who frederick douglas is but but this guy is able to remember like what tuscaloosa did in 1992 and then what that means in terms of the turnout vis-a-vis black women in this area and it's just like it makes my brain bend i try not to think about it too much because when i start thinking about it it makes me on the one hand exhilarated and excited for someone who's that smart but on the

other hand it's just it's incredibly depressing to me to think about the people reporting on that being so much more capable than the person that's being reported on I mean if I think about it for

Alexmore than five seconds I start to think that I won't see a woman president in my lifetime and like that's that's really fucked up i there's this really good joke in bojack horseman where a storyline um happens where a woman decides that she's going to start carrying a gun and then basically the second amendment is repealed and uh they're like oh wow who knew that america hated women more than they loved guns and i've probably told this story before but even like like you

said the the intelligent it feels like intelligence does not matter it it i can't go on twitter anymore and i can't look at the lists of just like people parroting the exact same opinion like but it feels like there's no imagination there's just but america's also a very racist country

Maxyes yes i mean no one would dispute i think that's true no one would dispute that and yet Obama got elected president. Right. So Americans are at the same time.

MerlinYeah, but my mom liked Johnny Mathis. You know what I'm saying? No.

MaxI actually don't know what that reference is.

MerlinOkay. Johnny Mathis. He's a black gay man who is a singer. She really liked Matt King Cole. I mean, there's a pretty storied history of exceptions to the rule. And in that case, he was so smart and so...

What's the word I'm looking for? what's the racist thing you're never supposed to say? He's so clean and articulate. Do you know what I mean? I don't know.

MaxI think, I mean, I mean.

MerlinSo you're saying it's a good thing or a bad thing? It is an encouraging thing?

MaxNo, I think that we, this whole notion of that we're not going to see a woman president in our lifetime is wrong. We will see a woman president in our lifetime. It's going to happen shockingly quickly and it's going to go just like, did any of us think that in 2004 that the next president would be a black man?

AlexYeah, but I was 14 in October. Okay, but Merlin, you were paying attention.

MaxNo, no, no.

MerlinI totally feel you.

MaxDo you see what I'm saying? Or did anyone think that in 2000, after the Bush election in 2000, that less than a decade later, you'd have legal gay marriage in America? Totally none of that.

MerlinThe marijuana, the gay marriage, the Obama, none of that, none of that. But here's the other thing my brain is still catching up with, is how much people on the right rally behind a certain kind of female voice. Right? So, I mean, it used to be, I mean, certainly we can't even get into all the horribleness that goes on. But at the same time, you think about, what's her name, Judge Pirro. You think about Kellyanne Clark. You think about Hope Hicks. You think about, like, there are so many voices.

Think about, there's a reason.

MaxThere are these, like, Dolores Umbridge characters.

Speaker AKind of.

MerlinBut, I mean, there's probably a variety of reasons why most bots are headshots of a blonde woman. I mean, it's not just like a sexuality and attractiveness thing, although that certainly factors into it. Hope Hicks is a genuinely very beautiful woman who used to be a model. But I do think there – I think the irony of this is, and I hate to have the words form in my McDonald's-filled mouth, but I think there's a very good chance that we're going to have a woman president, maybe even the next time. But I think it might be a very far right-wing woman.

I honestly, I think there's a much, much greater chance at this point of somebody like Hope Hicks or similar.

MaxYou think we're going to get like a Margaret Thatcher or a Sarah Palin?

Speaker AKind of, kind of, because.

MaxI don't know. Then why didn't Sarah Palin beat Obama? I mean, it's just, I can come up with, we're in the realm of speculating. And so I think like a more interesting question that you can measure and that we have, you know, that where you can talk about is like, how much was sexism the reason that Hillary lost the election in 2016? Yeah, but she wasn't hot.

AlexYou know, you know. No. Well, I mean, I'm being somewhat sarcastic, but that's a huge part of it.

MerlinOh, she's got cankles and she's sick and falls down.

AlexI mean, yeah, she's got that device on her back.

Speaker AI forgot about her device.

AlexI loved the device. I mean, I don't have any good insight on this. I don't work in politics. Wait, what was the device?

MaxWas that if she topples over at the 9-11 ceremony, someone can grab her?

AlexNo, it was the little box that was actually allowed for the bait. And she was leaning over, and they're like, this is what's keeping her upright.

MaxOh, I see, like a marionette. Yeah.

Speaker AOh, God.

MerlinHope Hicks has to bring in the machine, but she's got somebody to bring in. Where's my box?

MaxThat's interesting. So people think she was sort of a Disney Hall of Presidents, like radio-controlled, like a highly advanced, like uh yeah and like there's like ridley ridley scott is backstage with like a team

Alexwell i think one of the i don't know if i even saw this as a joke but someone's like oh it's tapped into her spine so that she can get electric pulses when she can read the morse code no no

Maxthat makes sense yeah before before the debate starts there's just a team of people they'll crack their knuckles and hunch over a computer there's a there's a voiceover artist who does her her whole, all of her speaking. He's the same guy, he's the same guy who does the robot.

Yeah.

Speaker ATax credits.

MerlinWell, it used to be, you remember, there was the one that went around where people thought W had, they saw they, when you shoot him from the back at a debate, it looked like he had a box. The hump. The hump. The hump, and that was so he was being. What was that hump?

MaxWe never found out what that hump was. I always want to know what that hump was.

MerlinThe story was that he was being fed answers to an earpiece.

MaxThere's no better answer for what that hump was than that.

AlexBush's Mystery Bulge, which is a, oh, that's his colored pencils. I bet he kept in there, like his little art set.

MerlinHe's got a little trapper keeper back there. Yeah, that's a Duncan professional yo-yo.

MaxThe only difference between Bush and Trump was it was in an era where the president still had to pretend to know things and act smart. Whereas for Trump, it's like an act of defiance if he's like, folks, there's too many countries. I don't know what they are. You don't know what they are. We don't need these people. Then everyone's like, yeah, he's cool. He says what we're all thinking.

MerlinMany people are saying there were too many countries. Who knew? Nobody could know it was this complicated.

AlexWe didn't talk about the whole Omarosa thing. But this morning, I was like, this is literally reading, like all these think pieces are reading like a vulture recap of The Apprentice in 2009. It was really-

MerlinDid you hear about this, Max?

MaxYeah, yeah, of course. I mean, I try not to get too excited about Scaramucci and Omarosa and all the staff drama. And there's two reasons. One of them is that- I'm sorry, am I stepping on a bit?

MerlinBut no, no, no. I just like the idea of that it was something like Fredo couldn't control his wife. And so it wasn't Al Neary, but somebody had to go, you Italians are all the same.

Speaker AYou treat women like shit.

MerlinAnd then Fredo's like, what am I going to do? I'm Fredo. And so I just imagine him dragging this woman out. And several sources have said she was cursing and screaming obscenities as she was let off the property.

Speaker ABrassa, fresa, snaggle, brassa.

MaxA crate of oranges rolled down the steps of the portico. So, I mean, so there's two things. I mean, one, I think it's like the one trick that Trump knows how to do that's very astute and media savvy. You know, let me back up for one second. So there's this whole movement in politics that's very frustrating to me as a practitioner, where a lot of people look at Dan Scavino and these, like, absolute mouth-breathing gorillas who do all of Trump's web stuff and campaign stuff, and they're like, these people, they're secret geniuses.

Everyone wrote them off, but they really know what they're doing, and we should be doing what they—like, we've got to learn. Like, we have to have our own fake news, and we have to have our own extreme Twitter accounts. Like, that's what the Democrats have to be doing.

Speaker ARight, right, right. And, you know, the thing that you have to keep in mind about—

MaxIt'll be just as successful as Air America. Yeah. And the thing that you have to keep in mind about elections is somebody wins every election, right? There's never an election where neither candidate wins. somebody's going to win. Even if they both ran bad campaigns and one of them was really bad, they're both really bad or there's nothing to emulate on the other guy. It doesn't mean that Trump's a genius. It's like someone had to win and it happened to be Trump. But anyhow, he gets a lot of credit for being smart and strategic about these things. But that being said, the one thing

where I think Trump, I do think Trump has a couple of tricks up his sleeve that are actually quite savvy and I think they're like they're not honorable but they are like effective like arbitrages on the bad dumb media environment that we all live in and one of them is to fire people and create a lot of suspense and drama about who's in and who's out and he understands the pacing of the reality show where every week someone needs to go home and you want to know who stays on the island and who's on and who's off and who's on the in group and who's on the out group and that that can effectively be a side show that everyone

that seems substantive it's like It seems like something's happening when you watch Top Chef or The Bachelor.

MerlinExcept this is about high-level government staffing. This is a big deal.

MaxBut Trump understands the underlying logic, which is there's a human instinct to know which gorilla is in the tribe. And he can play on that with the pacing of a reality show in a very effective way. Now, I don't think he's sitting there with a whiteboard diagramming this out. I think it's intuitive. It's instinctual. He understands it's a way to create a sideshow, and it works pretty much every time. So I think that's part of the drama with Scaramucci and Amorosa. The other piece that's darker and more chilling is this is also – and I think – stop me if I've gone into this too much on the podcast before.

But this is also a thing you see often in like authoritarian governments and dictatorships where they have this constant revolving door of senior staff and leadership and heads of government and heads of departments and things like that. because A, it reduces accountability, and it inoculates the leader from any wrongdoing. There's always someone else whose fault it was who was just kicked out, who was creating all the corruption or telling all the lies or giving the leader bad advice. So it insulates the leader from any political heat, and it creates an environment of confusion

and a lack of accountability that allows for extreme corruption and abuses of power. And that's one of the other things that really frightens me. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and then, but I mean, it's, you know, it's just like consumer finance protection bureau, right? The Elizabeth Warren thing that is supposed to protect people from being abused by banks. It was like the one good concession we got out of the bailout bill. They don't, it's like, it's very easy for them. They don't want to change what that thing does. They just don't want,

they just want to hobble it, right? They want it to not be functional and to be ineffectual and to not regulate the banks. So it's really easy. They just need to keep them in a constant state of turmoil and drama so that no one is able to effectively do their jobs. And that's exactly what's happening.

AlexYeah, like Omarosa didn't do anything right. Her getting thrown out is... There's nothing of consequence other than there's some funny memes. And I'm on...

MerlinWhat did she do at the White House? Exactly. What did she screw up? Well, that was the ongoing bit in at least the reporting on Kelly from the beginning is that there's two things that he wants to do. He wants to control the flow of information, especially into the president. He knows he'll never get the president to stop using Twitter, but he wants to control the flow and the quality of the information that he receives. So a lot of folks who used to be in his good books would just basically just stream in and out of the office. Literally, there's stories of people on their lunch break just

going to hang out in the Oval Office. So he wanted to make sure that there was control over who got in there and what information they were bringing. Second, he wanted to make sure he understood, personally understood what each person's portfolio was. What are they responsible for? What value is it providing? The story goes, and I don't care, but I'm just telling you what I've read. The story goes that Omarosa was a double danger on that one. Because on the one hand, she was very notorious for coming in with something she printed out

from the internet to get the president mad. she would just float in and out of the office. He felt very comfortable with her. And second, apparently, I don't know if this is true, reporting is that literally no one who works in the White House knew what she was supposed to be doing, let alone what she was doing. And so she's been and supposedly been in General Kelly's sights for a while because she, obviously, she represents exactly what he's there to try to clean up, which is just this parade of stimulation without any kind of a basis in doing good governance and even good messaging.

I sounded smart when I said that.

AlexYou're very smart, Merlin, man.

MerlinThank you. I had three burgers should we do a check in on how we're feeling I want to die

MaxI'm done I'm walking away from this challenge

Merlinwe've been recording for about an hour I don't know what it'll be after edits but we've been recording for a bit over an hour should we report in on what we've eaten and how we feel? I feel like this is part of it.

MaxI mean, we need to just gauge where we are. So I ate one medium fries. I had one quarter of a medium chocolate milkshake. And then I had most of a Big Mac and the fish patty off of a filet of fish. That's pretty good. I feel horrible. I have an entire Big Mac and an entire filet of fish. Chris, do you want a Big Mac? You want a filet of fish?

AlexThere's Big Macs.

MaxDo you want both? He keeps saying no. Why do you think that is? Anyway, I feel so horrible. I feel like I'm in a wave pool just floating around. That's no good.

AlexI've only had half of a large fry, half of a Diet Coke, and what's killing me, I think, is half of a small chocolate malted, apparently, milkshake, which was really good. But, oh, God. How about you, Merlin?

MaxOh, breaking news. Too good, too good. The federal judge, Trump's judicial nominee, who had never tried a case before and spent a year as a paranormal investigator, he just withdrew his name from consideration.

Speaker AWhat? I thought he was on his way.

MaxI guess that there was some major problems. I haven't read the story yet, but I guess there were some major problems with his disclosure form. Shocking. Oh, I see. He didn't disclose that he's married to a White House lawyer.

MerlinOh, see, that's the kind of thing you would think that, why would I even need to say that?

MaxYeah, why would that have to come up?

MerlinThat's such an odd thing to ping him for. I ate all of a Big Mac. I ate half of two-thirds of a Filet-O-Fish all the way through. Then I ate the meat-ish guts out of a second Big Mac, and I ate all the meat-ish guts of a quarter pounder with cheese.

MaxWere all the onions fully hydrated?

MerlinWell, you know, on the quarter pounder, listen to this. Mmm. Mmm. Oh. What is that? That's a good fresh onion. I think I'm a good boy. I did not eat all my bread, and I didn't touch my second filet of fish. Oh, and then I had half a large order of fries.

MaxMy face feels very hot.

MerlinI don't see myself drinking that shake anytime soon. I feel way better than I expected, though.

AlexHonestly, I think you are the healthiest of the three of us.

MaxI had a very healthy breakfast.

MerlinI get real sleepy after I eat like this. There's a pretty good chance I'll be having a nap today. Maybe have a bath.

MaxI do not feel ready to do any work, certainly.

AlexI mean, you are the big boss here. You can just go home and be like, oh, going to work from home.

MerlinYou guys want an update from Nextdoor? Yes, please. Digga, digga, digga, Dateline, Nextdoor. Neighbor Allen writes, crime. What happened at the flower store on Dingle and Dingle?

Neighbor Randy responds, nothing at the flower store. A pedestrian was hit by a car crossing the street and died at the scene.

AlexOh.

MerlinThat's it. Does anyone have notified the authorities? I might make it. Neighbor Giuliani put an emoticon of somebody looking kind of sad, like with their eyes closed. And then neighbor Randy says it happened yesterday afternoon. End of thread.

AlexOh.

MaxI might do a next door thread or post to my weird Facebook group because the last two mornings I've been awoken at about 6.45 or 7 a.m. by the sound of a helicopter over our house. Why are there helicopters over your house? Well, that's exactly the question that I think that I might ask on Nextdoor.

AlexHasn't this happened before?

MaxNo.

AlexYes.

MaxHe wanted a website.

AlexMax wants a website.

MerlinIt does nothing but tell him, why are there helicopters over my house?

MaxOh, I do want that one. Yeah, that's right. Well, usually they're at night, and I think usually they're pursuing. Don't you get a lot of helicopters in your neighborhood, Alex?

AlexNo, no, never.

MaxUsually they're pursuing a suspect or they're like just traffic helicopters. Sometimes there's a fire. Haven't you ever seen a fire and there's a bunch of news helicopters like filming the fire in case they need footage of it? So I think it's usually that kind of a deal. But I want to know.

AlexSo you live in a neighborhood where there are a lot of fires and a lot of traffic. Like there's still no reason for them to fly over your house.

MaxWell.

MerlinThat's why you need that website

MaxI don't know why they're there I mean my thought when I'm asleep When I'm asleep and it's 6.45 in the morning I'm awoken by the sound of a helicopter over my house My first thought is they've come for me That's it, I'm done

MerlinRemember to store the sauce

MaxNow I have a number of pieces To follow up, number one Merlin There was a I don't want to spoil it How do we handle this? I want to talk about the latest Roderick on the line Maybe in the after show. Maybe in the after show. We'll do that in the after show. People, listen, if you want to hear me...

MerlinYou're not the first person to ask me this.

MaxIf you want to hear me talk to Merlin about the latest episode of Roderick on the Line, which was... It really was... It was really poignant. And, I mean, it was a fan... It was one of my favorite episodes of that show. I was very... I was gripped. I mean, I stopped what I was doing just to listen to it.

MerlinIt took a kind of unexpected turn toward the end.

MaxYes. Yeah, a lot of it was John talking about pedals that he was going to use in an album and then didn't or something like that. So anyhow, if you want to hear that, you can go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. You give us $5, you get an extra episode of the podcast every week. You get a whole bonus episode every week where we talk about even more bullshit than we do on the normal show.

MerlinOh, we gossip about our friends. We say the worst things about

Maxpeople. Probably you, if you're listening to this. The only way to find out is to give us $5 a month.

MerlinGiveusyourfuckingmoney.com.

MaxSo, I'll ask you about that in the after show.

MerlinWe've got a raccoon attack. We got people not picking up after their dogs. A lot going on next door.

MaxHow about this? You've been talking to your daughter about the Cards and Humanity promotions that we're doing. Oh, of course, of course. And I normally do not like talking about card stuff, but I thought this was an interesting angle.

MerlinWhat happened was I made a toot about how I thought the redistributing wealth day was very funny and well done and very Cards and Humanity.

MaxOh, that tweet had legs. Yeah. That was a big one. That was a big one.

MerlinI don't know why. And then what did I say to you? What did I send you? Did I send you a picture of a couple cards? I sent you a picture of the one about the panda that can't keep its eyes open. Was that it? No. What was the picture I sent you? I don't even remember.

MaxOh, good. You're very sleepy.

AlexI keep eating the fries. I don't know why. No, Alex. Stop eating.

MaxLook at all these boxes of food. What is that? Long boy. What's the long boy?

AlexThese are free chicken nuggets.

MaxNo. No.

AlexBecause this is the first time we used Uber Eats, and they sent me chicken nuggets. Free nuggets, free nuggets.

MaxI absolutely do not want that. Was that a little lighter fluid on there?

MerlinI sent Max one of my favorite cards we received in the December days of gifts. I love the white card. It says, a stack of puppies in a trench coat. It's from the happy day, the cute day.

MaxI've been lobbying to get that card into the game for like six years. Yeah.

MerlinWell, okay, this is a bit and a meta bit and a meta meta meta bit, but any joke that in any way, Punchline set up, any bit that involves several small things in a trench coat trying to look like a grown man is funny to me. I don't know why.

MaxBecause you grew up, it's like how old people are all scared of quicksand because they used to see a lot of quicksand in movies. Yeah, yeah. You grew up in a little rascal's era, Merlin.

MerlinI don't care if it's Africanized bees. It's funny. If it's trying to be a person and nobody wears a trench coat, why would you even do that? And I said, a stack of puppies in a trench coat. And I said, I love these so much. I told you we subscribed. And then what I said was that, I mean, I don't want to imbue this with too much more value, interest, and depth than actually exists. But what I said was that, I said, for a variety of reasons, the work and the voice of your company leads to many of the most interesting conversations I have with my kids.

Maxwhat is there to talk about? First of all, do you tell her all the stuff that we do? And how does she process it? And what do you guys talk about?

MerlinWell, I mean, there's lots of ones. First of all, she's obsessed with Alex. She loves Alex so much. I don't do anything. Okay, thank you. I'll tell her. You're really good at this. What about me?

Speaker AWhat about me, though? You don't come up. It's super weird. All right, this bit was a mistake. Okay, this show's over.

MerlinNo, but, okay, so for example, there's things that she knows about that because dad thinks it's funny, she started to think it was funny too. I mean, you know, I guess this is trend, but, you know, Donald Trump is a large man who lives in a golf course. Empirically. That's Eli wrote.

Speaker AI'm pretty sure.

MerlinThat's an Eli. I think Eli wrote that. Well, that is empirically the funniest thing that anyone has ever written, especially if you say it like this.

Speaker ADonald Trump is a large man who lives in a golf course.

MerlinThat's the basis. That's going to be the basis for a century of humor for more reasons than I can go. the exact phrasing of Donald Trump is a large man who lives in a golf course. The word in is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. In does all of the work. But is he underground? Is he in a hobbit hole?

Speaker AIt doesn't matter.

MerlinHe's a fat man in a suit who lives in a golf course. He's very large.

MaxI always imagine him as like a gopher being chased by Bill Murray.

MerlinOkay, so we watched, we read that page. Oh, and then in the end, and she just recited and then in the end, We'll give all the money to Hillary Clinton. She just thinks that's the funniest thing. She gets that that's a brilliant setup. I'm giving you some pretext here. Okay. So that's all stuff that's just funny to her.

Watching the hole being dug was extreme. If you don't think that's funny to a nine-year-old, paying to dig a hole until they run out of money is just fucking funny.

MaxNo, I actually didn't understand. So when we did that, it didn't occur to me. But then once the video was up, we got a many, many. Kids love construction equipment. We had a huge audience watching it. And I was asking on Twitter, like, why are people watching this? And I got many, many, many, many nice comments from children and autistic people.

MerlinKids on the spectrum especially are obsessed with construction equipment.

MaxYep. And they watched it for, you know, it's a long, uninterrupted stream of guys operating machinery really well. And I found it very compelling. And we had it on the TV and Veronica was like, can we watch something else? And I was like, no. There's nothing better than this. It's along the whole. Yeah. This is TV now. Alex, hang on. I don't mean to interrupt this, but feel this.

AlexOh, no. No.

MaxJust feel it.

AlexThis isn't bread.

MaxIt's a sponge of some sort. It's the bottom of a fish.

MerlinOh, it says specifically in the description that it's a soft bun.

MaxI'm going to tap it on the table. Listen to this. Served on a soft bun.

AlexBut that's the thing. It's so dense, but it's still spongy. I don't know how. Oh, God.

MerlinLike the president. um so that's all just pretext you hear that that's bread that's

Speaker Athere's there's 10 there's upwards of 10 pieces of that floating around in the president's stomach

Merlinat all times i i want to do this challenge again just to take it all apart because i think looking at all of the pieces like you're like you're doing an i fix it tear down it'd be so fun to see what all this looks like when you put it into piles. There's 10 pieces of bread.

MaxWell, you can buy our... Merlin, I sell a special little toolkit you can use to take apart your Big Mac. It's $29.99. It's got the special screwdrivers that you need. Hey, guys!

MerlinAnyway, I won't belabor this. No, I'm sorry.

MaxI didn't mean to cut you off. I was just fascinated by bread.

MerlinNo, no, no. It's all just pretext to say that she's already kind of predisposed to like you guys. She doesn't and can't really listen to any of the things that I do, but this is unequivocally her favorite thing that I do just because Alex is on it. But, okay, so here's one example. It's day one. I still don't fully understand what happened, but day one, what do you guys call it officially?

AlexCards Against Humanity saves America.

MerlinBut, like, and how many days of this are there? Six. Six? Yeah. Okay, so the first day, it's brilliant. My wife and I both get our first thing in the mail, and you open it up, and it's like, that's a great cover letter in the Cards Against Humanity voice, and it's a bunch of flibbity-jibbity from a lawyer, and a map that looks like a treasure map. And anybody out here who's gotten this, you know this, but this is to answer Max's question.

And then it's got, what was the other thing in there? Oh, and then you're explaining how we're doing, we're buying these small parcels of land so it's going to be more difficult to build a wall just in this one area. Now, can't you see how there's like half a dozen things about that that are fascinating to talk about? And she was actually genuinely kind of interested about the funny map with the funny names on it. She's 10. She's not stupid. I'm making her sound like she's like, oh, look at this. There's funny names. But no, she's a pretty sophisticated kid. She thought it was funny. So what do we talk about? Well, of course we talk about what makes something funny

because that's a hilarious topic. How is it? But then also then how does the voice?

MaxIt all sounds very Jewish of you.

MerlinIt's very Jewish of me. Well, you'll see Barmanides defined humor as... My daughter's an Octa-Jew. My daughter's an Octa-Jew. My wife is a Quattro-Jew. um so uh but we'll talk about so you know this is funny why is that funny i know and we she agrees that the word in is what makes in a golf course funny but in this case so we go a little deeper and you go like well this is a kind of a crazy thing to do i was like yeah isn't it weird that like they've got this voice as a company and they do these things that are funny but it's also a form of dissent it's a form of protest like isn't that kind of an interesting thing that you could

be funny about this and what makes it effective is that it's funny it's it's it's not on the nose it's a little bit arch and then we end up talking about stuff like and it's not we talked about this for an hour it's like five minutes before she goes back to playing Minecraft but like you know it's just it's been thought provoking to think about the different angles on

Maxthat's cool I never I never in my wildest imagination I never thought of this provoking and interesting conversation with a kid it's just cool it's weird I mean I I don't know what can I say it's like sometimes you make stuff and you never you don't think of the audience that it's going to reach or the way that it's going to come into people's lives you guys should be

Merlinproud of yourselves for what you do. It does that.

MaxI always imagine a breathless, heaving, obese, middle-aged man doing an unboxing video on YouTube.

Speaker ALet's see. It looks like a pack of stickers. I'm now going to peel them apart one at a time.

MaxOh, that's all? Last year we got more stickers.

Speaker AI have adhesive on the back.

MerlinHere's the thing about being a parent. is I told myself I would, to the extent possible, never lie to my daughter, and now I have to lie to her all the time. Or I have to shade some things so fucking hard that it pains me. But last night, after her shower, her TV time was done, and it was our TV time. And so we're watching coverage, MSNBC's coverage of the election. We're watching The Fucking Needle.

MaxDid you ever talk about Roy Moore?

MerlinYeah. Yeah, but here's the thing. I'm not saying my approach is good, or my approach is smart, or my approach is even advisable. She's been hearing about this. fucking I have to remember to fucking turn off public radio because it's not even occurring to me what she is having to listen to that she shouldn't really have to listen to but here's what it came down to she's curious why are we why are we so excited that this blobby white guy is winning instead of this blobby white guy and I said well let me ask you a question I said think about uh a neighbor of ours that neighbor is uh 14 or 15 years old right like how would you feel

about a man who was a 32-year-old man who was a professional lawyer, and I'm employing very large, slow air quotes here, who dated that girl, that friend of yours. I said, just roughly speaking, if you can't guess where I'm going with this, how do you feel about that? She's like, that would be really weird. I said, yes. Now, what if he did it with four or five different people, and then he thought that was okay because he'd asked their moms. I'm leading. I'm heavily leading this discussion, but she's like, oh, yeah, that's bad.

AlexThat's so smart, though.

MerlinBut let her discover what's weird about this without me going into a diagram about why you never get in a white van with a clown. Let her be the one who realizes the morality and weirdness and complexities and paradoxes of this, hopefully to the extent possible. That's the idea. The idea is to let it be the thing that she figures out to the extent I can be comfortable with that.

MaxThat's a very – it's ingenious.

MerlinOh, and by the way, also he thinks people like Alex should be illegal.

Speaker AHe wants to make Alex and Maddie illegal. How do you feel about that?

MerlinNot good. Not good, Bob. I like them. I like them. I like their pictures. I'm glad they're together.

Speaker ANot good.

MerlinVery bad.

Speaker AWhat did she say? What did she say? What did she say?

MerlinShe said something about how, was it you reminded her of Rachel Maddow? Was that it? I mean.

MaxSomething really funny. Like, is it the cats that you always assume are off screen?

MerlinI'm sitting on such a good room full of cats picture just waiting to deploy it for so long, waiting for the right Rachel Maddow moment. But I don't know. It's really hard. It's really super difficult with kids because, like, we know what our hangups are, and we know what our genuine and sometimes very well-founded fears are. And, like, sometimes we get ahead of our skis a little bit. even like a really right thinking, decent person will like end up concentrating mostly on passing along a hang up without a reason for the hang up,

rather than trying to provide a rational basis for developing a framework for how you think about things like ethics and morals. That was really funny.

AlexHoly shit.

MerlinThanks for your money.

AlexI was talking to a friend of mine this weekend about how do you talk to your kid. And she just said constantly. Because same as you. She doesn't want to lead into this gross conversation. But the kid is around to television. Not as much as the president, but still. And I just keep thinking, how do you tell a kid?

MerlinKids have a, you know, I joke about this a lot, about a kid's innate sense of justice, especially the justice that they're being denied. Yeah, exactly. Kids do have a sense of right and wrong and are galled when that is not addressed. Like, hey, they got seven M&Ms and I got literally five M&Ms. That is wrong. Like a kid feels that very, very intensely. And so as somebody who's growing up at a time when it does not seem weird at all that any two people can be together if it makes them happy, like that bugs her. and I'm glad.

I'm trying to find my cat phone.

Speaker AOh, I've got it. Here it is.

MaxCan I read a little quote from Roderick on the line?

Speaker AYeah.

MaxEvery little kid has an innate sense of justice. Every child has an innate sense of fairness that mostly leans towards them. It's a fairness to them instinct. Very few of us have evolved enough to go, let's make sure everyone got something here. There's definitely a sense of, they got a balloon, that kid got a balloon, this other kid got a balloon. I better have a balloon coming.

Speaker AWho said that?

MaxYou did. It's one of the funniest things I've ever heard in my life.

Speaker AOh, that's pretty good.

MaxWhenever I hear someone on Twitter,

Speaker Awhenever I hear someone on Twitter going, I better have a balloon coming.

MaxYeah. I know. Whenever I hear someone on Twitter going, meh, it pops into my head.

Speaker AI'm like, that kid got a balloon, and that kid got a balloon. I better have a fucking balloon coming.

MerlinThat's the sound. That's the sound of Twitter. Basically, the entire if you boiled off all the fucking water all that would be left of twitter is this sound

55. I Better Have a Balloon Coming

Show notes

Transcript

55. I Better Have a Balloon Coming

Show notes

Transcript

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