Speaker 1: Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Welcome Together Everything, So don't don't hello Hello, Let's do
Speaker 1: it Hi. Welcome back to the Worst Year Ever in perpetuity.
Speaker 1: D mc r. Thank you so much for welcoming me
Speaker 1: of coorse yere ever, thank you, Hie for the year,
Speaker 1: for the year that you gave. You are You're the
Speaker 1: ones who gave us this year, So thank you. A
Speaker 1: lot of people think we are the ones that gave
Speaker 1: us all this year, or specifically you are, Robert you
Speaker 1: are well are the term that everybody rips off now
Speaker 1: because of US NPR someone else probably yep yep NPR
Speaker 1: who we are in the process of suing. We have
Speaker 1: retain into the services of Johnny Cochrane, which took a
Speaker 1: lot of necromancy, I mean some real black magic ship.
Speaker 1: We had to sacrifice. Well I don't want to. I
Speaker 1: don't want to get into the different things we had
Speaker 1: to sacrifice because the Federal I mean, we can we
Speaker 1: can credit stuff cut there, but say that, say we
Speaker 1: had a sacrifice and we can bleep it maybe like
Speaker 1: half a school bus worth of kids, like not that
Speaker 1: many really and they were like, you know, it was
Speaker 1: it wasn't a good school anyway, and it was also
Speaker 1: like attendance was low because of the pandemic. Yeah, nowhere good. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Cody Johnston. What's everybody else's fucking name? God damn it?
Speaker 1: I Robert Johnston. Perfect, I'm Kathleen Roberston. All real names. Hey,
Speaker 1: So we've been doing this thing where we're making fun
Speaker 1: of Ben Shapira's terrible books, which have gone on for
Speaker 1: quite a while because I don't know about you, guys,
Speaker 1: but I hate doing my job. Also, I have a
Speaker 1: daily news podcast, and you guys have what you do
Speaker 1: at least one podcast a week, and then you have
Speaker 1: the show. We've got the YouTube show, which is quite
Speaker 1: a lot of work as well, buried in the news constantly,
Speaker 1: and so it's just fun to laugh fun. It's terrible.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you noticed that's listening. They're very bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're very very Making fun of them makes us happy. Uh.
Speaker 1: This show has definitely gone off of some rails and
Speaker 1: onto a completely different set of rails, and what we're
Speaker 1: all fine with it. Some people have said that they
Speaker 1: still want some news, So this episode, we're gonna give
Speaker 1: you some news, and then we're gonna get back Ben Shapiro,
Speaker 1: so the real good news. We'll do both, um. But
Speaker 1: also if you want more news from us, my god,
Speaker 1: you have so many options, so many places about the news.
Speaker 1: It's been a minute, but we guessed on each other's shows.
Speaker 1: It's like there's very little responsible amount of content. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and it's for you to consume, um. And it's
Speaker 1: I I understand. It's strange you didn't sign up for
Speaker 1: Ben Shapiro book Club, Baby, but you didn't really sign
Speaker 1: for anything because it is just a podcast. You don't
Speaker 1: have to sign. You don't have to sign. That's the
Speaker 1: beauty of it. So we did. We did, We did sign.
Speaker 1: We have some contracts. Speaking of contractual obligations, pivot. When
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union fell in early ninety one or whatever, Uh,
Speaker 1: there was this new country that hadn't been a country
Speaker 1: for a while called Ukraine. In Ukraine, not the Ukraine. No,
Speaker 1: not the Ukraine, Ukraine, it's a proper name. Um. Ukraine.
Speaker 1: In addition to being newly country, UM had a funkload
Speaker 1: of nukes, like a bunch of nukes, like more nukes
Speaker 1: than most countries with nukes have, just because that's where
Speaker 1: a bunch of them had been you know, when the
Speaker 1: Cold War kind of came to a very sudden end,
Speaker 1: and there were a lot of questions that people in
Speaker 1: Ukraine had, like, oh, boy, do we want to have
Speaker 1: all these nukes? It seems like nuclear stuff doesn't always
Speaker 1: go great with Ukrainians, like, seems like we've had some
Speaker 1: problems related things in the past. In the US and
Speaker 1: NATO were like, hey, guys, you know, we don't think
Speaker 1: there's it's good for there to be more countries with nukes. Uh,
Speaker 1: why don't you give those nukes to us? And Ukraine
Speaker 1: was like, well, we don't necessarily want nukes, but also
Speaker 1: everyone around us historically murders us every like twenty years
Speaker 1: or so, Like every twenty years, everyone around Ukraine murders
Speaker 1: all of the people there. That's like been going on
Speaker 1: for the last hundred years or so. Not quite that often,
Speaker 1: but it happens a lot. Everyone murders all of the
Speaker 1: people in Ukraine pretty regularly, and so the people who
Speaker 1: were in Ukraine when the Soviet Union fell were like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we want those nukes because it does kind of
Speaker 1: seem like when countries have nukes, they don't get murdered
Speaker 1: as often. At least by people outside of them, right,
Speaker 1: it seems like maybe there's some protection from the outside
Speaker 1: world when you have a funkload of nukes. And NATO
Speaker 1: was like, hey, guy, like relax, you give us your
Speaker 1: nukes and we're NATO, like we just want we've got
Speaker 1: all these fucking ship Yeah, well we'll we'll well, we'll
Speaker 1: watch your back, like, well, we will guarantee your territorial integrity,
Speaker 1: like you've got nothing to worry about, just Hannis those nukes,
Speaker 1: and Ukraine was like, you know what, the responsible thing,
Speaker 1: the hopeful thing, the decent thing is as a member
Speaker 1: of the international community, is for us to have there
Speaker 1: be one less nuclear power here you go, will trust you.
Speaker 1: And then the instance somebody threatened Ukraine's borders, NATO was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you guys wanted us to like do stuff now, So
Speaker 1: now that happened, it's and it's a whole mess. Like
Speaker 1: the gist of of how the current crisis started as that,
Speaker 1: in like two fourteen, there was this president of Ukraine, Yanukovich,
Speaker 1: who tried to do the president becoming a dictator thing
Speaker 1: through using the police to brutally crack down on dissent
Speaker 1: and and all that kind of stuff, you know, things
Speaker 1: we all experienced versions of pretty recently. UM. And it
Speaker 1: didn't go great for him. There was a big protest.
Speaker 1: It was a very politically complicated protest. UM. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of messy ship going on. Politically,
Speaker 1: Ukraine has definitely a Nazi problem UM, which is a
Speaker 1: serious problem that the government has made some serious failures on.
Speaker 1: For Basically, after they kicked the president out, Russia invades,
Speaker 1: takes crimea props up this quote unquote separatist movements UM
Speaker 1: and takes a chunk of the eastern part of the country.
Speaker 1: And ever since, for the last nearly a decade, there's
Speaker 1: been kind of a low intensity, although some would dispute
Speaker 1: the low um, but but low intensity at least compared
Speaker 1: to like the death toll of something like the Syrian
Speaker 1: Civil War war in eastern Ukraine. UM, and the battle
Speaker 1: lines have not moved a lot since like or so
Speaker 1: has not been a tremendous amount of movement. UM. And
Speaker 1: now we're in this situation where recently the Russian government
Speaker 1: has started massing I think something like a hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty thousand troops on the Ukrainian border. Um. There's kind
Speaker 1: of debate as to how much Belarus, which is the
Speaker 1: Belarishan border is like fifty miles something like that from Kiev,
Speaker 1: the capital of Ukraine. UM, and they're very close with
Speaker 1: with Russia. UM. What happened in Kazakhstan, which which is
Speaker 1: in Russia's fear of influence, in which they sent a
Speaker 1: bunch of troops into along with some of their allies,
Speaker 1: like disrupted things and it's it's been kind of a
Speaker 1: messy period. But most people who know anything about the area,
Speaker 1: including like most of the conflict journalists I know who
Speaker 1: have been there way more often than I have and
Speaker 1: who know more than I have, are fairly certain that
Speaker 1: there's going to be some kind of invasion soon. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of debate as to whether or not they
Speaker 1: think Russia is going to try to like actually take
Speaker 1: Kiev like a whole let's eliminate Ukraine is an independent nation,
Speaker 1: and you know whatever it kind of vg government gets
Speaker 1: propped up or if it's their plans are kind of
Speaker 1: more limited. We want to like take some of these
Speaker 1: these towns or suburbs around uh De Nettes. We want
Speaker 1: to take Constant and if Quebec, like there's a lot
Speaker 1: of of kind of everyone wondering the extinct, which what
Speaker 1: Russia's designs are. Most people are in agreement that there's
Speaker 1: probably going to be an invasion soon. I'm actually not
Speaker 1: as certain as most people. But that said, I want
Speaker 1: to be really clear. People who know a lot more
Speaker 1: than me are much more convinced that there's going to
Speaker 1: be an invasion. I would have to be really soon, right,
Speaker 1: because from what I'm understanding, you have to move at
Speaker 1: a certain point otherwise they will get stuck in mud. Well,
Speaker 1: you know the elements of invasion, like a time always
Speaker 1: a factor with war, and there's a There's a few
Speaker 1: things going on kind of logistically. One of them is
Speaker 1: that it's expensive to keep a shipload of troops mobilized
Speaker 1: on the border of another country, right, and Russia is
Speaker 1: not made of money. Their economy is not doing great,
Speaker 1: um it is. They very expensive. There's a lot of also,
Speaker 1: like so basically what's going on in the situation is
Speaker 1: going on right now, Russia's got all these troops massed
Speaker 1: on the border, and they're kind of like making a
Speaker 1: set of um they they wouldn't really frame them as demands,
Speaker 1: I don't think too to NATO. But it's it's like
Speaker 1: a set of demands basically to that NATO UM pull
Speaker 1: troops out of a bunch of area places like even
Speaker 1: Poland like that are kind of near Russia. UM. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's some other things which is not going
Speaker 1: to happen. The US isn't gonna pull troops out of
Speaker 1: a number of the countries um, Georgia, UM and um. UM. Gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm spacing on one of the others. UM. But there's
Speaker 1: places they want the US and NATO to pull troops
Speaker 1: out of that is not going to happen. There's aid
Speaker 1: they want the West to stop delivering to Ukraine. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's going to happen. There are some areas
Speaker 1: where there's more room for actual negotiations, including like the
Speaker 1: US has stated that they're willing to talk about removing offensive,
Speaker 1: particularly missile based weapons from a lot of areas near
Speaker 1: the Russian border. UM. Anyway, So there's there's a mix
Speaker 1: of things that like there's really no chance of movement
Speaker 1: on and things that like, yeah, they might they might
Speaker 1: actually be able to come to an accord. UM. I
Speaker 1: am less convinced than some people that there's going to
Speaker 1: be an invasion UM. And and and that's really just kind
Speaker 1: of like I it's a really risky move for the
Speaker 1: Russian government. UM. Straight up, in a fight, Russia beats Ukraine. UM.
Speaker 1: They're just much bigger, they have a much better indigenous
Speaker 1: arms industry. UM, they have a longer logistical tail, they
Speaker 1: have a military that's a lot larger. But Ukraine is
Speaker 1: militarily not a pushover. And this would not be so.
Speaker 1: Russia's spent most of our adult lives UM engaged in
Speaker 1: a number of low level conflicts, low level to them
Speaker 1: by their standards, certainly not to the people in the area,
Speaker 1: in places like Libya and Syria UM and then recently
Speaker 1: UM in Armenia. UH. And these these kind of conflicts
Speaker 1: have been primarily for them, in addition to kind of
Speaker 1: some geopolitical goals, a way to test different new weapons systems. UM.
Speaker 1: So there's been a lot of specifically different kinds of
Speaker 1: like missiles, different kind of drone based systems, different kind
Speaker 1: of like weapons systems like a g t M s
Speaker 1: that they've been figuring out battle doctrine for and testing
Speaker 1: in the field UM, both to equip their own forces
Speaker 1: and to you know, sell to other militaries around the world,
Speaker 1: and so Russia's got experience, a lot of experience and
Speaker 1: is very well equipped for fighting a specific kind of
Speaker 1: conflict that this won't be because Ukraine is is not
Speaker 1: a peer when it comes to certainly air power, but
Speaker 1: is a near peer force um, which means they have
Speaker 1: access to most of the same advanced kind of weapons
Speaker 1: systems in some cases maybe even some superior weapons systems.
Speaker 1: They don't have the kind of air power that Rush
Speaker 1: should be able to bring to bear, but they do
Speaker 1: have anti air defenses, which is something that the Russian
Speaker 1: Air Force is not dealt with to the same extent
Speaker 1: that they will be in drain. We would be arming
Speaker 1: them from what we are are it. We would continue,
Speaker 1: but like there's a commitment of more things and more.
Speaker 1: To the point, the Ukrainian military has had nearly a decade.
Speaker 1: They were kind of a basket case as a force
Speaker 1: when the war started. They've had a lot of fighting
Speaker 1: experience at this point, and it would be ugly. It
Speaker 1: would be so that that there's a lot of risk
Speaker 1: to Russia because it would be a fucking nightmare probably.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's always this possibility it happens and they
Speaker 1: roll right through. And you know, history has surprises for us.
Speaker 1: But I think most people who know anything about war
Speaker 1: are expecting that if there is a full on, kind
Speaker 1: of unlimited engagement with the existence of the Ukrainian nation
Speaker 1: kind of at at stake, it's going to be really
Speaker 1: fucking nasty. Um. And there's a big question in my
Speaker 1: mind as to like, well, what's the benefit Is the
Speaker 1: possible benefit of of engaging in that kind of situation
Speaker 1: worth it to Putin because it's it's going to be
Speaker 1: tremendously expensive. It's going to cost probably a lot in
Speaker 1: terms of order because Russia is already having, as we
Speaker 1: saw with Kazakhstan, problems with these you know, and and
Speaker 1: Belarus just went through this massive which is a major alley.
Speaker 1: There's in the massive series of protests and uprisings. So
Speaker 1: I just don't know. I don't think he's always wanted this.
Speaker 1: This has always been Putin's big thing, the big and
Speaker 1: this is that there's that there is that this is
Speaker 1: not the first time there have been troops massed on
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian border. It's just a mess, and nobody really
Speaker 1: knows what's going to go down, um, But it's certainly
Speaker 1: an incredibly tense and potentially really really bad situation, because
Speaker 1: it's not impossible that a war between Russia and Ukraine
Speaker 1: that escalates to that extent could Poland surrounding nations and
Speaker 1: could lead to something really bad. Um. And there's you know,
Speaker 1: to some extent to which it would be difficult for
Speaker 1: Russia to walk back because they did stuff like kind
Speaker 1: of uncapped their tactical nuclear weapons, which is like a
Speaker 1: big sign that you're you're preparing for aggression, and just
Speaker 1: all of this without getting any kind of concessions at all.
Speaker 1: There's a question my mind as to whether or not
Speaker 1: like Putin would be willing to like take the kind
Speaker 1: of hit to the national prestige that that would that
Speaker 1: would endeavor. Um, I hope nothing happens, And that maybe
Speaker 1: why I'm kind of less convinced that something is going
Speaker 1: to happen, because I just I keep thinking about the
Speaker 1: people that I met over there, who you know, were
Speaker 1: exhausted of the war a year and a half in
Speaker 1: and after seven more years, I'm sure I just just done. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I don't want them to have to deal with
Speaker 1: any of this. But anyway, that's that is probably a
Speaker 1: responsible overview of of yeah, happening in Ukraine right now, um,
Speaker 1: and what might happen in the near future, I hope.
Speaker 1: So it's certainly not qualified. It's certainly yeah, me neither
Speaker 1: um scary And I like your attitude and outlook of
Speaker 1: hoping nothing happens, because it would be a big deal obviously,
Speaker 1: um and potentially very bad for Russia. But it does
Speaker 1: make me very nervous and it um and that fucking
Speaker 1: would happen. We would enter World War three a in
Speaker 1: the middle of a pandemic. Well, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's one possibility is a more limited war where some
Speaker 1: of the like Estonia and and uh, Georgia get involved
Speaker 1: on Ukraine's side, and there's like and and Belarusk gets
Speaker 1: involved and and and so it's more geographically limited than
Speaker 1: World War Three. But it becomes this huge proxy struggle
Speaker 1: in the West, start flooding and weapons and like you
Speaker 1: start seeing maybe death tolls like the Iran Iraq or
Speaker 1: something where you've got but also hundreds of thousands dying.
Speaker 1: There's just so many far reaching implications even for that.
Speaker 1: Or we're talking refugee crisis, and I mean absolutely in
Speaker 1: every arena, or like we're talking economic sanctions or different stuff.
Speaker 1: Well that tends to affect ripple out word and affect
Speaker 1: the world in general, and so there's a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like, for example, there's this messy, messy situation where
Speaker 1: like the German government is kind of supporting Ukraine but
Speaker 1: also is entirely dependent on Russian gas um to to
Speaker 1: an extent that is like massive and probably will go
Speaker 1: down in history as a disastrous decision. We can talk
Speaker 1: about the ethics of like nuclear power forever, but Germany
Speaker 1: made a real clear decision to like back away from
Speaker 1: nuclear power, which made them completely fucking um uh dependent
Speaker 1: upon Russian oil and gas, which is having an impact
Speaker 1: on the way they're approaching this. Like I haven't open this,
Speaker 1: but I did just see something about the US is
Speaker 1: preparing um emergency plans for gas and power supplies. U.
Speaker 1: The knock this will be if it happens, will be horrific. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it will be rific for Russia too. Like that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Even if they win. Um, the odds that any win
Speaker 1: that anyone has in this will be like so so
Speaker 1: pyric as to be not really a win are pretty high. Um,
Speaker 1: it's an incredible gamble, And I think the gamble Putin
Speaker 1: is making I suspect his geographical ambitions are kind of
Speaker 1: more limited than people are giving him credit for. And
Speaker 1: he's hoping very quick war take these things, get the
Speaker 1: prestige force everybody through fear to like back away and
Speaker 1: kind of let it happen. Um, you know, and and
Speaker 1: and he might get that that's the kind of thing.
Speaker 1: There's a canny way, I think, um to do that.
Speaker 1: I think any attempt to like actually eat the entire country,
Speaker 1: so to speak, through direct military force, um, would be
Speaker 1: uh tatanically ugly. But you know, it's it's really hard
Speaker 1: to say what's going to happen. There's so many different
Speaker 1: kind of variables here, and there's there's really frustrating ship.
Speaker 1: Like I'm seeing people now on Twitter being like Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: you know what, an idiot starting a war with Russia
Speaker 1: in the winter, and it's like the war is a
Speaker 1: decade old, Joe didn't start it. Uh, It's it's like
Speaker 1: that's stupid. I'm sorry. Like, even if you think that
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be sending any aid to Ukraine, that certainly
Speaker 1: stands you can take that's an idiotic take. Um, and
Speaker 1: it's deeply disrespectful to people, to the people who have
Speaker 1: been dying and suffering in Eastern Ukraine for like a decade.
Speaker 1: So so stop it with that kind of bullshit. It's
Speaker 1: fine if you think shipping weapons there won't make the
Speaker 1: situation better, certainly an arguable point, always an arguable point, um.
Speaker 1: But don't pretend that this is an example of US
Speaker 1: aggression against Russia because that's asinine um. And there's also
Speaker 1: ship Like people there was bitching online about like the
Speaker 1: term for the weapons that we were sending Ukraine, that
Speaker 1: we called it lethal aid, as if that was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's another like manufacturing can sent euphemism, which I just
Speaker 1: kind of disagree with entomologically, Like, I think lethal aid
Speaker 1: is fine. It's very direct. I think it's an honest way, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that's meant to help them kill people, Like that's
Speaker 1: not Yeah. I even think it's more direct than saying
Speaker 1: we're sending the weapons, because like, weapons is a broad
Speaker 1: category and weapons can include things like anti missile missiles,
Speaker 1: which are defensive. Lethal aid means like this is aid
Speaker 1: to help them kill people whatever. Yeah. At the same time,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess they're trying to dress it out
Speaker 1: of is usually reserved, like you know, like the connotation
Speaker 1: from that word is like a positive sort of helpful,
Speaker 1: say I'm sending a lethal thing. But yeah, I do,
Speaker 1: you know, I understand. But whatever, Um, it doesn't something
Speaker 1: I've never seen before, and it's an odd thing to
Speaker 1: pop up suddenly. It's been used before. It's just generally
Speaker 1: when we admit to doing stuff like this, it's on
Speaker 1: a more a very different it's in a very different
Speaker 1: situation than it is in Ukraine, and so it's not
Speaker 1: the kind it gets as much news coverage. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: take a break before we, yeah, slide into some bends,
Speaker 1: but I am not looking forward. I mean, it's already happening,
Speaker 1: but to what you're talking about, just the different conversations
Speaker 1: and the framings of it that are so hard to
Speaker 1: unpack and totally unfair and lacking any context. And then
Speaker 1: the people on the right saying, well, Trump would have
Speaker 1: done this, or this wouldn't have happened, or you know, Trump,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a problem for us through the
Speaker 1: elections no matter, and that group. I mean, but everything is.
Speaker 1: But activist groups stopped the war has been like doing
Speaker 1: a whole thing to like stop the war in Ukraine
Speaker 1: from starting. And again it's like it's it's happening. You
Speaker 1: can't and has been for seven or eight years, like
Speaker 1: stop it. Putin it's still there. It's perfectly and perfectly
Speaker 1: reasonable to talk about aspects of US policy have made
Speaker 1: that have made this worse. I mean that one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I talked about Paul Manafort so fucking much,
Speaker 1: who is deeply tied into the to like the U. S.
Speaker 1: Foreign policy establishment, into the you know, the military industrial complex,
Speaker 1: but just pretending that like if we don't get involved,
Speaker 1: there won't be a war. No, there will be a war,
Speaker 1: like there's been Like it's not it's happening right now.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, anyway, all right, anyway, we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: Ben in a moment together everything. Yeah, now time for
Speaker 1: that good stuff with art, with art, Yeah you wanna
Speaker 1: Shall we get back to Ben Shapiro? Was that enough
Speaker 1: talking about the real world for you? Mother? I hope
Speaker 1: so it was plenty for me. Again, We've got other
Speaker 1: shows that you can tune into shows and the news
Speaker 1: is the bummer. Let's have some funner, Yeah, exactly. What's
Speaker 1: not a bummer is hearing Ben Shapiro try to write
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. Um with the notable handicap of having
Speaker 1: never experienced or felt anything in his entire life. It's
Speaker 1: a problem. It's a real issue. It could it could,
Speaker 1: it could come to use, but sadly, here we are. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know it's the last one. Also, so
Speaker 1: we'll you know, we'll revisit that. We'll revisit the fucking
Speaker 1: news in the future. But um, we did. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: if you're listening, you're definitely news out. Um. I'll take
Speaker 1: Katie's word for it. Does anybody remember the last thing?
Speaker 1: I do? But I'm sort of like wondering where where
Speaker 1: does where? Does everybody think we left off? What was
Speaker 1: going on? Uh? He looked up at the star. He
Speaker 1: saw a magic start him up to the horrors of authority,
Speaker 1: right right, right right, and then he ran and that
Speaker 1: cube floated or Scott scoot the cube, which is a
Speaker 1: rip off of the prisoner, but a fine like that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing feels to be honest, we're making
Speaker 1: fun of it, but that's the kind of thing that's
Speaker 1: that's that's perfectly. They can even add some depth to
Speaker 1: a science fiction story when you when you can see like, ah,
Speaker 1: he must have been inspired by this, he's a fan
Speaker 1: of this, Like he's pulled in this, Like that's that's okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's fine. I would argue that there's a difference
Speaker 1: between like inspiration and just like lack of creativity, and
Speaker 1: it's like I have something because there's there's nothing about this.
Speaker 1: Using tropes are interesting, but like changing not bad, not
Speaker 1: necessarily no, But in this case, I would argue that, yes,
Speaker 1: it is very bad. Yeah, that's probably, but I mean,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make me think wouldn't it be interesting to
Speaker 1: write a story about that that's like a post know
Speaker 1: um apocalyptic living in sort of like nineteen eighty four
Speaker 1: style dystopia. Becomes clear that the people who built the
Speaker 1: dystopia were directly ripping off nineteen eighty four and the
Speaker 1: prisoner and stuff. That's what I not clear to the
Speaker 1: people in the world, but it's clear to the reader
Speaker 1: that like that could be neat You could do a
Speaker 1: fun story that way he's doing, but it could No, No,
Speaker 1: not at all. But like if you're looking times, I'll
Speaker 1: like like watching someone reading something being like distiction not
Speaker 1: exists in this world. Um, but to uh, yeah, to
Speaker 1: do something where like, yeah, it does and it's all
Speaker 1: the stuff that you've known, but not like maybe you've
Speaker 1: got even like competing factions within the authoritarian government. One
Speaker 1: of them is nineteen eighty four. One of them is
Speaker 1: going kind of like weird Brazil style and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could do the world in there where you were writer.
Speaker 1: There's there's things you could do that could be fun here.
Speaker 1: But but no, this is literally just you needed a pod, um,
Speaker 1: but can't be that. You've got to make it a
Speaker 1: cube shaped pod. But give us a sentence. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I will read the last paragraph that we
Speaker 1: read just to get us to get us back. Um.
Speaker 1: And that paragraph is one of his longer ones, at
Speaker 1: five sentences, I think. Um. Then he saw them in
Speaker 1: the reflection of the large mirrored glass panes of the
Speaker 1: Ministry of Food Provision. The cube shaped enforcement pods were
Speaker 1: rolling down the street after him, gaining rapidly in the
Speaker 1: lead pod. Yeah, it sounds like they kind of wheels
Speaker 1: in the lead pod, but it would be so it's
Speaker 1: actually kind of silly if they roll on wheels, if
Speaker 1: they're just big cubes on wheel. Ye, yes, we're being pedantic.
Speaker 1: But it's a bad story and it's funny to us,
Speaker 1: so required, Uh, pedantry is required when reading these. In
Speaker 1: the lead pod, though, he could see the slack jawed
Speaker 1: face of a slightly bored enforcer Capital E, who leaned
Speaker 1: forward and pushed a button. Suddenly, the pod jumped as
Speaker 1: those spurred with the cattle prod bucked and leaped toward him.
Speaker 1: The distance shrank one block. His feet were giving way
Speaker 1: now half a block. Uh So, it's like a giddy
Speaker 1: up kind of thing. But it's a cube cube that spurted. Fine,
Speaker 1: it's fine. The pod loudspeaker opened up, opened up. The
Speaker 1: pod loudspeaker opened up with that pulsating rhythm. He'd heard
Speaker 1: the rhythm once before. He'd only seen one enforcement action before.
Speaker 1: It had been a young girl ready for recruitment to
Speaker 1: the Ministry of Personal Needs. She had run just in
Speaker 1: front of his living space. They had turned on the
Speaker 1: pulse Capital p she'd fallen to her knees, sobbing hysterically.
Speaker 1: By the time they loaded her into the enforcement pod,
Speaker 1: she was in full spasm. He never knew what happened
Speaker 1: to her, but he hadn't thought of her again until now.
Speaker 1: The pulse grew louder. The pod crept up on him,
Speaker 1: an animal in pursuit of its prey. He looked for
Speaker 1: an escape to the right or left, but each block
Speaker 1: was solid. No alleyways to prevent clandestine meetings and secret liaisons,
Speaker 1: a policy he had always thought fair and good. But
Speaker 1: the unforgiving, unbroken walls continue to end of this to
Speaker 1: the end of the street. Sorry, I'm just like lost
Speaker 1: in his prose. But the unforgiving, unbroken walls continued to
Speaker 1: the end of the street. But behind him, the pulse crescendoed.
Speaker 1: He could feel the hair on his arms stand on end.
Speaker 1: His knees began to buckle. Soon he knew his legs
Speaker 1: would give out, his head fry from the pulse. Mm
Speaker 1: hmmm hm. And I'm gonna read this again soon. Comma
Speaker 1: this yeah, soon, Comma. He knew, Comma, his legs would
Speaker 1: give out. Comma, his head fry from the pulse. His
Speaker 1: legs would give out, His head would fry from the pulse.
Speaker 1: Look out too many words there, This is minor, But
Speaker 1: he described that woman being instantly right, didn't she come spasm?
Speaker 1: And now he's been running from the pulse. This whole time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's fallen to her knees, sobbing hysterically. She's in full spasm.
Speaker 1: I'm just doing well, unclearer of I mean, like he's
Speaker 1: been running from it for a minute. It's fine, but
Speaker 1: it's just very unclear how this works, how it affects people,
Speaker 1: why it's affecting him differently than it affected her. I
Speaker 1: bet he doesn't know a special boy. Yeah. The thing
Speaker 1: is though, so soon, he knew his legs would give out,
Speaker 1: his head fry from the pulse, but it didn't. As
Speaker 1: the pulse grew closer, he felt a strange sensation flow
Speaker 1: through his limbs, a second burst of energy. He was
Speaker 1: not like that girl, he suddenly realized. Oh, he's a
Speaker 1: special al right. I was trying to give him a
Speaker 1: little bit of credit that, like, maybe he was just
Speaker 1: not explaining everything right away. He's special, Kay, he's a
Speaker 1: special boy. That's good. Yeah, okay, you know, but he's special. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was not like that girl. He suddenly realized a
Speaker 1: shocking realization. He had always been like everyone. He's a
Speaker 1: different words, so bad. I was not like that girl.
Speaker 1: He realized a shocking realization, Like right, like, he's not
Speaker 1: like that girl said he realized shocking for he like, like,
Speaker 1: all right, he was not like the slack jawed enforcer.
Speaker 1: Then interesting. Uh the disdain and disrespect he has for
Speaker 1: the cops in this world. And yet uh, and yet
Speaker 1: he would never describe any cop these days as slack
Speaker 1: jawed because those cops are liberals. Exactly. I'll just want
Speaker 1: to point out that. I mean, I guess I've probably
Speaker 1: pointed this out many times throughout this process. Um, it's
Speaker 1: the voice is exactly the same in every thing. He
Speaker 1: might tack on some colloquialism to suggest this is a
Speaker 1: tough guy, or I'm from the South, but you know
Speaker 1: I was running the hair fry everything. It could be
Speaker 1: him describing him fighting. He's just trying to, like very bluntly,
Speaker 1: get ideas that aren't very well thought out to you.
Speaker 1: As opposed to what he's not trying to do is
Speaker 1: there's no there's no voice, like I don't think he's
Speaker 1: I don't think he's inspired by anyone. I think there's
Speaker 1: some like ideas, like clearly the vague ideas like someone
Speaker 1: described nineteen eighty four to Ben Shapiro, or he watched
Speaker 1: a movie and he was like, oh, I'll do that,
Speaker 1: but but I don't think he's he I do not
Speaker 1: believe he's inspired by any actual work of art in
Speaker 1: the way that like he's he's he's he's not doing
Speaker 1: the thing that like you do as a writer, where
Speaker 1: you like read someone else's writing and it influences the
Speaker 1: way you write because you you you identify with it
Speaker 1: and find it powerful. Um. And maybe he's not. Like
Speaker 1: one of the stories that I've always found interesting is
Speaker 1: a hun Let's know, when Thompson was a young man,
Speaker 1: he was a huge fan of like f Scott Fitzgerald
Speaker 1: in Hmingway, and he would like take their whole books
Speaker 1: and he would retype their whole book's word for a
Speaker 1: word to like learn how the how they like, to
Speaker 1: really get like a feel for how they constructed sentences. Um,
Speaker 1: and how like their their work flowed on a technical level. Um.
Speaker 1: And every writer does you know if not that exact
Speaker 1: thing to some version of that, right, Like your early
Speaker 1: work is going to largely be influenced by whatever writers
Speaker 1: you love, and you gradually develop a style. And Bin's
Speaker 1: style is is an absence of style. Because I don't
Speaker 1: think he actually, I mean, he's actually read any fiction,
Speaker 1: like not really, I think he's aware of fiction, but
Speaker 1: he does not. I'm not. I don't know what influence
Speaker 1: I would I would say he has, because again, this
Speaker 1: isn't writing well right, it's um it's I don't even
Speaker 1: know what you would call it. Um, but it's not writing.
Speaker 1: There's that Uh it's for a while ago, there's that
Speaker 1: tweet someone was like, what are your top five favorite books?
Speaker 1: Or like, what are the five best books of all time? Uh?
Speaker 1: And he quote tweeted it with his answer, and it
Speaker 1: was literally the results you get if you search for
Speaker 1: best books of all time. I'm not exaggerating. That's so funny.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so funny. Um, I believe Great Gatsby kill
Speaker 1: to Kill Mockingbird and uh like catching the Rye, I think, um,
Speaker 1: And it was literally just like the top five from
Speaker 1: the search. And I think that that like speaks to it,
Speaker 1: like it's it's this sort of idea that like, and
Speaker 1: if you did the same thing with music, you could
Speaker 1: do also he does he thinks that like what like uh,
Speaker 1: jazz uh and the blues like ruined music and then
Speaker 1: rock and role made it even worse, and like it's
Speaker 1: just sort of like slow like degradation of of like
Speaker 1: the rules for music is this, which is the kind
Speaker 1: of music he likes? Theory. I'm looking at the top
Speaker 1: five books when you google them, and it's really good
Speaker 1: that he didn't continue to six, because that would have
Speaker 1: meant he would have had to say he liked to
Speaker 1: Catch twenty two. He absolutely the anti Ben Japiro. And
Speaker 1: then right after that we've got Yeah, that's very a
Speaker 1: little more before we take another ad break. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we like we're getting close to a story break. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, I just think it's it's two speaking to
Speaker 1: what you were talking about. I think it's very funny
Speaker 1: that it's it is just like a lack of the
Speaker 1: inspiration from art, a lack of like really being spoken
Speaker 1: to um or connection to something and then having that
Speaker 1: blossom into something else. Right, that's uh, you feel the
Speaker 1: tank up and then it creates more. But um, Anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure Ben it feels love for like his kids
Speaker 1: and stuff. I hope, I sincerely, truly, without being an asshole,
Speaker 1: hope that that he is. But I don't know that
Speaker 1: he's ever experienced awehe I think you can't actually write
Speaker 1: even competent fiction if you don't know what all feels like.
Speaker 1: I think it's like a necessary thing because, like we
Speaker 1: talked about last week during the Star Day, you're not Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not describing what it's like to look at the stars. Man,
Speaker 1: You're just like saying that they did that. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: read a little more. Okay, okay, So, uh he's not
Speaker 1: like other boys. Um, he was not like the slack. No,
Speaker 1: that's just paraphrasing. Um, he's a special boy. The enforcers
Speaker 1: eyes widened and shocked as the pod approached. He was
Speaker 1: well within the range of the pulse. Now pulse is
Speaker 1: also capitalized. Yet nothing was happening. Nothing another to fry
Speaker 1: before then. Okay, interesting question. Uh nothing. Another enforcement pod
Speaker 1: opened up with the pulse full bore. Nothing. A smile
Speaker 1: creased his worn face. He slowed to a jog, then
Speaker 1: a walk, then finally he stopped dead and turned around,
Speaker 1: facing his pursuers. As he did, the pods backed away,
Speaker 1: as though called away by some higher power. He turned
Speaker 1: again and ran towards the mountain. Mountain is capitalized. And
Speaker 1: then that's the end of the section. Oh it's so bad.
Speaker 1: This is the first we've heard of the mountain. But
Speaker 1: I can't wait to find out more about it. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's like the Game of Thrones mountain. Yeah again, like
Speaker 1: if you're you're doing this thing where the society is
Speaker 1: so obsessed with everyone being equal and everything being exactly
Speaker 1: the same, a mountain is kind of like the ultimate
Speaker 1: visual symbol that like that that's not real, that like
Speaker 1: that can't can't be reality. So if it's always visible. Again,
Speaker 1: if you were trying to write something interesting, maybe you
Speaker 1: would have earlier introduced that, Like he tried to look
Speaker 1: at it, but like his eyes automatically scanned. There's some
Speaker 1: sort of like deep mental programming hypnosis, like he like
Speaker 1: his head hurts, or there's some robots always watching or something,
Speaker 1: and there's like this warning beeper whenever someone's eyes straight
Speaker 1: towards the mountain, because you don't want people to look
Speaker 1: at the mount wouldn't want people to look you wouldn't
Speaker 1: want people at the stars. Yeah wait till Robert you
Speaker 1: write your book of short stories, because I think it
Speaker 1: would be really good. They are just all erotic power
Speaker 1: Rangers fiction exactly really good. Still also inspired by but
Speaker 1: the parts of four that fuck, you know, like the
Speaker 1: parts that the parts that inspired that community episode that
Speaker 1: those are the parts I'm copy sex parts. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take a break for ads and be right that it's true.
Speaker 1: It sure will together. Everything's so dumb. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah in the sky. Yes, yes, Katie. Have you guys
Speaker 1: watched I think you should leave. I've seen one episode
Speaker 1: and then some choice sketches from it. So you gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta, you gotta get through all that. You gotta
Speaker 1: just sit down. It's like three hours for all of it.
Speaker 1: It's so it's the funniest thing in the world. I
Speaker 1: thoroughly enjoyed the one. Yeah, what what's the one you saw? Um?
Speaker 1: The first one? Oh yeah, yeah, I'm sure that's the one.
Speaker 1: Now you gotta see you gotta see Corn cop TV
Speaker 1: and you haven't seen Corn. That's the other thing, like
Speaker 1: I see like the memes. Um, it's it's it's very funny.
Speaker 1: I now communicate with several people almost entirely through references
Speaker 1: to I think you should leave. I've never had a
Speaker 1: show to be like that. I'm so happy for you.
Speaker 1: It's very Um. That's the mark of good art. It's
Speaker 1: really Darmak and gelatted pretty hard. Um. Simpsons, I think
Speaker 1: is a good example of that. Um of just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: communicate with all the quotes. Okay, boys, back to the book,
Speaker 1: back to the book, back to the book. So I
Speaker 1: just wanted to think about art for a second. I
Speaker 1: understand we all enjoyed something like a unique voice that
Speaker 1: like sticks with you and yeah, um god, all right,
Speaker 1: so he ran towards the fucking mountain, which is capitalized. Um,
Speaker 1: he didn't know how he knew about the mountain? Oh perfect, Okay.
Speaker 1: And also this is this is exactly the way you
Speaker 1: don't introduce something crucial like this. It's just like basic writing.
Speaker 1: You would you would introduce it very early on, tease it,
Speaker 1: and then because that's what makes the story a story.
Speaker 1: You have like walking down the street and here even
Speaker 1: here snipped snippets of a conversation or something or yes,
Speaker 1: literally any mention of this. But the point is maybe
Speaker 1: he just like irrationally hates the mountain. Maybe everyone hates
Speaker 1: the mountain because it's right, it's risen above like the thing,
Speaker 1: maybe like one of the eight pointless day jobs, because
Speaker 1: this is a point post scarcity society. But they have
Speaker 1: to make everyone work. Is everybody takes turns going to
Speaker 1: the mountain and cutting pieces of it away to try
Speaker 1: to take it down down. Things you could do, were
Speaker 1: you a storyteller. Alas, he didn't know how he knew
Speaker 1: about the mountain. The Ministry of Environments never talked about it.
Speaker 1: Nobody knew. Yeah, nobody knew the words mountain or valley. Wait, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: he's trying to again. Like what I was explaining is
Speaker 1: like how you would if you were trying to make
Speaker 1: like right wing propaganda, how you would do it competently.
Speaker 1: He's just so bad at it. It's like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry everybody listening to this that we have to
Speaker 1: stop every two sentences. But it's impossible to not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fascinatingly bad. The Ministry of Environment never talked about it.
Speaker 1: Nobody knew the words mountain or valley. He couldn't even
Speaker 1: see the mountain capitalized. The bubble also capital Oh now
Speaker 1: we introduce that. So after this thing has been important
Speaker 1: for a while, we announced that you can't see the mountain.
Speaker 1: You can't see the mountain because of the bubble, which
Speaker 1: is apparently a thing. Okay, so how can you see
Speaker 1: the fucking stars whatever? Maybe they're drawn off like somebody
Speaker 1: gave him this note of like all the like what
Speaker 1: you were just saying, Robert, and he just tacked it
Speaker 1: in like he didn't. He's like, oh, here, I'll give
Speaker 1: some information withoutgoing and like rethinking, like how go back
Speaker 1: a few pages, Yeah, go back, rework the story, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's this thing when you add when you're doing
Speaker 1: world building in a science fiction book, it's it's great
Speaker 1: if your world if you drop something that like makes
Speaker 1: people ask further. Like, for example, in my novel I,
Speaker 1: I have like a couple dropped references that there's a
Speaker 1: fucking king in Albuquerque and it's a thing that people
Speaker 1: talk about in the subread of a lot, I get
Speaker 1: a lot of questions about it, and like, I think
Speaker 1: it's an effective thing in the story because it it
Speaker 1: makes the point like, oh, things I really changed. There's
Speaker 1: like some stuff going on and as part of the
Speaker 1: world that's fascinating. I wonder what's going on there. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't take you out of the story because it's
Speaker 1: not like a mechanical thing about how the world functions, right,
Speaker 1: it's just like, oh, there's this thing going on in Albuquerque,
Speaker 1: that there's a king there that's weird, Like that makes
Speaker 1: it feel deeper. It's like um in uh in Star Wars,
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of of of good examples of
Speaker 1: like when they meet Han Solo and he's like um
Speaker 1: talks about the Kessel Run or whatever, where it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't need to know what the Kessel Run is.
Speaker 1: It is increased my enjoyment of the story because it's
Speaker 1: added depth. The opposite of that is introducing something that
Speaker 1: makes you wonder on a very basic level how reality functions. Here,
Speaker 1: Like halfway through this fucking story, dropping that they live
Speaker 1: under a bubble that you've never talked about before or explained,
Speaker 1: and so suddenly I'm asking all these questions, why, how
Speaker 1: did the stars work? How are you all started to
Speaker 1: did they take the bubble down? How did you know
Speaker 1: there was a mountain here? If you can't see the mountain,
Speaker 1: that takes me out of it. It's the difference between
Speaker 1: world building that you don't always have to explain everything,
Speaker 1: but you you need to know the things that you
Speaker 1: don't like. You need to know when your world building
Speaker 1: is going to make the world feel deeper and when
Speaker 1: your world building is going to make it make less
Speaker 1: sense exactly. Yeah, it's uh, it's it. It makes it
Speaker 1: feel convoluted and sloppy, and like does your does this
Speaker 1: sentence you're adding raise questions are distracting or does it
Speaker 1: just make it richer? Does it make the world richer? Um?
Speaker 1: I don't need to know every detail unless it's confusing. Um.
Speaker 1: All I know about the Kessel run is that it's
Speaker 1: actually apparently it's impressive. It's an impressive thing he did.
Speaker 1: He did a thing, um uh in a short amount
Speaker 1: of time than it's possible or the distance I guess
Speaker 1: is the part sect of the question there. But like
Speaker 1: it's just like, oh, it's it tells me about the character.
Speaker 1: It doesn't tell me a very important thing about the
Speaker 1: world and how it functions. Yeah, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things like in in in in the scene when we
Speaker 1: meet all the bounty hunters in in what the Second
Speaker 1: Star Wars. Notice integrations Yeah, yeah, notice integrations right, perfect
Speaker 1: line give you some gives this character who gets very
Speaker 1: few lines, this like really feeling of depth to him,
Speaker 1: gives like there's a relationship between him. In Vader also
Speaker 1: build something about the world that like, yeah, these are
Speaker 1: the kind of dudes that the Empire would hire as
Speaker 1: opposed to Boba Fette saying, you know, I can stop
Speaker 1: anyone's heart from a thousand miles away with my mind
Speaker 1: and then never bringing it up again. And then suddenly
Speaker 1: you're like, well, why isn't he doing that now? Like
Speaker 1: what's going on with that? That doesn't make any sense?
Speaker 1: How can you do that? Like? Yeah, and it speaks
Speaker 1: to like, okay, Vader very very very much wants to
Speaker 1: take this guy alive. That speaks to a lot like
Speaker 1: what happens later. It's all this stuff in this one line.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make you go wait what? Yeah? Yeah. As
Speaker 1: as a rule, you want people to get excited and
Speaker 1: to ask and to have like things that they're curious
Speaker 1: about you want. You want ideally people are interested about
Speaker 1: things that you don't fully explain in your world building,
Speaker 1: because that means that the world has some depth. But
Speaker 1: you don't want people to go wait, wait what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a different curiosity that infusion. I'm confused. It's bad.
Speaker 1: If I'm curious about what that means, then maybe I'll
Speaker 1: find out as I turned the pages, Um, I cares
Speaker 1: what happens next. Thank god there's more. So he couldn't
Speaker 1: even see the mountain. I didn't even finish the sentence
Speaker 1: before we started talking about this. He couldn't even see
Speaker 1: the mountain thanks to the bubble, the protective climate change
Speaker 1: artificial environment that made all land even and flat, fruitful
Speaker 1: and evenly graded. Too many evens in their buddy. Nobody
Speaker 1: he knew had ever been outside the bubble. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: what the bubble does. Does when he reached the wall
Speaker 1: of the bubble, very easy to do, apparently, when he
Speaker 1: reached the wall like this is so quick. When he
Speaker 1: reached the wall of the bubble, he stopped, puzzled. The
Speaker 1: plexiglass dome rose thousands of feet off the ground. It
Speaker 1: was dozens of feet thick, brightly polished, gleaming in the
Speaker 1: red sun, perfectly smooth, unblemished, unbreakable, terrible paragraph. He sat
Speaker 1: in the dust for hours, waiting. He didn't know what
Speaker 1: he was waiting for. He only knew that he had
Speaker 1: no other choice. It wasn't a protest against the ministries
Speaker 1: or against his brethren. He just knew that after seeing
Speaker 1: the wild Star, he would never go back to the spigot.
Speaker 1: He would never go back to his living space. He
Speaker 1: would never go back to his blue clad women or
Speaker 1: his card playing acquaintances, terrible paragraph. He waited for the
Speaker 1: enforcers because none, none of it's just like really and
Speaker 1: like literally it is just a magic star made him
Speaker 1: think this, like I'm just yeah, man, and there's no
Speaker 1: setup of like there was tension before. He felt empty,
Speaker 1: he wanted like he's asking for more from one of
Speaker 1: these comforts. You know, he was happy, he said many time,
Speaker 1: exactly like there's it means nothing that suddenly he's broken free.
Speaker 1: Also as Cody you mentioned, but just in general, everything
Speaker 1: happens so fast. There's no like he was chased by
Speaker 1: these things. There's no real explanation or exploration of what's happened,
Speaker 1: why he's different, why he's not being you know. And
Speaker 1: then they're gone. And so he ran a supposedly far
Speaker 1: distance that was not far at all, just to a
Speaker 1: wall and he sat down and they're processing all this stuff.
Speaker 1: There's no actual drama here, and like it would be
Speaker 1: a great opportunity to like run through this space towards
Speaker 1: the edge of the bubble where we can get more
Speaker 1: information about the world, um, like literally finding out that
Speaker 1: there is a bubble and then he's there. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: it's just yeah, there's no tension um whatever. It's like
Speaker 1: really boring you. That's all I can say about it, uh,
Speaker 1: and other stuff soon alright, So he waited for the
Speaker 1: enforcers to come get him. The red sun rose above him.
Speaker 1: He swept through his gray jumpsuit and stripped down. He
Speaker 1: felt the heat on his shoulders concentrated through the dome,
Speaker 1: like an ant under a magnifying glass. He had never
Speaker 1: seen an aunt. He had only heard of a magnifying glass. Wait,
Speaker 1: how does he know what did he hear about an
Speaker 1: aunt too? Did the word aunt just come into his mind?
Speaker 1: Like I would say? It's bad because Ben is telling
Speaker 1: the story in the third person, so he's it's not
Speaker 1: a first person thing. So the guy isn't saying I
Speaker 1: feel like an ant under magnifying glass. The narrator is
Speaker 1: saying it's like an ant under a magnifying glass. But
Speaker 1: by the way, he doesn't know what an aunt is.
Speaker 1: So it's just a poor choice of words that the
Speaker 1: art is it the narrator saying it's like an ant
Speaker 1: under a magnifying glass. Because then a raider hasn't interjected,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to guess does not interjected any other
Speaker 1: points in this story. Okay, um, yeah, it's just a
Speaker 1: poor choice, like to use that turn of phrase because
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, by the way, like he's never seen
Speaker 1: an ant before. He'd heard of magnifying glasses though, which
Speaker 1: is like all right, introduced and start flipping around like
Speaker 1: that at this point, that's great, exists, Like you got
Speaker 1: rid of all the bugs with his bubble, all right.
Speaker 1: And then the dome opened and he was free. Okay,
Speaker 1: they're great. He really tried hard for this, he's actually
Speaker 1: and then the dome opened. Yeah, so he never magnifying
Speaker 1: glass stuff. New paragraph. And then the dome opened and
Speaker 1: he was free. New paragraph. Stories work formatting issue. The
Speaker 1: doorway appeared, almost as if by magic. It's slid open slightly.
Speaker 1: The darkness beckoned beyond it. He stepped through new paragraph,
Speaker 1: even worse formatting error in the distance, silent and frightening,
Speaker 1: sat the mountain capitalized. It was barren, a waste land
Speaker 1: spotted with sulfur and salt. Something inside him warned him,
Speaker 1: Something inside him warned him from the mountain, a deep
Speaker 1: spot in his consciousness, covered in a gauzy film of time.
Speaker 1: He boy lofty, calm down man, all right, mountain just
Speaker 1: like so out of place in this very like boring
Speaker 1: like and then the bubble did this, and he walked
Speaker 1: like but the guzzy, So that's what you're going to describe.
Speaker 1: That's when that's the choice. It's so so out of place. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he walked towards the mountain. It stood surprisingly close to
Speaker 1: the bubble. It was a miracle. He thought that you
Speaker 1: could not see the mountain from inside semi colon outside
Speaker 1: the I'm sorry, all right, it was is a miracle. Comma,
Speaker 1: he thought, Comma that you could not see the mountain
Speaker 1: from inside semicolon outside the bubble. Comma, it was the
Speaker 1: only feature of the landscape. I guess that's what you
Speaker 1: have to do if you want to say that sentence.
Speaker 1: That's appropriate functuation. Barren desert extended in every direction from
Speaker 1: the mountain. A light shone on the new paragraph. A
Speaker 1: light shone on the mountain, winking in the distance. New paragraph.
Speaker 1: The bubble shut behind him, new paragraph. He walked towards
Speaker 1: the mountain. Um, so that section is now over, and
Speaker 1: it ends, so like the last one ended. He turned
Speaker 1: again and ran towards the mountain, and this one ends.
Speaker 1: He walked towards the mountain really bored. I feel like
Speaker 1: this is a good spot for us to wrap things
Speaker 1: up today. I think that's probably fair. We've got and
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry seven more pages of this ship. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to change how he read through this.
Speaker 1: Um m hm. The last page is blank. So that's
Speaker 1: something that's a win, that's a real win. That's probably
Speaker 1: be the best written page of the book. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say not a formatting error of formatting triumph. That's
Speaker 1: just been apologizing to all of us. Yeah, feeling they're
Speaker 1: fill in the blank. I'm sorry, buddy. Um so I
Speaker 1: guess Cliffhanger, what's the mountain? What's he going to find out?
Speaker 1: At the mountain's walking towards? Let us know in our
Speaker 1: reply after the bubble. I actually do want I I
Speaker 1: love it when people chime and work their thoughts on this.
Speaker 1: Oh it's great because the guys are funny. Yeah, baby,
Speaker 1: take a babe, God, um this was really it's fun
Speaker 1: the right word. No, but it is. I know what
Speaker 1: it was. It was a time though we might say
Speaker 1: a time the gauzy film of time. It's been a
Speaker 1: you know what that is exactly what it is been.
Speaker 1: It has been a gauzy film of time. I couldn't
Speaker 1: have said it's going to be a haze that I
Speaker 1: won't remember that. Well, that's right, that's right. That is
Speaker 1: very very appropriate, which is why I look forward to
Speaker 1: your responses in the comments. Tune in next time to
Speaker 1: find out what the next Uh here's a fun game
Speaker 1: for any listeners. And I don't know if there is one,
Speaker 1: but if there is, what do you think the next
Speaker 1: capitalized word is going to be? The like, the the
Speaker 1: object or the person or like whatever that's like, Well,
Speaker 1: I gotta capitalize this because it's sci fi. What do
Speaker 1: you think it's going to be, folks, Well, it's outside
Speaker 1: of it. Maybe things won't be. I was going to say, though,
Speaker 1: lake m hm um rock could be. It could be
Speaker 1: it could be an object, it could be a person,
Speaker 1: It could be an event. It could be Oh I
Speaker 1: see it, all right, he sees it? What is it?
Speaker 1: I'm not telling you. Okay, that's it for us this week.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with maybe some news and
Speaker 1: book and we're having fun and keeping it real. Keep
Speaker 1: it real, y'all, Keep it real. Real. Can find us
Speaker 1: all from hashtag smarts everything, so everything I tried. Worst
Speaker 1: Year Ever is a production of I heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.