Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: This is poetry. You don't edit poetry, well, you do
Speaker 2: edit poetry.
Speaker 3: One of the things with poetry and poetry.
Speaker 1: Stop talking. Welcome, Welcomed, It could happen here twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five Q and A edition. We have the whole team here,
Speaker 1: Mia Garrison, James, Robert Evans. I'm your producer, Sophie Lichterman.
Speaker 1: We're gonna answer some of your questions. How's everybody feeling.
Speaker 2: Great, trepidacious, amazing, bad. I just got back from vacation,
Speaker 2: so anything's going to be bad. That's not me continuing
Speaker 2: to not look at my phone or computer.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you should stop looking at the phone.
Speaker 5: Hey, you guys, have you.
Speaker 2: Guys aware what this Trump dude's doing?
Speaker 6: Jesus Christ, very very yea. I went to the WJA
Speaker 6: holiday party this weekend and the amount of like twenty
Speaker 6: seventeen Trump jokes I had to hear.
Speaker 3: Oh no, that's I'm against humanity.
Speaker 5: God.
Speaker 4: I love I love that party. I love that party.
Speaker 3: I'm going to a holiday party tonight with some friends
Speaker 3: who do insurance for people who live in the US
Speaker 3: and go to Mexico, so I'm sure I will get
Speaker 3: lots of fun and exciting anecdotes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am throwing a holiday party and planning it
Speaker 2: with a four year old, which is exciting. It's gonna
Speaker 2: be good.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite experiences as us having our job
Speaker 1: is at almost every partday I go to somebody's like,
Speaker 1: so those the news.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people just st to just summarize the fucking news.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not good. Listen to executive disorder now.
Speaker 6: I had to explain seven six four to a screenwriter
Speaker 6: yesterday and they were not happy.
Speaker 2: Anyone who goes to a party that I am at
Speaker 2: knows that there's a gun on the table. If anyone
Speaker 2: asks me how the.
Speaker 1: News is that, that's just the sprace that way fucking out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what's going on over there?
Speaker 3: Erin Burma.
Speaker 4: Let's let's let's answer some questions.
Speaker 1: Let's all right, so we posted on Blue Sky, we
Speaker 1: posted on Instagram, and we have some of your questions.
Speaker 1: Let's start out with with a fun one. Can we
Speaker 1: have a fun, non incriminating story from your youth, any
Speaker 1: in all of.
Speaker 2: You, no fun, non incriminating story about you.
Speaker 6: I mean, for Robert, this is and James and maybe me.
Speaker 6: Statute of limitations for all of you should be fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Garrison.
Speaker 4: I cannot answer this at all.
Speaker 6: I have a lot of interesting stories, but I've tried
Speaker 6: to think of something from my youth that I could
Speaker 6: actually share.
Speaker 3: I can do one that I think non incriminating. I'm
Speaker 3: sad about having been part of it, but that's okay.
Speaker 3: I was gored by a bull when I was younger.
Speaker 2: Story. I feel like if we put money on it,
Speaker 2: like two of us would have bet a bull was involved.
Speaker 3: I've actually been present at several gorings various species. I
Speaker 3: probably have most of the gorings that it's available for
Speaker 3: a human being to witness because I've seen like a
Speaker 3: water buffalo goring.
Speaker 2: Oh nice, that's got to be like the top goring.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a really unpleasant day for everyone involved.
Speaker 3: A guy lost the use of his of his legs
Speaker 3: for a period as she recovered it later, which is nice.
Speaker 2: So you can laugh about it, yeah, fun laugh about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well it's a funny. It's a funny story.
Speaker 2: It's fun.
Speaker 3: First of all, you shouldn't be unkind to animals, so
Speaker 3: I did deserve it, right. I don't think you should
Speaker 3: torn animals for human pleasure. I don't think you should
Speaker 3: make them suffer, and if you do, it's kind of
Speaker 3: your fault. So in that sense, it's funny.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I've ever heard of a goring
Speaker 2: where I wasn't like, well, the animal was in the
Speaker 2: right clear.
Speaker 3: I've earned the bull team of this. The funny part
Speaker 3: was that my friend who was staying with me, had
Speaker 3: previously not driven a manual vehicle. I had broken probably
Speaker 3: the bulk of my ribs right, like a lot of
Speaker 3: rib breaking, and we drove home like that, learning to
Speaker 3: use to clutch on the way, And that was one
Speaker 3: of the most painful experiences I think that's available to
Speaker 3: a human being.
Speaker 1: Is it bad that the story that popped into my
Speaker 1: head was when I ripped my pants in front of
Speaker 1: the entire eighth grade class at our school picnic because
Speaker 1: I was wearing way too skinny of jeans playing basketball
Speaker 1: and my pants ripped and I was wearing TMI red
Speaker 1: onnies and pants ripped, so like my entire butt.
Speaker 4: No, that's got to leave some scars. Yeah, that for me.
Speaker 1: As as a person that I feel like, you just
Speaker 1: fuck the Yeah. But that was my fun non incriminating
Speaker 1: story from you.
Speaker 2: Was the time.
Speaker 1: From the entire eighth grade class that are like graduation picnic.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love that you were like skinny jeans Icarus, Like
Speaker 3: that's something that.
Speaker 5: Tight.
Speaker 3: Why why it was the way things were back then.
Speaker 1: So I know, I know, Robert, you have to have
Speaker 1: a fun one. I do.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 2: What's the statute limitations on murder?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: Very couple of weeks?
Speaker 2: Fine, now I'll tell I'll tell a pants splitting story too.
Speaker 2: I got a really good one, Sovie. So I'm in
Speaker 2: I'm in rural northern India in this town called rishikash
Speaker 2: which is where like it's where like the Beatles had
Speaker 2: their Ashram. It's like a holy city. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of yoga there. You're up in like the Himalayan foothills.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful. The ganjes is actually like clean enough to
Speaker 2: swim in up there. But it's also crazy whitewater rapids.
Speaker 2: And we're going like whitewater rafting one day and I
Speaker 2: grab I buy a pair of like pants that are
Speaker 2: like it's like it's like a long set of like
Speaker 2: athletic you know, tights or whatever like that to have
Speaker 2: on the boat because like, okay, that'll that'll make sense.
Speaker 2: They zip so I can keep you know, some cash
Speaker 2: or whatever in them, and we're going down the Ganjis.
Speaker 2: We're doing this whitewater raft and we hit a calm
Speaker 2: spot and the guy's like, okay, everybody wants to get
Speaker 2: in the water, hop out, and I hop out, And
Speaker 2: immediately two things become clear. Number One, the quality of
Speaker 2: text styles that you purchase in a market in India
Speaker 2: not necessarily up to the standards of a lot of
Speaker 2: other countries. Number Two, the Ganji's mighty river. So my
Speaker 2: pants immediately are gone, like just instantly, as soon as
Speaker 2: the water torn off by the gangis. And then I
Speaker 2: am so I am realizing this that now I am
Speaker 2: naked from the waist down. We are surrounded on both
Speaker 2: sides by a very holy city, and we are heading
Speaker 2: towards the rocks. So I have to get back in
Speaker 2: the boat in fairly short order. This presents a problem
Speaker 2: because again, as we're getting like buffalo buffeted around, I
Speaker 2: have to get like help pulled up into the boat.
Speaker 2: Absolutely everything moving on the entire side of this secret city.
Speaker 2: So now I'm in the boat naked from the waist down.
Speaker 2: But I come up with a plant I did I
Speaker 2: do solve it? I take my shirt off and I
Speaker 2: put my legs through the armholes and I got a
Speaker 2: neck hole and I'm just my pants my shirt.
Speaker 4: Is what a sight.
Speaker 2: We went to lunch that way.
Speaker 3: There's still a restaurant there where they won't let Robert.
Speaker 2: Still, James, there's more than one restaurant, Indie, I can't
Speaker 2: go back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a hotel in Bangkok that neither of us
Speaker 3: can go back to.
Speaker 2: But no, they handled you puking in the parking lot
Speaker 2: like a trooper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I puked directly into my nalgene like it, considering.
Speaker 2: Exactly like a hero, Like a hero, James.
Speaker 3: And then send a picture to Sophie.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was before I worked here. I sent a
Speaker 3: picture to Sophie of Nalgene for the puke, and.
Speaker 1: I was like, let's hire that guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like you get thirty seconds into our relationship
Speaker 2: that I told Sophia a story about me puking. So
Speaker 2: it's fine.
Speaker 1: It was like fifteen seconds. Yeah, yeah, it might have
Speaker 1: been fifteen anyways, Robert, can we get an update to
Speaker 1: the sequel of After the Revolution?
Speaker 2: It's done. I'm editing it. I even got edits back
Speaker 2: from my editor. I'm edit it should have been done
Speaker 2: so much faster. I could, like bring up the fact
Speaker 2: that my dad died last year, but that's really just
Speaker 2: me trying to make you feel sorry for me, and
Speaker 2: the fact that I am well past the time at
Speaker 2: which I expected to have this book done. But it
Speaker 2: is done and I'm finishing it and you will get
Speaker 2: to read it. Suit, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Good for you, Good for you, Robert.
Speaker 8: Wow, incredible.
Speaker 1: Do you plan to cover recent political developments in Canada?
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a gair question.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the answer is always yes.
Speaker 2: The answer is yes to all of like, yes, we
Speaker 2: will be covering Canada.
Speaker 4: I mean, especially Alberta.
Speaker 6: I've been wanting to do stuff on Alberta and the
Speaker 6: Conservative Party there and a few of the key figures
Speaker 6: for a while. I've you know, we've all been busy.
Speaker 6: But yes, I should eventually do a dedicated thing I
Speaker 6: gat like and I do occasionally, right, usually usually once
Speaker 6: or twice a year. I try to get some Canada
Speaker 6: related things.
Speaker 3: I've talked about Canada gar and I I feel like
Speaker 3: did something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I me'd like the Canadian election happened this year, right,
Speaker 6: Supreme Leader Carney is it is still still in power.
Speaker 4: And will be for a while.
Speaker 6: But yeah, specifically, the Alberta Conservative Party is rife with
Speaker 6: potential stories.
Speaker 1: My recent political development in Canada that I would like
Speaker 1: to talk about is what's his name dating Katy Perry?
Speaker 1: Oh god, because it makes me upset?
Speaker 4: Wait, who, that's not our problem anymore.
Speaker 3: That's one famous Canadian person is It's justin.
Speaker 1: It's just famous Jesus, not Bieber, not Biever Trudeau.
Speaker 3: True, Okay, okay, still bad, still weird.
Speaker 4: Tudeau and Katy Perry are dating a match made in Heaven.
Speaker 1: Their Instagram official and the photos are upsetting.
Speaker 2: I do feel like this is the potential we have
Speaker 2: a potential for, like the one Ring of couples Halloween
Speaker 2: costumes situation to happen here, and I'm excited for that.
Speaker 6: But no, I'm I'm I'm living pretty close to Canada now,
Speaker 6: so I would like to travel up and do more
Speaker 6: Canadian stuff in the next year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you love Canada, Garrison, great deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. As a general rule, people, if you're ever asking, hey,
Speaker 2: this major thing is happening in another country, are you
Speaker 2: guys going to cover it? The answer is probably yes.
Speaker 2: But there are how many people are on this call
Speaker 2: five people, and there are I believe ten countries in
Speaker 2: the world at least.
Speaker 6: So many are saying more, well, everyone's in a while,
Speaker 6: this is a civil war, and one of those splits
Speaker 6: into two. So I think there's actually eleven countries right now.
Speaker 2: It's somewhere between five and eleven countries.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, ironically, when there is a civil war, there's
Speaker 3: a decent chance. So I'll be traveling there and the
Speaker 3: twelve months.
Speaker 2: We have a pretty broad remit here, and I do
Speaker 2: think we cover a lot of ground. But again, you know,
Speaker 2: there's there's only so many people on the team, and
Speaker 2: we have so many days in the week. So the
Speaker 2: answer is generally, if we think we can and have
Speaker 2: more to tell you than like here's an article I read,
Speaker 2: we'll try to do it. But yeah, you know, world
Speaker 2: big as small.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and there are other people who do excellent
Speaker 3: work on lost of things, so like, you know, we
Speaker 3: don't have to cover everything.
Speaker 4: God, I missed the trucker convoy. That was fun.
Speaker 2: That was a just forgot about that.
Speaker 3: What about Roma Yadlu she's still kicking around Canada, Queen
Speaker 3: of Canada.
Speaker 2: She got arrested recently. I don't know if she's out
Speaker 2: on bail or whatever they call it, and poutine bail
Speaker 2: or whatever in Canada, but they can't arrest her robot
Speaker 2: because she's the queen. Anyways, notes about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's a fiction book that y'all have been reading lately?
Speaker 4: Ooh?
Speaker 1: My answer is I work too much. I haven't read
Speaker 1: any good fiction book lately.
Speaker 4: I've been reading a sci fi book called Children of Time.
Speaker 5: Oh good, Oh, Adrian Tracossi, great guy.
Speaker 3: Yes, I just read Winter in Madrid, because even when
Speaker 3: I'm reading fiction books, it still has to be about
Speaker 3: a Spanish civil war.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so funny, that makes sense for you.
Speaker 3: Load bearing element of my personality.
Speaker 2: I'm restarting Sirens of Titan for the first time since
Speaker 2: I was a little kid, which is Kurt Vonnegut's sci
Speaker 2: fi novel and like everything Kurt Vonnegut wrote one of
Speaker 2: the best to ever do it. And then you know,
Speaker 2: I was on vacation, so I was just rereading some
Speaker 2: Warhammer books to not think about the news when I
Speaker 2: needed to look at a device.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm gonna try to take a little time off
Speaker 1: around the holiday. So if people have good fiction books
Speaker 1: to recommend me, message me on Blue Sky.
Speaker 5: I've been listening to Oh God, like the entire Kate
Speaker 5: Daniels series, which is a very fun sort of urban
Speaker 5: fantasy series where they have a magic apocalypse where sometimes
Speaker 5: there's these magic waves and magic works and technology stops working,
Speaker 5: but then they just flip randomly and so technology works
Speaker 5: in magic don.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's basically the plot line is shatter on Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's fun.
Speaker 9: I got absolutely flashbang jump scared by one of the
Speaker 9: characters in one of the spinoffs doing a full analysis
Speaker 9: of the whole translation debacle of the old world is dying,
Speaker 9: the new world struggles to be born. Now is a
Speaker 9: time of monsters, which I was not expecting the author
Speaker 9: of this fantasy book to know about. So it's a
Speaker 9: fun time. Yeah, there's lions, there's were hyaenas. It's it's good.
Speaker 2: We'd like to see it cool.
Speaker 4: Well, we're going to.
Speaker 1: Take a quick break and we'll come back and continue
Speaker 1: answering some questions.
Speaker 2: We're back.
Speaker 1: So on that note, there's a broader question and it's
Speaker 1: a favorite media from twenty twenty five can be books, shows, movies, games,
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 2: I mean, and or's gonna be up there for me.
Speaker 4: And Door season two is definitely gonna be hard to be.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed that that new show, The Pit, the
Speaker 1: medical show.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've heard good things.
Speaker 4: Yeah you would like that.
Speaker 1: I liked it. It made me dizzy, but I liked it.
Speaker 1: It was interesting. I mean, we'll see how it does
Speaker 1: in season two. But the first season I was like, huh.
Speaker 2: I finally started watching that smiling Friends show and that's fun.
Speaker 6: Oh cool for for TV shows for me. Besides like
Speaker 6: and Orch's which is good. I think Rehearsal season two
Speaker 6: and the Paramount Nazi.
Speaker 2: Episode season two, Yeah, yeah, it's more and more after
Speaker 2: single phenomenal.
Speaker 6: As well as Tim Robinson's a new show, Chair Company,
Speaker 6: which I gets to the American conspiracy mindset better than
Speaker 6: almost anything I've seen. No parts of that are like
Speaker 6: rival that can film. Yeah, I still think. I still
Speaker 6: think Eddington is pretty good. It doesn't have as much
Speaker 6: like a depth or humanity as like one battle after another,
Speaker 6: which I quite enjoyed.
Speaker 2: I like that a lot too. I watched the first
Speaker 2: two episodes of Chair Company and then was like, I
Speaker 2: need to wait until they are all out so I
Speaker 2: can derange myself and like stay up until Dawn watch.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's so good.
Speaker 2: That's the way I need to encounter this. But I'm
Speaker 2: excited for that.
Speaker 6: I finished Chair Company now and it consistently keeps hitting.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't think Tim Robinson is capable of not pleasing
Speaker 2: me at this point.
Speaker 4: That's good. That's a that's a healthy relationship.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like the on on Netflix Adolescence that that mini
Speaker 1: series that was pretty good. The acting is incredible. There's
Speaker 1: just so many things this year that we're pretty decent.
Speaker 2: TV has been good.
Speaker 1: TV's been good.
Speaker 2: TV has been good.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I haven't watched Shit. I've just watched I've watched
Speaker 9: and Or and nothing else. So Hades too great game,
Speaker 9: very fun. Yeah, det de Cronos, et cetera, et cetera. Also,
Speaker 9: I want to talk about One of the Boys, which
Speaker 9: is a book from the beginning of this year we
Speaker 9: talked about on the show. That's a really really interesting
Speaker 9: basically like sort of like a coming of age story
Speaker 9: about a trans girl who's trying to go who goes
Speaker 9: back to her football team, and there's a lot of
Speaker 9: really interesting stuff there about the relationship between transfemininity and masculinity,
Speaker 9: and you know, the sort of like politics of sports,
Speaker 9: and it's it's also just really fun. Has the best
Speaker 9: written group chats I've ever seen in any piece of media.
Speaker 9: So ship Rocks, Yeah, it's it's great. One of the boys, victoria' zeller,
Speaker 9: it's it's fun.
Speaker 2: I also watched Paradise. The ostensible focus on the show
Speaker 2: is that like a secret service agent goes to live
Speaker 2: with a president who is retired after like you know
Speaker 2: how the detail that they stay with and it becomes
Speaker 2: clear over the course of episode one this isn't really
Speaker 2: a spoiler that the president is living in an underground
Speaker 2: bunker with all of the other survivors of a catastrophe
Speaker 2: that ended the world. And so it's like all of
Speaker 2: the leadership cadra of the United States living underground in
Speaker 2: a bunker after the world has ended, and then it
Speaker 2: turns into a murder mystery. It's pretty good. It's fun nice.
Speaker 3: I don't watch much TV, yeah, but I have been
Speaker 3: enjoying sticking to the theme. I guess ak Press have
Speaker 3: a translation now of two books that I very much
Speaker 3: enjoyed reading in other languages. One is called Zaragossa Bound,
Speaker 3: which is exclusively about the Druti column. I think it's
Speaker 3: probably the best book I've read on the Druti Column
Speaker 3: and Sons of Night by Antoine Jimenez, who was actually
Speaker 3: that was not his birth name, but he was an
Speaker 3: Haalian anarchist who fought with the International Group of the
Speaker 3: Druti Column and it's his diary. And then he later
Speaker 3: like in later life, was a groundskeeper at like the
Speaker 3: Libertarian People's Club in Marseille, and after his passing, the
Speaker 3: young people at the club found his diaries, publish him
Speaker 3: and then have these like incredible series of annotations like
Speaker 3: two thirty. The book is, it's annotations, but it's really
Speaker 3: well done. So I like that one.
Speaker 1: Look, I think I can answer this next one. Given
Speaker 1: how we see media companies from Disney to Conde and
Speaker 1: ask purge or otherwise censor anyone centing against Trump. Do
Speaker 1: you fear iHeartRadio doing something to cool Zone. My answer
Speaker 1: is they've never, They've never censored us in the in
Speaker 1: the past, so I don't see it happening in the future.
Speaker 1: But you never know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean anything can happen. It's media. I'm on
Speaker 2: my third or fourth industry depending on how you count it,
Speaker 2: within the digital media space. But like what I'll tell you, right,
Speaker 2: now is that at the moment, and this has been
Speaker 2: true for almost a decade, we make them money and
Speaker 2: they in return say, keep doing what you're doing, kid, kiddos, bukaroos.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's about as good as it ever gets
Speaker 2: in media, in journalism. So you know, let's keep our
Speaker 2: fingers crossed.
Speaker 1: Yep. What was a piece or series cools one media
Speaker 1: put together in the past year twenty twenty five that
Speaker 1: you were most proud or happy to be part of?
Speaker 4: What about you gare?
Speaker 6: Probably the piece that I'm most proud of in like
Speaker 6: a reflective sense is the dog Whistle Politics episode I did.
Speaker 6: I still think that's really relevant and a useful addition
Speaker 6: to like our cultural dialogue around understanding dog whistles coming
Speaker 6: out of the Trump administration. And like, even still now
Speaker 6: I will see see posts with people decoding false messages
Speaker 6: in overtly like nationalistic communications from the DHS again, and
Speaker 6: then this whole focus on like dog whistles versus the
Speaker 6: actual implementation of their which they're already doing. A few
Speaker 6: times this year, DHS has posted just very very blatant,
Speaker 6: like fast wave of stuff. They posted a moon Man
Speaker 6: meme earlier this year, right and if if you told
Speaker 6: years ago, we would have like I don't know, I
Speaker 6: don't know what we would.
Speaker 2: Have had I would have had I would have fifty
Speaker 2: one fifty yeah, yeah, I would have put your ass
Speaker 2: on a seventy two hour hold.
Speaker 6: So, like there's obvious stuff like that, Like yeah, no,
Speaker 6: they're they're clearly clearly doing like intentional nods towards like
Speaker 6: online fascist memes. And then they are also just posting regular,
Speaker 6: regular sentiments of like nationalist policy that people are then
Speaker 6: reading in coded statements to. And I don't think that
Speaker 6: whole practice is super useful when they're actually implementing this stuff.
Speaker 6: And I think the sort of like anti ice protests
Speaker 6: you see in Chicago and like in New York on
Speaker 6: Connell Street, it's a way more useful way to channel
Speaker 6: frustration at the administration and like a frustration around like
Speaker 6: this nationalist immigration stuff, rather than trying to you know,
Speaker 6: look for these maybe real, maybe not coded messages on
Speaker 6: X the everything app.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm proud of the Zizzian episodes that I did
Speaker 2: earlier this year, and those are my best episodes of
Speaker 2: the year, you know, I'm particularly this year have done
Speaker 2: a lot more back end supporting work, but I'm continue
Speaker 2: to be extremely proud of how ed Xytron's both show
Speaker 2: and influence in the industry that he covers has grown,
Speaker 2: especially as he's been really on the ball ahead of
Speaker 2: some of the breaking of open ais irrational exuberance. Been
Speaker 2: really happy to play a small role in that. It's
Speaker 2: just really satisfying to like stumble onto somebody and be like, oh,
Speaker 2: I think this person has some good things to say.
Speaker 2: I'm going to try to get that out to more people,
Speaker 2: and then really feel like, yeah, that was the right call.
Speaker 2: Turns out this was exactly the voice that needed to
Speaker 2: be louder in this space. That just feels good. It's
Speaker 2: the kind of it's a kind of good feeling that
Speaker 2: you only really get in this business, and it really
Speaker 2: makes up for all of the bad feelings that you
Speaker 2: also only get in this business.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I have two things. One
Speaker 9: on sort of just a personal level, I'm really proud
Speaker 9: of the episode that I did that was sort of
Speaker 9: about Elon Musks Nazi Salute, but was mostly about the
Speaker 9: way that all of our reality has been consumed by
Speaker 9: spectacle and the way that we relate to each other
Speaker 9: through you know, through screens and through like images of
Speaker 9: media in a very you know, so this was this
Speaker 9: was a very guide to board sciety these medical episode.
Speaker 9: But I'm really proud of how that episode played out
Speaker 9: and how I think in a lot of ways it
Speaker 9: kind of it kind of predicted some of what's been
Speaker 9: happening in terms of, you know, if you look at
Speaker 9: the sort of decrease and use to social media over
Speaker 9: the last sort of year and the turn away from
Speaker 9: these these these social relationships that are purely mediated by
Speaker 9: images that suck and make you miserable all the time.
Speaker 9: And the ether thing that I'm really proud of is
Speaker 9: some coverage we did about the Republicans attempt in the
Speaker 9: in one of the one of the previous budget fights
Speaker 9: to impose a role that would have blocked Medicaid from
Speaker 9: covering trans healthcare. And we covered it and we helped
Speaker 9: blow it up and we help get that killed, and
Speaker 9: that rocks. I don't know, it's awesome. I'm really proud
Speaker 9: of it. I'm also really proud of the trans News
Speaker 9: Network people, Yeah, particularly like Medicals again and Miria Levigne
Speaker 9: who did a really great job covering that and helping
Speaker 9: stop it, and it rocks love us see it.
Speaker 3: I think for me, like still the border stuff. Really
Speaker 3: it made me really happy that like last year I
Speaker 3: went to the jungle and made a podcast and now
Speaker 3: one of the people I met has a place to live.
Speaker 3: That's really cool, and like it really makes me happy.
Speaker 3: Like not just when we can like shift the discourse.
Speaker 3: I think that's cool, but also when people listen to
Speaker 3: that and then change the things that they do, like
Speaker 3: every day or some like that's always what you want.
Speaker 3: What I want as a journalist is like for people
Speaker 3: to listen and care guess why I go to places,
Speaker 3: And so it's been really cool to see people and
Speaker 3: just to run into people engaging in like mutual aid
Speaker 3: at the boarder and then then like them slowly realize
Speaker 3: that I'm the person that they listened to on a
Speaker 3: podcast a year ago or two years ago whatever. Is
Speaker 3: kind of funny. But yet I think I'm really proud
Speaker 3: of that, and I'm proud of all the people in
Speaker 3: the second series for all the stuff that they've done.
Speaker 1: I'm super proud of the anti vaxx America series that
Speaker 1: I commissioned Steven to do. I think it was a
Speaker 1: really good, complete project that covered the story in depth
Speaker 1: more than anyone else. So if you haven't checked that out,
Speaker 1: check it out. We're going to go to another quick
Speaker 1: break and then we'll answer a couple more questions.
Speaker 8: Sound good, cool, Yep, we're back all right.
Speaker 1: This question says, as we become jokrified, Sure.
Speaker 4: As we all become jokerified.
Speaker 1: Eventually, what did it for each of you? I mean,
Speaker 1: let's just say, let's let's just answer in like the
Speaker 1: last year.
Speaker 6: Sure not not overall a recent jokerification inciting incident.
Speaker 1: I can answer that, And that might also be career
Speaker 1: since it's when we couldn't get into the DNC for
Speaker 1: comm layers to speech.
Speaker 4: Oh no, that was nothing to me. That hurt me.
Speaker 1: That hurt me so much because the DNC was so depressing.
Speaker 4: It was so depressing, and.
Speaker 2: The DNC was way worse than the RNC.
Speaker 6: Post DNC certainly was a jokerifying moment for me.
Speaker 2: It hurts Garrison. I had people reaching out to me
Speaker 2: in Portland who were worried about you after the DMC.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the DNC was a jokerifying moment. I guess to
Speaker 6: piggyback off that though in terms of like a re
Speaker 6: sent joker moment working on the like Democrat left wing
Speaker 6: conspiracy stuff really did a number on me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and just like like seeing the scale of that stuff,
Speaker 6: especially around like the Charlie Kirk assassination, and just that
Speaker 6: that that whole moment definitely was like just drilling into
Speaker 6: my head.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those uh, like truth tunnels that people went.
Speaker 4: The whole team could attest to this, I was getting
Speaker 4: pretty out there.
Speaker 3: You can't get back to Garrison sustained damage.
Speaker 2: The uniformity of the embrace of counter factuals is like, like,
Speaker 2: I I don't even know what to do about it anymore.
Speaker 2: I don't feel like fact checking works. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 2: like positing alternate facts feels bad too, because then you're
Speaker 2: just like saying, well, I guess we're just openly having
Speaker 2: a life fight. Let's all have a big life fight.
Speaker 2: Let's see who's live.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, And when you're when you're trying to be the
Speaker 6: only one holding on to like the like life raft
Speaker 6: of truth as everyone as everyone else is like drowning
Speaker 6: and like mad at you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like I, yeah, I don't know, you don't
Speaker 4: know how to handle that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Whenever I encounter someone who's like you think Trump got
Speaker 2: shot in the ear, Like, yes, yes, I do. Yes,
Speaker 2: In fact, I do think he got shot in the ear.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And also can we not like what it's a year
Speaker 3: ago late, like we're here now.
Speaker 2: That one is so comprehensively disappointed to me because one
Speaker 2: of the little things it reveals is that there's even
Speaker 2: among progressives in the left, this belief that like, someone
Speaker 2: can't be injured by a gun and handle it reasonably
Speaker 2: well and not be a good person. Right, right, you
Speaker 2: have faked the fact that he didn't like can and
Speaker 2: piss himself. It has to be fake. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: he just like didn't freak out or whatever on a
Speaker 2: huge mine shows a huge adrenal. Have you ever been
Speaker 2: shot at It's like when you get when you realize
Speaker 2: you didn't get hit, it feels awesome. Yeah, you're living.
Speaker 3: You are surfing a cloud for a while there you're
Speaker 3: not anymore.
Speaker 6: I think the insights I got from this like left
Speaker 6: wing conspiracism, like like seizure. Right, this is like the
Speaker 6: seizure of the left embracing desk. I got one of
Speaker 6: the biggest points of clarity I was on, like what's
Speaker 6: happening right now? Is this like tactical flattening of especially
Speaker 6: after the Charlie Kirk stuff as well, Like with the
Speaker 6: right wing embracing this like cultural cancelation strategy of trying
Speaker 6: to get people fired for saying things online, which they've
Speaker 6: tried to do before but was done way more successfully
Speaker 6: that month, and like directed by the administration, and then
Speaker 6: the left embracing a style of conspiratorial thinking that previously
Speaker 6: was really only embraced as fully on the right. So
Speaker 6: like this, this this flattening of tactics across the left
Speaker 6: and the right, I think has been a useful way
Speaker 6: to look at our current situation.
Speaker 3: For me, Yeah, the ice guided missiles, Yeah man, that
Speaker 3: fully fucking sent me like as someone who's been a
Speaker 3: journalist for a while, just seeing these outlets that you
Speaker 3: were previously kind of like the first time I had
Speaker 3: a byline in Mother Jones, I was pumped. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then here they are just being like, love to know
Speaker 3: more about these missiles.
Speaker 5: We have that.
Speaker 2: Job, look at it.
Speaker 3: I literally did that while I was like waiting for
Speaker 3: coffee or having a shit or something like. It took
Speaker 3: me that much time on my telephone to find that contract, Like,
Speaker 3: what is wrong with people.
Speaker 2: Again, it's all just fucking shibolettes and virtue signaling boat
Speaker 2: like that. Why would that be worse if I've had
Speaker 2: guided missiles? Do you know how guided missiles work? Do
Speaker 2: you know the kind of tail that's required to make
Speaker 2: them function? Do you know the kind of like mechanical
Speaker 2: like experts that you have to have in order to
Speaker 2: like keep these things working and keep them usable? Why
Speaker 2: would ice be more dangerous with these? It's just going
Speaker 2: to distract them from doing the things they're already use
Speaker 2: it doing to hurt people, Like guided missiles do not
Speaker 2: do any It would be just like extra trash for
Speaker 2: them to carry around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they'd be as bad at using them as
Speaker 3: there and everything else.
Speaker 2: And to be quite frank, the government is already using
Speaker 2: guided missiles to do war crimes via the military up. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: people who know how to use them.
Speaker 1: The other thing that really just wow, every single time
Speaker 1: that there's a mass shooting event, which is often in
Speaker 1: this country, the fact that they had to transvestigate the
Speaker 1: person every single time, Oh yeah, holy is unnecessary annoying.
Speaker 1: It makes me very angry, Yeah, very angry.
Speaker 8: Fuck men.
Speaker 3: Just I don't know recently there was a wide piece
Speaker 3: about like in range TV Calcasido, who's had on before
Speaker 3: and the matches, the matches he hosts.
Speaker 2: And like the brutality matches. Yeah, probably thirty.
Speaker 3: Percent of the piece was reflecting on the killing of
Speaker 3: Charlie Kirk and like nobody who goes to Carl's matches
Speaker 3: has been accused of shooting Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2: No again, And the guy who shot Charlie Kirk didn't
Speaker 2: shoot him because he trained doing matches. He shot deer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then he shot a guy in a similar way
Speaker 2: to how he'd shot deer.
Speaker 3: Nor is he a trans person?
Speaker 2: You know, what's a better practice if you're going to
Speaker 2: shoot someone one hundred something yards distance than a tactical
Speaker 2: shooting match shooting deer?
Speaker 3: Like yeah, Like the whole thing is just like I know, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the discourse around mass shootings has become less helpful and
Speaker 3: more toxic.
Speaker 2: No part of it's because I think there's a decent
Speaker 2: chunk of like progressives and left for whom like it's
Speaker 2: immoral to actually know anything about how guns work, or
Speaker 2: how shooting works, or gun culture works, so you can't
Speaker 2: actually like understand what you're talking about, which is another problem.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of problems. It's not high on the
Speaker 2: list of problems. But it annoys me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe it pitches me off irrationally more than it should.
Speaker 3: But like I just tried to find that frustrating, Like
Speaker 3: we cannot have a reasonable discourse around guns in this country.
Speaker 2: No, No, that that ship sailed, Yeah, with some bullet
Speaker 2: holes in the hole.
Speaker 1: One one last serious one. M what's everyone's opinion on
Speaker 1: the best implementation of dual power in the modern era?
Speaker 1: That's a mea question.
Speaker 5: I mean, how are you defining modern era?
Speaker 4: I guess how you defining dual power?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and how long do you have the people who've
Speaker 3: objectively done the best job of it as Asapatistas.
Speaker 9: And they've done the best job of it in large
Speaker 9: part because they've been willing to change the structure of
Speaker 9: their systems over time as things have worked and things
Speaker 9: have not worked, and as the systems that they've been
Speaker 9: using have decentralized. I don't know the fact that they
Speaker 9: were able to even even under a massive attack, they
Speaker 9: were able to do a massive expansion a few years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 9: they've held out against you know, the wrath of the
Speaker 9: Mexican state which is one of the most violent in
Speaker 9: the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I would in a similar veins talk
Speaker 2: about like the PKK and then the YEPGJ and REROJABA,
Speaker 2: right where you had these non state groups that had
Speaker 2: connections and that had some experience doing what we might
Speaker 2: call mutual aid prior to the government's collapse, and then
Speaker 2: kind of expanded that into these networks that began to
Speaker 2: mimic and replace state function in an area that about
Speaker 2: three million people lived in. I think that's a really
Speaker 2: that's certainly a more important story in terms of how
Speaker 2: that kind of thing might work on a larger scale
Speaker 2: than anything that's happened up to the present point in
Speaker 2: the United States.
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, I guess in less of a militaristic way,
Speaker 6: but more like a party capacity or like political proposal capacity.
Speaker 6: Probably some of the stuff coming out of the New
Speaker 6: York City Chapter of d say the past year, which
Speaker 6: is not reflective of DSA is an entire national organization,
Speaker 6: but specifically the New York chapter has been very very
Speaker 6: prefigative in actually doing like more like party oriented dual power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And obviously I think probably we should also talk
Speaker 2: some about like the different immigration defense hotlines and immigration
Speaker 2: defense reaction forces around the country that have shown really
Speaker 2: ramping up and doing a lot of really good and
Speaker 2: really difficult work under duress and under you know, fire,
Speaker 2: so to speak.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think people have built immedunity safety to keep
Speaker 3: that community safe when the state has failed to keep
Speaker 3: their communities safe, right, and sometimes it's put their communities
Speaker 3: in danger. Ye, And like especially, I think it is
Speaker 3: kind of heartwarming to me to see people who who
Speaker 3: were just like straight up statist liberals, right yeah, realizing
Speaker 3: that actually the cops aren't going to come and arrest Ice.
Speaker 3: That's not going to fucking happen, and then being like, Okay, well,
Speaker 3: how do we organize the strategy that will maintain safety
Speaker 3: in our community given that this load bearing part of
Speaker 3: reality for me that cops are good has seemingly collapsed.
Speaker 2: And I'd say, in general, James, the fact that there's
Speaker 2: a whole lot of normy people who would have you
Speaker 2: certainly would have described them as normies a year or
Speaker 2: two ago, that are now like, yeah, we gotta get
Speaker 2: rid of Ice. Maybe we've got to get rid of
Speaker 2: all these cops. Yeah, Bill Crystal, Yeah, Bill Crystal. Beyond
Speaker 2: the anti Ice train, right. Yeah, it's not bad. I
Speaker 2: do get the first. I'm not saying like we should
Speaker 2: invite Bill Crystal to the party or whatever. I'm saying that,
Speaker 2: like the fair, Crystal blocked me on Blue Sky, so
Speaker 2: I can't invite him.
Speaker 6: Said, Bill Crystal's coming to the Anarchist Book Fair and
Speaker 6: it's going to be serving Vegan Slov.
Speaker 2: Is that even a joke? Garrisoner, Is that real? That
Speaker 2: could be real? Okay, but but it's it's just in
Speaker 2: general good that a lot of people who are like
Speaker 2: where my parents were politically twenty years ago are looking
Speaker 2: out at what's happening and being like, we got to
Speaker 2: get rid of these fucking people. Yeah, that's that's good.
Speaker 2: That's positive.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I would say that that's kind of like a downstream
Speaker 2: change from what I think will be the most long
Speaker 2: term positive change from the twenty twenty uprisings, which is
Speaker 2: a huge number of people who hadn't thought about the
Speaker 2: cops realized what the cops are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And to wrap it up, Robert, we got like
Speaker 1: multiple requests for you to do various accents.
Speaker 3: Are you fucking shitting me?
Speaker 2: Various what accents?
Speaker 1: Since so many requests for you to do various access.
Speaker 6: Well okay, some Australian ones, some Boston ones, Boston a
Speaker 6: few other but like the specific areas of Boston. I
Speaker 6: think they were asking about like like different like int
Speaker 6: Austin regional. Sure, sure, I'm sure you can just do
Speaker 6: those like one one one.
Speaker 4: Oh all right, yes, enough of that to see? Is
Speaker 4: that for listening? Are our Q and A episode?
Speaker 2: Okay? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Oh they could happen a year?
Speaker 2: Nailed it perfect?
Speaker 3: You had no notes.
Speaker 2: I'd say we reported the news, but this was definitively
Speaker 2: not the news.
Speaker 3: Yeah we didn't do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, goodbye.
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Speaker 7: Media from More podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our
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Speaker 7: You can now find sources for it could Happen here,
Speaker 7: listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.