367. O.J. Died While We Were in Hawaii

This is Do by Friday, a challenge. Podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, Watch Taskmaster Hello. Hello, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I am fine. How are you? I'm well. How are you? I had that exchange with someone yesterday and I I felt really bad for the guy. He kind of Brian Regan me a little bit. I was curious because was No already though. He knew about it two years ago. No, it's not Oh No. One time I asked Merlin Mann Oh, you didn't know about Ghost, which is a very popular blogging slash newsletter slash like everything publishing platform. And because you're Mer Merlin Mann and you are very talented and know a lot of the coolest services that host writing.

I made the incorrect assumption that you did not know what ghost dot io was. So you had a Brian Regan interaction. Yes? I I know you've been having a hard time, so I'm just gonna let you have these. I I'm not sure. You can have all of these. I'm sorry. I I apologize. I should have known about that. That was gosh, that was weird. I'm so sorry. I feel like I'm gonna open notes. Um Let's see. Um, notes as in a Google uh docs or or No, as in the app that people open and we made a uh last time we recorded or f time before us we made a joke about how people use it for apologies. All right, yeah. It's Apparently become uh no, no, I didn't I don't know most things. I wish I did. I apologize. I know you've been having a hard time.

How are you, Alex? So anyways, I'm coming up the hill. Uh coming up that road, coming up that hill, and I I came all over the hill. And I was um got it. Yeah. No, because It was in a Gray's album named the song. Oh god, I don't know. It I know the placebo Yes, I know. I believe it's the placebo cover that was in a show. Oh, plusbo. I should have known that. So I'm coming up the hill and I'm on my scoot scoot and I actually unusually I did not have have headphones on, but this guy had headphones on. It's a neighbor I hadn't seen. before and I'm making the turn and how cause like you know I say hello to people. I say hello. If it's in the morning, I say good morning. And if it's in the afternoon, I say, hey, how's it going?

You know, and and I wave and I go slow and I try to make a good impression. I want to represent my community. Yes. Yeah. Uh-huh. Well, this is a new black guy in the neighborhood I haven't seen before. All right. But anyway, it seemed cool. He had on headphones. He was picking up some stuff in front of his house and I go, Hey, how's it going? I think it went like this. He said, uh uh he said it first. I made eye contact and smiled and he said, How's it going? I said, Great. Uh I'm how are you doing? And he goes, Good, how are you? And I said, I'm I'm really good. I said, I'm I'm glad I'm glad the day's over, but it was it was a good day. I was like, have a great evening. It's because you know, I've learned this from from being married.

You know, uh my wife l likes likes to correct literally everything I say. And then when she makes an error because she corrects everything I say, she she she actually corrects herself. And she gets kind of mad about it. 'Cause this is how she is. Mm. I knew that already. Yeah. She she's not she's not Rain Man, but she's Rain a little bit. Renee. Hi. I'm Rene Man. Hi. Hi. And uh and I say, uh Madeline, I don't correct people if I understood what they meant. If I don't understand what someone meant or or it didn't come across to me, what I say to them is, I don't think I understood what you said. What I don't say is, no, you did it wrong. And so the new black man in our neighborhood, guess what first impression I well here let's just the black part doesn't matter.

Um except bringing it up. Yeah. Uh oh, I have! Wait. Oh. So if you saw a giraffe on your street, if you saw a giraffe on your street and you said hello. And it went, how are you? And and then you said and the giraffe said, How are you twice? Would you try would you try to make the giraffe feel bad? And would you wouldn't you also notice you have a fucking giraffe in your neighborhood? Don't ask me to leave my sense behind for your weird pseudo-values. Hey brother. I d I give the the trick. I did. I give all black men apples. I can't I carry them with me. You know, John D. Rockefeller used to used to stand at the uh at the foot of the Empire State Building, uh he would hand out shiny new dimes.

And I do that with with the black. And sometimes they're confused. Because I I assume they haven't seen apples. But you know, when I I say excuse me I say, hello, how are you? And I offer them an apple. And I go, Huh? Huh? Like this? And I'm kind of like, huh? Huh? And they and sometimes they seem confused that I'm giving them an apple I think sometimes they're confused because I'm giving an apple just to them and not to anybody else, cause there's no other giraffes in in Rat Impressionville. North Haberbrook or whatever it's called. Anyways. I don't see gira I don't see species. You know what giraffes appreciate? Giraffes appreciate when you say I didn't even notice you were a giraffe. I don't notice now.

I've decided it'll impress somebody I don't know if I act like I don't realize you're a fucking giraffe. Let's compare black people to animals. Lots of people, lots of people are our allies. Few people are an accomplice. Jump, chomp chomp thanks for the apple. How'd you get a whip? It'll be you know it would be kind of fun. I don't I don't think I don't it doesn't matter the listener. Hey hey guys welcome back it's night I've missed you all Um, I missed Alex. Um, we haven't talked in a while, but um yeah, yeah, you know, sometimes sometimes it gives somebody a little flavor of what it's like when Scott Summer takes off his Ruby lenses. I would be happy to do an entire episode where I just be how I am.

If if you would want to do that, I would do that. You have no idea you're getting one twelfth of how I am. I'm not going to say I'm not going to say I know but I Uh is it one twelfth as in one twelfth of the episode? What's difficult to understand about Amplitude versus volume versus periodicity or whatever, right? Like what wave are we talking about here? Um I it's a good question. Well the thing is, uh you listened to did you listen to Monday's Roderick? I did. So like that's a pretty good example of like me at 40%. Where the problem is if I start doing references And then I start doing references on my references and I go like, I don't, it's not, it's not quite hat on a hat. I know you're thinking that, but it's not.

Um, but the deeper I get into weird references, the faster they come. And the worst part is the harder the harder it is to stop. Once I start referencing, like uh two people are gonna catch a reference to a seventies Frank Zappa song in that episode. Maybe. I mean, there's maybe two via available listeners that would hear me go, some people. Like if somebody will hear that and will instantly know that that's a Frank Zapper reference. And they go, ah, in in a car. And then people go, no, actually, actually it was Captain Beefheart that sang Muffin Man. And I say, yes, it was Captain Beefheart who sang Muffin Man, but it was with Frank Zappa's band. And did you know that they went to high school together?

Do you want to do this? I would say. Do you want it do you you don't don't bring a giraffe to an apple fight, is what I always say. No, no. And that's just as true today. They call it the old William Tell. That's what happened with William William S. Burroughs and his wife. You know, he's related to the Burroughs, Fortune, the people who invented the computers and whatnot. And uh and uh he was an alien in the movie played by Peter Weller, who was also of course in ReboCop, but later he became a distinguished uh scholar of I I wanna say Italian architecture, but I haven't checked. He puts the gun in his leg. That's it? That's it? I thought it was hard to stop. Come on, good keep going, keep going.

Come on. I mean if you're muted it's not as fun. I'm not mm- Well I don't hear a cat so you're muted Well uh no I I gave my cats treats because what kind of treats did you give your cats? Uh hairball treats. Oh I gotta put this Oh shit, really? Yeah. Do they have hairballs? Do they do they do that thing? Do they make the noise and all? One does. I hate that I hate that noise. I hate that I hate the hairball noise so much. I've had a baby. I've had a baby barf and spit up on me and they are different. But but like I've heard a lot of vomiting. I vomit regularly. Um it doesn't bother me, but if something the kick the cat cats make the worst sounds. Their sex sounds suck. There are have you ever heard cats having intercourse?

It's horrible. I've seen the episode of South Park where there's a cat orgy, but other than that. I uh no, I went to the mystical town of South Park, turned into a cart or what did they do? Are you allowed to be alive in Colorado? Is that okay? That's why we have to go to Florida. Thanks for everyone who reached out in Florida. What? About what? About what Oh you're talking to me. Why are you changing the topic? We're not done talking about this topic. No, I didn't. God, now my bell sounds off-key to me, and I know it's not, but every bell's different. Mm-mm. I o I tried to send you the floor. You know what I'm saying? How far are you on Shogun? Keep going, keep going. I haven't started it. I have a hold uh on the book at the library.

It's very big. It's very, very, very big. Shogun the book before it was Shogun the Richard Chamberlain TV show and before it was obviously Anj Anjinsama. Um but long before that it was a book and it was a white cover. I think it had a samurai sword on it and it said Shogun. Yeah, well the paperback was just everywhere when I was a kid. I see I don't remember Jaws the novel being a phenomenon. I know Jaws the movie, but I was there for Shogun the novel. being everywhere and it and I just remember thinking somebody's gonna read that whole book. You know when you're little and you see you know the one for me when I was little was uh what's the Louisa May Alcott book? Um Little Women You'd see girls lots of girls read you know Little Women when I was in like elementary school.

You see them carrying around a library copy of Little Women. Have you ever have you ever looked at Little Women? You ever seen how thick it is? It's a really big book. I I carried it around and I did read it because, you know, I I wanted that valor because I'd already been labeled. That's me and Henry Hart Joe. I read two Henry Hoggins books in one day once. Oh, I wanted to make sure my education kept going. Um the thing about a big book is oh, but you know have you seen the film, the the the the the good film? I mean they're all they're all good, but have you seen the one with like Florence Pugh and uh Everybody. I think I think it might be a Greta Gerwig movie. Have you seen Little Women the movie?

Uh uh Oh no. No. It's really it's really good. And the way it's told, I don't want to spoil it, but like you say, do you know the story of little women? Like what happened? Yeah. You can spoil little women. Well, I'm not gonna spoil little women, but I all I'm gonna say is that it's Because you would see it and you'd see the trailer and you go, Oh, it's one of those it looks if you just watch the trailer off the dome, like with your eyes squinted, you would go, This is just another kind of Even I I know it's not from the nineties, but like you know, the nineties were a big era for like merchant ivory movies and you know big costume things and you know the English patient and all these sweeping sagas and you would think that but it's not I'm pretty sure I'm gonna l I I'm sorry, I'm gonna use the internet for a second.

I think it's Greta Gerwig who directed it. She's a very good director. And yes, directed by Greta Gerwig 2019. Now check out check out this cast. Um let's let's do the girls first, okay? Um let's see, who's the head one? Um wait, who's the head one? Is it um Joe's the oldest and the hottest. You got Joe, Meg, Amy, and Beth, right? Beth. Joe is Sir Sharon. Meg is Emma Watson. Amy is Florence Pugh. And Beth, who's she's so great, she's so adorable, is a woman I don't know called uh Eliza Scanlin. Lori, the kid who plays along and does the plays, that's that that's uh get ready for some chalamania, 'cause that's Timothy Chalamey. That is the only person I knew that was in there, and I thought it was delightful because When I read Little Women the very first time, I had not yet seen the movie.

The one with Claire Gaines. The one from the nineties. Yes. And uh shit, Natsu Gourney Weaver, the other one who's hot, and uh Republicans get mad at uh from stepmom and crap. Oh gosh, I'm such a fake fan. Um but it's not an alien. Or playing whom? Uh the mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Marmy, Susan Sarandon. Yes, thank you, thank you. Oh, she's so good for that role. That's a good role for her. Oh, and it's got oh my god, it's got Winona Ryder and Samantha Mathis and Kirsten Dunst and Claire Day first movie. I wanna be I wanna stop and just take a minute here to say that this movie has Winona Ryder, Samantha Mathis Kirsten Dunst and Claire Danes. And then I'm gonna say this word. Woof. Yes. Those are some little women.

Wow. She's real little. Yes, yes. Yes. She the yellow. It's like when it was around the time she was in the vampire movie. She this is nineteen ninety four. So she was like a young teenager probably. Oh, it could be wrong, maybe. Christian Bale is Laurie? Y What? Yep, yep. Eric St Oh my God. There were a lot of conf Confusing feelings for me of like, wait, do I wanna be Joe or do I wanna be Lori? Or do I wanna have my I would just be thinking about whose cauliflow young cauliflower I wanna take downtown. Well, that's the thing is it again confusing time. Samantha Mathis is Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness, Smith and Mathis. Of course, Claire Danes. M uh Black Beauty came out, not not the giraffe from your neighborhood.

No shit. It's gulla gullah. It's from the South Carolina tradition. God. Uh but but Black Beauty had uh black it sounds terrible. It's like the two first at the end word. It does. It does. It's So God when I I watched um I was rewatching some of the oh the the Ryan Murphy uh trial of OJ Simpson or or whatever. Oh that's a good show. And it is incredible. What a cast. Incredible. People laugh about Shwimmer. I think between Band of Brothers and that, I think you you can't be mean to Sh He's good. I think he's so broken. He's so broken, just like Kardashian actually was. Kardashian, if you watch, if you watch the video at the time, you could tell All the other all those other, you know, goblins are in it for the it uh the money or really for the, you know, exposure.

But you can tell Kardashian deeply loved Orenthal James Simpson and was crushed when that's a very good idea. when that happened. I because I watched the uh documentary series that came out around the yeah, they came out around the same time. That first episode, I want my fucking kid to watch it just to understand because OJ died while we were in Hawaii. Title. Um and and I was like, it's hard to under I'm not because I I you know I've given up on this whole thing of trying to help my kid understand anything because he understands most things better than I do. But I was like, it's difficult to understand how special O. J. Simpson was, like, especially in the early days. Like when he was at USC, when he won the Heisman Trophy, like he was a long before the the rental car stuff.

Like he was America's dreamboat. Like He was so smart and beautiful and fast and articulate and like he was just fun to watch. And you're like, you were always pulling for OJ Simpson. And like even by the time he was in like police uh no whatever those are called police squad movies. You know, naked gun movies. Um You know, you're still like, oh man, everybody likes OJ. Nobody there's nobody who hate it's like hating Tom Hanks. It's like it's difficult to do. Well, and that's why the news was a little bit difficult at the time where you're like, what? He did what? And the waiter too? Yeah. Oh. I don't have any. The only thing I remember from that time is. You were five. Yeah, yeah. The only thing I remember is N the hearing the line, if uh the glove fits, you must acquit.

I did not know what the glove was. You're super close, but it is literally the opposite. It is uh yep, if the pho goddam. Wow, wow. If it does if it doesn't fit you must acquit. Yeah. I and the reason I always mess that up is because there was that image of him holding up. Acting like it was hard to put on. Well not even that I guess it's a little bit more. Yeah, I mean I never saw un until the documentary had never seen the video and I was just like that there's the the He's not a good thing. But it also led to the creation of Jackie Childs on um San Seinfeld, who I still quote a lot. Oh, I again did not until I saw Seinfeld. I wow, I'm not sure. In the later seasons, in the later seasons, he's kind of a Lionel, not Lionel Hutz exactly, but you know, he's an ambulance chaser and Um, Kramer spills hot coffee on himself, which is a parody of the you know McDonald's hot coffee Michigas, which is a big turn out.

And he and he goes, he's like, I'm gonna go get all this money. He's like um he's like, Yeah, the b and Kramer goes, like the berm went away. I put a balm on it. You remember this? Chucky Chalk says, you put a bomb on? You put a bomb on? Who told you to put a bomb on? Who told you to put a bomb on? I'm uh uh uh taking the antlers off. Just as I think The Sopranos isn't just an amazing show from the 2000s. I think it's an amazing show about the early aughts. And I I think even if you are not a Seinfeld fan, the uh like the show Seinfeld is an amazing show about the nineties. And I I did not enjoy watching it as a kid. It's just inextricably about the nineties. Like Nobody ever wore high waisted pants like that so much as in the nineties.

It it like brought back flashball memories from being a kid, like, oh, yeah. And the same way that AJ and Meadow, like but what the music that AJ and Meadow are into, like the fact that like He's the whole point of the sp well point one of the sopranos is that, you know, Tony Sopranos kind of falling apart. But the big story, I think, in the Sopranos is that you're there at the end. of an era. Like Tony Soprano, and that's kind of what he ends up talking about with Dr. Melfi, right? Is like he never got like what his family had, what his dad had. He's at the end of an era era where like All the system that had worked for 30, 40 years was going away and he had to be there for basically the death of the classic Cosinos.

Yeah. Uncle Jr. Yeah, yeah. And uh the uh oh oh Uncle Junior He's you know, in the Godfather too, he's so much taller than I expected. I think of Uncle Junior being small. I I I mentally I snapped a grid confuse him with the guy in the Six Flags commercial who dances. Yeah. He was a little guy. But in in the godfather, you know, he's pretty tall. Huh. Oh see I was I I I I guess I always think of him as uh Uncle Junior. Like a junior, I I almost thought of it as not that he had gotten older, but they were trying to make him a a little bit because he's the the you know old uncle who thinks he's yeah could could I I I don't know. Um I agree with you though. Seinfeld is very is very good at that Uh OG Simpson, go ahead.

Oh, uh what what about OG Simpson? Oh, oh, we were talking about um racism. Uh hearing Nathan Lane say the N-word over and over and over was Like, oh that's right. That's that's how he probably shouldn't he probably shouldn't even sing along with things. No, no, no, no, no. But no, but just uh again, do you But like when you sing along with Gold Digger, do you say it? The what are you asking me if I have ever said the N-word? You're saying you haven't. So when you sing along with gold when you sing along with the chorus of gold digger, I am saying that we're not gonna sing along with the chorus of gold digger. I am saying one hundred percent. She ain't dealing with no broke broke giraffe. Yes.

I am f one hundred I will say it here, please. cancel m uh me like or d or don't because I never uh please please I I'm shrinking into a corn cob as we speak. But I I know that I absolutely sang along to for forty years. Just get your tacos and get in the car, quit being a bit. It's welcome back everybody. It's a really good show. So now I'm gonna finish making that first point, which is that little women, it's got Sir Sharonin, Emma Watson. Emma Watson, who at this point is competing with Anya Taylor Joy for Are they a good actor? But um Florence Pugh and uh and I won't hear a word about Sidney Sweeney. I I think she's a great actor and I don't like when people say mean things about her. her.

I didn't know who she was until her attitude toward her boobs is so fucking funny. She's so boobitude is so fucking fun. People are so mad. No, I figured out what it is because I did not know who uh who she was. I I didn't understand. I just knew it was I never I never saw Billy's Secret Watch, not in a bad way, Billy's Secret Watch Euphoria. I've tried Euphoria three times and as much as I deeply love Zendaya in numerous ways, like I it's not for me. Like it's Euphoria is a bit much for me, but I love white load. And I was like, oh, it's the girl from White Lotus. And then she's in that wonderful underrated movie reality. Like I think she's I think she's talented. What we what'd you realize?

That uh some of the outrage around her and the praise around her is how uh like i liking boobs is what the right sees as something that the left doesn't like because Oh so oh go ergo oh you're saying it's like a broken syllogism where like if you if you like somebody For whatever re whatever reason you claim. If you like that person and they've got boobs that I like, you must be a hypocrite. It's well it's very much You know what I'm saying though right? You see you see how it's like turning it like kind of backwards, backwards It's like, well, we're not allowed to talk about boobs anymore because you guys are so hung up. We love boobs and we're not allowed to talk about it. But you left wing people, now you've got this person you claim to like and they have big boobs.

So how do you explain that? Yes, yes. It's like, well you keep you all keeping it. It's fucked up, but it makes sense. It and and also there's this thing where it doesn't feel uh weird Or or I see more people talking about butts in a less I I I don't know. Yeah, butts but talking about butts is empowering. Talking about boobs is creepy. Yeah, and I and I think th it's just some guys were like, yeah, the boobs broke wokeness I was like, what? Yeah, like finally the incontrovertible truth of boobs comes out. Finally, we uh look fucking people. Which it makes sense. Left uh the left its enjoy the butts, the righties enjoy the boobs. And and you know what? I don't I don't know. Now I'm uncomfortable about that This is uh I'm not saying I believe that.

I am saying that. Alex, this is a program where we must take it at the stipulate, and our listeners are just gonna have to deal with it. Hi guys, I love you. No, it's not you, it's the other listeners. But I think that a as uh at least I have stipulated that understanding something is nowhere, absolutely nowhere near approving, liking, condoning something. Understanding is different from liking, and it's really important that people want to be smart they learn that difference. Oh, this is Very much in the right. What am I writing down? Whatever smart thing I just said. Sydney Sweeney's boobs. Editor Alex go back and write down this mark. Why does he do that? Is are they using D script to find times when KC has talked to future Marco?

W why does he do that? Uh, is it a marker thing? It's a marker thing. Maybe I haven't listened to I mean my hiatuses will be over by the end of this Oh so it's turning into an actual thing. Yeah, sure. That's what he does. You actually hate Casey now, is what you're saying. Yes, that's what I said. Casey list things. I don't understand. Uh I'm you know what? I think that your junior is keeping another thing fr from you or or at least not discussing this, which is the uh sort of nervousness. around media liter literacy. Like there was a screening of But I'm a Cheerleader in Chicago. And uh someone yes, uh c uh I think last month and uh a uh younger person stood up and asked uh oh it made me really uncomfortable when Natasha Leon was grossed out by the two guys kissing and The point being, like yeah, yeah, Natasha Leon is a self-hating lesbian for each other.

And I think it's a little bit overblown and it's also fun to make fun of those people. For people who like me are a little bit reluctant to buy into every binary, it is kind of funny how many people are so ready to go like you're either you either get this or you don't. You're either perfect or you're the worst. It's like, have you never heard two gay men talk about other gay men? Yeah, it's this is like a lot of people. Have you never heard two women talk about every other woman? Hi, I'm a character in a film and I am a bad person. I am going to do bad things, but you should not do these bad things. And the people who wrote me are not condoning these bad things. My my stock my stock response, like I said, about that person who was all mad about house.

And this is this is a true fact, but it's also a good way to say fuck off. Oh somebody you said I can't believe you watch house. There's something that happens in this one season of that show and I couldn't watch it again. And I was like I was like, yeah, like well, you know, you should decide that you don't want to watch things, but I mean if I if I were gonna be really dismissive and talk to you like you're a fucking idiot, here's what I would say. You learn more in life from bad people than you do from good people. I I even have to be able to do that. You'd learn that all human beings are human beings and people who behave badly teach you a lot and cause you to interrogate things in your life that good people don't.

Uh I I mean I I agree with th that, but uh along with the whole evil uh hi hi, I agree, but and Um no, the No When good people do bad things in real life, I have Wait, what? Whoa, what? No, no, no. No, no, no, it's okay. What am I saying that's very difficult? Anyway, so the good people are doing bad things. No, no. I have always come to risk I think respect people more when people I find uh who are like quote unquote good make a is something that a lot of folks would consider a mistake and then truly do learn and grow from it w without making an Apple Notes uh statement. And I I don't know. I hope that's a good idea. But they still need to perform that so you know they're good. Uh no, it's the it's the lack of performance that makes you how do you find out more.

How do you find out? Because wait, find out about the bad Th be because it's either. Okay, you just you just said something to correct me. You said that you like it when a good person who has done a bad thing. cops to it, grows from it, and doesn't make a big deal about it. And my question to you is, how did you find out that that quote good person did a quote bad thing and then quote people than you do good people. And that is that is a binary it is a binary statement that I do not know. Well how how is that saying that you always You learn more from good people uh from bad people than good people? That is a binary how is that not a binary statement? I think there's a lot of I I don't think it's a but well I mean well I'm sorry I don't I I I did mean to interrupt you but continue.

It's okay, don't worry. Don't worry. No, no, no. No, if I if I keep trying to have this conversation to you, we're just gonna get deeper, deeper, and deeper into levels of recursive confusion about what it is that we're actually talking about, and we'll never resolve anything from five layers up. And and I Because you're gonna keep problematizing this with things that are not what I was talking about. And that's okay because that's what you do. No But you are a good person. Give me examples of the thing I do all the time. Give no give me a single I don't even know what I do. That's that's the Talk about recursive. I don't know what the thing I'm doing right now. If you wa if you watch a tech if you read it, if you consume a text that's about a good person.

You can come away with that going like, oh, there's ways to like get through adversity and to be challenged and to like be down in the count and like come come back. You know what I mean? And like the default story w without getting into all the like, you know, Sulty stuff or the McKee stuff or the Joseph Campbell stuff. Let's just keep it keep it kind of high level, right? is like, well, you we like it we like um at least for a long time people like something like to kill a mockingbird because Atticus Finch is, you know, trying to do the right thing in a community. Like you know what I mean? There's those kinds of stories of somebody who's You know, what a what what is an example of like of a good they're all boring.

Superman, until they fucked him up, was really, really boring. Spider-Man is interesting. F because from day zero he was fucked up. That's trying. Okay. See y y I think you're correct because when I was like that's a binary statement, it's because I don't believe in good people versus bad peop I d I don't think there's such a thing as a good person. We've had this conversation, but just like I don't necessarily believe that there are evil people when did we have this conversation? How did I know it? Many people are many people are saying that that we talked about this. We've had this conversation, Alex. We've had uh no, we've had conversations about how having a conversation about evil. Well that's because you keep changing the subject.

That's we end that's all we have to have that conversation because you you you you keep pivoting what we're doing is we're talk we're talking about. I'm not pivot no I'm not and I'm not no no pivot no pivot No pivot No pivot That's your name you're Jeremy Pivot No no no no it's no it is I mean I see I see why you would say that's a binary and I think that's because on the face of it You're saying um when X does this, I like it, and when Y does this, I don't like it, or whatever, right? Like so but like I guess what I'm what I'm saying is like What's interesting to me about stories with with what and again now and at this point I should also say that I am, I think, like you putting bad person or good person at this point I will uh put air quotes around those and say like well what we perceive as or talk about as a bad person or in some cases like the rise of the anti-hero in movies in the nineteen seventies we're like I mean like Travis Bickle's like not a good guy, you know, in the usual sense.

Batman's not really a good guy. But like, you know, the but the rise of the antihero in like, you know, in in movies in this in the seventies was a pretty big deal because you find yourself pulling for somebody who's a morally ambiguous character. You know, and and whether or not they end up doing something pseudo-heroic. Thing is, that's the and and then it becomes so widely misunderstood. Like, I don't know if there's a point to Taxi Driver, but I the met the I walk away with just so many acres and acres of ambiguity at the end. Like when when uh Travis is reading the letter from Iris' parents. Cause I mean I mean you remember what happens in that, which is that he's gonna go and like it comes off as he's rescuing Iris from Harvey Kaitel, but really he's just acting on his impulsive murder shit.

And like it ha it happens that he ended up killing a bunch of people who were bad. Well does that make him a good guy? Now I sound like Sandeep in uh Wreck It Ralph, but just because you're a bad guy does not mean you have to be bad guy. Um any but but um I guess all I'm saying is like if we look at something like house, for example, which is a an extremely dumb example, but I'm not the one who brought it up. Uh it was somebody else. Uh well yeah, he d uh and the shit gets worse and stupider. Well, uh first of all, forgive my callowness by pointing out that it's a fucking TV show that you don't have to watch. About a fake drug addicts. About an unbelievably broken world inside this ho everything in this hospital gets more broken all the time.

Where sometimes Katie's like, I can't decide if I want a baby. I still want to wear tight pants. And then says to Cameron, do you want to run the hospital? And it's like, well, I don't think that's how that is not how that is. And everybody and everybody is so gay bones, they're so mad at house, but they love house. And he has as uh black guy, what's his name? Um uh Cameron. Yes, Foreman as uh Foreman? Yes. Okay, Foreman as he's like George Foreman. Foreman, um, you know, like he's what he wants to leave, right? In season whatever, three or four? Like he's like, I gotta get out of here. I don't want to become like house. Well, you can't not become like house. Because everybody, the world is saved every day because of house.

He's un he's irreplaceable. We're running the inho entire hospital into the ground because of this one genius man. This one guy who somehow always has the answer in the end. He's wrong for a while, but he's wrong in an interesting way that actually solves the crime. And an incredibly that's it's so stupid, but it's really funny, but also I think you learn more from House than you do from J Random Other character. Like more about yourself. You have more things to think about. When I'm not have to get into shit like whatever, like uh what's a classical Darth Vader or whatever. We don't have to go anywhere near that far. It's more interesting for me to look at a small movie where somebody broken tries to fix something about their life or something they perceive is needs to be fixed about their life, and then the way everything goes horribly wrong, okay, you know, as they try to do that.

Here's an example. Every Danny McBride character. I learned so much more about life from every Danny McBride character than I do from the protagonist of some 90s movie who overcame adversity. The Righteous Gemstones has hit me in ways that I did not I should have expected. They don't deserve your sausage dip. I love that show so fucking much. Yeah, I I uh I I wanna cut the show. Season three season three is so improbably good. When when with the the one with Steve's on and when the cousins are living with them. Yeah. Redeemer I don't know. I I I don't I'm sorry, I'm I'm being a little silly just 'cause, you know, we're we're visiting, but like it's I mean the but the like hey guys, I'm turning my chair around now so we can have like a real rap session.

I mean people should like what they like, but it is it's the the performances that people perform about doing the right thing are such a tip-off to me that that person is a piece of shit. People who are constantly talking about hypocrisy, people who are constantly talking about like their concerns about what other people think and do. That's what Donald Trump does, you guys. It's literally what Donald Trump does. And somebody pointed this out on MSNBC yesterday, uh, you know, that something a lot of people said for a long time, right? The Donald Trump accuses people of the things that not only he thinks is possible, but he accuses of people of people of things that he's been doing for years. So when David Pecker gets up on the stand and talks about checkbook journalism and says, well, we're a tabloid.

We pay people for stories. It's like a we $10,000 for a story is not a big deal for us. $130,000 for a story we didn't run. Yeah, that's a little weird. But That's what we do, right? Is is we go. And that the thing is, Donald Trump sought that out. So on some level, he thinks that's how all journalism works. Yes. But then we haven't even gotten to the interesting part yet, which is what he can imagine your life. Like. So he knows what a lot of things are like because that's how he is. But then because you're against him, or he perceives, and very importantly, he perceives it's not just his enemies or his adversaries, it's everybody he's decided. is not completely supportive of him, is doing the worst thing that he can imagine.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so because he's yeah, right. Yeah. So that be careful you don't do that, guys. Like maybe don't spend your whole day like thinking about the worst thing you could imagine somebody doing. All these concerns, all these moral panics. Dana Boyd had a wonderful piece the other day that really is, you know, apropos of these kinds of things that we've been talking about. about as as usual and you know it's all the concern trolling and all of the moral panics like I'm I've learned to stop saying this in the late 80s but like Really? So that's a thing you struggled with? The same way I'd say like, oh, you know, whatever, uh like sexual preference. So sexual preference, huh? So when did you decide that you're not gay?

What do you mean when did I decide I'm not gay? gay. Well you're implying that everybody out there decides that they're trans or decides that they're gay and like picks that and then pursues that. When did you decide that that you're not a buggerer? What age were you? And you're like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, I'm normal. Oh, you're normal, but everybody else made decisions that are poor. Stop doing that. Stop stop stop stop stop stop talk thinking that everybody else has made poor decisions that you don't understand. Because well our side does that fucking all the time and it's really frustrating. I I wish so uh like but by I genuinely want to Ask journalists. I I I mean like I guess I know why they're doing it, but the new Jonathan Haight book uh is I I don't know.

Um the guy from the Atlantic. He's a he's a good writer, but he can be very frustrating. Infuriating at the end. I don't blame you. He can be extreme. I'm just saying he's one of those people like Malcolm Gladwell where you're like, well, it's a tough fight because he's a good writer. I'm not saying he's smart. I'm saying he writes good. But it I I I get self-conscious talking about it because I don't have kids. Um uh generation people yeah I do kinda hate the Atlantic. Uh it's about um uh smart it's a book where uh he argues that smartphones are causing uh children that to be m that are fuck me. Did you see that Dana Boy thing? Uh no. Continue, continue, continue. Uh it it's a a a a book that is trying to argue that we are rewiring childhood because we're still doing this, you guys?

We're still doing this. It's Really, and it uh I th I do have a bias as well because he's buddies with Abel Abigail Schreer and they have a similar writing st style uh and she she wrote um irreversible damage which is about how uh any w person who was born and raised as a girl is broken if they decide they're trans and that like that's her just It's it's a really gross uh uh uh a book. And uh but isn't one of those things where it's like if you if you quote decide that it's automatic F. Like you you've you've fucked up. Like Is that what it is? Yes. It it it is. You must have done something wrong. It yeah, it's giving up. So you're saying that fifty percent of people who are a slave are bad? Well and it's not a good thing.

Why can't you just accept your role? The the the thing that Jonathan Hay likes to talk about a lot is her book Bab Therapy. Oh, I was thinking of Jonathan C-H-A-I-T. I think I'm thinking of someone else. That's what I'm I'm saying his name wrong. No, no, we're thinking of the same guy who wrote yeah. I don't think I've ever seen or heard his name. I I'm sorry, I'll shut up. Go ahead. No, no, no, no. I again I get very self-conscious talking about it because I don't have kids. I was on the cusp of Like I was very online in a high school, but there weren't other really other kids super duper online. Like there was bullying, but it wasn't that I I mean, I don't know. It was Facebook and barely Instagram.

The thing is the bullying that used to happen, if I remember, and I probably don't, but the bullying that first became concerning was happening in places that aren't the social networks that we see today. So that might have been a forum or this is even before I think really group chats even existed. But it I I I would think of that as something that happened on like a forum. where you could be there and you could be practically not not anonymous, but you know what I mean? Nobody would know who you are. You'd have a you'd have an identity you'd built up on a forum. But people not might not know it's you or it's a you that like nobody's ever seen before and you could just be horrible. Yeah, but now so many of those people are on the same four websites all day long, which really amplifies that problem.

Yeah. And I just kept thinking about how uh I would get y you could take screenshots of even, you know, the uh phones that had t9 texting. And that's what you would do is, you know, you would take a screenshot and be like, oh, look at what this dumb person said. And then spread that around. Like people were sharing and publishing like nudes of people on Facebook and slut shaming. And and again, that wasn't uh something we obsessed about online, but that's all we talked about during the day at at s you know what I mean? And don't don't act like you out there, don't act like you were any fucking different Yeah, and You were trying to survive like everybody else. Yeah yeah, and I I'm like I it It's feels very different, but also it feels really gross to me to make so many s assumptions about kids' lives when we already make assumptions about how other people uh uh adults use technology when it's just so vastly different.

Like I'm a I'm a f freak who's on, you know, activity pub and federations all all day and no one knows what that is. No one I'm m Like most people don't know that there's an elephant s site. And that is a good thing. The federation stuff is coming to Ghost and I was thinking about it and like I haven't spent about Ghost. Yeah. I haven't spent a ton of time learning about it, but it's another one of those things where I'm like, well okay, so if everything's federated Like w what is what do you want that to be? It's like w anybody can be anywhere doing anything and you can find it anywhere. It's like, right? Isn't that kind of the idea? It's like federation, it's this idea of like it's almost like RSS.

Right. Where you would say like, well, I'm interested in this person at this place or I'm interested I'm not interested in in this person at that place. Right. You could like the idea is that you could aggregate stuff from all different places into like one place. Isn't that kind of the idea of federation? Yes, and uh as I understand it at this point. But I mean I'm I'm asking you if I'm accurate in in depicting what that is. Well, uh but people also use it in different things. All I'm trying to say is fine, you've got everything. Now what is it that you've got? Because what I see is a lot of people complaining about their computer. And I don't need that sixty times more of that in one place.

What is it you're gonna get that you don't have now from somewhere? And when I'm not I'm not against federation, but the question becomes like There's just so much terrible bullshit that a lot of people make and it's like I don't I I mean I so what I'll be able to like have my bullshit and ghost go where somebody else be somewhere else where somebody else won't read it? It's like Uh we got a bigger problem than access to information. Hmm uh uh uh yes. Yeah, okay, yeah yes, and what activity Pub uh makes me excited about is just how it integrates with RSS and there is no Right. And when you have that, what will you be excited to read? The same thing, uh things that I think. Once everything, let's assume 90% of everything you want or could want is federated, how will your life be better?

Um it will be in my oh, my life personally. No no no. I'm trying to get away from this whole like well have you read the spec. No no I understand what you're trying to do. What I'm asking you is if you achieve that perfect world What's gonna make your life better then? I there part of the reason I uh loved when Substack came out was the immediate support for RSS along because I don't want to fucking read email. What do you mean, read what? Read uh Okay, well all this Federation is for a reason, right? Ye m for a reas I mean, yeah, for many reasons. Okay, forget it. Go ahead. No, no, I'm cu like that's the thing. No, I'm curious as to what seems Okay I I uh it's like we're we're trying like we're trying to build libraries.

We're trying to build bigger libraries for people can who can neither read nor write. And we don't it's not a problem that we have don't we can't accommodate all the books. It's that what people are doing with the ability to read and write is not going a lot of great places right now. Okay, okay, yes, but a lot of that is so motivated by algorithms, and we will always We will I we will continue to disagree about this, but I I uh yeah, people do not uh uh need to make those faces in those thumbnails and people don't need to title things in the dumbest way possible on YouTube unless they want to make a certain amount of money. And already I have uh yeah, well yeah. Which is still you can make almost nothing plus five cents if you make a make an a make an orgasm face.

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, but but already um I've just been enjoying people's work more and actually seeing it because instead of On Twitter, which it would even pre-Elon Musk era. Like I wouldn't see a lot of stuff and because it wasn't either wasn't federated or wasn't um via RSS, it it really sucked. And you just see it. You had to visit it like a poster. Right? I mean seriously. You have to go to the place where the thing is because you can't bring it to where it would be convenient for you. Yes. Like I don't go on I I very much was an Instagram person and it's It's a bummer not to see like my friends' babies, but uh I can see my friends and see their babies in real life. And I Uh it's just been better because people are like, Oh, oh, we don't need to see a million things that we don't want to see.

Like it it it's not a matter of seeing more things. It's seeing what uh uh you want and in the order that you want to see. That's a that's a valuable thing, for sure. But there is a little bit of I think virtue signaling around look it. It's available uh everywhere. And I don't you're right, I don't think there's enough of an emphasis as to why this is good for you as a person rather than like oh it's alloyed good in terms of the technology helping people I'm being a little bit of a stinker by trying to make a completely different point and that's not fair. The uh um Yes, yes, I agree. Yeah, okay. Can I talk about Sydney Sweeney's boobs now? Uh oh yes, proceed. This is a piece in vogue uh by Kate Lloyd from March 31st called Why is the Discourse Around Sydney Sweeney's Breast So Unhinged?

And I'm just gonna read a little of this. This is a reading series. I'm sorry. I'm just I just think this this is such a funny, well-written piece, and I'm really glad this woman wrote it. Boobs! Out of all the erogenous zones, they're the jolliest, aren't they? Sacks of fat and glands and ducts that add up to something far greater than the sum of their parts you can feed babies with them. They look great in oil on canvas. I I sometimes find it comforting to cut mine when I'm feeling a little bit stressed. They're simply very well-designed bits of kit, which is exactly why it pains me that in the past few weeks good old breasts have found themselves at the epicenter of possibly the dumbest culture war of our time.

Quote, are Sidney Sweeney's breast Double D Harbingers of the Death of Woke? That's the totally normal and not at all deranged question. Right wing Canadian titled The Nate National Post Post uh posted a few weeks after the actor presented her first Saturday Night Live. You'd think the 26-year-old had announced the GB News X The Grim Reaper lingerie collab live on air, but no, she had simply worn a low-cut dress and cracked a few jokes about Hooters. Anyway, it's this is piece it's very w funny, it's very well written and it's very much the whole thing about uh uh Emrat Emily Ratchetowski and like how people are like insane about her boobs. It's all so funny, but you should read this just because I think it'd be way up your alley.

Um it perhaps won't surprise you to learn that I think the reason why exposed small boobs read cool supervision. While big boobs have some viewers holding back a honk honk is actually the decade the popcorn honk honk is actually The decades of pop culture in which large breasts have been used as shorthand for sexual availability. That's something we need to be reminded about, you guys. That's just her boobs. She has them. Just deal with it. Anyway. This came out uh around the time that uh no, no, after something that I had m missed, and I think that uh it kind of got p uh pushed back because the the big boobs overtook uh the discourse around the small boobs of Kristen Stewart who was on the cover of I heard I I heard I heard Krista Stewart is addicted to the new pantsless look.

And there here's five takeaways about stealing her look. That's what I heard. No pants? Pantyhose are the new are the new pants. You don't read a lot, do you? Everybody's mad at Kristen Stewart. Everybody's mad at Kristen Stewart. Uh oh. No, I mean straight. Uh Straits are well, 'cause she was on the cover of Rolling Stone and the S. No, because she used to be a because she used to be a sexually available uh And now they're mad because now she's not playing for that team anymore and they still have the jersey. By which I mean masturbating. Stu work. Stu work. It's still it's one of the all time best straight Alright, I need to use the internet for a while. That's the normal one. That's the no that's the normal one.

How did you decide that you're obsessed with big boobs? How old were you when you decided that you're obsessed with big boobs? The uh that's the thing I was never I was pivoting on that joke about sexual. I'm a narcissist, so I just uh oh. I lost the tweet. I'm the best narcissist. Many people are saying Bigley He still does the accordion hands, which I love. And did you see his piles of paper are getting bigger? These are stories just from the last three days from uh many legal scholars. No one's ever seen anything like it. This is he just keeps his his his his palate is getting so tiny. He only he only has like four things to say at this point and he's so fucking tired. He's autozembik. He's autozembik.

He can't drink coke. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that would make me fucking miserable. In a room is the first time in his life. Somebody pointed out in one of these wonderful pieces. I pointed I said the other day on Mastodon that I find it relaxing to read about him being unhappy. Which is true. You said something funny, uh it no, you're not giving yourself enough credit. It was funnier. Like I just like reading about how he i is Vague God, I oh I need to find it. Notes. Like the room, it smells bad. It's lit weird. Alex, why why am I taking this moment of Schadenfreude that I almost never take? Because it's my nightmare. Like I I'm I'm I'm still on call for jury duty, right? Yeah. So tomorrow I I might I might have to go in on Friday.

I'm still on call because I am jury crack. Um but anyway, it's my nightmare He can't like I I like I've said like in life I've realized this is part of my whole realization about my omnibus project about understanding why I hate vacations. What I have learned is that like if I can have shade and an unlimited amount of water, I can get by. Most places. But I if I don't have shade and an unlimited amount of water, I tend to be unhappy. Well, guess what? The shade thing? Well, in this case, it's really weird lighting in a very dilapidated building. So that doesn't really count, but he he drinks a twelve pack of Diet Coke a day. And so he cannot have you're not even allowed to have like water in there.

But there's every single thing about this experience must be excruciating, honestly excruciating for him. And I'm not just doing this to like dig at this point. At this point I'm exploring this as somebody who would also hate being in this situation. He has no control. He has to stay seated until the judge has left the room. He was admonished not to stand up before the judge has left. So the judge leaves and then the jury leaves and then he's allowed to stand up. And that's number two. If you've ever been on jury duty, y'all, or you've ever been in a court of any kind civil or criminal, if it's a jury trial, the jury is the star of the show. Like everything is done to like make life easier for the jury and to like think first of the jury in all cases.

So that's they're the ones that are addressed. I mean, every you address the judge, but it's the jury, you know what I'm saying? You've been in trials and on jury duty and stuff, right? Like you know you know what I'm talking about, right? I've never been called for the case. They really they're really, really n as nice in my experience, they're as nice to you as sort of they can be, but in the courtroom, the because you're gonna decide the case Everybody's pretty deferential and respectful and like like in the c in Trump's case, so like it's just as another example. And I I you know He can't go to his son's graduation. He can't go he can't campaign in New Hampshire. Well, he doesn't really need to campaign in New Hampshire.

He's already got the nomination, but whatever. He doesn't campaign anyway. Like he just goes out and and and gives speeches about how everything's unfair and nobody's ever seen anything like it before. Which is fine. That passes for campaigning, but all these things where he's he's so mad where I would be mad too. Where I my my my excuses would not be any smarter. My excuse would be I like to take a nap sometimes around two thirty and I can't do that. Like but then like somebody on the jury that has a uh dentist appointment They'll break early. That must be can you imagine how frustrating that is for him? And then all day long he has to sit there and listen to what people say about him without reacting.

Which is dangerously close. It's almost like that scene in eight and a half where I which, you know, I I it's okay. It's okay to have mixed feelings about that movie. I think it's the point. But there's that scene in eight and a half, again with a whip, where where he the room is filled with all the women in his life and he has a whip and has to like hold them off. Next to that scene, next to every woman in his life ganging up on him at the same time. One of the worst experiences must be having knowing he's gonna spend one, two, three, four days a week. I think it's Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, maybe three days a week. For six weeks. He's gonna have to sit in a room with no Diet Coke, listen to people say things about him.

He's not allowed to respond He thinks the entire thing is unfair and he knows that's gonna be the next month of his life at least. Can you imagine what it what how frustrating that must be for him? Yeah, I think about it uh or pst I don't think about it in this case because I have not been following the Trump stuff at all because intentionally Yeah. Oh really? No, no, no. I'm not saying it should follow up, but it's but the he's got the one thing that makes it like w Mattel and I really disagree on something and it's kind of a a point of I hope always laughter, which is like whenever we w watch any sport I think this is true for every sport we watch. If we watch a sport, a game, uh whatever, um, is that I adamantly want a really good game.

where both sides play extremely well. It's very close. There's not a big victor. Certainly I don't want the home team to win because the visiting team had an injury. Like what Madeline really just wants our team. to win. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I don't not just, not just, but she's very frustrated whenever the Warriors are not winning or when the Giants aren't winning or whatever. Right. And again, she's from New England, so she's broke. Like our whole family loves the Patriots. So that makes you weird. Oh, well, yeah. But but like I just want it to be a good game. And this is a good game, and I'll tell you why. Todd Blanche is not a fucking idiot. He uh he has two attorneys there. Wait, who is uh I do.

So he has uh all all you need to know is there's there's two two attorneys, this man and this woman. The guy is really, really smart. He's a former federal prosecutor. Unfortunately, like so many of Mr. Trump's attorneys, he is doing some dumb stuff to please his client. And unfortunately for Trump, it's already really hurting his case. Remember this jury just remember the jury is not sequestered. So even though they're not in the room when this stuff happens, they hear the hearing about ten claims of breaking the gag order. And Judge Mershon saying to Todd Blanche, You are very close to losing this is on the second day of testimony. Jury's not present. I'm about to decide whether there should be 10 charges of breaking the gag order.

And he says you are very close to losing all credibility with this. court. I just asked you eight or nine times to give me an example of when he retweeted something and it would it was to uh uh address a political attack as you claim and you I've asked you eight or nine times and you have not given me any examples Also, counselor, you have not cited any case law for anything vaguely related to what we're talking about here. Right? That's day two of testimony. So Todd Blanche is fucking up there. I think he has to do that to police Trump. The other woman whose name rhymes with neck I think her last name is Necklace, I want to say. She is is she the uh laptop girl? That's the only I don't know.

She's reputed to be one of the best cross-examiners in New York. Okay, that's not laptop girl. Okay. Are you talking about uh the the the the woman who's always on TV? No, I don't know. There was a meme with the woman who had a Razor Gaming laptop. I don't think it was this it it's Silly. It's not a bioavailable joke for me, but uh I'm sure it's funny to people who had a second to spare. But the um but the that's the wrong laptop for court. Bog Why don't you go on to bring a gamer chair loan? No, it's just Funny! No, it is funny. I can't wait until remarks like that are more federated so I don't have to seek them out. Oh my god. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Prosecutors and the um district attorneys have have done a really good job on their case and just in the opening statement, which is also not don't call it an opening argument because that's not what it is in the opening statement they really laid out a roadmap for this of like here's what happened with these things this is this is about this and this and that here's what we're going to prove And they laid it all out.

And poor Todd Blanche had to get up there and say, he's not guilty. He's a family man. Like he's he didn't have in as they say in law, he didn't have a theory of the case. that refuted anything that was being said, apart from basically in a subtle way trying to echo that idea that Joe Biden is just out to get him, which again You could say that all day and people still won't understand that that's absolutely there's nothing even remote. It's almost a nonsensical sentence, but anyways. So that part is fun to watch. What's interesting though about it is that I'm going to be real basic and very MSNBC for just a minute. A little bit pussy hat. It is, and I'm not going to be emotionally mean about this, but it is kind of satisfying to finally see a day where he's not allowed.

to shuck and jive to a point where it stops what's happening. I mean, he's dangerously close in sometimes, like in in his life. He's sometimes very close to like just standing on the table and taking a shit because it would stop the proceedings for a minute. And like with this I think he's finding that much more difficult to do. And I think with this particular judge, and I'm not make I'm not trying to make a Muller candle out of this guy, but I am saying he's a professional judge who's very focused and on he's not as he's not emotional. And it's it is interesting to see what's happening in court as Trump has to listen to people talk about what he did, and he's the only guy in the room that doesn't think what he did is weird.

And whether or not he ever realizes that what he does is weird and if you like bad, everybody else in the room knows it and he can't ask them to leave. Because that's what they're there for. And I think that's gonna become for anybody like me, that would wear me down and I would eventually become very sad about my life. more sad about my life, but I think for him it's just gonna dig him in further. And somebody in in one piece in a New York Times piece was quoted as I think it was the Times, was quoted as saying a lot of people on the inside are saying that regardless of the outcome of this, the process is the worst part of it for him. And I I absolutely believe that. Other than the Schadenfruden, like like you say, you you don't often other than Jared Kushner I'll always have a little bit more.

All I want is one one one cold sword that never ends. That's all I ask. Yeah. Never ending cold sword. Oh my god. Oh my god, his name is Lamal. The singer from Kashagugu is named Lamal, L-I-M-A-H. You know the two shy shy? Hush hush out I do I? His name's Lamal. He sang he sang Never Never Ending. What did I say? What was the joke I made? Never in Cold Sore. And his beautiful wife. His beautiful wife Lowel. When uh what do you you you've said what you get out of uh w watching this trial because it is your uh night I mean it j just on e honestly for me any sort of court proceedings that I uh Well Alex don't we share that thing of like oh yeah what's our bit about you are not in trouble? Like I I've ever I feel like everybody especially me.

is in trouble with anything related to a courtroom. I hate it. I hate it. I hate the atmosphere so much. All of my issues with authority, the trauma that I have come to accept has come out of authority in my life. And weather to some extent, but but authority has had the reason I'm the way I am, I have come to quietly realize why I have that feeling about that room is because of things that have happened to me. How do you get trauma? Well, you know the third way, the frize? That's when you can't help yourself, you can't get away, and you don't know what to do, but just stay in one place. That kind of trauma, authority has done that to me a lot of times. So sitting in a courtroom is not my best day.

Do you know what I mean? Same way that you probably don't like waiting in a doctor's office, right? Yeah, not it's it's not my cup of tea. It just feels it feels it doesn't feel like you're about to get rid of a cold. It feels like you might just like disappear or something. in a minute. Like something very bad is going to happen to you when you're in proximity to certain kinds of authority. Yeah. The uh I I don't enjoy when people use the term Kafka S be because it's such a good word though. It's so true. It's so true. It is. It's it's that it's not it's not the feeling that you know exactly the shit that's gonna happen to you. It's that oh My brain like it's being like being in an airport. Where there's no limit to how like the Kafka did you watch the Kafka airport bit from the onion?

No. Okay. Recursion, opacity, inhumanity, all the things we think of as the especially something like the trial of the castle, right? Not so much the awakening, but you know, uh the classics, right? It's that, oh shit, this is probably gonna get worse in ways I don't understand yet. So what how about how about some anxiety sauce on your anxiety pie? Yeah. It's like I this is I know this is gonna get worse and I can't even imagine how it's gonna get worse. There's no way this is gonna get better. Oh shit, it just got a little bit worse. And now did you feel your heart just move up in your body an eighth of an inch? Oh it's a feeling went to my feeling? Oh yes, yes. No, but you know the feeling I'm talking about where like all it takes is us talking about a courtroom.

In that instance, honestly, Alex, we're talking about like that experience I had on the plane, which is a big joke now, but like it was really horrible. I didn't do anything and it was horrible. But it was authority. And I wanted my family to be safe, so I did the right thing, best I could, right? But like just talking about some of this stuff, eighth to a quarter of an inch, I feel like my heart literally moves up in my body. And my ribs uh try to accommodate the change by clutching around it. I feel that feeling. You know what I mean? Yeah, this sounds wild to a lot of people, I think, but when I heard that um Mm SBS Sam Bankman Freed, the guy who, you know, m uh conned a bunch of con whatever you want to say.

Yes. Yeah. And and when I heard t uh Ske even with him, when I heard ten years, I'm like ten years in. Prison. Like it just it it's not even the like jail stuff. Y That of course that's horrible. That's my nightmare. But like honestly, it it really for s me it's so e I interrupted you, I'm so sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, it's it's the same thing of um especially um i i if folks are interested about the uh uh antlers off, um reading uh We Were Once a Family, which was the story of the Hart family that tragically i the two women who uh drove off of uh it's uh i I'll just put the link in the show not. It's a very tragic story and really highlights what happens in the foster care system along with mandatory minimums uh and the just yeah put mandatory minimums foster system and forced births Like it's all great instances of uh we care so much about you in the abstract and so very little in specifics.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you, like you as a person, like if you weren't born yet, we would care so much about you. But like after that, we so fucking don't care and we might hate you a little bit. bit. Oh the foster system will take care of that. Oh you know what we'll get him out of this bad situation and we'll put him in a foster home and things will be better. Will it? Have you checked on that? Is that really a better thing? Yeah. And and it's not a stereotypical not na I'm sorry, not stereotypical. It it it is really It it it's Kafka-esque because we know I think folks know like f foster system uh uh bet not foster system bad, uh chicken problem. But like there's lots of issues, there's lots of problems.

But there's so many ways that that goes wrong when it's working well. And there's just innumerable ways it goes wrong just in the day-to-day. Not everybody in that system. on the one side sort of has the resources to make sure it's working and people on the other side or don't always have the best heart or or like actions. Oh yeah. And uh you I mean uh uh obviously the race thing or maybe not uh obvious to the race thing, but you know, most i it if you're black, usually your kid's gonna be taken away. But hearing uh people talk about the uh just the their dealings with DCFS or or whatever the system m uh might be in that state. Just i uh it it feels uh like reading the trial. It's absolutely wild.

And I don't think that's something or or at least it was something that I had not considered of like there's not even a way to find the information of like w how to please the judge. Like you it it It it's you don't even know what you are supposed to do or uh how you can uh i go with the bureaucracy bureaucracy and like go with the system. There's not sort of a guaranteed like right there's not like a right way to do it. No, there's there's no right way and there's no like a fucking handbook. There's no handbook to how to J change uh oh I know, because I know next to gender, but there's no handbook except the ones written by other queer people about how to change your name in whatever state you're in or what it means if you change your name on your license or your like your uh l license or ID in a certain state.

And how it may or may not carry over to another state and the problems and issues. Which to so many people sounds like not my problem. Yeah, yeah. And even though it really says something about You know, I I don't know if it was Jesus or Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill, but like somebody wants some along the lines of just that old saw about like if you want to understand any society, look at how it treats the people in that world with the least. Or with the least power. This is such a fun program. I hope people are having a good time. It's nice to be back. I had a I had we should probably I don't know I don't know what the challenge is, I don't really care. I had an Apple Tech success story.

We were we were both I think excited about Taskmaster. There's some Chat GPT updates. We could save all of that uh for the show. If you'd like to support the show, well let me ask you this. Let me say this. I would love for you to support the show, um listener, and you can go to give us your fucking money. com and uh w we're always trying our best, but so so often that's not enough. But um yeah, you get a bonus episode with each show and you help help us. So uh I don't know what we'll talk about. I would like to watch the Kafka Airport video with you at some point. Today. This is you know what? I'm gonna say it's gonna happen in the after show. You say that a lot, it's kind of a bit. The one thing that's gonna happen is the Kafka.

What gives you any credibility on that claim? Alex. That's a wholesome way of accepting it. Trying to learn and grow. Yes, learning and growing. Uh however the Dig Dug the challenge this week was just to watch Taskmaster because I had not ever seen this. Seriously? Is it was it really was it to watch Taskmaster? Really Holy shit, this is so exciting. Did you super super do the challenge? Because you were traveling and did you have that is an unintentionally very funny question for you to ask because it does actually bump right up against my This was what a vacation is to me thing that I'm kind of hardening my stance on and I'm becoming less self-conscious about in every way. Is like, you know, fuck all of you who think it's weird to not like vacations.

Fuck you guys. Like it's because you are either very simple or very mean to not understand that. Like I I like being places. I don't like going places. And I don't like the disruption to my life that that causes. As I said to Roderick on Monday, I don't like I don't like having more expectations than I would have at home when I go somewhere. That is not a vacation. A vacation for me, the very most basic step zero of vacation for me has to be there's no expectations of me in any way by anybody, and saliently, that I've internalized that. Right. If there's no expectations, then you have an internalized, it's not a vacation. So that's on that part's on me. But no, um one day we were so basically, you know, we're on the west coast and I don't know why I'm feeling so sweaty about this, but i I when you say I went to Hawaii, it makes you sound like you're a rich person.

But you know, it's not that costly. Our family went to Hawaii for four nights. Stayed in um an Airbnb there. I developed a relationship with a feral cat that I talked to I'm still I talked about it with Madeline this morning. There's a cat there, and a mongoose, but especially a cat, and I I say I say well it had lots of names. And I said I I still miss outside cat. And and and my line goes, we should get a cat. And I said, Well, that's a different thing. I think we maybe should get a cat, but I just first want to talk about my grief about how much I or Mr. Business Cat or O'Farrell Street, depending what what time of day it was. Mr. Business. But outside cat. Mr. James Business I want to paint it single so much.

He likes jazz. God, God. Um Bob doesn't want all those in the restaurant. So many cat anuses. The way they animate cats, Gail's cats on that show, especially that one Persian, is so fucking funny to me It's it's they really do look like cats as animated by someone who really dislikes cats. Yep. Yep. Did you see my photos? I don't know if you saw my photos on Mastodon, but there was a feral cat that kept coming up. Because Mastodon, you can uh I ca even though I had two thousand Mastodon toots to catch up on, I was able to. And You sure did have uh w I I had to say you had a meaningful relationship. I have some qu I uh I have some questions because the look that this cat was giving you was very It those eyes are incredible.

It has uh I so do you not have a a lot of experience with uh ferro normal cats uh cats No, no, no, no, no, no. Alex, it might shock you to know. I I really I hate to put you in this position. It might shock you to know I don't have much experience with feral cats. I know I should have. There's a lot there's a lot in Florida. Like I didn't know if you'd ever had like a cat colony live by you. Like I don't I don't know. But the difference between this is a thing. This is a thing in Hawaii. There's like there's wild roosters. There's all kinds of crazy wildlife. Like I say, I saw my first mongoose. I mentioned this to you. Mongoose is fucking crazy. Because it kind of looks like five different animals, except really fucked up.

Imagine like the face of like a vole or uh not a vole, they're too cute, but like the face of like it looks like a little weasel, but it has like a squirrel tail. And and the cat and the mongoose chase each other but not that hard. It's really cute. I think they're friends. Okay, that's adorable. That's uh I did not know. No, you know what I'm saying though? Like they're chasing each other but they're not trying that hard. Yeah. The monkeys isn't really trying that hard to get away and the cat's not really trying that hard to catch him. That's a beautiful relationship. Oh God. Well that's a different Eoni. We both rely on tourists who are careless of their scraps. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And uh from from that that that's why there's lots of feral cat colony colonies in Chicago because we have uh uh there's there's a lot of it it's not as much as New York that we throw food on the floor because we've alleys and trash cans.

But there are there's, you know, a lot of uh food, but more importantly, a lot of rats. So uh in fact there are programs in Chicago that um like re- that place feral cat colonies in areas where there's more rats. It's wonderful. Yeah, yeah, that you I've got to do. Selling my four favorite job. My four favorite photos of uh Mr. Business Cat. Oh Mr. Oh yes, yes, please. No, I don't have I don't have experience, but it will come up to the sliding glass door. So we're in Airbnb, this little two bedroom thing. Oh God. Can you believe those eyes? And the nose, the nose is just slightly like Egyptian, but not like a lot. Mm-hmm. But do you look at the look at how intense those eyes are. Isn't that a sweet thing?

The one where it's under the c under the look at the one where it's on the like laying down. I I was going to say th these are the eyes uh of a cat who is incredibly interested in you. Right. And and but obviously also doesn't it feel like I can't prove that that cat will like it did swipe at us a couple times, which is fine. That's what a cat does. It when we got close, but it didn't run away from us. But this to me is a cat that is not scared of you. It's not mad at you. It doesn't you know the trick about with a cat when its tail makes a question mark is when it's mad or when it's threatened. There's all like the the shape of a tail can tell you a lot about a cat. This one, this is a cat that is nigh to to quote Todd Gitlin, that is n neither um Wowed or neutered by me.

Yeah, yes. Ah, I I very interested. Very I mean I think that I I I'm feeling hypnotized by this photo of this cat right this minute. I'm feeling hypnotized. Yes, yes. And well and I I think if you were making a face similar to this cat Like it it's like a huh huh. It's not even a hm, you know? It's not a it's v it's more it it is. If anything, it's like more of a hmm Yeah y yeah, yeah. It's uh uh But it's not it's not scared, it's not worried, and look at the tiny mouth. Look at this little mouth. Oh did you see the one where I did a real quick video where you can hear its voice. It has a very high I I have several I have some videos I can send you, but it's like It comes up to the door and then it walks around for a minute and it ignores us and then it comes right up to the door and it goes Like look at me, I am baby.

Look at I'm here. I'm not sure. There's signs everywhere that say don't feed the cats! The cats are crazy! Don't feed the cats! Don't feed the roosters! Don't feed and like I I get why. But I'm not gonna blow up anybody's spot. But I have a beloved sister-in-law who threw my glass through my glasses. But she has this she had this doxin until recently, dear sweet Max. I've sent you some wonderful photos of Max and she's Max always comes up, Max and Bailey would both come up under the table and like stick Bailey the Pitbull would stick his entire head on your dick and put his eyes up where you could see it was so cute. His eyes. Because you're eating ch eating turkey dinner. And Max is like and Sue would go, Max, no, don't stop begging.

Have you ever been in one of these houses? You ever been it's yeah, it's usually a woman, be honest, who goes, stop begging. Stop Max, Max, you know not to beg. And then they literally put down a plate of food for the dog. Or put it right into the dog's mouth to placate it. And you're like, do you understand that you are the perfect the perfect training machine for a begging dog right now? Do you have I I know you don't have to have a lot of years of psychology to understand that like That is a huge, but there's so many fields of psychology that address just what you did. Let's start with BF Scanner. You've basically trained that dog to beg. To make it really, really want it and then only give it to it after it's begged a lot.

So you've taught your cat or your dog to be a resilient beggar A patient resilient if you like dogged beggar. When I pause, it makes it less dumb. Alex, we were in uh we were in Hawaii. Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii for for a few days. Um I don't want to get super into it, but like I uh I watched an entire season of Taskmaster one day. Oh, that must have been so fun. It's pretty good. I had the place to myself and you know that's what I did. Um yeah, I watched the an entire season seven. I watched and that's when I that's when I fell in love with my my new Testmaster girlfriend But that's not the point. The point is, that's a vacation for me, is I get to be somewhere with all the water I want to drink.

I got all my supplies. I know there's going to be a high protein meal coming at some point. Maryland, please tell people. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, that's it. That's it. So yeah, so yeah. I'm so glad that you checked it out. I I forgot how we left it as I usually do, but at some point 'cause I know I talked about this on the website, but I think where I'd left it was You tell me, I feel like I'd suggested a season to you, and then I had the the odd unnecessary temerity to say, well, and in specifically you might want to start with this one episode. And the only reason I recommend that one episode is especially it's a very good episode. It's it's like throwing somebody into the flop house with bullet to the head, we were like, you're gonna know very quickly if this is your thing.

Like what Alex comes out in the bandana and is like tough now. They're not going to be able to do it. With And it's English and it's weird. And you're like, why do people in England watch this? This is so weird. But like if you ha I knew that if you hated it you could bounce. And if you didn't hate it, you might love it. I what is Taskmaster, Merlin? Taskmaster is uh part of a great, great, grand tradition that is a much bigger deal in the UK than it is here, which is TV shows that involve a panel of celebrities. that do stuff. There's all kinds of panel shows where like people that some of you might know, people I love, people like David Mitchell, Rob Bryden. If you ever seen Rob Bryden do those impressions with Steve Coogan, that guy, he hosts one of those shows.

And it's a panel show. The before uh Richard Ayu A Day is great on these. You have like four or five funny people on and they write funny lines for them, mostly write it for them. A famous example is um QI, hosted for a long time by Stephen Frye. So like if you ever enjoyed the podcast, No Such Thing as a Fish, that's four of the researchers for the QI panel show where they ask kind of difficult brainy you know, trivia questions. But that's a the right, that's a thing. So on the one hand you have panel shows that have been around forever, and it's, you know, it you get different kinds of people. Usually it's comedians, but that's practically a vocation there. Right? Or for that matter, Noel Fielding, who's great on a season of Taskmaster.

Um you know I'm talking about though, like so you go, there's like there's a host. There's like four or five people and then there's stuff. It could involve telling stories, asking questions, but it's got space to it, you know, for funny things. It is usually a written show to some extent. I think the bones of the show are written. And like jokes are made for the people. Taskmaster is a big twist on that. And Taskmaster, we'll get into it, I guess, but Taskmaster is a show where five celebrities spend a season of the show uh doing tasks. by this guy. His name's Greg Davies. Greg Davis, actually, in England. But Greg Davis um i has these tasks and he has a helper named Alex Horn. And the idea is he gives you a weird task, which could be something like Fit this loaf of bread into this bottle without touching the bread.

I'm just making that up. Or it could be one like go through this room and figure out, try to find a pair of shoes in this room with a thousand shoes in it. Or it could be something like knock down a wall with 60 rubber ducts on it without going past this line and without touching the wall. I haven't seen that one. Which sounds so you're like, okay. So it is a panel show. It is a reality show. It's my understanding the show Is generally not overwritten. That a lot of what people are doing on that show is because they're funny. I don't that's my least interesting question about this show. I have next to Survivor, this is the single biggest source of how do they make this show. Because the more you watch the show, you more you're gonna think about how they fucking make this show.

You think all those five people are like sleeping in a dorm and doing these challenges together on the day? Like, no, the way they make this show is fucking bananas. And the production design. The production design, every season has a unstated theme. It could be like um Stalinist propaganda poster style. It could be kind of Japanese, you know, Shogun kind of style. Um but that's the basic series five, but that's the one with like the cottage and the little whatever they call it Trailer or like a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a No, those those things, believe it or not, those are in all the shows.

So the house is in all the shows, the trailers, and there's themes like you'll discover a lot of ducks. pineapples. Um there's lots of things. No There's so many pineapples. I there's so many things, but and yeah, like I said to you this morning, I don't think they've ever repeated. a task on this show. Which sounds silly to say, but the tasks can be very funny, very creative, revol involve an incredible amount of work. Like Alex, do you ever think about, you know, when I f refer to the lab? Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's terrifying. Or in the living room? They call it the the room with the desk. Think about when somebody like um like Rod goes in there and like destroys all of the contents of the task to be funny or something.

They have to have the same set of everything for everybody. They have to, I think, assume that somebody's gonna like do somet like just think about the logistics of that. But all what you really just need to know is that Greg in th in the conceit of the show, which is just a very flimsy conceit, and yet it really works, is that this six foot eight man who sits in a throne is the taskmaster. And he's horrible and he hates everybody and you have to do what he says. And he has this tiny assistant, who's actually 6'2, who, as it turns out, is the guy who created the entire show at Edinburgh Fringe one year. Yes. Isn't that horrible? I love everything. Edinburgh Fringe like fascinates me. me the whole yeah I I watched a little short video about it and learned that the whole reason it was created in the fifties was because of the Edinburgh Festival, which I guess I hadn't heard of, but there was the very famous Edinburgh Festival.

And and i i I think it's spelled Edinburgh, but I think it's pronounced Edinburgh. But um a bunch of people around, like sort of like um You know, oh god, what's that group? Uh Beyond Beyond maybe Beyond the Fringe, that you know, the group in the fifties and they were like they wanted to be a little cheeky. So this they made their own version of the Edinburgh Festival called the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Because it's all stuff that's happening on the fringe of the actual festival. And now, I mean, how where do you begin? You go in and you do an act for every night for a month. It's it's one of those. Stuart Lee's done it a ton of times, but I think the basic thing is You can change it up or whatever, but the idea is you there's a theater where you are booked for one month and you do your show every night.

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes there is literally no one there. Uh yes. And that's what I like I uh it it I know that SF Sketchfest tries to to sort of be yeah yeah. Say all you want. It's the most total bullshit. Try. And there are no it's it's just all celebrity bullshit. It's not about comedy at all. It's just it's it's uh about nostalgia bullshit. I mean I mean, I met Oscar from the office there. I met I met a lot of really nice, really famous people back when I used to get invited to these things. Roderick got canceled and I stopped saying yes to anything. But um I but no they can be very very entertaining but if you always look the marquee features are always like uh oh it's a reunion of everybody who's still alive from the Bob Newhart show and you're like well that'll be fun.

Yeah But like we saw we we went to uh k the kid and I went to see the the dad band with like David Wayne. And Ken M Ken Marino and April from um not April, but you know, Tom Tom Hereford's girlfriend from Parks and Rec. U And Terry Kinney. There's any of those photos of them performing? No. Joe Joe Lo Trujillo. Like, yeah, they they have a dad band where they do covers. And uh yeah. That stuff is funny to me. That stuff to me is funny. But anyway, so yeah, so that's but the the point of the show is the thing that you don't need to get, but there's so much lore and depth to this show that I find extremely satisfying. But one of the things to know is that Alex Horn is the show runner. He's the guy who created the show.

I found out recently that for practical purposes He's come up he's he for practical purposes, he comes up with every task. I'm sure there are numerous tasks where he's either collaborated or somebody else came up with it. But that's kind of what makes it interesting is that he's saddled with this thing of like constantly coming up with four challenges for every show over now seventeen series. And they don't repeat. They the it's a new challenge every time. So the conceit of the show being that and then Uh Greg is terrible to Alex, little Alex Horn, who on the show is obsessed with Greg and just wants to please him, and it was a pretty funny bit. But the other thing is then then these five celebrity contestants who are the casting for this show is so good, the chemistry between any given group of five, they all have a costume.

And the way people choose to do the task or cheat at the task never stops being. Very funny and creative to me. Or fail. They fail creatively at the task sometimes. Or they don't figure out the whole task. They didn't read the whole task. They didn't, you know what I mean? There's something that they didn't The show is it makes something like Survivor or any other reality show look so dumb where you're constantly like so really seriously this challenge is that Zelensky has to carry sand? For seven or several hours? Seven. Is that that the the challenge is Zelensky carries sta sand. That's the challenge. Yeah, yeah, it's brains and broken. Oh wait, let me guess. You have to jump in some water and get a key and untie a knot and then you're working Oh wow, that's that's that's amazing.

I I don't think it's fair to compare this to Survivor in Anyway. How about how about a woman stands behind a how about a woman stands behind a curtain and can only answer yes or no questions and you have to draw her? Unless you're rod and you figure out that you can grab a mirror and look at her in the mirror. Or you you realize that just because a room uh the the room doesn't have the lights turned on the lights. Wait, is this the dark one? No, I have not I have not seen well that's why I said there none of the tasks repeat, but along with the other thing. No, they're very thematically. Yeah. Yeah. And that was one of the first things I looked up was is he creating every single task? Because I'm like there's either a very close knit group of writers, which seems like it'd be very difficult to do with the scope of this show because what is also impressive with the producing issue.

Especially when you look at how it's shots are done. It's insane the way that they This is a shot. Yes. It's it's br it is the God, he's brilliant. Oh my gosh. But like to think about being the project manager for that where you're like this Wait. So basically this is near Heathrow Airport. That's another reason you'll see a lot of planes in the air deliberately. That's because they're very near Heathrow. And they they are really like they're in London. Like it looks like it's in the middle of nowhere. But if you've ever seen one where they open the gate and walk outside, there's people walking by. Did you like did you like Bake Off? Did you like uh the old one? So like both Mel And Sue have been on this show and they are both Oh, really?

And the one with the season with Mel is my one of my absolute favorites. That's also the one with Noel uh Fielding. Uh I think. Wait anyway, but anyway. No, but there's one where uh Mel from Bake Off, who's so adorable, opens the gate and goes out and like you you can do whatever. The the the the phrase on the show, which is often my my b bio I'm asked it on, is somebody will say to Alex Am I allowed to leave the room? Or am I am I allowed to use stuff from the kitchen? Whatever? And he what is what does he say every time anybody asks any question? All of the information is on the task. It's on the test. All of the information This is exactly exactly the same thing, exactly the same way. This is part of the beauty of this show.

Uh it shows widely diverse in some ways and incredibly tight in others. But if anybody asks him anything, he'll almost always say, sometimes he'll say something like, does it say you can't? But he'll say like he'll say all the information is on the task. And that's part of the beauty of the show. Because what he's saying is, and then they they he it's worded, the tasks are worded, I think, very well. You have to keep a basketball in motion on an automated treadmill without touching the treadmill or the basketball. Your time starts now. And one guy figures out just grab like a like a dish bin and just hold the ball in place and he gets like twenty-seven minutes. Other people come up with these incredibly cockamimi things that fail in half a second.

Which is part of what also makes it funny. Because then it'll be like there's somebody who fucking killed this challenge and somebody else who botched this challenge so hard. You can see them grimacing. Because they they don't they haven't seen what the other people did in the challenge. They're all shot separately at different times. They drive the people in for the day. They sit in a room and say, okay, we're ready for your challenge. They find out about the challenge. They do a little bit of the challenge, or in some cases it's a challenge to find the most get throw a ball off screen in the most interesting way. You have you have two months, your time starts now. Yeah, yeah. I I th th and sometimes they only uh give a task to a single uh contestant.

Oh my god. The one where Rob where Rob had to fart on a plane. is s those are so they'll they'll as they say what do you say wind somebody up by giving them a challenge that nobody else got and it's they're so fucking funny. And then another famous one, I'm sorry, now I'm just fanboying out, but like another funny thing is they'll they'll show them. So like the tasks are done, they show the setup of the task, right? They come back to studio for some talking. This is months after this these tasks have been shot. And and or at least weeks, right? And they'll talk about it. And then they'll say, well, let's start with these two. And they show they interleave the two these two people doing the challenge.

Or the then these two people. And they'll say, like, and then we have this one for last, which is always great. And it's a bit on the show where I've I don't know if you've gotten to this yet where somebody goes, well, you know, um Alex when when we only have one left, like that usually means it means somebody did very, very well or very, very poorly. You don't know which. And it's always fucking hilarious. There's uh one where uh uh uh what's his I'm sorry, just the cause l tell me tell me your season and who the people are so I know. a series four I believe there's uh dinesh um bob Sally they always say her full name's Sally Sally Sally from Veeep Uh yeah. So you seen her cuddling? You seen her cuddling with Alex?

Oh my god. Oh my fucking God. Oh God, in her movie, the the you need to make the most interesting movie in twenty minutes. I mean, how do you not have an insane crush on Sally Phillips after watching her on that show. She's so in it. When I say sexy, I mean sexy in like an old-fashioned way. As in like, oh my god, I would love to just be around this person all the time. You could tell there's there's like a little devil in her eyes all the time. And she's so fucking funny on this show. First thing I said, in unison, uh MILF. Um from her very first episode, you realize like there's this woman sitting there. Who is like dignity attack? I was trying to maintain my dignity. How'd you do? Several times.

There's one guy on that show who is actually a licensed doctor. He always does terrible at everything. Oh shit piss. Shit piss God I think you are missing one of the most or not mentioning one of the most important parts, which is that this uh less than a panel show, I think, is a game show. And all of this is a game that's scored in one of my favorite. Especially especially the final like live challenge has the elements of like an old timey or like something you d do at your church. Like some kind of a crazy Sac race kind of thing that people have to do. Where you've like there's one where you've got to like wear a poncho and underneath the poncho are a whole bunch of balloons. And without looking, you have to create the longest line of balloons by tying them together under a poncho without looking.

I mean we you could do that. There is a there is a home version of this game. I'm sure it's as bad as all home versions of all games, especially number wang. And there's a VR version coming out this year. We'll see how that goes. Oh no, I I I wish. No, it's only on Windows Actually, I don't know how I'll be able to play this. Anyway, No, that's a good point though. Uh so A I I I there's so many difficult names on here. Oh, I love the way they bring in different people from different UKs. There's always like Scottish people and Irish people and a uh A A Aisling? How do you say her name? Bob Mortimer, who's great, Mark Watson, adorable, uh Nish Kumar and Sally Phillips. That's season series five of Taskmaster.

Yeah, and the I think at the very beginning, uh it it's like we we have various commun with wildly wildly different fan bases. And I thought, like with Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, there would be weird vibes. And maybe there are st uh like series that have a weird vibe, but It's it's not so much. It's shot and at least it's shot and edited in such a way that it seems like to some extent y it seems like they really maybe don't hate this experience and and sometimes it's pretty funny. The stuff with James the season with James Acaster I mean you if you can go out and find things like the best. There's one really good one called Oh God, we've got to talk about the YouTube channel. Holy shit. There's one called Times When the Contestant Chose Violence.

And uh but but the um just so y'all know, so this is a UK show. It used to be on something called Dave and now it's on I think BBC 4. I'm not sure. I don't really understand system. Channel four. All you need to know spicy BBC. All you need to know is that their YouTube channel is fucking great. They have every episode of the show that has ever come out. Playlists for every series of the show, one through seventeen. I'm not done. They put out the episode of the show that was just on in England. They put it up commercial free within days. of it going up in the UK. And then on top of it, once you are, if you become broken and love the show Taskmaster, they have compilations. that are so well done in terms of like if you love Taskmaster, you're gonna love one.

Here's this here's a compilation of four tasks where the answer was right there. Yeah, yeah, that's what I've been uh that for the past two weeks that's like kind of been watch I I have watched uh series five. They're fun they're funnier if you've seen that series, but even in the absence of it. And then you might actually like for example, this is how like I first learned about w thinking I might love season seven is um seeing seeing people that like like just seemed very appealing to me. And then you could explore once you've watched some of the But it doesn't the only problem is it doesn't give you the flavor, you know, that you get like from the actual people, but No, I I agree. I was trying to look at it after I'd seen most of uh uh like the uh ser is it four or five series five I just wanted to see like okay is it are the tasks always this playful and uh creative?

And that's where I started to realize uh th there's the lore and the the that they're all written by Alex Alex and uh and Alex is always there to soup super. Oh my god, and the role of Alex. Like think about the role of Alex in that cuddling challenge. So let me I could pull this up real quick. Um and so the seas you see we say five? Yeah, and so if it has a really good fandom. So uh yeah, give Alex a special cuddle. What wait, what's the challenge? Give Alex a special cuddle. Well what what am I supposed to do? All the information is on the task. Give it a special cut. Whatever your version of a special cut is. Bob won that one, but my God was Sally funny. Oh wasn't she like spit like like feeding him like a bird like putting food in his mouth from her mouth?

Um goes there physically with people in a way that is so funny to me. The physicality uh that that's why I keep saying saying play. It's like they just are kind of released into this uh uh playground where they are r barely supervise. Standing like oh we're just gonna yeah there's crutches that you're gonna use. Here's a wheelchair and a wheelbarrow and Or they'll just say there's one, there's a hilarious one, and this is one of the very funny James A. Kester James A. Castor, who's a very funny stand-up, you should check out his stuff on Netflix. He's actually a legitimately very gifted stand-up, but he's so funny on this show. And you'll see these certain types reappear. There's the types that are like the older than everybody else guy who, as it turns out, is one of Greg Davis' best friends, and consequently he gives him the most, you know, flack.

Um, there's like they they get in like diverse young, funny, different sized women. And then they get like people you like used to watch on TV, like well, Richard Herring is on here and people like that. Or again, Noel Fielding from, you know, the Mighty Boosh. who's just outstanding on this show. But with James A. Castor, there's one where the challenge was to, and everything is, it's all Greg's world. The whole thing is based around the Taskmaster. You're in the Taskmaster's house. You're subject to his whims. build an addition to Greg's house. And it's such a funny it's such a funny challenge where the guys are just f screwing each other up in different ways. And then at the end when they get back to the studio, people will just have these hilarious explosions.

about oh I I had no idea that I was allowed to go to the garage for materials. Yeah But and then of course there will also be things so much every level of this is well done, including the way it's shot. Watch the reaction shots from people who are on the panel. They pick really interesting reaction shots that like it's not just them cackling wildly. Sometimes it's just them looking a little bit awkward. Because we also know that they're just in a studio shooting this. And there's a a gold painted throne that a man is sitting on next to a gold statue of his head that you win if you win this dumb show. It's all but then also just the way they'll do the edits to show things like And and then and uh so and so did it in three seconds like ah but Everybody inhales and they'll show a clip in super slow motion of something where somebody didn't realize they broke the rules.

And it's so fucking funny. Get as many get as much stuff as you can into this bathtub and nothing's allowed to fall or into this hammock and nothing's allowed to fall out. One thing fell out, nobody even noticed it. Or sometimes they catch somebody cheating and it's really funny how they react to cheating. Sorry. I'm being a fanboy. This is why I can't be on the incomparable. Because all I want to do is talk about how much I like something. I liked how you talked about Totoro and Kiki. It was very good. Oh so good and she got the puppy Hey let's go Yes I listened to the dub I I I think that I think the dub is a good thing. The Why can't they stay children forever? Do you love the outfits? I mean, I know you haven't seen a ton, but like the way that like somebody gets like God Fern Brady.

Who discovered she was autistic while doing this show. She's that makes so much her brand new stand-up on Netflix just went up. And uh yeah, she talks it's uh basically partly about like discovering she's autistic from being on this show. Oh, that's so like she cried she cried inconsolably when the show ended. She was like for the first time in her life she had something she really understood, like a clearly defined set of things, a dependable environment. I mean sh you should hear her talk about it, not me, but Oh well that's like i you keep mentioning how how like funny the the tasks are and how uh y you know it it s silly it is when people uh uh uh fuck up or uh or br break the rules and whatnot.

But the way everything is structured is uh like it's it's not meant uh I d I don't know. It's very much laughing with all of the particip participants and not at unless uh unless right but but even then there's still this is also what makes it very English. Right? Like when I became friends with Danny O'Brien, there were ways in which it was kind of awkward for me because Danny's whatever, he speaks Italian now, but like he he was very English, like beyond self-deprecating. Like in England, you never say anything nice about yourself. If you have anything to assert, as we all know now know, in England, anyway, to assert anything, you still must ask it as a question. You're you're you're kind of a piece of shit, aren't you?

Yeah. Right? Like you're supposed to talk like that. But like and it's so funny because like you're never supposed to like put on airs. Way more than in America even though even in their busted ass class system, their straight up fucking class system, you you couldn't you should never act like you're above your station or like you're good at what you do. But then that's that is funny because then there's these bursts of people like just freaking out about like how they think they did this better than the other person and they're so frustrated. And you do get the sense that they're a little bit invested in winning this. There's nothing to win except Craig's head. They want to be right. No, no, no.

The rules they didn't win. And then there's the like adjudication of what and and by adjudication it's uh no, it's whatever it's whatever the taskmaster sa says. Yeah, and sometimes they'll just give arbitrary points, but it isn't wack-adoo It isn't like, you know, there's shows where it'll be like uh well obviously a good example is Griffin Griffin Newman giving somebody uh a hundred comedy points. Let's not stuff like that, but and yeah, anyway, uh it's it's dumb to talk about it, but it it has made me so happy. I just sent you a picture of my girlfriend, this is Lou Sanders. Uh Lou Sanders is what series? Series. Oh, I don't know. Doesn't she look like a Doctor Who companion? Doesn't she look like a Doctor Who companion?

Yes. Although a lot of uh English women do, to be fair. Yeah, but with that outfit? Woof. So funny. She has a great mouth. Series 8, Lou Sanders. Uh oh, haha! Oh god, Alex Must Hate Her. Comedian's Choice Award for Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Oh, monster. Absolute monster. Well and I've talked so much, I'm sorry. Um tell me tell me some more things uh you feel about it. I wonder if this would work in America. I think they tried. And I think it didn't. That makes me very much. There's a whole bunch. A, there's a whole bunch of international versions, and B, yeah, Alex is involved with those. I've heard the American version did not go well at all. They tried and it was terrible.

But I gotta tell you, man, New Zealand one, very entertaining. It's a different vibe because it's not Greg and Alex. But um but yeah yeah that it it does it's a good question though because yeah I mean if this was hosted by Wayne Brady like who would host it here? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean who would I mean would Joe McCall Alex Horn who would produce it and yeah, yeah, it's a good idea. is like, you know, but but I think they do supervise what's happening so it doesn't go you know it's like the Lego shows. Lego shows are good in every country too, pretty much. But um but uh yeah but who would it be? Who would you pick for to be Greg? Oh God, I don't I've uh that's uh the opposite of um yeah that's No I'm trying to think of like who what's an American version of Graham?

Yeah The problem is they're uh d dicks in a way that like you I know can't get away with in America. Like the the the the if you get to the season with Rod, the season with Rod is incredible. Because every s every show begins with the oh shit, what do they call it? What's the name of where you bring in something from nominally from your house? The um There's a name for it and I'm spacing on it. Oh the b the beginning, the uh reward, um like the prize uh oh I don't know. Prize test what it's Press test. Price test because you bring something in from home. Something that makes the most excellent noise or whatever. You bring in something from home and um wait, what was my point? What was my form?

Uh uh uh Joe Joel McHale, um Vash. Uh I I think it would be hard to do in America because America. And it would end up being too broad. What do you mean by that? You know, there's stuff about Engl English humor tends to be more dry even in when it's a little bit bombastic. E even when it's like it but when when British humor goes baggy pants, it goes totally baggy pants. But British humor tends to be drier and tends to be more based on things like wordplay and I think. and wordplay and um but not dumb wordplay, not puns. But on like I don't know, it's like Money Python's funny because communication's hard. That's the whole basis of almost every Money Python sketch is it's hard to get along with other people because communication is dumb.

difficult. But then you add to that this kind of tacit sort of class thing. Oh, I was going to say what I was going to say was sometimes the a rod had this bit where every prize task He found a way to bring in a photo a very unflattering of photo of Greg top shirtless and looking fat and putting it into a photo. No spoilers, but so a lot of Greg's a lot of Greg Greg's very good stand-up is about his mother. And his mother is a very uh interesting uh senior uh lesbian woman who raised him. And but it's it's very funny. Rod's one one was like Find the most interesting way to have someone wear this fez. And they cut over and it's Greg's mom in a bubble bath wearing this fez. Like that kind of stuff.

So he'll get taken down that way. Greg's a fat guy. He loves cheese. Like there's that kind of stuff. But it it returns pretty quickly to the mean of like I he's the head guy, little Alex Horn is his assistant, you know. I it would be hard to do in America. Matt and I started thinking about like, okay, uh this this as a game, because we've we've also been watching and especially me, I've been watching every uh season from every um country uh uh of the traders and that's just oh god put put it just such straight in my oh my god I love it. Is that is that sho is that a show where like somebody's uh yeah it is yeah it's based on mafia or w werewolf but it is Not uh secret Hitler type situation. It's a it's a secret Hitler type situation, but um over uh it's oh over Do you know?

Does the audience know? Yes. Yes. Which is another th if That's why I'm I'm obsessed. Like, what would it be? I uh uh anyway, anyway, that'll be a future uh m uh maybe a future challenge. But I think that this Could be done in a very Chicago way live because I think where some of the British humor becomes more accessible uh like it it still is edited in uh not a Monty Python way, but in like those uh quick uh almost uh the d They're almost dry cuts of just like a long shot of Alex looking at his clipboard. I mean I go and one that comes to mind is There's Richard Lester, the guy who famously directed, you know, a couple of the Beatles movies and stuff before that. There's a Richard Lester style, if you think about all the hoppy jumpy stuff in um help especially but like very like if you think about the editing style of the monkeys TV show that's I'll pretend I've seen that.

Yeah yeah well like like a precursor to the um yeah like why would you know about culture MTV um cut cutting w what I came to think of in the eighties and nineties as MTV fast cutting styles has a big basis with with Richard Lester, for one. I mean there's a lot of people do you ever see A Hard Day's Night? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Have you ever seen the traitors, Merlin? What would you know about culture? No, I've seen you talk about it. I don't know anything about it. I figured it was like a mole show. No, I hate reality TV. This is this is known. I despise reality TV. Um I watch Survivor, I watch Top Drafts, Top Chef, and this. You watch f far more reality TV than I uh wow, I didn't I do you still watch who gets an award for what there?

No, I'm surprised. No, no, no, but what do you find because those other people are not going to be able to do that? I tried watching it in that it's bald boulderized version, but it's not the same without You know. Well same way I can't watch the fucking baking show with with that that terrible I mean Noel Fielding, of course, was great on the baking show. But I despise Paul Hollywood and there's no Mary I don't know if Mary's on anymore, but like with no Sue No Sue and Nell, you gotta be fucking kidding me. Mm-hmm. Like to Sue is the biggest draw to the show for me by far. They were lovely and when when they left it it was just it lost that playful yeah, i i because it got sold and it it it lost the playful in nature.

And that to to me is what's never. We don't need another super competitive show about something people are good or not good at. But like and again this this show is just it's a you know I I was tempted to say it's a facade where it's just to like put funny people on display, but no, it really is stem to stern. It's okay if you don't like it. I get that my family doesn't particularly like it. But like when you if you do watch it and you do end up liking it, I think it's very satisfying on a lot of levels. It's great comfort viewing. It's great for like I just want one more thing to watch before bed. But like I will mainline like half a season of the sh of this show in one night. A season I've already seen.

I'll just go back back and watch a season I love a few episodes. And Uh uh I I find the show very thought-provoking as a fan. Because like the way they once you start watching this, you're gonna go like, you know, just taking it's all done very well, it's very seamless. But like ask yourself how that was done. Like ask yourself how these things were done and the production design. Just even that bum bum bum bum bum just the like the things they choose to show in those little montages, the little weather vein that has a silhouette of Greg and Alex on it, like the giant portrait of Greg. Like the production design on all this stuff is like it's so well done. And basically I don't know if they eventually bought the place.

Weren't they like renting that place for a long time? And they just I'm not sure Redo it every every few months or whatever, but yeah, it's uh the caravan. Hmm. That's where Alex. That's where Greg's caravan where Alex is allowed to live sometimes. You need to I love you too, Alex so much. You you need to come to Chicago. Go and just see see improv. I know it'll but just watch the see improv shows for a a a month. Stay in Chicago for a month. Yeah, I love it. So big of a great. I I think if you like improv and like Survivor, and I suppose British this show. No no no. You I'm not talking I'm not talking no no no not talking about it. Uh I Wait, I'm sorry, Alex, are you talking to the audience right now?

I'm I am. It's very unwholesome. I if you uh like Survivor or improv or uh d British comedy, this is something I like ma mainlining. Just it's i i it also he'll like to be. Don't you look funny I kind of got into it way faster than I expected. 'Cause I first turned it on because I think again it was another one of things I think I probably learned about from Jason Snow. was when I started watching I was like, oh this is fun. This is really quirky is was my first thought. Like there's a lot going on here. But then I watched a few and I I I have to admit, there are people that I fall deeply in love with every season. Usually one guy and one girl. Um there are seasons where like you're just pulling for that particular but like I It did I didn't have to watch multiple seasons to love this show.

It really took a few, but then watching you go to another season. Just remember guys, it's all free, especially if if you have a good YouTube account. Oh my god, I had to watch YouTube with ads for the first time in years. Oh my fucking god. It just the ads just start for s just sometimes. They just But but just remember if you're if you end up liking this and you're feeling blue Just go out and just go watch st just watch the first episode of a season of Taskmaster and it'll chew you up. It's it's it's anarchic, it's it's funny, it's smart, it's smarter than it first seems by far. Don't you think? Smarter than it seems. Mm-hmm. It is and very addictive. Get a special cuddle. I want a special cuddle.

I want a special cuddle of the case. Your time starts now. raw transcript