Speaker 1: Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio Together everything, So don't don't don't hello like we
Speaker 1: haven't done this year. College the Enemies, pose enemies, friend
Speaker 1: of mees, ghost of poll Pot. Potentially it's a friend
Speaker 1: of the you never know friend of the po. Ho's
Speaker 1: a pull there's a pull pot out there, right. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna do more Ben Shapiro stuff because my god,
Speaker 1: it's hard getting back into the working thing. But we
Speaker 1: should probably talk a little bit about Gillan Maxwell. Huh
Speaker 1: is that what we're landing on? And how her name
Speaker 1: is pronounce hit interviews? How to pronounce her name? Elane
Speaker 1: Lane Garland I was on when I was on Fucking Harmontown,
Speaker 1: Jeff May, who used to be friends with her, called
Speaker 1: her Gillen. Hey, Robert Evans here, embarrassing mistake, I said.
Speaker 1: Jeff May was the co host of Harmontown, who related
Speaker 1: a story about having known Gillen from some social events. Uh,
Speaker 1: that was the wrong person. Jeff Davis was the co
Speaker 1: host of Harmontown. Jeff May is a wonderful comedian and
Speaker 1: podcaster UM who I have known for a while and
Speaker 1: is a very funny person. You can find him on
Speaker 1: Twitter at hey there, Jeff Row j E. F f
Speaker 1: r O on Twitter, apologies to Jeff May. I was
Speaker 1: referring to Jeff Davis. Excuse me, Jeff May used to
Speaker 1: be friends with her. Yeah, well yeah, just like they
Speaker 1: wus over the most important part. Yeah, no, he he addressed.
Speaker 1: He talked about like, yeah, she was like a socialite.
Speaker 1: She was often at these parties. She was like, there's
Speaker 1: no I could have come on any of Epstein's planes.
Speaker 1: They were like big Hollywood parties. Like it was just
Speaker 1: it was like, I don't know, he's not on any
Speaker 1: of the flight manifest or anything. I've never heard any allegations.
Speaker 1: It was just like she was somebody that he knew it,
Speaker 1: like these big Hollywood soare she was at all of them.
Speaker 1: She was a big socialite person. I think he called
Speaker 1: it Gilden. I don't know, it doesn't matter. She's a
Speaker 1: horrible person. Fucker. I don't care about her name. Um.
Speaker 1: I think people are getting all excited that she's going
Speaker 1: to roll on a bunch of people, and I don't
Speaker 1: think anything particularly interesting is going to happen there. No,
Speaker 1: don't to say that she couldn't roll on people. I
Speaker 1: just don't think it's going to happen. Yeah, I don't either.
Speaker 1: That's not what my gut instinct tells me about the situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I mean, she's going to go to prison,
Speaker 1: and that's good because she did monstrous things. Um. It
Speaker 1: seems like they're did a lot of very powerful people
Speaker 1: on on both sides, um, which sort of indicates that
Speaker 1: probably nothing will come of it. It's also like, if
Speaker 1: you like, from a practical standpoint, do I think that
Speaker 1: she has damning information on a lot of powerful people? Oh?
Speaker 1: For fucking sure. Do I think that the most reasonable
Speaker 1: things she could do to protect herself is roll on them? No?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not, Like that's not how people that. I don't
Speaker 1: think that it proves her circumstances. No, Like, that's not
Speaker 1: how our system works. I don't think that's likely to happen.
Speaker 1: You know that it's it's just not going to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I'm sure there will be some stuff
Speaker 1: that comes out, and I'm glad. I hope the more
Speaker 1: the more of these people that get exposed, the better.
Speaker 1: And it does look like some of the court cases
Speaker 1: against Prince Andrew we're going to be moving forward, and
Speaker 1: that's good, that's great. I'm not trying to say like
Speaker 1: it's pointless to do this. I just don't think she.
Speaker 1: I don't think she's going to come up with some
Speaker 1: damning list that like destroys the ruling class in America
Speaker 1: for there, so I think like the consequences, the consequences
Speaker 1: won't be like, oh, all these monsters are in jail now,
Speaker 1: the consequences are going to be Oh, a lot of
Speaker 1: people know that these people are monsters now, like the
Speaker 1: information and like the names and the people we know,
Speaker 1: like all these people are in his Little Black book
Speaker 1: and on the plane, this sort of thing. She's convicted,
Speaker 1: like sex trafficker, you know who's involved, but they won't
Speaker 1: face consequences probably unfortunately. But I think everybody is just
Speaker 1: like what if, what if it could happen? But what
Speaker 1: if it could be? And I think it's probably pretty
Speaker 1: unlikely that we actually yeah, no, no, no, but what
Speaker 1: if we could? I think it's it's the Royal ten
Speaker 1: and bonds, yes exactly, everyone knows, yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: what's I think it's unlikely that we will learn about
Speaker 1: any new names. I don't think she's going to give
Speaker 1: us any names. I don't think any information she gives
Speaker 1: us is going to be and in either make the
Speaker 1: case against the people we know we're involved with Epstein
Speaker 1: more damning, or we'll add people to it. Like I
Speaker 1: just think that's unlikely because, for one thing, we already
Speaker 1: have a pretty good idea of the people he was
Speaker 1: like supplying, so to speak, and the people who were
Speaker 1: to something recomplexed. We have a pretty good idea. It's
Speaker 1: been documented, and I just doubt she had a lot
Speaker 1: of information other than on the specifics of some acts.
Speaker 1: But in terms of like the ship that's likely to
Speaker 1: come out, I just don't know that she has that
Speaker 1: much that there's any real chance of her uh revealing
Speaker 1: so that that that's that's where I am on it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad she got convicted. I'm glad Elizabeth Holmes got convicted.
Speaker 1: Other other female conviction news this week Elizabeth Holmes, But
Speaker 1: that one's a little I mean again good convicted, but
Speaker 1: not convicted all the things that she only no, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I think there's I think
Speaker 1: there's one of the things that people are complaining about
Speaker 1: is she got convicted of defrauding investors, but not patients
Speaker 1: and they're being like, see, this is the system we
Speaker 1: live in. It's not a crime to defraud patients. Well,
Speaker 1: it never it didn't get to the point where there
Speaker 1: were a lot of patients to defraud, like it. It
Speaker 1: didn't she they never served that many people. Um I
Speaker 1: I kind of get why that's a harder conviction to
Speaker 1: make because she Paraos didn't make it that far. Like
Speaker 1: there were definitely some into people and that's and that
Speaker 1: to me is enough. But I hear it. I get
Speaker 1: I understand the reason why. But to me, it's not enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we'll see. I think that she's got four
Speaker 1: convictions against her, each of which they're likely to be
Speaker 1: served concurrently, but each of which has like a maximum
Speaker 1: of twenty years. Um I I think it's I think
Speaker 1: there's actually a pretty good odds, uh that she'll she'll
Speaker 1: do some serious time, to the extent that her doing
Speaker 1: time will make anything better. I think she's gonna yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is fine. I guess. Ah. Well, we talked about
Speaker 1: some news there. We did talk about some news. That's
Speaker 1: all that's going on in the world. Oh, and Kazakhstan
Speaker 1: looks like it's on the verge of a revolution, uh,
Speaker 1: spurred on by increases in gas prices. People are now
Speaker 1: swarming military convoys and flipping police cars. Some real crazy
Speaker 1: gass footage coming out of this isn't something for us
Speaker 1: to brush over. Give me more information, Um, I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's it's very quickly developing at this moment. But yeah,
Speaker 1: like these are essentially their austerity protests. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of the pro a lot of the massive wave
Speaker 1: of protests into this in eighteen nineteen, we're spurred on
Speaker 1: by similar kinds of things. Um, and the government, which
Speaker 1: is very authority Terran and Kazakhstan sent in the military
Speaker 1: and people started taking to the streets and significant numbers.
Speaker 1: There's folks in the capital setting up tents. Now. Some
Speaker 1: people are talking might be a situation like the Maidan
Speaker 1: and Ukraine in two thousand fourteen. Um, But there's like
Speaker 1: some nuts videos of like mobs like forcing back military
Speaker 1: convoys and ship and people in cars like blocking them
Speaker 1: on the road in in the middle of like in
Speaker 1: high speed chases and ship like. There's some some really
Speaker 1: outrageous stuff dropping. Um, it will have the situation will
Speaker 1: have advanced, probably significantly by the time you hear this,
Speaker 1: So my my advice would be to like just kind
Speaker 1: of google Kazakhstan protests and see where things are when
Speaker 1: this drops. I'm seeing but the footage is wild. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: And it all started at least in terms of it's
Speaker 1: been going on. This has been building obviously for a
Speaker 1: little while, but it all kind of started breaking into
Speaker 1: the international news to like within an hour or so
Speaker 1: of us recording this, So it's it's still develop been
Speaker 1: pretty rapidly. Well, I'll definitely be checking that out later today.
Speaker 1: Pretty dope. Um, you know what else is dope? Not
Speaker 1: really heroes? Short story, He's a dope. Go yeah, there
Speaker 1: we go, perfect pivot, all right, he should do a
Speaker 1: little refresher real quick began. Okay, Um, it's a story
Speaker 1: about a guy. It's he's tiny, he's shrunk down to
Speaker 1: be tiny, and he's living for many months. Uh in
Speaker 1: this businessman he was tiny God. His mission is to
Speaker 1: kill dust mites because businessman hates dirty things, but he
Speaker 1: likes smokes and his gross man um, but he doesn't
Speaker 1: like dust mites. So our hero is destroying the dust mites. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the busines this man a k a. The whale swallowed
Speaker 1: him and so now he's in the whale's stomach. I
Speaker 1: love that Den Shapiro is such a is such the
Speaker 1: guy he is that like every story has got to
Speaker 1: have some kind of vague, vaguely biblical like leaning to it.
Speaker 1: But also it doesn't make any sense, like there's no
Speaker 1: through line. There's no like narrative or like moral through
Speaker 1: line to draw between the biblical story of Jonah and
Speaker 1: the whale and a guy volunteering to be shrunk to
Speaker 1: kill dust mites getting swallowed by a rich man like's
Speaker 1: not swallowed again, Oh, it's it's because of the quality
Speaker 1: of the writing. It's not the clearest thing in the world.
Speaker 1: On a cigarette At one point, right questions, you know,
Speaker 1: he's not a cigarette or something, and he was hiding
Speaker 1: from the mites, which we also learned don't actually uh
Speaker 1: like uh nickotine, so they would be actually uh if
Speaker 1: you were accurate. But yeah, he's a cigarette. That is
Speaker 1: such a funny coincidence that the thing that he chooses
Speaker 1: the wrong like anything else, he could have just chosen
Speaker 1: anything else. Well, it's like ways because like, okay, so
Speaker 1: he's like a clean freak, right, and he's like he's
Speaker 1: like trying to be like clean and healthy, but he smokes. Also,
Speaker 1: the mites wouldn't eat the cigarette. Like it's wrong in
Speaker 1: many ways, which I think is beautiful. Yeah, I I
Speaker 1: do love that. Like again, we're also going through Bin's
Speaker 1: incredible book about sex on Behind the Bastards with Sophia Alexandra,
Speaker 1: and it's everything that Ben could be wrong about he
Speaker 1: is wrong about. And it's the same with this, Like
Speaker 1: he decides that there are dust mites on tobacco and
Speaker 1: the reality is that like in the wild, birds will
Speaker 1: eat cigarette buds to keep dust mites off them, Like
Speaker 1: everything he could have been wrong about. If Ben Shapiro
Speaker 1: makes a factual statement, it's going to be wrong. He
Speaker 1: goes out, It's incredible. I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 1: We all make mistakes, right, everybody's wrong, especially if you're
Speaker 1: commenting on a daily basis to some extent, But like,
Speaker 1: if Ben makes a factual statement, it will be as
Speaker 1: wrong as it can be. It's I think it's karmic destiny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. It's truly, it's incredible. Um, you just know,
Speaker 1: it's like it's weird, weirdly, like he's such a he's
Speaker 1: perfectly trumpy. It's very like in that way, he's also
Speaker 1: got a tweet for everything in the same way where
Speaker 1: it's like if you say, if he's saying something that
Speaker 1: he's against now, just look five years ago, just just glance,
Speaker 1: just like do do some keywords. Let's get back into
Speaker 1: the saddle, you know, back in the high life again,
Speaker 1: all the all the Ben Shapiro stories that saw me
Speaker 1: once will smile take us in or something like that.
Speaker 1: You know the song Cody, We all know the song.
Speaker 1: We all know the song. Everybody's okay. Uh yeah, I
Speaker 1: was uh for the for the musical we're gonna do
Speaker 1: with this? Yeah, yeah, Ben Shapiro the musical. Um, God
Speaker 1: so unpleasant? Uh um okay, look alright. So the whale,
Speaker 1: which again has nothing related to do with the Bible,
Speaker 1: although uh it's funny that like they called him that
Speaker 1: before you swallowed him. Like anyway, I haven't prayed since
Speaker 1: I was just a recap this is the last paragraph
Speaker 1: we read. Just sprinkle some some memories on your on
Speaker 1: your brains. I haven't prayed since I was a child.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in God. No God would play the
Speaker 1: cosmic joke of letting the whale fall into so much
Speaker 1: wealth then curse him with an obsessive, compulsive dislike of
Speaker 1: dust mites so strong that he'd spend half that wealth
Speaker 1: developing the shrinking system and hiring duds like me to
Speaker 1: man it it all too absurd. That is not an
Speaker 1: argument against God. No, it's not an argument that. It's
Speaker 1: not even an argument against the whale because like, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe this I could see like some neurotic rich person
Speaker 1: having this obsession. But if it leads to perfect shrinking technology,
Speaker 1: that would be certainly be worth more than he paid
Speaker 1: for it, Like the military applications alone wouldn't get him billions.
Speaker 1: Like that's what like if you actually developed that, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how ridiculous your reasons were, you could make
Speaker 1: a fortune, right like any we even says like it's
Speaker 1: it's not a cosmic joke. It's not the use of
Speaker 1: that phrase, but actually sounds like the thing that happens
Speaker 1: all the time, which is like people with weird focuses
Speaker 1: and obsessions developed things that change the world. Right, So
Speaker 1: like like like the curse of cursing with so much
Speaker 1: wealth and then he'd spent half that wealth developing again,
Speaker 1: to your point, shrinking technology, Yeah, which would imagine the
Speaker 1: impact on like treatment of cancers, if you can just
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, it doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: investing only half of your wealth into that seems great.
Speaker 1: Half left, it's fine. Yeah, it seems like this guy
Speaker 1: changed the entire world and also probably saved his own
Speaker 1: life if he has a tumor. But I bet Ben's
Speaker 1: not going to explain why the shrinking technology can perfectly
Speaker 1: shrink a person not anything else, you know, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: if anything is a cosmic joke on the main character
Speaker 1: who fucking decided to take this job. Whatever, it's fine,
Speaker 1: it's unbelievably stupid job, because again you're positing that there's
Speaker 1: a guy who's obsessed and terrified with the idea of
Speaker 1: dust mites. Yeah, and that they're vicious. But like he's this,
Speaker 1: this rich guy is terrified of dust mites which cannot
Speaker 1: be seen, but is fine with little men shipping all
Speaker 1: over they must do whenever much more ship than and
Speaker 1: were ship more toxic? Should we live with dust mite ship?
Speaker 1: It's clearly not a problem for anyone's health, for any
Speaker 1: any person, but but human ship is pretty bad for
Speaker 1: people to just have in their life. I think even
Speaker 1: if it's microscopic. It might cause a problem. You're like
Speaker 1: your cigarettes and stuff you're smoking that. I mean, it
Speaker 1: would cause more of a problem because you can't see it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you don't know to not put your hand in it.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a lot of potential health problems
Speaker 1: with with this. But anyway, we haven't even read a
Speaker 1: new sentence yet. But yeah, what's the important thing is though,
Speaker 1: that his mouth and lungs are filled with ash, despite
Speaker 1: that not being how cigarettes work. And also yeah, ok, yeah,
Speaker 1: new sentence. But I'm praying nonetheless. Now, Oh, God, fearing man,
Speaker 1: just listen to me. I whispered to the whale, false
Speaker 1: idols and who he can't hear me. But somewhere beneath
Speaker 1: those layers of fat, he's got to have a heart.
Speaker 1: He certainly has a stomach, all right, Like an answer
Speaker 1: to my prayers. Though the beacon clicks on again, Jensen,
Speaker 1: I shout, Jensen. There's no answer but the beacons transmitting.
Speaker 1: I hear the beacon, but too many beacons. I hear
Speaker 1: the beacon bumping around Jensen's pocket. And then from outside
Speaker 1: of the whale, I hear the thump of a door opening,
Speaker 1: and from the beacon, the voices emerged, the thump of
Speaker 1: a door opening. That's not how the doors sump the creek.
Speaker 1: What all right? And from the beacon the voice emerges Jensen,
Speaker 1: stammering something I need to know. The whale, cool and collected, replies,
Speaker 1: so tell me, right, all right? Do you remember Kemp,
Speaker 1: one of the anties, know, says the whale. Why would
Speaker 1: I I hire thousands of aunties a year? He has
Speaker 1: thousands of these little guys running around him. That's too many?
Speaker 1: All right, Well, this one is in your stomach right now.
Speaker 1: What a casual conversation. I feel the halo jostle, jarring lee.
Speaker 1: I feel the jarring you know. He wrote that and
Speaker 1: he was like, oh that's good. He was really happy
Speaker 1: with that, really pleased himself. All right, I feel the
Speaker 1: halo jostle, jarring lee upward as the whale stands. Are
Speaker 1: you insane? He says? Then he would know? I know,
Speaker 1: says Jensen, But he says he'll never tell. He says
Speaker 1: he just wants to get back to his wife. The
Speaker 1: whale is silent. He sits again heavily, and the halo
Speaker 1: bumps against the top of his stomach. His grumbling baritone
Speaker 1: makes my whole body rumble. No Jensen protest, he wouldn't
Speaker 1: lie to me, Sir, I've known Kemp for a decade.
Speaker 1: Have you known Camp in a situation like this where
Speaker 1: a fortune? What is he? Where to wait a second?
Speaker 1: Where does he know him for a decade? Like? What
Speaker 1: is this? This guy has been here two years? Does
Speaker 1: he have a previous anyway? Right? Eight years of training?
Speaker 1: He's just detail. Yeah, it's just bad, just bad writing
Speaker 1: again a single line earlier where he was like, I'd
Speaker 1: worked for the Whale for years, you know, before the
Speaker 1: opportunity came up and I decided to get out of
Speaker 1: accounting or whatever. My friend came to me with this,
Speaker 1: he's known the guy for ten years. Maybe the friends
Speaker 1: my friend gave. Yeah, a single sentence would make it
Speaker 1: not distracting. But yeah, this single sentence is very distracting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you have you known Camp in a situation like
Speaker 1: this where a fortune could be at stake? Says the Whale,
Speaker 1: his voice dangerously even I'm sorry I misread that. Then
Speaker 1: dangerously even okay, dangerous leaving it's very you know, it's
Speaker 1: a simmering, simmer calm, destructive voice. No says Jensen. I
Speaker 1: shouted to the beacon. I promise, I swear to God.
Speaker 1: I don't give a damn about the money. But nobody
Speaker 1: hears me. So how much time do we have? Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, he's in his stomach, the beacon spoken,
Speaker 1: but he can hear the other one. Yeah, how much
Speaker 1: time do we have? The whale asks he's due to
Speaker 1: begin his reversal process tonight. Uh formatting error. Um, we
Speaker 1: must act quickly. Call the doctor, you know, the one
Speaker 1: he treated Sean gri and Crystal Crystal with interesting Jensen's swallows.
Speaker 1: I can hear it all the way across the room,
Speaker 1: not even through the beacon, right, sir, he says, that
Speaker 1: would be pure murder. Yes, says the whale. But it's
Speaker 1: my body. Oh god, oh my god, oh my god,
Speaker 1: are you fucking shipping me? It's an abortion and oh
Speaker 1: my god, oh my god. Gros wow wow, yeah that's good.
Speaker 1: Oh fuck, that's funny. Oh my god. Alright, the thing
Speaker 1: that the whale says, and then we're gonna my entire
Speaker 1: insides are cringing. That's awesome. I'm so happy, I'm so proud.
Speaker 1: Ah yeah, but it's my body and what's in it
Speaker 1: is my perview, that's the law. Look it up, but
Speaker 1: look it up. I am called. I am certain that
Speaker 1: the law does not have any sort of uh like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Rovie Wade is not apply to hiring a man
Speaker 1: to shrink himself down and then swallowing him. And I
Speaker 1: think I think literally any conceivable Supreme Court would not extend.
Speaker 1: There's not there's not a world where this stands up
Speaker 1: in court. Yeah, like that takes a break. Okay, right
Speaker 1: back together everything, we're back. And before we get back
Speaker 1: into this, I want to ask, come up from a
Speaker 1: moral standpoint, where do you all stand on on hiring
Speaker 1: people to be shrunk down in your body? Do you
Speaker 1: have the right to kill people that you pay to
Speaker 1: be shrunk and then swallow in order? No, I don't believe.
Speaker 1: I think that they really understand the liabilities I guess,
Speaker 1: but no, I don't get to then kill them because
Speaker 1: that's signed up. Perhaps I don't know that they but
Speaker 1: that's I don't even think that's one of the liabilities
Speaker 1: he signed up for, right because this is a new thing.
Speaker 1: So no, this does not count. Sorry, Ben, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: I just don't think this is covered by by pro
Speaker 1: choice or to be fair anti choice. I actually don't
Speaker 1: think in this specific situation, your opinion on abortion whatever matter.
Speaker 1: I don't even think it would break. I don't even
Speaker 1: think there would be an argument from like the religious
Speaker 1: right versus progressives on your ability on on whether or
Speaker 1: not you can do this. It just doesn't seem to apply.
Speaker 1: Unrelated scenario. Yeah, I'm dying to know what happens next. Alright, Uh,
Speaker 1: aren't we all? From outside of the whale, I hear screaming,
Speaker 1: screams of an unborn child. That's not what he says,
Speaker 1: just like Dan, don't cut that. No, No, al right,
Speaker 1: from outside, from outside the whale, I hear screaming. It
Speaker 1: takes me a moment to realize I'm hearing my own
Speaker 1: screaming from that damn beacon, damning Jensen to hell, the
Speaker 1: whale to hell. Then the screaming goes silent. They turned
Speaker 1: the beacon off. And that's the end of that, the
Speaker 1: end of that. That's the end of that section. He
Speaker 1: is gonna get aboarded soon. Um, and Ben thinks it's great. Um,
Speaker 1: I will say, there's way too much left of the story.
Speaker 1: We're not going to finish it today. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: But I break the beacon with my bare hands. They
Speaker 1: can't know where I am precisely in the stomach. No
Speaker 1: reason to make their task easier, that's silly. I have
Speaker 1: three options, as I see it. One is unthinkable, then
Speaker 1: it's not an option. One is unthinkable. Drop from the
Speaker 1: roof of my prison and risk the intestinal tract, the colon,
Speaker 1: and all the rest. That's all the rest after the colon.
Speaker 1: What's that freedom? Okay, there's no guarantee that if I drop,
Speaker 1: I'll be better off if I make it all the
Speaker 1: way to the end of the track, then get flushed
Speaker 1: down the toilet. The thought of it almost makes me laugh.
Speaker 1: This is this stuff of low comedy, and now it
Speaker 1: might be my choice of death. Okay. My second choice
Speaker 1: is to take the pill. Oh we're getting a little
Speaker 1: more of this. Uh, yeah, that's what he's doing. It's
Speaker 1: also it's the pill to make him bigger, right bigger,
Speaker 1: So he would be killing the guy. So both of
Speaker 1: them are seems to be seems to be very consistent
Speaker 1: and uh and good and the welfone out shocking, how
Speaker 1: little sinse this makes. My second choice is to take
Speaker 1: the pill. The option itself makes me want to vomit,
Speaker 1: to continue to stay at size, undetectable, to hide from
Speaker 1: the doctrine side the stomach. But how long can I last?
Speaker 1: What's the why? All right? I don't have enough nutrition
Speaker 1: packets to last more than a few days. And the
Speaker 1: whale won't forget about me. It will be It will
Speaker 1: just be a matter of time before he finds me
Speaker 1: and terminates me. So the pill makes you invisible to them.
Speaker 1: Think it keeps you small? Maybe keeps you small? Okay again, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense so far. My third
Speaker 1: option is to allow the reversal to take place as planned,
Speaker 1: to try to fight off the doctor, to play for time,
Speaker 1: and then rip this bastard's guts out from the inside
Speaker 1: out too. That's where he's going to go. Incredible new paragraph.
Speaker 1: It isn't much of a choice. A lot of meaning
Speaker 1: in that sentence or maybe none. It's like formatting air
Speaker 1: is fine. I check my watch. Two hours until their
Speaker 1: first begins. I'll need my sleep. New Sections is about
Speaker 1: to begin, Robert, you have thoughts about that really good sentence? No, No,
Speaker 1: that sense seems like a sentence legally, I think that's
Speaker 1: a sentence. So the doctor's coming to start a reversal,
Speaker 1: but they know that this guy is still in there,
Speaker 1: so that's the doctor's coming to kill him. Okay, they're
Speaker 1: the reverse is going to happen. They need to do
Speaker 1: it in time, the doctors performing an abortion, but also
Speaker 1: happens starting the process is also like an abortion. Taking
Speaker 1: the pill so well, so taking the pill stops the process,
Speaker 1: so it stops all keeps him small and undetectable so
Speaker 1: that they can't do it. And but then he's stuck
Speaker 1: for only as a couple of nutrition packets. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: really should have stalked up on those, yeah pill, Yeah
Speaker 1: I should have you know, well, you know, it's the
Speaker 1: amounting needs for the amount of time he's in there.
Speaker 1: It worked out, he's got a couple left, he's only
Speaker 1: got a couple hours left. It seems like a good plan,
Speaker 1: good system. No notes. The growth begins just as scheduled.
Speaker 1: The pain brakes my body the birthing sequence. I can
Speaker 1: feel each individual fascia linking skin to muscle, expanding, growing.
Speaker 1: I scream silently into the halo. Thank god they made
Speaker 1: the halo expandable along with me. It's true. Good luck.
Speaker 1: Within an hour, I'm twice the size I was before.
Speaker 1: The stomach is no longer looking quite so vast. The
Speaker 1: fire behind my eyes makes me want to tear them out. Amy,
Speaker 1: I remind myself, Amy new paragraph Amy Comma Amy space
Speaker 1: dot dot dot so again Amy a formatting Amy. Also, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's fine, He's it's also so there's something about I
Speaker 1: think this growth that like like it's it's like describing
Speaker 1: the pain of it, but also there's like a longing
Speaker 1: you feel, like like the growth spurt that then never
Speaker 1: had that he writes about that every every single character
Speaker 1: has has the massive growth spurt that never happened to Ben,
Speaker 1: which is the worst thing in his life. It's interesting
Speaker 1: if that's his central motivation and all the art he
Speaker 1: creates interesting just flagging that, just like putting a little
Speaker 1: pin in that. Because there's a third short story and
Speaker 1: God willing, somebody grows September. The stories do include a
Speaker 1: man getting big. It does. So far we have we
Speaker 1: have read pieces of one novel in two short stories,
Speaker 1: and all of them include as a central plot point
Speaker 1: a man getting big. That is very fun. That's very fun,
Speaker 1: just throwing it out there, just something out there in
Speaker 1: the ether. HM for maybe maybe if he's working on
Speaker 1: a novel and listening to this, maybe maybe cut that
Speaker 1: part out that you definitely already wrote, Maybe the part
Speaker 1: that you're planning on doing where a character grows, Maybe
Speaker 1: don't do it this time, I think Ben. My guess
Speaker 1: is his current project is the just the novelization of
Speaker 1: the Tom Hanks movie Big. One hopes hopes he one
Speaker 1: hopes he ruins that story somehow perfect. That's just like
Speaker 1: so many of the word big, so many times, and
Speaker 1: everything sense. It's sure is, it's sure is tough being big,
Speaker 1: he said bigly, alright from his big Big September. Two
Speaker 1: days and end a wake up just fifty right, this
Speaker 1: differently man, two days end a wake up just fifty
Speaker 1: two hours period, new pair of graph of hell. The
Speaker 1: doctor's here. I can feel the whale laugh. At this point.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to rip his stomach out, especially as
Speaker 1: the fiery blood rushes through my veins, growing me too
Speaker 1: rapidly to adjust. My limbs feel stiff, heavy, ungainly, and
Speaker 1: every time I try to move them, I find myself
Speaker 1: thrashing about, flailing, so thrashing about. All Right, the doctor
Speaker 1: says something. The whale laughs again and then his body
Speaker 1: goes horizontal on his desk. How can you tell I
Speaker 1: take a fleeting pleasure in the fact that he's smearing
Speaker 1: himself with dust mites even as he does it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: smearing himself with dust mites. I can't notice, because again,
Speaker 1: hmans are incapable of seeing, more feeling, not really smearing
Speaker 1: himself dust down, brushing dust mites probably has like some
Speaker 1: sort of gal on too, So it's not it's a
Speaker 1: bad word. He chose the wrong word. Wrong word, wrong word,
Speaker 1: wrong word, wrong word. There only job is to choose
Speaker 1: His only job is to choose the right word. He
Speaker 1: did the wrong one anyway. Yeah, there are a few
Speaker 1: beats on the stomach. There are a few beats on
Speaker 1: the stomach, the doctor examining the whale, no doubt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, you did that in a weird way
Speaker 1: the first time. Yeah, there are a few beats on
Speaker 1: the stomach, the doctor examining the whale, no doubt. And
Speaker 1: then he sits back up. Well, a little more clear,
Speaker 1: Still a little weird, but more clear than how I did.
Speaker 1: Give me, give me a description of what it's like
Speaker 1: when he lays down. I have to hold onto something
Speaker 1: I can tell he's laying down because I lose my
Speaker 1: sense of balance. Whatever it is he sits up and
Speaker 1: blood rushes to my head. Whatever the fun something about right,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. He's describing what's happening outside. He should
Speaker 1: be describing what's happening in the stomach, the stomach, because
Speaker 1: that's his experience. So he's like not something like he's
Speaker 1: not the narrator and looking in saying the man sat
Speaker 1: up right, he's inside the fucking belly. It's being written.
Speaker 1: It's like this omniscient sort of voice when like oh
Speaker 1: like and then jostling around like oh, the the liquid
Speaker 1: go sideway like right, like you would describe what happened
Speaker 1: almost flashed with stomach acid whatever a grand thud uh
Speaker 1: fills like an atrium in the stomach. Surely he's testing
Speaker 1: the whale whatever it is. I don't know. So has
Speaker 1: this guy been eating? Like, give me a description of
Speaker 1: what it's like living in there? You can't dealing with surgery.
Speaker 1: But it's been okay. But Ben is abiding by I
Speaker 1: think what we can all agree the most basic rule
Speaker 1: of fiction writing. Don't tell, don't show it, don't right
Speaker 1: for either You're not supposed to never show. If you
Speaker 1: have to show, don't tell instead, but never tell either,
Speaker 1: all right, don't tell. I'm sorry if you haven't one
Speaker 1: qualified to talk about this book. Um, I don't know enough.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, cutty from above. Finally we're inside the stomach.
Speaker 1: From above, the liquid comes, all right. It's dark and viscous,
Speaker 1: sticky and thick. It's moving down the walls of the
Speaker 1: stomach lining it moving gradually. As I watch in horror,
Speaker 1: it covers the entire surface of the stomach, staining a
Speaker 1: dark maroon. A pill about my size ricochet's through the
Speaker 1: whales esophagus. I can hear the hollow plank as it
Speaker 1: bounces down and then falls into the stomach below me.
Speaker 1: The stomach acid goes to work, tearing off the cover
Speaker 1: and from the pill burst hundreds of them. Bursts is
Speaker 1: what it should be. But he said bursts. It's not
Speaker 1: the worst error in this entire book, although his description
Speaker 1: of a pill going down someone's esophagus is and I
Speaker 1: don't think that's what pills do. I I don't know. Then,
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert. Like it's like it's that feels
Speaker 1: like nonsense, as a pill swallower. That doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: a good description. It's like, first of all, been your
Speaker 1: wife's a doctor. You talked about time. Your esophagus isn't
Speaker 1: like an open tube that you like, don't like it,
Speaker 1: Like it's like constricts, like it's it's like seward drain
Speaker 1: like you like videos you can see like how the
Speaker 1: esophagus works, food down it. It's not a empty again,
Speaker 1: like the most basic writer who cared would have like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wonder if I could find like an X ray
Speaker 1: of a pill going down the throat. Just help me
Speaker 1: describe this a little better as a minimum, yeah, the
Speaker 1: very minimum, you know, also like um, just as like
Speaker 1: a human being. This is like a child's idea of
Speaker 1: what like the throat is like oh, it's like yeah,
Speaker 1: esophagus and you toss it down and like a ricochet
Speaker 1: is back and forth, and it's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: like nobody expects perfect accuracy for many piece of it.
Speaker 1: I was just reading a very good Kim Stanley Robinson
Speaker 1: book called Ministry of the Future, and there's like a
Speaker 1: line in it about the comb Mela, which is a
Speaker 1: big Indian religious thing being in Varanasi, and it's like, well, no,
Speaker 1: actually it's held in like four different cities. I think
Speaker 1: Varnasi is one of them, but like the big one
Speaker 1: is a Lahabad And that was a little like weird
Speaker 1: to me. But I also like didn't mind it and
Speaker 1: forgave it because the actual descriptions of what's going on
Speaker 1: of like the individual of like this heat wave of
Speaker 1: hitting India were so detailed and so biologically accurate that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, people are gonna get little bits wrong. As
Speaker 1: a fiction writer, I get like everyone does get little
Speaker 1: bits wrong. No one's expecting perfection. The key as a
Speaker 1: fiction writer is to do enough, good enough job, building
Speaker 1: out a sense of what's happening, a sense of momentum,
Speaker 1: a sense of emotional connection that when, as will inevitably happen,
Speaker 1: little things are like not quite right, people forgive it
Speaker 1: because they're still engaged in the narrative, you know, and
Speaker 1: and you lay focus on the error. Yeah um, yeah
Speaker 1: he's yeah, but you know, yeah he's trying. Like it
Speaker 1: boils down to like the key, Like what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: you're correct and like all the very like the details
Speaker 1: of it, But what you're really saying is like the
Speaker 1: key is to like try, Yeah, the key is to
Speaker 1: try effort Yeah, people are willing to forgive a number
Speaker 1: of things, especially in science fiction that don't quite that
Speaker 1: aren't quite accurate. And it's like Star Star Trek, like
Speaker 1: does do warp drives really make sense? Does the hyper
Speaker 1: drive in Star Wars make any sense? No, but we
Speaker 1: don't care because it's number one, things are generally internally
Speaker 1: consistent within those worlds, and number two, you're actually engaged.
Speaker 1: What you're really engaged is well also you're talking about
Speaker 1: you're you're describing to science fiction things where they're creating
Speaker 1: something out enough like we don't have you can objectively
Speaker 1: see what it looks like and it's and need to
Speaker 1: do some research before I feel like they do like
Speaker 1: explain enough, like with warp drive and stuff and most
Speaker 1: of these victories like yeah, we don't have the technology,
Speaker 1: and like it's like theoretical but like it's grounded in
Speaker 1: theoretical science and and and things like that. And it's
Speaker 1: also like you have one of two options in this situation, right,
Speaker 1: Option number one is the the actual science is not
Speaker 1: super important. What's really important is something social, a point
Speaker 1: that you're trying to make, in which case, like the characters,
Speaker 1: what's going on with them? What's going on like within
Speaker 1: the culture of the society that they're in and whatnot,
Speaker 1: Like the points that you're trying to make about like
Speaker 1: income disparity, like whatever like that that is engaging enough
Speaker 1: that you don't really focus on on the science, or
Speaker 1: you're actually trying to do like a Michael Crichton thing
Speaker 1: where you're trying to get really into the nitty gritty
Speaker 1: of the science of this like weird situation, um, and
Speaker 1: you try to hook people in on that, in which
Speaker 1: case it's crucial um to get the little details about
Speaker 1: like how what pill actually falls down an esophagus? Right,
Speaker 1: And Ben boldly does either there are two ways to
Speaker 1: write this well, and Ben just chooses not to do it,
Speaker 1: Like it's like describing like dropping a marble down a
Speaker 1: drain is what he's done here. Um, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a short break, but we're gonna end
Speaker 1: on a cliffhanger, right, So, like the pill very realistically
Speaker 1: dropped into the stomach. Uh, and from the pill burst
Speaker 1: hundreds of them new paragraph I never thought i'd see
Speaker 1: them again, new paragraph formatting error of all the things.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna find out what they are as soon
Speaker 1: as we come back, done together everything all the French. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: when last we left our hero, he was fearing something
Speaker 1: that burst out of pill that was swallowed by the
Speaker 1: whale accurately, and hundreds of them burst from the pill,
Speaker 1: and he never thought he'd see them again. Of all
Speaker 1: the things, new page, the formatting is funked up again,
Speaker 1: funked up still, and then it corrects itself later on
Speaker 1: the page. Uh. Mechanical dust mites, Oh, the whale dust mites?
Speaker 1: Why why why do those exists? Why would he make those?
Speaker 1: Make mechanical So here's the thing. First of all, you
Speaker 1: make mechanical dust mites, then you're going to use those
Speaker 1: to get the regular dust why why why the middleman?
Speaker 1: But also why are they mechanical dust mice? Wouldn't you
Speaker 1: just like nano butts? Right, Like, why are they mechanical
Speaker 1: dust mites? That's nonsense, And yeah, it just occurs to
Speaker 1: me right now in this moment, this is different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you didn't need the people there anyway. But they talk
Speaker 1: about the house being cleaned, so obviously there's like actual
Speaker 1: cleaning happening. That's got to be like a huge detail
Speaker 1: of his life. Like when they're spraying down tables and ships.
Speaker 1: Sorry this avoiding the fucking vacuums and not going outside
Speaker 1: like he's afraid of dust mites. He would not leave
Speaker 1: his fucking house, and his house would be like sterilized,
Speaker 1: like vacuum sealed place right like what like what is this?
Speaker 1: Higher hundreds of people and shrink them down and put
Speaker 1: him in your belly. Whatever is the mechanical mechanic? Dust mites.
Speaker 1: The whale hates dust mites, but he must hate me more.
Speaker 1: Formatting has been the problem is that I don't know
Speaker 1: if the formatting is fixed or if it's wrong again,
Speaker 1: because the paragraphs are like indented twice sometimes sometimes sometimes
Speaker 1: it's three times. I don't know what like the quote
Speaker 1: correct format is. So we're either back to normal or
Speaker 1: we're fucked up. But the point is they're searching for me.
Speaker 1: Now I realized what the viscous liquid was for. It
Speaker 1: was designed to hold me fast, to keep me from
Speaker 1: fighting back, and to cover everything that wasn't the halo
Speaker 1: to shine a spotlight on me, give the mites to
Speaker 1: target I get it man who in his body anyway,
Speaker 1: there's too many sentences to say. The liquid was to
Speaker 1: keep me inside Yeah, the shinest spotlight on me. Give
Speaker 1: the mites a target. One sentence, one comma, poorly written.
Speaker 1: They're crawling up the walls. I'd heard rumors about the
Speaker 1: next generation of Auntie's. Looks like the rumors were right.
Speaker 1: So the rumors were that they were making robots instead
Speaker 1: of shrinking down people. Ah, there's no time to think,
Speaker 1: thank god, because otherwise we'd have to analyze what's going on.
Speaker 1: There's no time to think. My instruments aren't growing. Of course,
Speaker 1: my knife, my laser gun, they're tiny toys in my hands.
Speaker 1: Wait a second, So they shrunk him down, so they
Speaker 1: made him tiny laser guns. Then you know what I
Speaker 1: I will I'll buy that because as the whale, you
Speaker 1: don't want them to have access to like big laser
Speaker 1: guns whatever like. But they big laser guns would be
Speaker 1: shrunken down. No, But I mean you maybe when you
Speaker 1: come back, you don't like if you could target exactly
Speaker 1: what return. Maybe you wouldn't want the weapons to get
Speaker 1: bigger with him because you don't want them to be
Speaker 1: armed in your house because you're a paranoid billionaire. But
Speaker 1: also that would seem to suggest that you could just
Speaker 1: shrink a tumor if you have that kind of fine control. Again, yeah,
Speaker 1: but why just from a writing perspective, why is this
Speaker 1: the first time we're learning about that? Is it because
Speaker 1: it's your first was? From a writing perspective, the most
Speaker 1: important is to leave people with nothing but questions from
Speaker 1: the entire time of Again, I'm not story. I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about writing, so I think, well, the goal
Speaker 1: is to make the reader confused and bothered. Well, then
Speaker 1: he's really knocking it out of the park. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good. We like it because it's so good. Um,
Speaker 1: But the point is the tools that he had, which
Speaker 1: were either shrunken down or built to be tiny. So
Speaker 1: like the nutrient packs, I guess we're also built to
Speaker 1: be tiny or something. Are they doing like yeah, okay, so,
Speaker 1: or they're shrunk. I don't know. The point is where
Speaker 1: they're sunk, but they're just not subject to be they're
Speaker 1: not regrowing. They were shrunk and now they're not going
Speaker 1: to be regrown. Or they were built tiny and they're
Speaker 1: not part of this. But those we don't need to
Speaker 1: know that because as readers we have no questions about
Speaker 1: this kind of thing. Yeah, no, it's unimportant. We're we're
Speaker 1: we're we're concerned about the abortion allegory that's going on
Speaker 1: right now after halfway through the fucking short story. Yep. Oh,
Speaker 1: so his interests are tiny. They're tiny toys in my hands.
Speaker 1: All I've got left is my hands, too many hands,
Speaker 1: and I can barely control them. I'm naked now thanks
Speaker 1: to the growth my clothes. They're just unshrinking and naked
Speaker 1: man in this guy's living room. Ah, that's funny. That's
Speaker 1: good stuff. Well right, because like, why would you want
Speaker 1: these little things left in your home when the people regrow.
Speaker 1: That's filthy too. Also, now you've got a big naked
Speaker 1: man in your you want that here? You'll clean freak. Ah.
Speaker 1: The mechanical mites are climbing, but they don't get stuck
Speaker 1: in the viscous stuff. Okay, I'm at the edge of
Speaker 1: my seat. The mechanical mites are climbing. I take a
Speaker 1: deep breath, grab the halo and rip with all my strength. Rip.
Speaker 1: What mhm what does he riv? Okay, the mechanical mites
Speaker 1: are climbing. I take a deep breath, grab the halo
Speaker 1: and rip with all my strength. Is grabbing. He's ripping
Speaker 1: the halo off of the thing. Nothing happens formatting air.
Speaker 1: The liquid is holding the halo together. As the mechanical
Speaker 1: mites climb, I can't get out. One of the mechanical
Speaker 1: mites is faster than the others. It's natural selection and ship.
Speaker 1: You know, there's always an alpha robot, the might that
Speaker 1: was programmed to be faster than the other hundreds leading
Speaker 1: the pack. Then it's not programmed them all super fast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you could make it all of them faster
Speaker 1: than it seems like they would all be the same
Speaker 1: speed as robots. But yeah, but it's a delicate pill.
Speaker 1: They crammed a hundred over the men, and men were
Speaker 1: like one super Might dropped in there. That's all we
Speaker 1: have left for. We've got a doze and a half.
Speaker 1: We can make one of these mites fast, but the
Speaker 1: budget ran out for the others. Extended release on the others.
Speaker 1: But this one's right there with you. One fast one.
Speaker 1: Then it's on me, tearing at the halo with its
Speaker 1: metal pincers. I scream, but there's no one to hear me.
Speaker 1: My arms feel heavy, overburdened, as though I'm swimming in molasses.
Speaker 1: The jaws close in. I it seems like he wants
Speaker 1: the halo torn, right, I'm just trying to get in
Speaker 1: the hall his his motivations um for his like his
Speaker 1: basic motivation I guess makes sense, But the motivations for
Speaker 1: the specific actions he's taking here um are pretty notice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just not giving us like and I don't expect
Speaker 1: him be like my plan is to do this and
Speaker 1: this and this and this, but he's not giving us
Speaker 1: enough information to like follow along. There's also you know,
Speaker 1: the thing that he never does in anything that he does,
Speaker 1: because he's not a writer, is like set up and
Speaker 1: pay off. So again, a writer trying to make action
Speaker 1: feel meaningful, you would set up some aspect of how
Speaker 1: this guy responds in stressful situations um in the initial
Speaker 1: action sequence, and then there would be a payoff, either
Speaker 1: him learning a lesson and doing a different thing, or
Speaker 1: like this thing that he gets chided for winds up
Speaker 1: being what saves him, like literally anything to to add
Speaker 1: something to this but then has done nothing instead. Are
Speaker 1: are you suggesting the stories require some sort of like change, yeah,
Speaker 1: like not just physical growth yea, and even just beyond
Speaker 1: that that, like there be a reward for I remember
Speaker 1: this from before. Yeah, it's it's back like look, yeah exactly,
Speaker 1: um but alas my arms feel heavy, overburdened, as though
Speaker 1: I'm swimming in molasses. The jaws close in, and I
Speaker 1: remember Phillips, Okay, I remember his eyes bugging out as
Speaker 1: the mites closed on him, was in on him. I
Speaker 1: remember the blood pouring from the stump of his leg,
Speaker 1: and those eyes rolling back in their sockets. Those eyes.
Speaker 1: Most of all, I remember the greedy, crunching noises from
Speaker 1: the vile mouths of those mites. The real mightsy humans,
Speaker 1: yeah are they? Yeah? The mites real mights at humans,
Speaker 1: and I guess the mechanical ones and like mites are
Speaker 1: able to like crunch even if they are tiny bones bones, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I would eat actually has anything at all to
Speaker 1: do with people, Like it's like like skin flakes, but
Speaker 1: not organs and bones and not like moving. The thing
Speaker 1: about dust mites they do not eat blood or like
Speaker 1: living like It's like, yeah, they're not dead, it's like
Speaker 1: five and like five not stuff like. They don't do this.
Speaker 1: They're not even really scavengers because they have no way
Speaker 1: of even knowing that the stuff they're eating was ever
Speaker 1: part of a living creature. They certainly don't eat corpses.
Speaker 1: They're like they just kind of they're like those bottom
Speaker 1: feeding fish, Like what's there, and what's their skin flakes?
Speaker 1: Dead skin flakes and like and we're not like existing
Speaker 1: in a world where there are monsters, sister, a rich
Speaker 1: guy with a weird phobia. A whole bunch of wrong information. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to the extent that like mites have minds, they don't
Speaker 1: really hunt. They don't have like that capacity. I would
Speaker 1: doubt that the capacity to like fight, right, yeah, like
Speaker 1: person apart, that's not they don't. I don't think they
Speaker 1: engage in collective behavior. Not a mite expert, but I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I can't imagine that they do. And
Speaker 1: you apparently these mites crave bone, Yeah, they grave bone
Speaker 1: and blood an attack and like it would be maybe
Speaker 1: he's referring to like another incident with mechanical mites, but
Speaker 1: he didn't say mechanical mites. He said mites. And they've
Speaker 1: been that hunt dust mites. But but they're but the
Speaker 1: stories about dust mites, yeah, I think like he specifically said,
Speaker 1: like the whale is afraid of dust mites. That tell
Speaker 1: you what we really shouldn't need to be questioning and
Speaker 1: wondering this much about it. Um, yeah, it seems like
Speaker 1: the premise is maybe a bad one. Yeah, maybe it's
Speaker 1: a whack premise. Huh huh um. But he's remembering the
Speaker 1: mites tearing his friend apart and drinking on his blood. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's what the dust mites did. And I wait,
Speaker 1: the pincer's rip tear at the halo. I wait, new
Speaker 1: formatting air. The first mechanical might breaks through, the fastest one, probably.
Speaker 1: I hold my breath as the poisonous air comes flowing through.
Speaker 1: Then kick as hard as I can at the might.
Speaker 1: It's just enough. The might loses its footing, plummets down
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the stomach, is sucked out of sight.
Speaker 1: Bad sense. So that was the fastest one, Um, I
Speaker 1: I assume, so it got there the fastest. I have
Speaker 1: to read this again real quick. It's just enough. Dash,
Speaker 1: the might loses its footing. Comma plummets down to the
Speaker 1: bottom of the stomach. Comma is sucked out of sight.
Speaker 1: It's gonna pause on my face real quick for a listener. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you can see him right now, Okay, and I climb.
Speaker 1: I leaped through the hole in the halo grab the
Speaker 1: stomach lining and I thought you couldn't because of the
Speaker 1: liquid on the walls. All right, and climb toward what
Speaker 1: looks like a closed ring above me. I have to
Speaker 1: get out. I have to get the hell out now.
Speaker 1: It takes me a second to realize that the stomach
Speaker 1: acid is burning away layers of skin. I'd scream, but
Speaker 1: I need the air. Instead. I griped my teeth, breaking
Speaker 1: a molar. As my shoulder muscle is exposed, the mites
Speaker 1: are gaining. The liquid is gluing me to the walls too,
Speaker 1: like a fly stuck in a web. That's how might
Speaker 1: work either. I also, this is funny. Do we get
Speaker 1: any idea of what state this is occurring in Cody
Speaker 1: or city that I don't think? I don't think, so
Speaker 1: that's fine. I did about a second and a half
Speaker 1: of googling um. And it's funny because it's actually a
Speaker 1: matter of scientific curiosity that the American West has almost
Speaker 1: no dust mites. They're they're bafflingly lacking in the West.
Speaker 1: There's like none in the Midwest or the Mountain West,
Speaker 1: and the West Coast has some, but they're like a
Speaker 1: third as many as on the East Coast um. So
Speaker 1: obviously there's plenty of places in the US where there
Speaker 1: would be dust mites. But it's just funny that it's
Speaker 1: actually a matter of scientific curiosity how few there are
Speaker 1: in the area that Ben lives in, and that will
Speaker 1: be broadly writing about exactly we assume because also it's
Speaker 1: like it's like abortion and lives and like all this
Speaker 1: kind of Again, if you're doing like the again Michael
Speaker 1: Crichton kind of thing where you're trying to make it
Speaker 1: seem like hard science fiction, you might actually have a
Speaker 1: character who's like talking about dust mites and explaining the
Speaker 1: threat like a dress that you know, they're weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: they don't live in this area that or they've become
Speaker 1: more common as people have like sealed up their houses
Speaker 1: more and because the because that is a thing. They
Speaker 1: were almost known dust mites anywhere in North America until
Speaker 1: we started doing more like climate control stuff that apparently
Speaker 1: like made it an easier place for them to propagate.
Speaker 1: And so like, you know, ironically, if he wasn't such
Speaker 1: like a neat freak, there would be less mites in
Speaker 1: his house. Like it literally anything or too much about
Speaker 1: how do you know about I learned all of this
Speaker 1: thirty seconds before I started reading it. That's how little
Speaker 1: research it took to find a scientific American article that
Speaker 1: made it all very clear. And then again, I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about Ben should have done tens of hours of research.
Speaker 1: If he had dedicated an hour to reading about mites
Speaker 1: before this, he could have made this like it's not hard.
Speaker 1: It is baffling. It is baffling. But he never published it. Oh,
Speaker 1: he published it, but he unpublished it, right right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is no longer available on good reads, um or
Speaker 1: anywhere else. Um. But this beautiful podcast, beautiful podcast to
Speaker 1: find it. How much time we gotta wrap up? One
Speaker 1: other option though, in this dust mite scenario, Let's say
Speaker 1: it's in like the West, and like, oh, there actually
Speaker 1: aren't a lot of dust mites. That maybe speaks of
Speaker 1: the whales character, like even though there aren't a lot
Speaker 1: of my he's still obsessed with them and hiring these
Speaker 1: people like he's he's that he's that far gone or whatever. UM.
Speaker 1: A lot of options. They're from a good twenty second
Speaker 1: google um. But the point is he didn't google what
Speaker 1: an esophagus does, so why would you google what dust
Speaker 1: mightes do? Just above me is the ring of the esophagus.
Speaker 1: Spelled it right, So hell yeah, there you go, hand
Speaker 1: over hand, I grab my legs hang free. When he
Speaker 1: grabbed the ring, is grab onto the ring of the esophagus.
Speaker 1: I guess, um, that's my leg It's like, oh right,
Speaker 1: because I forgot that. The newer models that have footholds, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta get that lots of rungs. Can't.
Speaker 1: He can't use his tiny tools anymore. He's got to
Speaker 1: use his hands, his fingies and picturing it like die Hard,
Speaker 1: where he's somehow like using and again the strap of
Speaker 1: the laser to like call himself up. You could have
Speaker 1: you could have had him you need to climb or
Speaker 1: fail to climb earlier. If he'd had to do a
Speaker 1: climb to like save his buddy and like and that's
Speaker 1: why his buddy had died again, that would be a
Speaker 1: little bit of thing. It's like you brought up die Hard.
Speaker 1: We have John McClane take his shoes off at the start.
Speaker 1: It's not really a big deal for a while, and
Speaker 1: then the glasses shot out and it's not even like
Speaker 1: that doesn't really reveal anything about John's character. It's not
Speaker 1: like it's not like a hero's journey thing. It just
Speaker 1: actually makes things a little more interesting because you've set
Speaker 1: up and paid off of things. And I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about I mean in general, I think about Aard. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the descriptions of like, oh, it's just hard
Speaker 1: to follow what exactly it is that he's doing in
Speaker 1: the stomach. Well, when I read die Hard, that was
Speaker 1: one thing. These action sequences were very meticulously described, so
Speaker 1: there wasn't almost not a sci fi but there's no
Speaker 1: room for uh, misunderstanding what's happening. There's no room for
Speaker 1: misunderstanding what's happening, and there's not there's not a single
Speaker 1: gunshot in that movie that like doesn't advance the story,
Speaker 1: and it means something like every time people do an
Speaker 1: action it's meaningful, which is what you'll find in every
Speaker 1: good action movie, right like that there's stuff doesn't happen
Speaker 1: that doesn't need to happen advance the story or increase
Speaker 1: your understanding of a character. Um, because that's a good storytelling.
Speaker 1: And it's the same with fictions, like yeah, you don't
Speaker 1: just have an action scene to have an action scene.
Speaker 1: You have an action scene because it reveals something about
Speaker 1: the character or the world. It advances your understanding in
Speaker 1: some way that leads you to staying engaged with the story.
Speaker 1: The action exists to make the story interesting. The action
Speaker 1: doesn't exist because people want to read about folks shooting
Speaker 1: dust mites with lasers, because no one does. We might
Speaker 1: care about characters who are doing that, but nobody cares
Speaker 1: about fighting dust mites with lasers. Does Maybe he absorbs
Speaker 1: art differently than other people. Mhm. It's like if you
Speaker 1: would if you had said to me, hey, do you
Speaker 1: want to watch a movie about a cop fighting terrorists
Speaker 1: in a in a skyscraper, I would say probably not.
Speaker 1: That sounds boring. But but I like Die Hard because again,
Speaker 1: from the very beginning, you're engaged with these characters. It's
Speaker 1: not about the fact that they're having gunfights. It's about
Speaker 1: the fact that John McCain McClain is an engaging character,
Speaker 1: Hans Gruber is a deeply engaging villain, and I care
Speaker 1: about them, and the action makes me understand them better,
Speaker 1: and I'm engaged in the action because I'm engaged in them,
Speaker 1: And that's how a story is told. We find Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I think that's a good stopping point. Yeah, guy terminating.
Speaker 1: There's every literally every piece of fiction that has ever
Speaker 1: been influential works the same way, which is that you
Speaker 1: don't do a thing unless it matters to the story
Speaker 1: because that otherwise it's boring. Like like like fucking James
Speaker 1: Cameron is great at this because like as as silly
Speaker 1: as sh it has true lies. Right, Like, there's never
Speaker 1: even in fucking as many critiques as there are of
Speaker 1: like Avatar. Whatever ship doesn't happen if it doesn't reveal
Speaker 1: things about the characters or the world. Action doesn't have.
Speaker 1: Gunfights don't happen because they're pointless. Otherwise, people don't care
Speaker 1: about gunfights. People care about characters, and people care about
Speaker 1: like characters in the gunfights and within those gunfights. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we just But now we have this guy hanging from
Speaker 1: an esophagus and he's remembering some other thing of his
Speaker 1: friend in a h like a featureless place. I have
Speaker 1: no idea where his friend Philip's got attacked. It's just
Speaker 1: like in like some void. They're like he's like being
Speaker 1: hound hounded by like these dust mites. Which again, like
Speaker 1: if you were trying to do this competently, that would
Speaker 1: have been the start of the story Philip's dying and
Speaker 1: like maybe this guy fails and whatnot. You know, but
Speaker 1: it's it's just amazing. It's like the this is the
Speaker 1: thing where like, you know what, people wonder why as
Speaker 1: a general rule, like the Star Wars prequels were like
Speaker 1: less beloved than the originals. There's a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: One of them is that, like there's a lot of action,
Speaker 1: particularly in the second and third, where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a billion guys having sword fights, and I don't
Speaker 1: know who most of these people are. And when you
Speaker 1: find people who actually do care about and really like
Speaker 1: those movies, it tends to be because they've read all
Speaker 1: of the books and so they know who those characters are.
Speaker 1: And even though it's not on screen, and you can
Speaker 1: argue that's bad filmmaking, they're engaged because those characters have
Speaker 1: been built up elsewhere and so that's why they care. Um.
Speaker 1: But if you look at like what made the original successful,
Speaker 1: like a lightsaber, it doesn't get fucking pulled unless something
Speaker 1: that deeply matters to a character is happening. They don't
Speaker 1: just pull lightsabers because lightsabers are cool in the first
Speaker 1: three movies, and that's part of why it's iconic, Yeah,
Speaker 1: very rarely, and so it's always engaging when a fucking
Speaker 1: lightsaber gets pulled. It's why they're iconic is because at
Speaker 1: least at the start, you didn't see those things unless
Speaker 1: something that you gave a shit about was going down.
Speaker 1: Here and here's what a lightsaber is and telling you
Speaker 1: about your dad. Here's me protecting you in this bar.
Speaker 1: Here's how a lightsaber works and what it does. Here's
Speaker 1: me training you with a lightsaber. Here's like the possibility
Speaker 1: of the world having exposing you too. Here's and again,
Speaker 1: this is fighting the villain with a lightsaber. That's it,
Speaker 1: And it's a great mark of like the value of
Speaker 1: good editing in a story, because George Lucas clearly does
Speaker 1: not understand that as well as his editor in the
Speaker 1: first three movies, which was his ex wife, understood that
Speaker 1: because I think there would probably have been a lot
Speaker 1: more lightsabers. But you don't, you don't like the especially
Speaker 1: in that first movie, if you actually look at when
Speaker 1: like they lightsabers show up the minimum amount of time
Speaker 1: necessary for the action to happen. It's never gratuitous. And
Speaker 1: that's why they're so cool, right, Like It's the same
Speaker 1: thing with Jaws. Right, the less you see the shark,
Speaker 1: the more you're engaged in was awesome character. You got
Speaker 1: like five minutes of screen time and the entire trilogy. Uh,
Speaker 1: you die like a punk, But yeah, you're cool looking
Speaker 1: while you do it. And that's it. You're cool looking.
Speaker 1: And there's that one line No Disintegrations where it's like
Speaker 1: you're mind gets kind of opened up and oh, I
Speaker 1: wonder what like this guy's whole story is, and like
Speaker 1: you get a couple of scenes with him that make
Speaker 1: it clear that he's good at like tracking people and
Speaker 1: so folks, Again, it's not about showing or telling too much.
Speaker 1: You actually don't ever want to do that. It's important to, like,
Speaker 1: especially in science fiction, there's a lot of value in
Speaker 1: just kind of dropping things, dropping like references to things
Speaker 1: that that that the I wonder what that was about.
Speaker 1: I wonder what that battle was, I wonder what that
Speaker 1: piece of Like, you don't need to know everything. You
Speaker 1: need to know enough that your imagination takes over. Right,
Speaker 1: You gotta like prime the pump. You gotta put a
Speaker 1: little fuel and to jump start the generator. That that
Speaker 1: gets you engaged in the world and every every piece
Speaker 1: of science fiction that has spawned a fucking empire. Was
Speaker 1: great at that, you know, Dunes, great at that, Star Wars,
Speaker 1: great at that Star Trek, great at that um Battle Stars,
Speaker 1: great at that, every every piece of science fiction that
Speaker 1: anyone has cared about, even if it later turns into
Speaker 1: like we have to explain every single thing at the beginning,
Speaker 1: it's all about getting you to wonder. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: then is a bad writer. I am excited to keep
Speaker 1: the story. I have to go. Yeah, gets back to Amy.
Speaker 1: The one thing I know about the main guy, he
Speaker 1: who also is not a character. Um. Another place you
Speaker 1: might have opened this is like him and Amy having
Speaker 1: a fight and then like he leaves in his buddy
Speaker 1: who dies, picks him up in the car, and they
Speaker 1: talk about why they're doing it, and then you cut
Speaker 1: from that to his buddy dying right after his buddy died. Whatever.
Speaker 1: There's a number of ways that this could have been
Speaker 1: a story, but it's not other than just the absolute
Speaker 1: laziest way. Yeah, yeah, next this all right, everything so
Speaker 1: dull and it's not again. I tried. Daniel. Worst Year
Speaker 1: Ever is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
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