104. One More Thing

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, Buy Some Pants.

MaxHello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Oh, I'm very happy. I feel amazing I really have not felt this happy in a long time

AlexI forgot I forgot how good it feels to be happy

MaxBeing happy is really nice No don't do it That's how they get you

MerlinDay after You go back and look at What fucking happened It didn't look that great last night But it doesn't look terrible It looked pretty good to me last night

MaxI was very happy.

MerlinI have a unified field theory about this. I'll be sharing on many podcasts. But the nut of this problem is, I admitted this last night recording with Syracuse, and I'll talk about it again with Gruber. My problem is I have to just admit that I'm a fucking liberal cuck and I want a silver bullet. I want something to overwhelmingly fucking overturn everything. I want that scene from Casablanca where everybody starts singing the Marseillez, except it's 300 million people.

MaxOh, I see. You know? Yes. Yes. First of all, first order of business. Can we turn Merlin up? It's that part of the podcast. Thank you. Yeah. No, here's my thoughts on this. They're undeniably there was a blue wave last night. It was a huge election for us. If you were to go. So if you were to make a list of maybe, let's say, like the 10 top 10 sort of environmental factors that affect an election, they were all working against us. Right. We had so we had the worst system. Systematically, the map, the suppression, all of it was

so stacked against us. Not to mention the economy is doing quite well. And now I think that's basically an accident. But I mean, so, you know, it's usually like if the economy is going well, like the incumbent party is not punished that badly. But it was a pretty good night for us. Now, I think what I want and what you want and what a lot of people, probably most of the listeners in this podcast want is like a national repudiation of Trump. Yes. I want everyone to

Merlinapologize. I want everyone to apologize. I want a twilight of the shitlords. I want them all gone and I want a personal apology from everybody.

MaxWe want everyone to put on the they live glasses. You know what I mean? Yes. And they go and they see these fucking ghouls. You know, it's like, but we're not living, we're in the Walking Dead universe where we know that they're never going to cure the zombies and they're just going to winnow down the characters until we've lost all hope and the show is just really mainly a punishment.

MerlinWhat were we talking about?

AlexOh, I'm curious. I texted you at 8.55 p.m. and said, how's Sean Kasten looking? Yeah. And just not good.

MaxIt wasn't looking good then. Why'd you say that? It was looking good. No, it wasn't. Were you worried about votes that had...

MerlinIt was not looking good then.

MaxIt wasn't looking as good. It wasn't... So listen, let me... We're just... I have a lot to talk about this week. There was an election last night. We're talking about that. Yeah. Just for our listeners. Here's what's on my... So I do want to talk... I want to talk about the casting campaign that Alex and I were both involved in. And I have not been able to.

MerlinI also have a lot to say about pants.

MaxOh, yeah. We do have the pants challenge. And, you know, after you do all this amount of work, you know, Saturday is treat day. And guess what treats we're getting today?

MerlinPants. Well, that too. Oh, treats. Are you getting something like a little candy that you could eat? Is that your treat? Wednesday is treat day.

MaxThe new iPads, plural, are coming today.

MerlinOh, shit dog. UPS is going to fuck my shit up today. I got a lot of stuff coming today.

MaxWhat am I, a pay pig? Is that what I am? Well, this is the Apple pay pig power hour.

MerlinStop trying to make fetch happen.

AlexOh, Max didn't laugh at the mean girls.

MerlinEverything's coming at Milhouse. I'm going to keep going until you acknowledge my references. I did. Look at the... What's this?

Alexwhat's this this is a smile wait you're not you're not well i don't look at you all right so

Maxlisten so let me get into the casting thing for for a minute so you guys want to talk about the election so i so i've spent uh loyal dubai friday listeners will know i think i've probably talked about this before but i spent almost my entire my entire life has been i've been very interested in politics and like the motivating thing that got me into politics was i guess was the war in iraq and i was really really mad about that and then i felt like it was a very sort of a kill bill situation where I just wanted sort of vengeance on these ghouls that very transparently lied

and murdered people. And I don't know, it was very upsetting. I was at that age where I was old enough to know this is how things are supposed to work and then things were not working that way. And in my, where I grew up...

MerlinYou're not supposed to be able to lie so transparently, just fucking lie and then 500,000 people die. With a wink into the camera.

Max500,000 people. Right. But yeah, it was very upsetting. And yeah, you know, you look when you're, you know, it was, there was a lot compounded in those feelings, right? For people my age, you'll probably, I mean, it was a frustrating time in politics. Like I continue to think that George W. Bush was a far more dangerous and worse president than Trump at this point. Although Trump certainly has a lot of potential to destroy the world. He hasn't, you know, done anything as bad as the war in Iraq yet. But I, you know, in addition to that, it's all wrapped up in your feelings of being a 15-year-old kid and having no institutional power and not really liking your school.

You know what I mean?

MerlinLike, it's all tied up. It's all of a piece, yeah.

MaxAnd it made me feel very small and low. And I was like, I don't want to feel like this anymore. And so I turned my attention to what I could do in my own, you know, physically, like where I could get to with like, you know, right, you know, locally. And it was it was the 10th district, which at the time included a big chunk of DuPage County there. And I've spent almost my entire life since that since 2003 trying to get a Democrat elected to Congress in that area.

Alex1970.

MaxYeah. Well, the 10th has been more flippy, and what happened was we gerrymandered the 10th so that Brad Schneider could get that seat, but then we saddled the 6th with DuPage. And that's why I've just been burned by that race so many times.

AlexMy childhood was watching Tammy Duckworth lose every year.

MaxIs she the veteran lady? Yeah. I mean, now she's a senator, so it worked out okay for her. She's got a baby. She's got a little baby. That district is a heartbreaker. It is bad. It's bad turf. I've canvassed that turf my entire life. Very hard turf to canvas or very low enthusiasm for the volunteers. It's physically hard to get around. You have to drive often from driveway to driveway because it's very – sometimes it's mansions and sometimes it's kind of rural. It's a weird conservative district.

And that's why going into that room, I just have spent my entire life looking at those numbers and those returns. And I was looking at those numbers and Sean was up a little bit. Okay. But one of the other things that's weird is DuPage is notoriously bad at running elections and counting votes. They cannot do it. And in fact, in the primary election, they had a ballot initiative to abolish the DuPage County Board of Elections because they're so bad at tallying votes. And we did not know. It seems like that would be important. And we did not know the results of that ballot initiative because the DuPage County Board of Elections botched the election.

And interestingly That was a Sean also won An impossible primary With I don't know 10 candidates I can't remember But a lot of candidates I don't remember I voted for him I genuinely don't He was the only dude running There were like I think there were Seven women and Sean running

AlexYeah that's a lie I know I didn't vote for him Because I know I voted for a woman I voted for Kitty's person Anyway Yeah Go on Sorry

MaxYeah I didn't I wasn't involved with Sean In the primaries Sorry Mr. Kester It was an impossible primary And when And you know I had a lot of friends Who were supporting Sean Working for Sean and you know when I went to bed I kind of texted them and I you know I was looking at the votes and I was like sorry guys looks like it's not going to happen and then I woke up and those DuPage results posted and he was the nominee so it was a it was a nice surprise and that's why I went into that you know when you text me Alex I was just getting to the cast in a party and

they had just showed the CNN results and they had cast in down by a couple points and I was looking I was frantically refreshing the DuPage County results on my phone. And I was like, this is not where it needs to be. And I was like, when the rest of DuPage posts, it's going to break our hearts just like every year. So I worked on this, you know, anyhow.

AlexI didn't want to go to the party. I was like, fuck no.

MaxI have a lot. I spent most of my life at losing election parties. Yeah, this is your thing. And I went in and they didn't have an open bar. And that's a bad sign. Because when you don't have an open bar, that's not a sign of confidence. Yeah.

MerlinBecause they don't want to foot the bill if everybody drinks their troubles away.

MaxYeah, it's like they know that it's not going to be that great of a party anyway, I guess. I don't know what the logic is, but it's not true. It's just a funny thing that political journalists say.

AlexDo you know the – oh, fuck. What's the name of the hotel downtown? It starts with a W, not the W. And it's like across from – I was about to say across from Einstein Bagel. but Max doesn't know where that is no one in Chicago actually knows where that is except me but it's the fancy hotel with the nightclub on top and the Romney campaign in 2016 rented the entire nightclub out had an open bar and I was there covering it for a class and for a film

and just the confidence and the oh everything's fine everything's fine even as the results are coming in and they're just being buried it was so surreal and I thought am I just is this the alternate dimension and are we not seeing the same things because the whole crew was obviously you know really liberal and we're like I don't think everything's no but I don't think everything's coming up Milhouse for you but in last night too uh I was making fun of Casey for watching Fox News

but then I turned on Fox News and it was like oh yeah even even they're like oh this is not good Oh, bad, bad, bad, bad. So unlike Max, I've not, well, yeah, I guess I've always worked on DuPage County campaigns, but nothing bigger than that because it just makes me sad and always DuPage loses in anything I care about ever. And it was, last night was weird because then a half hour later, I just texted you guys, wait, what?

MerlinOr like, holy shit. You were very happy.

AlexI haven't been happy in so long It makes me very upset that a white man Can make me so happy

MerlinYou said holy shit, holy shit, holy shit Is what you wrote Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit And it was out of context So here's just for those that don't have the super secret private text channel Alex, how is Sean looking? Max Temkin, not good Alex, ugh, sometime later Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit

MaxCut to the Trump election I was very sad about the Trump election But what really brought back those feelings for me of the war in Iraq and how it felt to see everything spiral out of control in a really insane way was watching those healthcare votes in the House. Now, listen, I've been through, I've lost elections before, and I've been through it, and it sucks, it doesn't feel good, but I know, it's whatever, you get another chance in a few years, and it is what it is. And I was pretty concerned about Trump, but it's nothing like,

I don't know, I didn't, I don't know. It was way harder for me watching those healthcare appeals because it was just so cruel and they were lying so much and doing it right. You're winking into the camera and lying. It was that same feeling, right, of like, I can't believe they're fucking doing this and getting away with it. I can't fucking believe it. And I just felt so small and so low and so powerless watching those votes. It was a very bad feeling. And, you know, I got pitched. I think we've talked about this in the program, but, like, we get cards or me personally, I get pitched all the time. And everyone has these ideas about, oh, I want to start a national.

I'm going to make a T-shirt company that's going to expose the Republicans and win political power for the Democrats. I'm starting a YouTube channel, and it's going to expose the truth. It's going to put the They Live glasses on everyone, and it's going to fix everything. Or what's another one? I've had that thought. I've had mornings where I wake up and I pop out of bed like in the Akewood comic. and I go, I should start a newspaper, you know, where it's like maybe that's what we need.

AlexWe need some more enamel pins, really.

MaxYeah, or some swag or something you can sell or buy. But for change. What I've told everyone is I don't think that stuff works. If that stuff works, then Hillary would be president. So I don't think that that stuff works, and I think what you need to do is sort of earnestly engage. You need a fight song. The local, Jesus.

MerlinOh, no, it's triggering. It's like when they locked Daryl in the closet And played that song over and over Same thing

MaxFor me it's the What's that Those acapella movies that we watched Pitch Perfect The Pitch Perfect people Did that like acapella version That was played at the DNC About 10,000 times I don't know if any of our listeners Were at the DNC But I have one of those like Post-hypnotic triggers That they give to Russian spies And I'm actually programmed To murder someone If I hear that If you hear a fight song You become the Winter Soldier The following song Was made only with our voices run

Merlindive in the window of a van

Maxget me out of here abort abort abort but uh you know i tried to so what i've told people is like i think you need to earnestly engage in these local races and that's the only way that thing that's going to do anything and you're better off just like finding your local your local house race your local state ledge race and getting involved than you are, you know, making up, I don't know, some sort of feminist embroidery project or something.

AlexAnd I mean, don't get me wrong. I will buy it. But I buy it, too. It's just it's not going to do anything.

MerlinI buy it because I want a cool T-shirt, not because I think it's going to. Yeah. But people in Dana Rohrabacher's district won't. That's that's the thing is like you're you're you're making you're you're you're making need a point for the chorus.

MaxYes. Yes. And, you know, I have to say, like, I really tried to follow my own advice, and I tried not to do too much clever bullshit. And I picked, you know, Peter Roskam and the Sixth as the closest congressman geographically to me that voted for ACA repeal in all of those votes. And I just decided a year ago or whenever those votes were, I was like, this is my new, this is my project now. We're going after Roskam.

MerlinAnd thus began your crazy wall.

MaxAnd thus began my crazy wall. Your red yarn. It has been, it has been.

Merlina it's been sitting there in your underwear throwing darts at a photo it's been a it's been

Maxa long and involved process we had welcome to the cast in cave car cards has has been has been very involved i'm very involved and um you know as also as a result i don't know if you guys saw but also as a result of that peter roscom has been uh well he's he's a he's not listen now i'm now free to talk about this race which is great also because uh you know during the race i couldn't say anything on the podcast here. Oh, please do. This is technically sort of a public forum, I guess. But Peter Rossum's a bad guy, and he's like Ted Cruz.

He's like a personally repellent guy. And I heard from one of his colleagues in the House that even the Republicans do not personally like him.

MerlinIt's like a Ted Cruz situation.

MaxYeah, he has just like a repellent personality, and people hate him. And he knew that he couldn't run on his record, that he's read his disgraceful record of stealing health care from his constituents and millions of Americans nationwide and calling global warming junk science and voting with the president 95 percent of the time. He knew that that wouldn't fly in his district and he knew that he didn't have anything to offer people. So he spent the entire campaign just trying to destroy Caston and everyone in Caston's orbit and everyone who gave Caston money, which includes myself.

AlexWell, what was sickening? I assume you read the Breitbart article.

MaxI didn't actually, no. I mean, I know that it called me an anti-Semite.

AlexIt was the infuriating thing was literally what's on Peter Roskam's website is worse than what's on fucking Breitbart and more untrue. And I, oh, did you see we're in one of his attack ads? The Twitch thing. I was like, oh, cool. My mom saw it and was like, oh, hey, look at this.

MaxYeah.

AlexYeah, what are you going to do?

MerlinAlex Cox.

AlexAll those radical figures.

MerlinOh my God. She wants to stream her lesbian lifestyle into your home. Please remember to like and subscribe.

MaxHe really tried to make an issue out of me, and it didn't stick. It didn't get piece-tent out press releases repeatedly to every newspaper. It didn't get picked up. So I'm glad that, and why would it, right? I had no formal role within the casting campaign. I raised a little bit of money for the guy, but I'm sure I wasn't one of his biggest fundraisers. Like, I'm just a guy who cared about the – I'm a private citizen who cared about the race. Like, it's like there's no story there. But, yeah, so he – so this is an interesting story about cards where –

so we did – so what was it, two years ago we did – two or three years ago we did Cards Against Humanity's Eight Days of Hanukkah where we sent everyone the gifts for Hanukkah.

MerlinOh, yeah, that was awesome.

MaxAnd it was a fun holiday campaign, And we did these cards about Judaism. And, you know, in case people don't know, I'm Jewish, and there's eight of us who made cards, and all eight of us are, in fact, Jewish. And we've hired two head writers to sort of manage our writer's room over the years, and our two head writers are Jewish. So there's ten people that sort of had creative ownership of these cards that we wrote, and they were all Jewish. And we represent a wide variety of, like, Jewish orthodoxies and beliefs and things like that. and there's practicing and non-practicing and different denominations and all that good stuff.

And we, let's see what happened. The year after that, Target approached us and was like, can you do some sort of holiday pack that's like new for this year? And we were like, well, we don't have time to write it, but we could give you the Jew cards that we wrote for our holiday thing. And they're like, yeah, great, give it to us. And so we bundled it up and we called it the Jew pack and it was sold in Target. It did okay. and then it was a seasonal item and it was in a seasonal display of Christmas and Hanukkah stuff and after the holidays it got taken down

and somewhere in there there was this movement of people who started calling it anti-Semitic and complaining it turns out those people who were complaining about it were in fact not Jewish they were evangelical Zionists and their thing was that they said that Cards Against Humanity is making fun of the Holocaust because one of the cards in this pack is the card torturing Jews until they say they're not Jews anymore, which is, of course, not a joke about the Holocaust, but a joke about the Spanish Inquisition.

Inquisition, yeah. But they said that that was us making fun of the Holocaust, and it got picked up again on Breitbart and some of these right-wing sites, and it was so weird because it was a very Twilight Zone thing for all of us because you had these people who were not Jewish who were outraged and posting on Twitter and calling us anti-Semitic, and we are in fact Jewish and know the meaning behind those jokes. It was a very Twilight Zone. And then, of course, it was compounded by the fact that it got pulled off the shelves after the holidays because it was a holiday item. And then they were like claimed a big victory.

I remember this. And now the story, and now if you look it up, if you look it up on Breitbart and the conservative press, the storyline is Target pulls anti-Semitic cards against humanity project, product or whatever, which is just like no part of it is true, but it's also so complicated that it's like, where would you start to peel that apart? Because it just took me 15 minutes to explain it to you guys.

AlexAnd that's the thing. They would dig into, well, they're not this right kind of Jewish. And it's like, well, actually, it's very Jew-y off. I can't say that.

MerlinYou're not like the Mike Pence kind of Jew.

AlexAlex, you're not keeping a list, are you?

MerlinThey don't like that. Jews don't like being on lists.

AlexOh, man. My favorite one that people got mad about is, what was the Anne Frank? Oh, here it is. A part of Anne Frank's diary where she talks about her vagina, which is a prominent part of the book. And it's very funny. When you were, I was a teenage girl reading that. We were all like, ha! Like, it was a night. Anyway.

MaxNo, I legitimately think the people who got mad at that haven't read.

AlexAbsolutely.

MaxThey haven't. And don't know that her dad, like, cleaned up a lot of the stuff. Yes, yes. I don't know. To me, those are smart, good jokes that I know were enjoyed by many Jewish and non-Jewish people alike. And, you know, whatever. It's like, I'm not going to sit here like, I don't want to be like Ricky Gervais and be like, oh, was it too edgy for you? But like, and it's just so, it's so fucking weird. And I guess the only thing I would say about it in closing, about the cards thing in particular, is like, I know there's this whole thing of like, oh, like Jerry Seinfeld is like, oh, I can't.

I can't perform on college campuses because like the lib like students are too they're too PC now for my jokes which first of all what joke is Jerry Seinfeld doing that's triggering the college students it's like hey I like I like airline snacks yeah yeah right yeah they're like what material is Seinfeld doing like you know what's the deal with trans people I don't park on the driveway or drive on the parkway but any you know but that aside it's like the censorship to comedy and the threat to comedy and to the smart jokes that we like is,

it's not from the left. Everyone needs to chill out about PC culture on the left and stuff. The threat is, the threat that, oh, I can't.

MerlinI'll let you have that one for now, but there's a lot of bullshit. There's a lot of serious bullshit happening on campuses right now.

MaxThe threat, I would love, I actually would love to talk about this in a further episode because I do not, I actually believe, and I think I can convince you that the campus PC panic is a manufactured Republican issue and that if you scratch at any particular incident or anything that you know about it, it crumbles under even the closest scrutiny. And the actual threat to academic freedom on campuses is conservative administrators and conservative student groups who take down liberal professors. And this has always happened and continues to happen.

And that is, it's again, and it sounds like there's like, oh, well, there's both sides do it, but it's not. Like, it's actually not. Like, there actually is unjust persecution of progressive and leftist professors on college campuses is that that actually is legitimately happening. There was a woman in Northwestern who was driven out on bogus Title IX charges is an interesting case to look at. But again, that's the right coming after people. And I'm telling you, anything you hear in the news, you hear people complaining about, oh, the college students, I can't believe they're protesting this

or mad at this or they did this or that or these PC culture people or whatever. I'm telling you, scratch at the surface and it turns to dust in your hand. There is no substance to those stories. They are made up. They're completely made up. What are we talking about?

MerlinI want to eventually get to Sean Caston. I would like to eventually, in the fullness of time, talk about pants.

MaxOkay.

MerlinBut I want you to take your lap.

MaxWhat else? And then they accused us. We did this car taxi election thing where we offered free PACs to people who vote, which is like the same thing that Ben and Jerry's and everyone does. and uh they peter roscombe accused us of operating an illegal vote fixing scheme on behalf of sean cast him and um said that uh he were uh that we were being investigated by law enforcement which as far as i know is not true there doesn't seem to be any investigation happening unless i mean unless they're already in plan unless they're already deeply embedded like unless it's like a

knock you know wait like maybe we have a patriot situation a knock what's it do you see network operating center? No, you guys remember Patriot? The show Patriot? Oh, he's the one that knocks. Yeah, it's a something-oh-cover. What is it? Something-oh-cover? N-O-C, knock. Yeah. It means you're undercover in a company. It's a Mission Impossible type situation. Yeah.

AlexI just thought you were saying narc wrong. No, knock. Oh, look it, I'm learning. Learning. That's his thing. They have that in Patriot. Yes. Yep. You're right. Two days. Two days until season two. Now...

MerlinOh, can I... Saturday is treat today.

MaxNow, Alex, do you think that we might have a knock in here who's investigating us for running an illegal vote-fixing scheme

Alexto benefit Charcastan? The thing is, it would

Merlinbe me. Yeah, but would it be a Manchurian situation? Would you not know it? Would you not know

Alexthat the knock is you? No, no, no. I think...

MerlinOh, like Battlestar Galactica. It would be like

Alexa four-year situation. It would be before I started working here. You could become activated at any moment to plant the explosives

Merlinin the water reservoir. Yeah. And unlike the Cylons, you actually do have a plan.

AlexOh, wow. Well, well, well, coming out against me.

MerlinTake that, Ron. Should have thought that bullshit through. Ron. I'm going to ride on the side of the dog and send it to Ron Moore.

MaxNow, you didn't like the finale of Galactica.

MerlinIt's fine. It's fine. Stay on target. I want to move pants. Keep going. So how else has Cards Against Humanity been wronged in the election? What? No, that's the main one. But anyway. So you feel relieved that that part is over too The thing you couldn't talk about That part you feel better about that

MaxI feel so good about it And fuck you Peter Roskam you little piece of shit Nobody cared about your attacks on me It had nothing to do with the race It didn't affect anything And now you're out of a job So I hope that you're happy that that's how you ran your campaign Instead of talking about issues that affect people's lives And I hope you enjoy watching Sean Kasten go to Congress And do great things for the 6th District

AlexI have a quick conspiracy theory about why we didn't get in trouble.

MerlinIs this the thing you're sad about? Is this the thing where you're going to bring it all down?

AlexNo, no, no, no, no. I was surprised about the lack of blowback from the pride pack. and I think it's because most straight conservatives did not get those jokes like they don't know what

Maxprep is I know that's a great again like like I don't want to I don't want to get to go too deep into this but with the stuff we do for cards it is very important to us that if it's if it's how do I say it if the pack is like within a subculture that it's written with with by that people in that subculture are like heavily heavily involved in the writing so the Jew pack obviously written by Jewish people we did a pride pack and we we have LGBT writers who worked on it but we also hired a bunch of

new LGBT writers to help write and consult on it and they did a phenomenal job and there's jokes in there that I had to have explained to me because like that's not my culture and it's not for you it was a pack that was well liked but Alex I think you're right Alex is this funny?

Alexyes it's funny

Maxyeah

Alexoh

MaxI think you're right though that there was a lot of stuff that we flew that flew under the radar that were like really good jokes yeah but the Judaism issue and in particular is so fraught and it's haunted me my entire life because there it's like like normal Jews with like a social conscious are not the only people who care about anti-Semitism in Israel right it's such a weird fractured issue and there's like right wing there's like there's lots of right wing Jews right wing Zionists and evangelical Zionists.

MerlinThis has been a problem with the Trump stuff is that there are a lot, you know, you know this.

MaxI've been at odds with them my entire life and it's, you know, whatever. They can call, I, it's crazy. I mean, it's insane to me that Peter Roskam called me an anti-Semite. It's absolutely insane. Like, I'm a private citizen. I'm not his constituent. I don't live in the district. I had no formal association with the casting campaign. I was just a guy who was volunteering for him. Like, it's crazy. And then he just, like, attacked me in my business and said that I was anti, that I called me anti-Semitic. In a press conference with Marco Rubio, he said, oh, and Shady Sean is associated

with his friend Max Temkin, the anti-Semite.

AlexDan Savage, that monster.

MaxYeah, me and Dan Savage were his main targets, yeah. He says the Bible's BS.

AlexEveryone be happy. It was a good night.

MerlinI got new pants. I got nothing to complain about.

AlexOh, Merlin.

MerlinDana Rohrabacher, gone. So many good. The problem is that a couple of the major blobfish, the come-filled blobfish we wanted to go down, did stay up, which sucks.

MaxBut Rohrabacher went down, and that is good. I did a little bit of organizing for Beto and fundraising for Beto, and I can tell you we were never going to run. I was pretty confident that we were never going to win that race at any point, but it doesn't matter. It was great. It built. Lots of good comes out of that race. He had a fog machine. We built lots of— He had a fog machine. What's that?

MerlinHe had a fog machine. When he came up there to do his valedictory speech about how it went, it was like fucking dark shadows. It was crazy. He was like a rock star. He's very slender. He's a handsome man. And he had a fog machine at his sorry it didn't work out speech.

MaxNow, I would say based on what I saw from how the Beto campaign worked and just looking at the field, I would say at this moment, I am probably personally most excited about a Beto candidacy in 2020.

AlexThat was trending before the polls closed.

MerlinWhat I did not tweet last night, because political tweeting is lame. I mean, there's a case to be made for Beto Gillum, I think.

MaxOh, Gillum. That would be one fucking hell of a ticket.

MerlinEspecially because Democrats are so horny for a male candidate in 2020. And that would be two. If you're going to go with male candidates, that's a hell of a lineup right there. We've got to. Because they're both real good at having an actual fucking message, staying on that message and being positive. It's huge. What about Stacey Abrams? She sounds great. I mean, I'm so angry about Georgia I could spit right now. It's so— Again, it was never— It is the—I know, I know, I know, Max. See, no, but listen to my mouth words. I'm telling you how I feel. I'm not asking you what your opinion is. What I'm telling you is it's fucked up that the guy who runs the goddamn election, the guy who's running the election, it's like you were talking about before.

It's like you can't even count the votes to find out whether they're competent to count the votes. It's so fucking crooked.

MaxYou heard that Kemp himself went to vote and his voter ID was rejected. You got that tweet from me, Max. Oh, I did? Yeah. Well, I'm telling you how I feel, which is that your opinions are wrong.

AlexOh, my God.

MaxYou win everything.

MerlinI'm letting you have it all this week. Just leave it all on the field. I'm glad you're having fun.

MaxI got pants. What else? My water reclamation district race, I won.

MerlinOh, no. You did.

MaxWait. You were so excited about the reclamation. It was insane. It was insane. There was so many court battles. like the Democratic Party tried to block him from taking this. It was a crazy.

MerlinSo they're going to keep reclaiming the water.

MaxOh, yes. The water. We're going to reclaim the fuck out of that water. Yeah, no. Cam the water man.

AlexWe're going to get some raw water. Make room for the water man.

MaxLike Caston, like I told people it so many times. I was like, no, it's not going to happen. Like when we were doing the writing campaign, I was like, it's not going to happen. It's impossible to get that many write-in votes. And then when there was the court challenge, I was like, it's not going to happen. We're not going to win in court. I'm like, oh, my God. It was one thing after another with that campaign. That's probably the wildest roller coaster of any campaign I've ever worked on for the Water Reclamation Board of Greater Cook County. Water Reclamation.

MerlinI'm getting notes from people now about how difficult it is to hear the name of the Mac OS operating system version in any other voice than Mojave.

Mojave. hey hey king of the hill king of the hill is all on hulu now it's all on hulu i can laugh at the

Alexjokes also wow you guys were right great show remember when you told me seinfeld was a good

Merlinshow you're should check it out have you tried the beatles yeah that show seinfeld is the kind

Maxof show you can never album light album's coming up friday on the way with uh that seinfeld will never fly today with today's pc college students you could never get away with those uh jokes about

Merlinuh but uh superman breakfast cereal yeah i return no i return no max gets to win this week for once

Alexmerlin merlin i have a conversation just for you and i max max isn't a part of this um this morning in the super secret text channel you sent a text saying donald trump jr expected to be indicted by expecting to be expecting oh he's expecting it well well well oh that adds another layer it's a

Merlinshort article but it's more time that's what my shirt says did you see the guy outside the white house did you see the guy outside the white house the like employee entrance holding up a sign that says it's molar time oh god it's stupid but it's awesome uh yeah so go ahead so i don't i just thought that i said i had to i had to try and cheer up my wife and so i sent that to her and

Maxi said i hope this makes you feel why i was why was your wife uh feeling down you know it was a

Merlinhuge night last night i know i know but i don't want to talk about it wasn't what you guys want

Maxthis is your show um but you guys wanted an orange revolution where people were out in the streets and they did the military parade you got it you got me um the thing is i i expected to feel

Alexvery very bad yesterday and i went to bed feeling less bad and i feel like that is a win for me yes

Merlinthat's because that's how you can tell it's you and not us now what we wanted we wanted a broad scale smiting of all the bad people now whether that's logical or not does not matter that was the expectation or the hope was that there would be a smiting of all the bad people now the thing is now no you can help me out because you guys know how this all turned out but like heller it Looks like Heller's going down. Looks like Tester's going to win. Rohrabacher, who obviously is a fucking Russian spy. I'm so glad he lost. Steve Knight's going to lose. Katie Hill's going to win. I think. No, no, there's so many good ones. But the ones that suck, it does suck.

I mean, just... Scott Walker lost.

MaxFucking Scott Walker.

MerlinScott Walker. Suck my balls. And he got beaten by a teacher.

AlexOh, that was fun.

MerlinHe looks like a composite sketch of a food court.

AlexStop. Stop.

Merlinwere they chicken fingers or chicken nuggets i don't know but he keeps getting re-elected

Alexgo ahead alex i'm sorry it's your night oh it's my night well it was my morning and uh i open up this text and immediately think who is this handsome man in this story merlin just said without reading the bottom of the text and i haven't stopped thinking about it and i feel

Merlinso fucking disgusting.

AlexI thought for a second that Donald Trump Jr. looked like a hot divorce dad. And then I, you know how I am. He looks like he has

Merlina cotton candy machine in his torso.

AlexWhat is he doing? Oh my God. No, I thought, I mean, now looking, when you look at it bigger, he's standing the weird way and put it, like trying to push out his...

MerlinHe's doing that thing. He sticks his sternum out.

AlexI swear to God, his nipples must be pointing in the wrong direction.

MerlinOh, I bet they're like silver dollar pancakes. I bet he's got huge nipples. I mean areola. I'm sorry to be normative. Not the actual nipples. The areola. The areola would be like the size of a child's fist at least.

AlexCan I tell a politician nipple story? No, wait, wait. First, before- Speak your truth, Alex. I want everybody to send me ugly pictures of Donald Trump Jr. I need this. I am freaking out. Just send me the ugliest, worst pictures.

MerlinOh, you feel like you got to purge it out in a goop-like way.

AlexI need to purge. I need to purge. I need all the goop to go back inside me. I need the goop to go back.

MerlinYou cranked your hog to dawn, and now you need to purge it out.

AlexI'm done. Oh, God. That is eight seconds this morning. Terrible. Max, tell me about politicians' nipples, please. Do you remember?

MaxWait, I actually have to look this up. There's an amazing Donald Trump tweet. Do you guys know about this? Yes. Donald Trump, Barney Frank nipples. Google Donald Trump, Barney Frank nipples.

MerlinOh, there's a blouse.

MaxOh, here it is from real Donald Trump. Here we go. So it's from December 21st, 2011. So long before Trump was like in politics. And he just tweeted, he just tweeted, Barney Frank looked disgusting, nipples protruding, and his blue shirt before Congress. Very, very disrespectful.

Oh my goodness. Wait, is this a doctor's photo? Is this photo doctored? He looks like Meatloaf from Fight Club. Oh no. It's not doctored. It's not doctored. But I just think that's one of the funniest political tweets of all time. Is he okay?

I don't know. Oh, this is very upsetting.

AlexOkay.

MaxI'm going to close that tab.

MerlinOh, I don't know. Man, send me good-looking pictures of Marty Frank. I need to purge.

AlexOh, that's an unfortunate photograph.

MerlinIt's going to be interesting for sure. I was just watching the president's press conference, and now I'm looking at the Twitters about it. Oh, my goodness. He's having quite a day.

MaxWell, he feels like, I think the president feels like he restrained himself during the campaign season. He toned it down. That he was not at full craziness, right? He wasn't able to be fully Trump. And he feels like they lost because of that. And so now I think we're going to see some shit. Me and love did not show me love too bad.

AlexIs there going to be another big wave of staff leaving because he's mad at the people who shut him up? I don't know.

MaxI think largely the staff stories are kind of a distraction from substantive policy things. And I try not to, I don't know. But it doesn't matter. They're not effective anyway.

AlexBut everything makes so much sense in your world.

MerlinYou've got it all figured out. Well, I do. No, I know. It's a compliment. It's your day to win. My goodness, you have it figured out. For such a young man, you have so many things figured out. It's really astonishing the breadth and the depth of everything you uniquely understand

MaxMerlin you want to know what the last person who made fun of me you want to know what happened to them

MerlinHe lost an election Yeah

MaxAlright one final story So Run for Something had a huge night last night. I think they had over 200 candidates win nationwide. I continue to, you know, I work with a lot of different outside groups, and I think Run for Something is, in addition to having a great program

and a very good vision and a great leadership team, I think that they're very, very effective. I would say Emily's List and Run for Something are the two most effective sort of third-party organizations that I'm personally involved with. and I definitely urge you if you want to keep this momentum going to get involved with Run for something but you know the last thing I wanted to say of like why I think last night was was good and I have such a good I just have a good feeling in my body like I'm just I'm very very happy and relieved about the results of this election are you know you you do I do think it's helpful to

take a step back and just take like a macro look at how these things work so the Democratic Party you know has we haven't held the house in i don't know what it's been but since it's what 20 years

Alexi mean the majority of contemporary american history is democrat executive branch republican

Maxcongress well no i democrats before clinton hadn't held the executive branch and that's what i meant

Alexi guess by contemporary and now i'm going to shut up no i just i mean i mean look look at the the

Maxthe big trends of how these things move through history is like we've had we've I think the Democratic Party has sort of lacked a cohesive vision for a really long time like I don't think that the Clintonites and the Clinton sort of people have a cohesive vision for politics I

Merlinthink that it's like the best they can come up with is I mean I'm glad they ran on health care health care was successful for them but I think it was I mean I don't I don't mean to sound cynical but I think the running on health care came out of out of polling and they were able to realize is that this is, I don't mean that in the sense of like, yeah, my kid's really sick and has preexisting conditions, but more of like, we know this is something that we need to stick with because this will get people to the polls.

MaxBut I don't think that's,

MerlinI don't know if that's in their bones.

MaxSo I'm not even talking about an issue like healthcare. What I'm talking about is like a George Lakoff, like a vision of- A big idea. An idea of people and the universe and the world and the story that we're all in together. And that's what capture, that is what creates a national movement, and that is what makes something that survives beyond a single sort of cult of personality. And Obama, I love the guy, and I work very hard for him, but Obama was a singular cult of personality.

And he put, you know, unfortunately, like a lot of the Obama-era infrastructure was this sort of house of cards that only functioned if we had like a benevolent philosopher king in the executive branch, and now, of course, it collapsed the minute that Trump got in there. And I understand that there's all these factors of they could only get done what they could get done, but I've been waiting for a message, a belief, something for people to connect with to say, here's what it means to be a Democrat. Here's what it's about to be the party. Now, Republicans had the same problem after George W. Bush, right, that Bush had sort of destroyed the Republican brand, and it was one series of catastrophes after another,

and he was very, very unpopular to the point where he couldn't even campaign for McCain. And the Republicans took an absolute beating. They lost all three branches of government. And then, you know, you're kind of start from the bottom, right? So you start in your library board and you start on your city council and you look at your neighborhood and you start to build. And it's one brick at a time and it's very methodical and you have to build and build and build. So what was the first thing that happened was Republicans get the house, right?

And then they now – and Republicans also reinvented what they were about with this really exciting, compelling vision of the Tea Party where they had like a whole like ontology about the country and the story that we're in and an individual's role in that story. And like I don't agree with it, but it was exciting. Like they clearly got people very fired up with this Tea Party thing. And they had like interesting, dynamic candidates that appealed to their story, right? So you had these guys that were like a funeral home director and a dog butcher, you know, like regular guys who were like, you know, it was appealing that they weren't politicians, they had no qualifications, and they were part of this big historic move and this vision and this set of beliefs.

And what happened? They won the House, and then they won more in the House, and they won more in the House, and then eventually they won the Senate, and then eventually they won all three branches of government and got two Supreme Court seats. And it all started with that local, like, how do we get our movement into the library boards? And I think what I see that's optimistic right now is I do see a vision congealing in the Democratic Party. I think there's a legitimization of leftism in the Democratic Party that I have not seen in my lifetime where people are thinking about issues like Medicare, expansion, minimum wage.

There's a political program that connects to an ideology that connects to exciting, cool candidates like Sean Caston, who's not a politician. he's a energy he's a climate scientist right he's like like uh he appeals to the story that we have to to sort of tell people about the world and this election uh yes it is not everyone did not put on the you know that they live glasses and and see the trump ghouls and you know whatever execute them in the streets and hang them from the street lamps or whatever everyone was hoping for but nonetheless we built we put down those bricks and we had a lot of candidates win for city council

library board, 200 run for something candidates, interesting candidates, you know, young women running for office for the first time, Muslim candidates, trans candidates that connect to the story that we want to tell about this country that's like building the bench. And I'm telling you, give it time and trust the process and get involved and it will yield results. Like we will be back in power. And I think we have a far more compelling and hopeful vision for the future than the Republican movement and the Republican ideology.

And I do believe that the day will come when ours will stick. Like I guess I am an optimist in that way. And what proof more do you need than last night? Nebraska, Kansas, Idaho, Maine, Utah, all very conservative states voted for Medicaid expansion.

AlexI'll have a hot take. Merlin, I'm sorry.

MaxWhy?

AlexI'm not a, because we're talking about this so long. I am an absolute. Oh, no, it's okay.

MerlinI'm used to having my challenges pushed away, even when they're not mine. About three pairs of pants.

AlexI was going to say, this is my challenge. It's my challenge. It's my pants. My body, my pants. I didn't shoot. Get your hands out of my pants. normally after a big blue wave or whatever I I'm almost I'm worried because people get people get lazy after that typically or at least that's what it feels like oh we got them now we're done but last night it felt even the folks who want like I I was bummed that our friend Hadia didn't

win but she's fucking 18 years old and incredibly smart like it took tammy duckworth like 20 years to win not to like say that she's a bad candidate or something i already was texting with hadia and i was like what's next let's make a plan exactly they everybody who not every but it felt like especially in dupage uh everyone was very excited even if they lost and i don't usually buy into the idea of well the old guys are going to die off and then everything will be fine because guess what

nazis raid is nazis but the younger liberal and leftist folks who are there's they're just smarter they're smarter and they're listening to different people and they're not just listening and like holding the party line they're doing new and creative things that i they have like a coherent

Merlinworldview that doesn't make you want to die. Exactly. Even to understand the optics of saying, well, listen, we certainly could get money from PACs and super PACs, but we're going to choose not to do that because we don't even want, as they used to say, the appearance of impropriety. And we don't want that money. We don't want that money. We don't want that influence. We can get where we need to be by other means, by fighting people of like minds who have the same values that we do and aren't constantly trying to square the circle on how you're going to be able to, looking forward to the next FEC filing.

MaxNo, they're doing something different.

MerlinAnd I think that is wildly encouraging. And I think people who are too crusty about how much we need to keep pushing to the center, I mean, I even heard it this morning. There were a lot of hot takes this morning about like, oh, see the ones who made it are the ones who clung near the center. And I'm like, yeah, we're still in this old paradigm. I'm not sure when all these people, all other people die off and it's just smart young liberals and really young ding-a-lings, like I'm going to be glad those people are there doing what they're doing.

Alexthey have nothing to lose like folks folks do we love this do we love do we love these black

Maxvery successful you want to talk about pants i i want one more thing alex about your that i just

Merlinwant to i you did this you did this last week too on three separate occasions last week you said we really need to get to the challenge but i know i have one more thing i want to i want to leave

Maxwith the Dubai Friday audience, which is, first of all, the Dubai Friday audience, I do want to just throw out a couple of thank yous. So we fundraised, did these Twitch streams, which, you know, as you know, I was attacked viciously and unfairly, maligned by former Congressman Peter Roskam for doing these streams with congressional candidates. The Dubai Friday audience was very nice. We raised a ton of money for a bunch of progressive candidates all around the country, and a number of them won last night. So thank you to everyone on the Discord and all the Dubai Friday listeners who gave some money and supported those streams and a special shout out to Robbie and Matt

for technically making those streams happen and volunteering a huge amount of time and effort. I truly could not have done that without you guys and I'm very proud of that and I think the results speak for themselves. And the final thing I'll say to people listening to this because I had a lot of people reach out to me. Actually, it was really, really nice yesterday. A number of people reached out and said, hey, I heard what you guys talked about on Dubai Friday and I got involved with my local state ledge race and I'm happy I volunteered and that's amazing. And the final thing I wanted to say is like, you know, I had this, I talked about having this feeling when I was watching the health care vote come in and I was like, I'm just going to go after, like, I've just got to do something so Roskam is my race, right?

I'm just going to focus on Illinois 6th. And there were, trust me, there were a lot of mornings where I woke up and I was like, this is insubstantial. This is so insubstantial. It's one guy in one district. And, you know, we're in a huge country of 300 million people and this is not doing enough. Like, this is not making everyone put on the they live glasses. this is just it's so I'm just I'm just one one little you know one one little cog in this machine here and it's it's not enough and I should be doing more and in the last you know I I've actually the other thing I haven't talked about is I've been on a hiatus from cards I took like almost a month

off just to to to work on campaigns leading up to the election and I've been out canvassing a lot for casting and there's been a lot of long days where I was out in the rain or whatever and I was I can't usually go to campus alone because I'm pretty quick at it. And I was out handing out flyers to people who were not happy that I was at their house and talking to people who had no fucking clue who the Democrat and the Republican were. And there were times when I felt very hopeless. I'm like, I'm not doing anything. And, oh, I should go do some sort of clever online start a hat company or something.

You know, what am I doing? This is not doing anything. and it had me it I felt like I am just one little ant carrying one little sugar crystal to the queen right now right like this is not this is not enough like I it's not doing anything but the way I feel now in retrospect is if you know that's the problem is if no ants carry a sugar crystal to the queen then you don't build the anthill that's the problem good job being an

Alexant yay all the ants thank you who wait who's the queen ant sean caston merlin i really want to hear about your pants um i've lost interest at this point

MerlinI got three pairs of pants wait three? yes it's a challenge you get pants

Alexchallenge what was the challenge? the challenge this week was to get a new pair of pants

Merlinyeah and implicit in that was mix it up a little bit

Alexmmhmm mmhmm I'm okay I'm okay so there was a max pant preview in the after show last week and merlin in the super secret text channel you sent a photograph or screenshot of pants that you were going to receive and i'm

Merlinvery curious it was awesome and heartbreaking well who should we do you want me to start

AlexOh, please. Please.

MerlinI ordered three pairs of pants. Mm-hmm. The pants trifecta. And so one of them was, I really wanted to just try some new things, some different things. I got a pair of Ochenta. Ochenta tactical pants. Ochenta. I got Ochenta men's cotton military cargo pants, eight pocket casual work combat trousers, number 35736. I'm going to set aside my huge fucking beef with the sizing of pants. because it's very troubling to me that nobody ever has my size and that oh can you share your size Merlin yeah I mean keeping your pants Alex you won the

election I'm pretty right did day to day I'm sorry between a 34 and a six bone pretty solid like in Levi's at 35 32 and which now I think there can I share my

Maxthoughts on this I think that they're making Levi's for I think they're changing the numbers for a let's say heavier population as the population trends heavier you think it's kind of pants inflation i think that we're seeing some pants inflation because i can tell you i am definitely a 34 but i buy a like 34 is too big now like i'm definitely a 32 and i have not lost two inches of weight do you know what i'm saying yeah but are

Merlinyou counting for shrinkage of the pants that's the other thing is i've always bought my levi's big because i'm mostly i mean really ever since college i've been over 90 when i wear jeans they're 501s.

And so you always buy, I buy the totally like on anything, you know, dark, unwashed. They're like, they're basically like a piece of plywood or balsa wood when they arrive. And you, I have a method. But so I tried different things this time. I just want to, so I want to set aside because I have beef with big pants. Big pant, big pant. Large trouser industry. But no, I got all 36, 32s on everything and they're all too big because 34 would be too small. But that's okay. They shrink. and I can work with that. It's like I buy my Doc Martens a little big.

Once again, with shoes, I'm almost exactly a nine and a half, just the tiniest bit over a nine and a half, which puts me like right in the worst size for English shoes because English shoes are a literal holocaust of sizing.

But you can do that. You can wear thicker socks. You can put in insoles. There are ways to deal with Doc Martens, which I do. So what I got, first I got the tactical pants. And oh boy, they did not, it was not good. I've gotten tactical pants in the past, but these are like clown pants like balloon pants. I didn't like those. Let's move past those Here's the heartbreaker guys. I have been looking so forward to this car hearts car heart men's duck bib overall Unlined are zero one car heart brown 36. I saw that you ordered those in the channel and shit

MaxHere's what are you gonna do with those pants? We're shit out of them. No shirt. I'm gonna roll hard hillbilly on these but when are you when the when is the time when you're like ah now is the bright time for

Merlinthese overalls max how often do you like to notice that you have a waist how often do you feel good going oh there's my waist are there times through the day we go i feel good about the waist that i'm noticing does that happen to you a lot when you're making your comedy cards you say oh i feel good about my waist have you been fat shamed i mean that's no no no no i'm a hard 23 on the bmi i'm I'm a good looking guy. 5, 10, 164. Beer can cock. I look great in pants.

MaxOh, this is so fucking funny. I'm sorry. This is so fucking funny. So Scott Walker, when he was the governor of Wisconsin. Just one more thing. He signed a law. Scott Walker, a huge piece of shit topic for another time. But he signed a law that prevented the second place vote getter from requesting a recount if they lost by more than 1%. And he lost by 1.2%.

Alexoh no okay we've got one more thing

MerlinI'm happy to see him lose oh boy eat shit Scott Walker they arrived yesterday at two my other two pairs of pants arrived yesterday afternoon I was so excited I took him out I put him on I put on the Carhartt's men's duck bib overall and lined R01 Carhartt brown 36x32 and they were fucking great. I've worn Carhartt pants for years. I used to wear the, like, totally unnecessary for a liberal arts student to wear these, but I've always liked them

and they're very rugged. These were awesome, but, but there was a fatal flaw. They had an error. The little strap connector on one of the overall sides was not there, so I had to do a refund. Now, John Siracusa says, why don't you just roll with that? Isn't that kind of a cool hillbilly look to have one strapped down? and I responded by saying I may be a hillbilly but I like symmetry so that they're working on that now what I am receipt of and wearing as we speak are Levi's Men's 5-1-1 Slim Fit

Commuter Jeans Gray 4-Way Stretch 36-32 I'm wearing Max's pants

AlexI got Max's pants and they're a little big but they're great they're great I like the color you got very much it's a very interesting

Merlinthey're like if blue jeans were gray it's really interesting right now you get the same kind of striated like faded pattern i like the lady stretch pant i like i like the way it's like a lady pant where it stretches a little taper i may even it's got the technology i may even do this and it won't make you guys pay for it you're gonna pay for these that i bought because that's a challenge but i will i think try a 34 32 and maybe have

Maxso you're gonna try you're gonna try a 34 32 and make the mexicans pay for it oh they're gonna pay

Merlinfor it it's aspirational pants it's gonna go on their tab l tab i call it um so yeah uh these are great i love my pants challenge and and so when do the other ones return arriving tomorrow by 9 p.m carhartt's men's ducks duck bib overall unlined r01 carhartt when are you gonna wear when are you

Maxgonna wear you're gonna pick your daughter up in school in these actually it's funny you should

Merlinsay that because i have been specifically i believe the supreme court calls a prior restraint i've been specifically admonished by my daughter to never wear those anywhere that someone she

Maxnose could see them they're very handsome but but when are you gonna wear them is what i'm trying

Merlinto figure out do you understand what my life is like max do you understand the 51 almost 52 years i've spent making the like that life that i have i spend my entire life in approximately a four by four block area where i have everything that i need my office is on literally the same block as my house i will wear my overalls all the time no shirt deal with it wait you currently have overalls that you wear with no no no it's aspirational but i'm gonna work on my you're I'm going to get ripped. No, no. I mainly got it for the challenge. I thought it'd be fun. It's got a place to put a pen in. It's got buttons. It's got straps.

Did you really zoom in? Did you zoom in on how cool these are? Alex and I are both sitting here with our jaws. Like, Alex's jaw is literally open. I look good. I look good in these. I fill these jeans. Ooh, I look good in these.

AlexI really like Merlin's fashion choices because I think they are rugged and stylish typically, including the Crocs. I look like a rugged, gay, retired Canadian. Yes. Rest in peace, Crocs. And I thought that you were going to have a useful... I mean, is it camping? Is it painting? Or is this a bit?

MaxYou guys want a great headline. It's no Bingo Googleman headline. Remember my Bingo Googleman headline? Sure do.

MerlinBut this is also pretty good. It has a really nice build to it, right?

MaxYeah. Every part of it, it just builds and builds and builds.

MerlinIs this the Nevada finding the body?

MaxMaybe. Maybe. Here we go.

AlexRead it, read it, read it

MaxAssociated Press Deceased Nevada brothel owner Dennis Hoff Wins state assembly race Weeks after he was found dead At his Love Ranch brothel By Porn actor Ron Jeremy

AlexThere we go

MaxThere's so much to it A lot going on there It's like he took out all the leftovers in the fridge Congratulations Congratulations to the GOP on electing their dead pimp to the Nevada State Assembly. Nice. Congratulations. No, honestly, that's a big win for you guys. Pronounce Nevada.

MerlinThat's a big win. So I love my pants. I love my curvy pants. I will get, to the extent possible, I'll try to get a photo in my fancy boy overalls when they arrive. Oh, I also got a jean jacket. I got a Levi's jean jacket. Now, in this one, I was smart. I went extra large because I know it'll shrink. They run a little small, and they're kind of hard to move around in. I keep wanting to love these jackets more than I do but yeah yesterday when we went to vote I was wearing 501s with a jacket that was approximately exactly as faded as the jeans and look my wife has dubbed Jean Jean so I was rolling Jean Jean

I had my Popat shirt on and a Carhartt cap and my wife said I look Canadian I said thank you I also found a new way to shine my shoes that I'm very excited about Antonio Delgado won in New York there's one more thing Alex how'd you do on the pants challenge?

Alexoh wow um peanut butter real hard real sticky peanut butter do you have aspirations to try different pants i did i hated all of them and i've accepted that i am going to own one pair of pants and i'm going to get them like i like tailored and and nice i'm also in the weird area between like i i am a giant giant lady as everybody knows i'm a giant yeti lesbian And so I'm like between, I know, right?

There's a little asterisk. So typically 16, which is why, like 16 is in ladies pants. In dude pants, I think I'm a 40. I don't know. But typically I wear guys jeans just because they're comfier and they look less ridiculous on me. Exactly. They've got well and the thing is they don't fit well, but I wear them around the house and I wear them when no one will see me.

MerlinYou're pretty fired up for somebody who didn't do the challenge.

AlexI tried. I tried so hard. You were busy. You were helping Sean cast. I was. That's also the thing. I felt so bad because I was out of the state for two days and I'm like, I could be canvassing. But then Patreon, Patriot Con was. Oh, yeah. Will you tell us about that in the after show? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody, if you want.

MaxLet me plug this real quick.

AlexJesus Christ.

MaxLet me just interrupt you. One more thing. One more thing.

AlexOne more thing.

MaxYeah, listen, you're probably wondering, how does Dubai Friday make money? Because we don't read any ads for, I don't know, catheters. What was on CNN? I was watching CNN yesterday, and the ads were so bad.

MerlinOriginally found in jellyfish.

MaxThat's my favorite. You may notice that over 80% of boner pills sold are fake, and that's why we started the real boner pill company. These catheters are nearly painless. Nearly painless?

MerlinI'm a pop. Hi.

AlexHi.

MerlinI'm Robert Pilot, and I love to fly. but I have to put something in my wiener to catch my urine. These are virtually painless. I take the tubes that arrive in the mailbox and I drive them into my penis before I take off in my plane. Originally found in jellyfish.

MaxI won this 55-inch TV for $30 on dealdash.com. Now that I think about it, the phrase virtually painless is very funny because it means it's painful.

MerlinLiberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. Oh, my God, I've become like a Fox News viewer. MSNBC is melting my brain We are farmers You fucking idiot

MaxAm I wrong or did there used to be a higher Caliber of commercial on cable news Doctor

AlexI mean They used to show movie trailers

MerlinYeah or like have a coconut smile And now it's all like Would you like to get out of your time share Try these free catheters We win big big big Settlement settlement settlement

MaxThe mesothelioma, mesothelioma, survivors, survivors, survivors. My, so much lung. So anyhow, we don't do any of that stuff here on Dubai Friday and you're probably wondering how we make money. Well, we've got a Patreon and the thing is, you have money and we want your money. You can go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com and you can sign up for $5 a month and you get a whole second episode every week and it sounds like this week, Alex recently went to Patricon,

AlexPatricon, Patricon, I don't know how to say it. You pay us.

MaxIf you pay us, you can hear about it.

AlexYou can hear about the conference that I went to that someone paid for me to go to.

MaxAlex went to the Patreon convention, and I want to hear all about it.

MerlinDid you get any? Was it in Vegas? Where was it?

AlexLike, Dick, what are you asking if I got?

MerlinI'm not normative. You pick whatever you want.

AlexI got a few tote bags. Tote bags. I got in trouble because I was mean to the Simple Casper.

MerlinOh, Jesus Christ. Oh, no. Jesus Christ. We are so— You know what? You're going to go to a $15 level. You're going to have to hear what I have to say about Simplecast this week.

MaxAnyway, we'll talk about all of this on the after show.

MerlinGive us your fucking money.com. Thank you for your support.

MaxBack to the pants.

AlexI'm sorry, everyone. All right. So pants.

MaxTrying to get paid, you know?

AlexPants. I actually went to Old Navy and, oh, maybe I didn't peanut butter. Well, I got the exact same pants as I'm wearing now, which are the, like, straight. It's like they want to call them skinny jeans, but they're not. It's got a clever name, like the straight skinny. They also have something called the rock star, which is basically jeggings, which is not my jam. That's not a good word.

MerlinA jegging.

AlexA jegging.

MerlinOh.

AlexA jegging. A jegging. Oh.

MerlinBobby, remove those jeggings.

Maxtake those jeggings

Merlinsame ride

Maxwhat Alex what is a jegging

Alexwait do you really not know it's some sort of

Merlinit's just a zoom jean

Alexit's a jean and a legging you can guess what a jort is exactly it's got a lot of stretchy technology it's a jort as a Jewish orc

Merlinor like a jism which is a blue Eugene Seaman. Got it. Chisholm Jorts. Hi.

AlexHi, I'm Robert Jort.

MerlinWe've changed the way catheters work with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish.

MaxThere's one of those grocery delivery trucks that drives around Chicago, and it's on the side. It just says in huge letters, honk if you're hangry. Which I always... That's not going to scale well. It says honk if you're hangry, and I always, in my head, I think hangry is horny and angry. I fuck a melon.

MerlinGod damn it, I'm so mad right now. Where's my melon? The Jews stole my melons.

AlexYou didn't take the peanut butter, Patriot Con.

MaxWhat about Max? Well, I've got my, let me stand up here. I've got my new black Levi's jeans on. Oh, lovely. What do you think? 511 commuter?

AlexIs it a 511 commuter? No, they're not the commuter. No, they're different.

MaxJust a regular ass 511s.

AlexI was sent a picture this weekend. And it was Max and his jeans. Thumbs up from producer Quinn. It's great. Great pants. Great pants. And you can pull off the gray and the black. Is it too much black? No. There's never enough black. There's never enough black. Thank you.

MaxIn the black jeans matter. I'm feeling pretty cool in these black pants. I feel like I've kind of got the Kevin Budnick pants look going here.

AlexYou're doing the Budnick. I feel cool.

MaxThe Budnick.

AlexI feel cool. The thing that Kevin Budnick

MaxThe one thing is they're already matted in cat hair I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with that except wash them

AlexThat's the thing Which I'm not going to be doing Luckily you have a light haired cat So at least you don't need to You can pick a color

MerlinFeels like you haven't been rolling in pubes

AlexWait how is it good though

MaxBecause I'm wearing black jeans So the white cat hairs are pretty conspicuous

AlexBecause, well, that's the thing. You only need to deal with white. You don't need to worry about any white shirts. And I know this is hard.

MaxAm I going to wear white blue jeans like Freddie Mercury?

AlexNo, no.

MaxCan anybody find me?

AlexI don't care. The movie looks good.

MaxI think that's bad. I think we're not supposed to see that movie.

AlexI guess it glosses over.

MerlinDid you see the Sacha Baron Cohen comments about it?

AlexI have not.

MerlinThere's two things everybody has to say about this movie. Most importantly, far and away, Rami Malek headed for the stars. Fantastic performance.

AlexHeck yes. But apparently the surviving members of Queen were very involved in how the movie worked.

MerlinAnd an unnamed member of Queen, who I'm pretty sure is the drummer, said they wanted the third act to basically be about how good and successful Queen had been. The third act of the movie was originally to have been about how great they did without Freddie.

Alexoh well okay might have a saucer baroncone might have been in disguise when i said that but

Merlinqueen is queen is a very queen is one of the very few like all three members of our household genuinely like queen so we get we play a lot of queen in the house oh i would not have for some

Alexreason i would not have pegged you as a queen guy oh all right one more thing one more thing

Maxno no i i don't have another thing about pants before we get into the after show here which no I think Alex I think you're gonna be into this

AlexI did however get a wallet folio case for my phone because I lost my mind and my ID it's a piece of shit it's terrible however you know what's great not carrying a wallet and a phone it makes me hate my phone it's apples it's terribly made I don't even want to talk about how much it cost that is disgusting. Why? It looks like the stitching

Maxon a private jet.

AlexIt's already falling apart. That's a real mom kind of thing to have. It is. It absolutely is. It absolutely is. It is. I, it's the worst.

MaxIf I need to get my car for this fro-yo.

AlexIt's the worst. Alex has got a

Maxfat $50 bill sitting right here

Merlinin the wall. They don't make $50 bills. What are you talking about?

AlexThat was the, um, my birthday present from my, my in-laws three months late. Oh, that's so sweet. They pay you in cash. Yeah, it was lovely. They just gave me... What's up with you? Do you like this? Your interests are inscrutable.

MaxHere's money. Other than that it's falling apart, do you like the... Is it practical to have the wallet?

AlexIt is. Traveling with it was so good.

MerlinDo you use your phone like a speakerphone now? Do you talk into it like it's a piece of pizza?

AlexI very, very, very rarely call somebody where I'm not in a small enclosure.

MaxAlex, you should do some sort of a bit of someone who talks into their wallet like it's a phone. That would be funny.

AlexThat would be really funny.

MaxOkay, Blue Jean News. So check this out. I got an email from, unfortunately, I got this email on Monday, and there was no time to do anything about it before the challenge due to electoral reasons. But it says, hi, Max. Listen to your podcast talking about jeans. Would love to have you out to my factory and show you how we make them in Chicago. Best, Rob.

That sounds like the coolest shit in the world. I absolutely want to do that. Alex, I think we should go and take some sort of camera and do a How It's Made Dubai Friday. Unless it turns out to be a sweatshop, in which case I think we probably do a How It's Made.

AlexIn which case we never visited there. I can opine on how that video is going.

MerlinYou really kind of had that with me in mind, didn't you? You can have me come in over a 3G signal so I can have remarks. We have a telepresence robot you could use, Merlin. That would be funny for our listeners.

MaxAll right. Let's see. What else did I have about that? Oh, and the final jeans topic was people. I had a lot of comments. I had a lot of comments last week of people asking me if I got my jeans tailored. And, yes, I get them hemmed. I think most people should probably get their blue jeans. Unless you're, like, exactly the right height for store jeans, which most people aren't.

MerlinThey can do that with dungarees? Are you comfortable with that? We have a real good tailor in our neighborhood. My lady suggested I go there and let him fix my rise.

MaxWell, oh, I don't do any of that. I just get them hemmed on the cuffs. Yeah, that's it.

MerlinBut then don't you lose your reflective part or the whole inside reflective or is it just the bottom? The whole, it goes, so on the commuter jeans, which I no longer have,

Maxit goes all the way up the leg. You got rid of all of them? No, I mean, I have, I just, the black jeans don't have that. So anyway, I do, I recommend, like, listen, I just take it to my dry cleaner and they do hem it and they're not like a tailor, but they'll hem my blue jeans and it's cheap. I really recommend you do this. If you're in a regular size, which most people are. You ever buy anything from American Apparel?

MerlinI think this might even be a bit. But if you buy anything. Why are you making mouth noises? What's happening?

AlexNo, because I know. I'm sorry. I know what you're going to say. Please go on.

MerlinThe legs are a dare. The legs on everything from American Apparel are a dare and a joke and an insult. Because if you get anything that almost kind of fits you in the waist with a ridiculously long rise, you will still have an extra four and a half feet of hem at the bottom. You'll be walking around like flipper pants. That's where Bader are workshops. Is that right?

MaxYeah. Fog machine. Why would he be funny running against Trump? Because he's so tall and cool and athletic, and he would just make Trump look like such a melting pile of mashed potatoes. Trump at this point looks like a home craft project.

It looks like if you cut him open, it would just be ground beef. consistent, like a consistent piece of ground beef. This is like a raw meat.

MerlinIt looks to me like a craft project at a vacation Bible school, but you don't know what holiday it's for. And you're like, oh, that turned out good, Janine. Nice job.

MaxWhy's his hair like that? When we feed the cat every night, I sort of, we feed her wet food to get her teeth. So I pop the top off the can, and then you sort of jiggle it. You sort of ease the food out, and then it sort of, and it has that wet squelching sound, and then it sort of plops down, like that onto the plate with its juices. And I really think that if you looked inside Trump, he's just wet food

Merlinfrom head to sternum. But also his skin has the consistency of a lady's fancy purse. There's something about that and there's the moisture and the pores. His pores are very large. You could park a Segway

Maxon those pores. He's one of these never water guys.

MerlinYou think so?

MaxOh my God.

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

104. One More Thing

Show notes

Transcript

0:00

0:21

0:34

0:40

0:44

0:56

0:59

1:25

1:55

2:20

2:27

2:52

2:53

3:05

3:10

3:11

3:25

3:27

3:41

3:51

3:57

4:01

4:07

4:13

4:16

4:21

4:27

4:57

5:09

5:18

6:00

6:01

6:04

6:34

6:36

6:52

6:56

7:27

8:01

8:15

8:21

8:51

9:11

9:14

9:26

9:30

9:40

10:12

10:42

11:12

11:15

11:22

11:38

12:09

12:45

13:15

13:17

13:37

13:44

14:11

14:16

14:41

14:49

14:59

15:23

15:25

15:28

15:33

16:04

16:16

16:18

16:50

16:54

16:57

17:18

17:19

17:21