Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:00]
| This is Sam from the future here. Um, just a note, uh, in this show.
We barely even mentioned the whole government shutdown, drama, et cetera.
I think we mentioned in passing once. Uh, but in the time since we recorded the show, before I sat down to edit it, uh, we had major drama on that.
Um, McCarthy, uh, decided to take the option that was available all along and, pass a continuing resolution, which just punts this thing 45 days into the future with almost all the Democrats, plus a few Republicans, and avoided the government shutdown, because then that was immediately passed by the Senate and signed by the President, and so no government shutdown.
Now, what's next?
Well, in 45 days, of course, we repeat this whole drama, but in the meantime, Matt Gaetz is indeed, uh, deciding, well, deciding, Matt, Matt Gaetz is threatening to go ahead with his motion to vacate.
Uh, he in fact tried to do it on Saturday, but, uh, they adjourned the house until Monday before he could. He's saying basically as soon as they get back, he's going to, and he said he's going to do it over and over and over again.
Just once, like if he doesn't succeed. Uh, so we will see what happens with that drama.
Uh, now people are talking about whether or not the Democrats actually help, um, McCarthy to stay as speaker, uh, taking that in preference to, uh.
The chaos that would reign and trying to find some other Republican and blah, blah, blah.
Um, and they are apparently debating amongst themselves what promises to try to extract in exchange for that support. If that happens, of course, that would make Gates and his folks even more angry.
But I think, you know, the whole thing now with, with McCarthy doing this in the first place is he called their bluff. He basically said, look, you know, this passed overwhelmingly.
If you look at the actual numbers, Uh, with the number of people in the house who were adamantly opposed to this is small.
It got 90 votes against. I mean, that's not that small, but the point is if you actually bring things to the floor that that have bipartisan support.
You can get things done. It's it's sort of the insisting of doing the things that are really only supported by one party or the other that get logjammed.
And with the with cooperating with the other side being anathema, we get a lot of things that aren't moving.
But anyway, so drama there and we'll see.
But we did not talk about this on the show because it hadn't happened yet.
And at the time we recorded, we were all, and everybody seemed to convince we were just heading to that shutdown because it seemed like McCarthy was going to not play this card of working with the Democrats yet.
It seemed like eventually that had to be the only way out.
I mean, the only way out was most of the Democrats plus some Republicans.
It's how these have always been resolved going back a couple decades now, um, but we kind of thought McCarthy was going to, um, let it be shut down for a while first to show that he really had no choice, but he went ahead and pulled the, uh, trigger, uh, before the shutdown.
Anyway, that's the news from that, um, now on, uh, oh, yeah, you know, I actually delayed editing the show because of this, you know, I saw that this stuff was playing out and I was sitting down to edit and I'm like, you know, I'll wait so that I can put an appropriate note at the beginning and he, so there you go. Here's the appropriate note.
I hope you enjoyed it. Now on with the show.
Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for Saturday, September 30th, 2023. It's just after two 30 UTC.
I won't do all the time zone translations this time. I just don't feel like anyway, I'm Sam mentoring. Yvonne Bo is here. Hello, Yvonne.
Hello. You can do the time zones if you want to. I just don't feel like I'm fine. You're fine.
|
Ivan:
[5:04]
| Yeah, good. I mean, UTC is a good indicator. I mean, you know, look, people, you know, we, you know, we talk about it. We've got people all over the place that do all over the world.
Well, well, I mean, literally, I mean, we know we've gotten like, for example, we know we've gotten some from Europe. We've gotten feedback from those people before. I mean, oh, God, what's his name? I remember his last name.
And sorry, if you're listening, I can't remember your first name from the UK.
|
Sam:
[5:34]
| James.
|
Ivan:
[5:35]
| Yeah, from the UK. James, James. Sorry, James. I'm an idiot. I'm sorry.
|
Sam:
[5:40]
| I'm terrible with names. We should just use first names anyway.
Like you might not want his last name out there. Now I'm going to have to like bleep it out or something.
|
Ivan:
[5:48]
| Oh, oh, God. OK, sorry, James. I apologize. Anyway, you know, we got in the UK.
I also today during a work call, just got somebody that called out the podcast.
|
Sam:
[6:04]
| Oh, OK.
|
Ivan:
[6:05]
| Nice. Basically called out the podcast because, oh, the curmudgeon showed up.
Oh, well, they said it. Well, well, they said the curmudgeon showed up.
I translate a part. I guess I curmudgeon.
|
Sam:
[6:18]
| Nice.
|
Ivan:
[6:20]
| No, I like, ah, I guess you find my podcast. OK, so so yeah.
So so, you know, we got we do have listeners that are definitely across.
Multiple time zones. I mean, I know that we've got people, I mean, from some that I've I've listened to like in Ohio, we know we got in the West Coast.
I mean, Greg, who has been more active on the on the chat lately, I'm very happy about that.
You know, you know, you know, Greg, unfortunately, had some things that happened that made it not be able to be on as much. But lately, he's been far more active, and I'm very happy to be able to hear from him more frequently.
I actually made me very happy. So, uh, so yeah, so we got people, you know, across the time.
So, so I think it's good to just give you DC, I mean, because, you know, Hey, you know, you can figure it out, right. You know, I mean, of course, for James in the UK, it's actually much simpler.
It's like pretty much right on the dot, depending on the time of the year.
|
Sam:
[7:23]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[7:24]
| I mean, we're so, so we're calling out the, I mean, we don't, I mean, I don't know if we got. You, I don't recall hearing from other feedback from people at the.
|
Sam:
[7:35]
| Well, let me let me look at the download list.
|
Ivan:
[7:37]
| OK, there you go. See where they are from. Oh, OK. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[7:41]
| I've got the previous 30 days of unique downloaders. Now there are a whole bunch that are just IP addresses. I have no idea. You know, no, I.
|
Ivan:
[7:48]
| OK, OK.
|
Sam:
[7:49]
| There are some that are like from Verizon Wireless. They could be anywhere.
I don't think it'd be anywhere.
A few others that are just like all I can tell is the ISP.
Here's here's one. We got one from my Miami, Florida on bluestreamfiber.net. Is that you?
|
Ivan:
[8:05]
| That would, that would be me.
|
Sam:
[8:09]
| Well, always good to like, you know, listen to that. And like some of these, like, you know, well, actually it could be somebody else.
|
Ivan:
[8:16]
| Why am I saying that? I mean, because I don't know if I've had, uh, uh, Oh, here's one.
|
Sam:
[8:21]
| We've got Novus stop PT. That's Portugal, right?
|
Ivan:
[8:25]
| Oh yeah. There you go. Okay.
|
Sam:
[8:27]
| Um, we've got someone coming in from, uh, Seattle. Yeah.
Okay. There you go. Oh, uh, another, uh, dot PT net Cabo dot PT.
Some, somebody from there. Okay. Um, then, uh, here we got Comcast, which identifies by state.
We got Minnesota, Washington, Pennsylvania, DC, New Jersey, Delaware, Illinois, Washington state, uh, another Illinois, a South Carolina.
Uh, then we've got an rr.com from Columbus. So that would be Ohio.
Um, uh, and we've got an rr.com from res. I don't know where that is.
|
Ivan:
[9:03]
| You know, I'm going to think that that, that although blue stream is my provider, I think that's somebody else. Not my, not, not, not mine. Okay.
Uh, because I, I, I haven't like.
I think because I, I must admit, I don't relisten to our shows.
Okay. Not, not regularly.
Usually the times that I listen to them is what I'm not on. Okay.
So I will listen to that one. If I'm on it, I'm like, okay, you know, I'm not, I'm not that much of a perfectionist about this. I don't know if you guys can tell.
|
Sam:
[9:34]
| And just just to be clear, I am inferring potential locations when it looks like a location in the domain name. Like, I mean, they could be completely unrelated.
Like this one is sd.cox.net.
Now I'm just assuming that's South Dakota, but it might not be.
It could be something else, you know?
And then on Verizon, they've got locations. So we got a New York City, a Philadelphia PA, a Newark, New Jersey, Washington, DC, Pittsburgh PA, more Philadelphias, another Newark.
Yeah, okay. So, and, and then like a whole bunch with like numeric IPs that don't resolve to a name and I don't know where the fuck any of those are, who knows?
|
Ivan:
[10:19]
| Okay. No. So, so, so, okay. So, okay. So, uh, actually that might've been one.
I listened to a recent one around August 12th.
So that may have been, uh, yeah, so it may have been me. Okay.
I'm blue stream, but maybe, maybe, yeah, yeah, but, but still, okay. So that's a wide, wide variety of locations.
|
Sam:
[10:41]
| So if you are one of the listeners in Portugal, hit us up. Oh yeah.
Please let us get, cause we haven't heard from you. All the contacts.
|
Ivan:
[10:49]
| I say, you're a follow up or to get a pod, podge of the other message in Portuguese.
|
Sam:
[10:54]
| No follow-up, move to a Portuguese, not bad, not bad, you know, for not, not having spoken, you know, yeah, that's not bad, but anyway, so how long have we been So, how long have we been talking about this stuff?
Who knows. I don't know.
We don't know anything. As you guys may have guessed, we, once again, have not planned a damn fucking thing.
So we're going to just pick stuff.
|
Ivan:
[11:26]
| Look, we, we, here, here is I, you know, one thing about how current events have been happening, uh, ever since we've got a, uh, new administration, um, and you know, presidential administration is that, um, you know, that new anymore, we're quite a ways into it now, but I mean, from when we've gotten from, from the change of administration, okay.
Okay, so what I, what I really meant to say is that every week there isn't like a, the, the white house, this is setting shit on fire.
Right. Um, which I'm very happy about. I I'm really, I really love when I see, uh, uh, some people that are questioned about what's going on.
And they're like saying that the white house is fucking everything up.
And I'm like, what, what are you talking? What do you mean?
I wonder what the hell they're talking about. But anyway, so that means that our planning is a little bit more, um, there there's things happened this week.
|
Sam:
[12:29]
| There was, there was, this was actually a very eventful news week.
|
Ivan:
[12:33]
| It was a very eventful news week, but it was all a variety of things, you know? Um, I mean, we've got the government shutdown.
We had the writer strikes. We had the, we had the debate we had, uh, you know, we, we've got the other strikes going on with the automakers, we got an indicted senator. We got an indicted senator.
We got a dead senator. We got, you know, we got we've got a whole bunch of additional Trump, yeah, Trump stuff like people, you know?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, just just, you know, it all, you know, just the wide ranging variety of stuff.
Why while the Oh God, I was going to go into my now my Johnny Carson.
Wild, wild stuff.
|
Sam:
[13:21]
| You do such a good Johnny Carson.
|
Ivan:
[13:24]
| I do a terrible one. I mean, Jesus Christ, impressions are not my forte.
My wife, the other day asked me to try to do some impressions.
I'm she's a very good impression of me though. I'll tell you what, it was hilarious, but no, I can't.
|
Sam:
[13:41]
| So usually we start out with the lighter stuff. Do you have something along those lines to do for this first segment Before we jump into news on the next segment, I got, I got two little things I was going to mention.
|
Ivan:
[13:53]
| Okay. Two little, two, two, two, two little things. One is, uh, you know, so I've been using my, uh, uh, max studio for a couple of months, okay, so I've gotten it now.
It's almost, I guess it's coming up and closing in on two months.
Next, you know, the first 10 days of still like it.
|
Sam:
[14:10]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[14:11]
| Now, well, more than that, the one thing is that I use an Intel MacBook Pro for work that is pretty new as well.
It's two years old. It's not old, OK? You don't buy any stretch.
And, you know, the studio is on, you know, Apple Silicon and just I mean, I really bulked it up. It is.
Uh, I did not have this happening to me before where the differential between my work laptop that I had before my MacBook, because I had a Mac.
I had an earlier MacBook pro from my previous job. That was, uh, a 2017 and about a year later, I got my iMac 2018. So, now.
The performance difference wasn't as noticeable. It was definitely faster.
|
Sam:
[15:11]
| Is is your studio is so good. Oh, it's painful to use your work laptop.
|
Ivan:
[15:17]
| Sometimes it is. Yes, it is. Because I get used to how ridiculously fast this other computer is that when I switch over, it's like, oh, man, this is just, you know, what the hell, you know?
Um, so yes, um, and, and, and beyond that, my wife, I had bought her a, uh, uh, an air, uh, 20, uh, 20 air when they had just come out during the pandemic because she was working a lot.
Uh, remotely and doing a lot more zoom and stuff. And so we, we need, and, and, and my son needed a computer for himself.
And so, so we got that one and, uh, shit.
Shit. I mean, the difference between her air and my my computer, I was just I now she's telling me that she she's like, well, I need a new one.
I'm like, come on, man. I'm like, come on, give me a fucking break.
No, I like that computer's barely three years old. No, it's like but yeah, so that was the one thing that definitely it is it is quite, quite, quite, quite noticeable.
OK, the performance difference number one.
|
Sam:
[16:28]
| The second thing I was going to do, you are just once again, just trying to make me jealous. I know. I know.
|
Ivan:
[16:36]
| Well, that wasn't my original intention. It's just a note that, yeah, this is, this is, you know, okay. You know, that, that is that the other thing I would say. Yeah. So I an update on I had put, as president of the condo association, I put to a board and we voted to put car charging stations for electric vehicles.
And one of the things that I'm talking about is about adoption is how having charging is important and how in condos and different places.
It's it's always been more difficult because of how much more difficult it is to for people to get access to vehicle charging.
I will say that pretty quickly, we probably had before The car charging station.
Two or three EVs in the community max at any given time.
Okay. That was that that was like the most in short order that the car traffic station has been available. We're up to like around seven now.
|
Sam:
[17:45]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[17:47]
| In a few months.
|
Sam:
[17:48]
| And do you think there's like direct cause and effect there?
|
Ivan:
[17:50]
| Like people 100% considering it now are 100% 100% it's just, you know, because, um, it, it, it, it, it's just so inconvenient not being able to charge at home.
Okay. Right. Um, and you know, we, we have the, the, the, we have it, that it's set up, uh, near our clubhouse, which is in the center of the community.
So it's, you know, it's, it's pretty much, you know, to people, even if you're at the farthest point it's not it's not totally inconvenient to park there and and charge and because i did make sure that we got i'm like most charging stations that almost most of the public ones that are not the high speed like tesla you know superchargers.
I've encountered there were like only six six KW charging stations in most places.
So make sure that we got a faster one that you could charge.
So almost everybody that's charging is charging is being able to charge at the maximum speed that their car allows for non DC high speed charging or supercharging, you know, for for Tesla.
So so people are able to realize, shit, I can, you know, plug in and I'm getting, you know, it's not, you know, oh, I left it there for 12 hours and I have like, you know, I'm barely, you know, getting a, you know, maybe I can get a full charge, maybe, okay, after 12 hours, you might not.
I mean, they're, they're, they're leaving it there and in five to six hours, they've got, you know, usually most people, because they're not draining them all the way down, like in four hours, we're getting a full charge. Okay.
So, so yeah, um, you know, it's just, it definitely.
You know adoption that is helping there was a story this week you saw CEO Ford he himself had taken a road trip on a Ford F-150 Lightning and was commenting about why it decided to do the deal with Tesla because he saw firsthand how difficult the charging situation was available for four buyers at this point.
And it's one reason that drove them to make the deal with Tesla, because it was like, look, they've got the best charging infrastructure.
What's out there, even with all these partners is not good. And it's it's not it's it's painful if you don't if you don't have this addressed.
I really do think that making that easy, definitely a smooth adoption.
I mean, Tesla proved it. I mean, they're there. I mean, they they went and they really heavily invested in in the charging and look, Tesla right now globally selling over.
They they they came. I mean, Elon Musk admitted, and I I remember when it happened.
I said, God, they're I mean, if they don't succeed, they're about They they're probably at bankruptcy right now.
And he lost Musk recently in the talking to what's his name?
This idiot that wrote the book, whatever Isakson.
|
Sam:
[21:11]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[21:12]
| He admitted that when they were building the model three of that factory, that man, they were like they literally came within days of having to declare bankruptcy.
That's how close they got. They really pushed them to the point that they almost went bankrupt.
But once they started producing that in volume and they've been able to get the infrastructure out there, I mean, they're selling over a million vehicles right now in a year.
OK, I mean, and I mean, they went from selling less than with a Model S and Model X.
They they they didn't even get to 100,000 cars.
Um, so, so, and, and that charging infrastructure makes a difference.
So, yeah, so definitely. Having a charger, I mean, that definitely helps.
|
Sam:
[21:59]
| That's that's one of the whole, like chicken and egg things that people were worried about forever is like, well, if you don't, if you don't have places to plug in and charge, then what are you going to do with it other than like, you know, back and forth to home, you know, right.
You can't go on real trips, but, you know, you build it out.
And that's one of those things that is just going to get better and better and better every year.
|
Ivan:
[22:25]
| And it is and it is I mean, I see it as it happens, where more places pop up.
But I do think that definitely, you know, it's one thing if you have a single family home and you got your place to charge, it's one thing, but so many condos and apartment buildings don't have it that it's like, if they don't, if they don't do it, then you're making it difficult for people dwell, you know, that are living in those in those places.
So so we did it. And so I'm happy with the results so far. I mean, we're, you know, pretty quickly people are are purchasing new vehicles and it's a variety of vehicles, by the way. My wife asked me for an inventory.
So what so what do we have right now?
Because we got we got four Teslas. OK, but the other ones are.
So we got we got a Ford Mustang Mach-E and two people with Hyundai Ionix.
OK, OK. So, so you got a little variety and I'm not counting my car in there even because I have my, my ball log in hybrid.
It's not a plug in hybrid, so it's not the same. The battery, I do plug it occasionally there, but I don't need to plug it there because in my garage, it usually I can get overnight a full charge.
I will sometimes plug in because the charger is faster. And so like today, I had driven around all day and then we knew we were going to go do something later. And so I did plug it in there because I I wanted to leave with a full charge because.
With the range I have on electric, even if we're going further, it's like I was going somewhere 60.
It was 60 miles round trip, and my battery is good for 45 round trip.
So therefore, if I plugged in for a charge, I basically was going to, for the most part, use electric. So I'll make sure that if I'm going to go somewhere like that, and I used it earlier, I go in, plug it fast.
It charged quick. And by the time we left, it had a full charge and we were able to go. So it's good.
So anyway, so that's my update.
Anything, anything you got on your end?
|
Sam:
[24:23]
| Yeah, I do. I do have one thing, but first I can't go. It is one more question for you.
|
Ivan:
[24:28]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[24:31]
| You got the new phone, right?
|
Ivan:
[24:33]
| It's not here yet.
|
Sam:
[24:34]
| It's still not there.
|
Ivan:
[24:35]
| Oh, it may. My delivery was for late October.
|
Sam:
[24:40]
| Oh, OK.
|
Ivan:
[24:42]
| Because I got because I lay over.
|
Sam:
[24:44]
| Wow. OK. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[24:46]
| Because I, I wanted to get the one with one terabyte.
Uh, uh, of, of, of memory. And so, um, yeah, it's set me up for delivery in late October. So it's not.
|
Sam:
[24:59]
| For some reason, I had it in my head that you were getting it sooner than that.
|
Ivan:
[25:02]
| Nope, no delivery time was like late October. So, nope, no phone yet.
|
Sam:
[25:06]
| And as soon as you get it, you're going to try that thing where you push your thumb against the back and try to crack the back.
|
Ivan:
[25:11]
| Try to crack. Yes, that's the first thing I will do, of course.
|
Sam:
[25:13]
| Yes. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[25:16]
| Cause that's definitely the first thing I do with my phone is to hold it.
I'm going to show like this and then try to bend it is one of the main things that I try to do with my phone.
|
Sam:
[25:24]
| Yes. You're you're holding it wrong. Bye.
|
Ivan:
[25:27]
| Bye.
I was something like this.
I think I'm afraid of doing. I'm afraid of doing it.
|
Sam:
[25:36]
| Even I'm teasing you because if you remember several iPhones ago, well, it was a long time ago.
Now, I wasn't the sixes that had the sixes that had the bend issue.
No, no. I'm not talking about the bend one. There was another one where if you held it wrong, it would kill your cell reception.
|
Ivan:
[25:56]
| Oh yeah. Oh my God. That was like, I think, like the four, the four or something.
Yeah, and then they were given people free bumper cases.
|
Sam:
[26:07]
| Yeah. And but Steve Jobs, apparently his it was when he was still alive. So it was a while ago.
|
Ivan:
[26:13]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[26:14]
| His reaction to people complaining about this was you're holding it wrong.
|
Ivan:
[26:18]
| So holding it wrong. I will say that I got one of those that I never got one of those bumpers that I never really experienced that issue with the reception.
But I'm going to assume also that it really depended on the frequencies and which carrier you had as well, because not every carrier also has the same frequency.
|
Sam:
[26:34]
| So, well, it had a specific problem that there was like a, there was a little window.
There was like one or two millimeters wide that in the case where the radio signals could get through better.
And if you held your thumb over that window, you'd block the reception.
|
Ivan:
[26:51]
| Essentially, I guess I never held it there.
|
Sam:
[26:54]
| Yeah, so anyway, OK, I have a thing which is, as you know, I've been holding off on movies because of the strike.
I'm still holding off on movies, even though the writers strike is done.
The actors are still going. I let you get away with a movie review a couple of weeks ago and didn't bug you, but I'm still not going to do it. What?
I have a book that i want to mention oh books yeah uh finish finish this book in uh early august but i'll note i i you know i keep track of these things and there was a there was a big coincidence that happened too which was this particular book and look i've i've been lately all the books i've I've been reading, Alex and I have been reading out loud together.
|
Ivan:
[27:45]
| Out loud, out loud. Like, man, it's I mean, that's how many pages are you reading? No, no.
|
Sam:
[27:54]
| Well, like, like, we will do it like we'll do like a half hour session maybe once a week, you know, and that's honestly reading a book out loud for 30 minutes.
|
Ivan:
[28:07]
| I just saying it makes me feel tired.
|
Sam:
[28:10]
| Yeah, my voice at the end of those sessions is always like, OK, I need to like stop talking for a while now.
|
Ivan:
[28:15]
| Yeah, I'll say.
|
Sam:
[28:18]
| But anyway, what I was going to say, and I'll get to what the actual book is in a second, but this last book.
Took. From when I started it to when I ended it, 367 days.
OK, how many 367 days? 367, so just slightly over a year, but here's what got me. Like I just logged this like last weekend or something. I, I finally got around and put it, put in everything I'd been doing.
The book before this book.
Yeah. Took 367 days. You guys are pretty consistent.
Two in a row. Exactly. 367.
|
Ivan:
[29:01]
| That's very consistent. Jesus.
|
Sam:
[29:03]
| Now the previous one was before I was reading out loud with the kid, but still, two in a row, 367. Anyway, this book.
Was Robinson Crusoe. Oh, wow.
|
Ivan:
[29:18]
| OK, shit, I I'm pretty sure I read it like in ninth grade.
So I must admit that, you know, my memory is good, but I, man.
|
Sam:
[29:30]
| So here are a couple of things about it.
|
Ivan:
[29:32]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[29:33]
| What one I will start with before I get to my experience reading this book, one of the very first MP3 players that I got. I can't.
|
Ivan:
[29:44]
| So I think it was right.
|
Sam:
[29:46]
| Well, no, no, no. Came with, with a copy of the book, with an audio book of Robinson Crusoe.
Oh, and I can't remember if it was the, if it was the first iPod or whether it was this thing I got even before the first iPod, but one of them came with an audio book of Robinson Crusoe. Now here's the thing.
It had the different chapters were all separate mp3 files and me being me oh boy yeah you played it at random yes it was it was randomly interspersed with my music on shuffle and so I'd be listening to music and every once in a while a random the random chapter of the book. Yes.
So, so I had never listened. I had never listened to it in order.
I had never actually read the full book, but like I would, you know, a chapter here, a chapter there, all in sort of random, stranded somewhere in the ocean.
|
Ivan:
[30:51]
| Right. Or something. Now.
|
Sam:
[30:52]
| Yes. Yeah. So I'll get to that in a second.
|
Ivan:
[30:54]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[30:54]
| All right.
|
Ivan:
[30:55]
| Well, now I'm trying to remember what the hell I read it. I mean, I, but Jesus.
|
Sam:
[30:59]
| Yeah. Yeah, so here's the other thing that I realized, is that as Alex and I read the full actual book. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[31:08]
| That audio book.
|
Sam:
[31:11]
| Was extremely abridged. Okay. Oh, okay.
Like, and I don't know if you read the full version in high school or not or whatever, but.
|
Ivan:
[31:21]
| Oh, you see how, how long, how many pages is the, is the.
|
Sam:
[31:25]
| Uh, let's see the, the.
|
Ivan:
[31:28]
| I'm pretty sure it was the full version. We were not into big into a bridge versus look. I mean, I still remember the nightmare that it was to read donkey Hode. Okay. Which is 2000 pages.
Almost or a thousand it was crazy.
|
Sam:
[31:46]
| So I, I, I, I read it on a Kindle version that was like locations or whatever, instead of pages, I'm trying to look up like the actual, okay.
The 1790 unabridged version. How many pages?
321 pages. Okay. Yeah. So it's not, yeah, I'm probably, I'm sure it's not like hugely long, but it's not like short, but here's the thing.
Like this, there are two things that I'm pretty sure were fully abridged out of the audio version.
|
Ivan:
[32:18]
| I randomized that I random shuffled one, by the way, Donkey Hode, which they may be reading in high school was okay. I was 1072 pages. Okay. Yes.
|
Sam:
[32:32]
| It's a little longer.
|
Ivan:
[32:32]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[32:34]
| So let me give some background. Like you mentioned is lost at sea, et cetera.
First of all, the book was published in 1719. So it's 304 years old.
It's widely acknowledged as, well, yeah, there's some dispute, but it is one of the contenders to be the first novel in English. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[32:59]
| Really?
|
Sam:
[32:59]
| Huh. So, and it is about this guy.
He gets shipwrecked. He actually gets shipwrecked several times, to be honest. Like you kind of think of, he gets shipwrecked on the desert island, blah, blah, blah. That's like the third time he's in a goddamn shipwreck.
You'd think the guy would learn, you know?
|
Ivan:
[33:22]
| Well, you know, he's learning the hard way.
|
Sam:
[33:24]
| Yes. But anyway, yeah, he gets shipwrecked. He has some adventures.
He, you know, he, he, he defies his parents at the beginning and decides he wants to go out on adventures and he has several voyages.
And apparently even after this book there's a sequel where he goes on even more adventures.
But yeah, he gets shipwrecked and he gets stuck on this island for like 30 years or something.
And there are two things that I think were edited out of the the abridged version that I listened to. One is he can.
I can guess maybe three things. One is he can spend a huge amount of time telling you about exactly what he was trying to do to survive and set up farming and how he would get this and that.
And the audio book version that I listened to years ago had some of this, but not the full detail, not the full like it.
I mean, you'd go on and on and on and on and on for pages about like him setting up his first shelter on the island and stuff like that. That's one thing.
Two is there's a bunch of him thinking about religion kind of stuff going on.
But then the main thing that I think was, I mean, it's impossible to avoid entirely, but I think it was toned way down in the audiobook version yeah is oh my fucking god how incredibly racist the whole damn thing was i was gonna say, you know um you know he he first goes to africa and oh my god that's a nightmare like you know the things he's saying about the natives and the slave trade and oh yeah like this guy he was a slave trader oh that's like part of what he was doing was participating in in the slave trade between Africa and Brazil.
|
Ivan:
[35:32]
| Well, I mean, that was normal back then.
|
Sam:
[35:36]
| I understand it's a product of its times, and then he encounters natives in the Americas, and then you double down on the racism.
Different continents, different kind of racism, but still same thing.
And he's, of course, talking about how all the natives are cannibals and this and that.
|
Ivan:
[35:58]
| And yeah, well, there, well, there, there were some capitals, but okay.
|
Sam:
[36:04]
| Not all of them, but some, but yes, but a lot of from, from what people have studied, our architecturally, not architecturally, archeologically, archeologically, that's right. That's what you're talking about.
|
Ivan:
[36:19]
| Architectural or logical, whatever, you know, tomato, tomato.
|
Sam:
[36:22]
| I mean, you know, the most instances, in fact, almost all instances of historical cannibalism were related to specific religious rights and things like that.
It wasn't like people like.
Had people for dinner every day, you know.
|
Ivan:
[36:41]
| It wasn't, I know it wasn't as common as some, some.
|
Sam:
[36:44]
| It, it, it, it, it was, it was rare and it was very specific. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[36:49]
| You know, I did read something about that, that there's a, a certain, a, you know, natives in the Caribbean, specifically the Caribbean Indians that I, that I, you know, that I'd read specifically, I was told, remember when I was reading about it, when I was younger, they were talking about how aggressive and cannibalistic they were.
Uh, and, and now I've read a little bit. It's like, yes, they were more warring and aggressive, but they, they kind of like, they overplayed the cannibalism. Yes.
|
Sam:
[37:19]
| Like a lot of that was Western colonial propaganda, like shit that might've had a kernel of truth here or there, but was there was some, there was some truth, but it was blown out of proportion.
|
Ivan:
[37:30]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[37:30]
| Anyway, the, the, the, so the, this whole thing is like, I mean, it was, it was actually interesting.
Also, the specific version that I read preserved a lot of the original spellings, so it was very interesting to see how spelling has changed in the last 300 years.
It was interesting, it was a fun read. Some of it was a slog, but it was still sort of fascinating to read as the historical artifact, even though this is not like, compared to a novel you'd pick up for summer reading today.
This was a slog, but at the same time, this sort of historical perspective and reading it from 300 years later, it's like a window into an alien world.
You know, it's just like what things mattered to them, what technology existed and didn't exist, even the racism, it's like, how did they perceive the world?
And then the dominance of religion in like almost every other page, he's talking about something religious related. You know, it's just a very different perspective than if you'd be thinking about this kind of thing today.
Like, you know, it's, You know, we've, we've had plenty of more recent things about castaways of one sort or another, you know, um, what was the one with the guy with the volleyball or whatever?
|
Ivan:
[39:16]
| No, um, uh, castaway.
|
Sam:
[39:18]
| You had cast away. You've you had the lost TV series.
Yeah, it's a, it's a standard trope. You know, even like lost in space, Gilligan's Island, Gilligan's Island. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[39:30]
| Three hour or two.
|
Sam:
[39:32]
| And apparently after this came out, there were a whole bunch of imitators as well.
And you had like the Swiss family Robinson and a whole bunch of other stuff, you know?
|
Ivan:
[39:41]
| So like, this is a standard trope these days, but what, what, what are the things that you're talking about?
The reading, the book being a, a slog at, and look, I, I will say that especially a books that, uh, are an old English, man.
|
Sam:
[39:57]
| Now this wasn't quite old enough to be old English.
|
Ivan:
[40:00]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[40:00]
| It, that was like new word.
|
Ivan:
[40:02]
| I know. I realized. Yeah, I realize that that one is an old English, but man, like Shakespeare, shit, man, Shakespeare's not even old English, Beowulf's old English, well, Beowulf, Beowulf.
But I will say that the Canterbury Tales, those are a slog.
Oh, I mean, because the words are not the same, the vocabulary, the way that they intone.
I mean, I remember reading it and I'm like, oh, Jesus fucking Christ.
This is miserable to read.
And I know people, I'm like, Shakespeare's so great, the great bard or whatever, and I'm reading this and I'm just like.
Oh, this is tiring. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[40:41]
| Th there was not like you could read this straight through without having to like, I agree that I remember from what I remember.
|
Ivan:
[40:50]
| Yes. I, I read it through straight through.
|
Sam:
[40:52]
| So it was, it wasn't even his child. I mean, Shakespeare's what a hundred years before this, like 1600s years earlier, 50 to a hundred.
|
Ivan:
[40:59]
| I forget when, when the, oh God, when the hell, but now we got to.
|
Sam:
[41:06]
| Of anyway, but this, this is like, you can read it straight through without having to worry about like, what the hell is this?
Uh, you know, there are some words that are used like a little bit differently than today.
And there's, and the, the, the thing I was most amused by was spelling things.
Like when I was reading out loud, I'd stop when I got 200 years earlier, 200 years, 1500s anyway, um, yeah.
So anyway, thumbs sideways. Okay. Sideways after all, I'm giving it a sideways because it was a slog, but it's sort, but it has, it's interesting.
It's part of the Canon. It's, it's good to know about it a little bit.
And, you know, I'm not a big fan of the, like, I will never knowingly read an abridged version of something. I want to see the whole thing. Right.
So like, I'm like, if I'm going to read this, I don't want one.
That's had all the racism expunged from it. Right.
|
Ivan:
[42:08]
| That's no, no, it's got, yeah. I mean, that's, that's a white, that's, that's whitewashing that it's I mean, yeah, no, it is what it is better or worse.
|
Sam:
[42:18]
| Yeah. So anyway, Robinson Crusoe 17, 19 thumbs sideways, thumbs Thumbs sideways. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[42:27]
| All right. We got the thumb sideways. All right.
|
Sam:
[42:30]
| Okay. Well, with that, uh, it is time for our first break.
Finally, if we've got anybody left at this point, you know, and, and next week we will discuss a full in-depth reading of Beowulf.
|
Ivan:
[42:45]
| Oh my God.
|
Sam:
[42:46]
| Now that I read as well, I think I was, I think I was supposed to read excerpts of it or something, but I, I know.
|
Ivan:
[42:54]
| I know I, I know I read that damn book. Of course.
|
Sam:
[42:57]
| Now it's going on my damn list.
|
Ivan:
[42:58]
| Now the alien, along with the, I was looking up the.
|
Sam:
[43:02]
| Oh, I have read the Odyssey. I have read the Iliad.
|
Ivan:
[43:04]
| The fucking yeah, that, that, that would open it in translation.
|
Sam:
[43:09]
| Of course, I did not read it in ancient Greek.
|
Ivan:
[43:11]
| You did not read it in ancient Greek. You, you bastard.
|
Sam:
[43:17]
| I believe I read the faggles translation.
|
Ivan:
[43:20]
| Listen, I mean, that book is also almost a thousand fricking pages.
I'll say, look, I had to read it as an assignment for high school.
I read most of it. I think I did skip parts of it.
|
Sam:
[43:34]
| Iliad or Odyssey or both?
|
Ivan:
[43:36]
| I read both. OK, I was assigned both. I had to read both of them.
I know that Odyssey, I read cover to cover Iliad.
I read I skipped some parts of it and supplemented with some cliff notes because I was just like exhausted by it.
Uh, and I'm like, I'm not reading those fucking things again.
|
Sam:
[43:56]
| I ever, I remember not. And I read Iliad after college.
So I read it for after college.
|
Ivan:
[44:06]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[44:08]
| No, cause there were, there was a whole lot of publicity about a new translation.
The faggles translation that I mentioned that was coming out and blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[44:15]
| Probably did not read that new translation.
|
Sam:
[44:17]
| Maybe that translation make me make me And it was okay, and I don't remember if I followed it up with Odyssey.
|
Ivan:
[44:24]
| Well shit, if it was just okay, well then, fuck that.
|
Sam:
[44:26]
| You know... Forget it.
|
Ivan:
[44:29]
| You tell me, oh, it's exciting, it's like a clancy novel, I'm like, ah, okay.
|
Sam:
[44:34]
| No, no, it wasn't that. And I've read X, yeah, and excerpts of the Odyssey as well, but I don't know if I, I think I read it cover to cover too, anyway, I don't know.
I was about to take a break, Yvonne, shall we, shall we take that break and then start talking news?
|
Ivan:
[44:52]
| Oh, I thought you were going to set talking nude for some reason.
No, let's let's talk news. Yes.
|
Sam:
[45:00]
| Well, you, you were talking a couple of weeks ago about getting us tickets on that nude cruise.
|
Ivan:
[45:04]
| Oh, the nude cruise. Yes. I haven't, I, I, I've been remiss. I'm sorry.
|
Sam:
[45:09]
| Okay. Okay. We could do the show live from there.
|
Ivan:
[45:13]
| I, I, I, okay.
Yeah. Now you've talked me out of the idea. No, let's do the first new, the first commercial's quarter. Dude. Yes. No, no. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[45:31]
| You're giving it away for all our listeners. No, we already are.
|
Ivan:
[45:35]
| That's very true. Yes.
|
Sam:
[45:36]
| Okay. Uh, we are taking a break. We will be back and we'll talk like actual newsy things back after this.
Okay, we are back.
|
Ivan:
[47:48]
| Now we're back. Yes, we are back. Okay.
|
Sam:
[47:52]
| So Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[47:54]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[47:55]
| Why don't you go? What's the first real topic?
|
Ivan:
[47:57]
| The first real?
|
Sam:
[47:59]
| Well, I mean, those were real topics.
|
Ivan:
[48:02]
| Those were real topics. It's not like we made it. It's not like it was science fiction.
|
Sam:
[48:07]
| The first newsy topics.
|
Ivan:
[48:10]
| Newsy, newsy, newsy, newsy, newsy, newsy, newsy, newsy, newsy, newsy, Hey, how's that impeachment inquiry going?
|
Sam:
[48:24]
| Apparently really well.
|
Ivan:
[48:25]
| Yeah. How's it going?
|
Sam:
[48:28]
| I must admit, I did not watch any of this live.
I did. I did have the four up news channel thing. So and Fox was covering it live. The others weren't.
I've seen a couple little clips here and there. But from what I understand and correct me if I get any of this wrong, Yvonne. Yeah.
The Republicans brought up some witnesses to talk about, you know, how bad Joe Biden is and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[48:54]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[48:55]
| And those witnesses themselves said, yeah, it's good. We're having an inquiry, but I don't think there's enough evidence to impeach right now.
Like, you know, we've got this stuff and then one of them was like somebody read a quote from their prepared testimony and it said like, um, if you had done what Biden had done, you would be in jail.
And then one of the Democrats asked them now, which Biden were you talking about? Oh, Hunter, you know?
|
Ivan:
[49:31]
| Okay. Um, Um, wait, wait, okay. I'm sorry. Who are we? Where are we trying to, I mean, can you, okay, well, that was a question.
Can you impeach somebody that hasn't, uh, uh, that isn't, I guess you, you, you You could impeach somebody that isn't in office.
I guess, right?
|
Sam:
[49:55]
| Yes, but I think at the very least, they had like we impeached Donald Trump after he was no longer right, right, right. Well, the trial was after he was the impeachment. He was actually still president.
But I believe you can impeach after the fact, like because one of the remedies is prohibition from serving again and stuff like that. And of course, impeachment isn't just for presidents. They're right.
|
Ivan:
[50:19]
| So we can impeach Hunter and prohibit him from running for from being in office?
|
Sam:
[50:24]
| Well, I don't know. I feel like I feel like he at least would have had to be something.
But anyway, the overall theme is that the Republicans tried over and over again to sort of bring up various things and over and over and over again, the Democrats just made them look stupid when they weren't making themselves look stupid. Half the time they were making themselves look stupid.
Like one of the things, this didn't happen at the hearings themselves, but in a press conference prior to the hearings, I forget which guy it was, one of the Republicans in charge was showing like a text message that they thought was incredibly incriminating about something or other.
|
Ivan:
[51:16]
| Uh-huh.
|
Sam:
[51:18]
| And.
|
Ivan:
[51:18]
| Uh-huh, and?
|
Sam:
[51:20]
| And this reporter from, not from MSN, from NBC, this reporter from NBC asks, well, this text is from 2017. And he's, like...
Joe Biden wasn't in any sort of office in 2017. Like, he wasn't vice president, he wasn't president, he wasn't even a candidate for president.
What are you trying to say? Because they were trying to imply that, you know, he was using, he was influenced by what Hunter was doing to influence policy or whatever.
What policy was was he going to influence from his like house in Delaware?
|
Ivan:
[52:09]
| I think it's a deep state, Sam.
|
Sam:
[52:13]
| Well, yeah, the guy got really defensive and was, well, you're obviously never going to agree with me.
And apparently even the Republicans themselves were really disappointed.
Like, apparently, for a significant portion of the time, they ran the hearing for like six hours.
And apparently for a significant portion of the time, most of the Republicans actually left.
And there were like one or two Republicans on the committee.
|
Ivan:
[52:49]
| Oh, wow, they were really taking this seriously, I see.
|
Sam:
[52:52]
| Well, and you have all kinds of Republican Congress people in interviews basically saying, we look like idiots.
Like and because they even the people running the committee sort of said they weren't actually bringing in new stuff they were just reviewing the evidence that already existed to make sure the public was fully aware of it oh thank you and the problem that they've had all along with this is that yeah you can find all kinds of shit Hunter Biden did.
You know, we've, on this show, we have said for for years and years and years.
Hunter Biden is a fucking mess. Yeah, he he in his personal life, in his business life, yeah, his financial life. Yep. He has done all kinds of crap that is indefensible.
No doubt. You know, but they have completely and utterly failed over and over and over again to make any sort of actual real connection to Joe Biden.
|
Ivan:
[54:08]
| I mean, is that, I mean, that'd be good.
|
Sam:
[54:11]
| Now, I want to be clear. I I'm actually not one of the ones who's upset with them having an investigation like investigate away.
|
Ivan:
[54:21]
| I think that the what I think my my my whole thing is I'm just like the opening statements were something like, we know of all these crimes that we are going to, you know, get Biden and all these crimes and so forth.
And then when you bring witnesses out and you're like, I don't, I don't, I don't, I really can't identify any of any of this. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[54:49]
| AOC was one of the people in this committee. And I've said before, like, there are lots of things where I think she's she needs to grow up a little bit and mature as a politician.
But one thing she does really well are these kinds of hearings.
And just communication in general, but these kinds of hearings.
And so like she had the witness up there and she's like, so just to be clear, are you here to give any evidence whatsoever of Joe Biden having committed any crimes.
Well, no, no, I'm not.
|
Ivan:
[55:27]
| And these were the witnesses that the Republicans are lined up, right? I mean, that's the ridiculous part of it.
I did hear that. Apparently, one of the things that they did is that they released all of like Hunter Biden's taxes or something.
OK, yeah. And and, you know, it's like, OK, like you released, you know, Hunter's Biden's taxes. It is just, um, okay.
And apparently if you went through the 70,000, there were understood there were 70,000 pages of taxes. Okay. Okay.
And apparently they couldn't find a single transaction that showed that any money went to. Dad.
|
Sam:
[56:13]
| Yeah, well, this is one of the things Jamie Raskin said, who's on the committee as well, and was involved in the Trump impeachments and stuff like that, was if the Republicans had anything, they'd be waving it around like a flag. Right?
|
Ivan:
[56:28]
| Right. Right.
|
Sam:
[56:30]
| They'd be jumping up and down.
|
Ivan:
[56:32]
| Look, look, the smoking gun right here.
|
Sam:
[56:36]
| Going through all the freaking details of it. But they have been spending all this time and found nothing yet.
Again, who knows? Maybe they'll find something tomorrow. And what I was going to say on investigations is like, I actually don't mind the investigation.
I've actually said on this podcast before that I wouldn't mind a permanent office of investigating the president that fires off on inauguration day every four years and their only job is dedicated to catch the president doing anything wrong.
You know, I'd be like, okay, that's cool.
|
Ivan:
[57:12]
| I will say that, I mean, the way that you phrased it sounds really okay. I think that.
I think that our biggest issue with the presidency right now is that We found that any of the supposed like ethics Shall we say Protections that we supposedly thought existed don't really exist that that's absolutely like Like there are a lot of things that happen only because that's the way people have done it in the past.
|
Sam:
[57:50]
| And because people like felt the need to at least present the veneer of honesty and forthrightness and that they were working for the people and all this kind of stuff, right.
If you get somebody in that does not believe in any of that stuff, you find out that like we will, we, we found out very quickly.
Yes. Yes. The guidelines are toothless.
And even when they're laws, they're often laws that say, you can't do this, but don't specify any sort of punishment if you do.
|
Ivan:
[58:20]
| There's no penalties, right?
|
Sam:
[58:23]
| And if it's the executive branch, they control the DOJ.
And we've got this sort of rule that you can't indict the sitting president and all this kind of stuff.
And so there are a lot of holes here where I think, in an ideal world, we would learn from the last five years and patch all of these holes.
And we would do it not just for the presidency, but for the Congress and for the Supreme Court and for a Supreme Court.
|
Ivan:
[58:51]
| Yeah, I think the one of the things that has shocked me about the attitude from the Republican party is that I would have thought.
That without their guy in office, that they would have been jumping at the chomping at the bit at passing this.
Okay. I mean, I would have been like, yeah, you know, okay. Our guy's not in office. Let's pass this stuff. Okay. But they have shown zero interest in doing that.
|
Sam:
[59:25]
| Yeah. Well, in part, I think part of that is because Trump expects to come back.
|
Ivan:
[59:35]
| I know that. And I think that the number one driver, I'm pretty sure, is that all those guys would be getting phone calls from Trump saying, oh, no, no, no, you can't do that.
|
Sam:
[59:48]
| Well, I think the problem with ethics rules in general or passing ethics laws with teeth in general for executive, Congress, court, et cetera, I honestly believe there's a fundamental problem because there's a lot of this going on.
A lot of backroom deals and people self-dealing and if we're almost done with impeachment, we can move right on to Senator Goldbar's, because that'll be my topic that's related.
But just to finish up impeachment real quick, this is the thing that especially the Freedom caucus Republicans, the Marjorie Taylor Greene's and the Boebert's and the Gates's, they have been hankering for this impeachment stuff since the moment they came in.
And it is falling on its face.
Now, here's the thing, like, I've heard a number of people say, look, the point of this is not actually to prove a damn thing.
It's the same idea as with Benghazi, like back in the Clinton era. Jesus Christ. Yeah.
Where the point is not that, like, if you remember the Benghazi hearings went on and on and on and on and on, and in the end they found jack shit.
They found nothing that Hillary Clinton had actually done wrong.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:26]
| But, but, but illegal. But however, they did, they did dig up stuff that, uh, that looked bad.
|
Sam:
[1:01:34]
| They did dig up some stuff where the State Department clearly could have done some stuff better.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:38]
| Duh.
|
Sam:
[1:01:41]
| Duh. But the point was, the reason for the hearing was not the actual facts and information that came out of it.
It was that for months and months and months, you kept in the news, there's something fishy about Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton might've done something wrong.
And whether or not she did, didn't matter. What mattered was they were able to keep saying stuff over and over and over and over again.
Whether or not the actual facts behind it warranted it or not.
And that's the same idea here.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:19]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:02:20]
| Is, you know, and we've had one day of this so far. We'll see where it goes next.
But I think the idea is the same.
It's like, it doesn't really matter if Joe Biden took freaking bribes or did stuff for Hunter or Burisma or whatever.
What matters is that you can say over and over and over again, Biden crime family.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:47]
| Here's, I will say, here's the one big difference. Those hearings about Benghazi were run by people who were, and semi-competent at exposing this kind of stuff, whereas what you've got right now is a bunch of jokers that can't even, you know, produce a witness that goes up there and, like, even pretends this, and even with a straight face, could go and say, hey, did something bad happen here?
Oh, no, I got nothing.
I mean, that's what they get. I mean, the other, the witnesses the Republicans had before would go up there.
Oh yes, this was done wrong and done, you know, whatever, you know, was it criminal? Was it? Well, whatever, you know, but, but, but they can't even get that.
|
Sam:
[1:03:37]
| Yeah. Okay. My turn. Let's talk about Senator gold bars, Senator gold bars, Menendez, right? Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:45]
| Menendez. Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:03:48]
| So Senator from New Jersey, This is his second time being indicted for corruption-type issues, the first time he managed to get a hung jury, and they did not retry him.
And so you'd think, and this is one of those things, again, if they catch me...
Taken bribes being corrupt and i somehow by the skin of my teeth skate.
And get away with it and they and you know i get a hung jury and i don't go to jail.
And what i do is i turn around and do it fuck again really people.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:34]
| Well, look, look, he, he, I think, or seriously, doesn't think that he's done anything wrong.
Now, um, I mean, and I think he's sticking by that. I think that this guy really thinks that everything is okay.
|
Sam:
[1:04:55]
| So let's, let's talk about what he apparently did. Um, the, the accusation is that he took money in order to direct some contracts at like three different business people in New Jersey.
And then also apparently doing some stuff for the Egyptian government, perhaps the Egyptian government that, um, you know, to move direction, uh, move legislation in a direction that favored them.
And there was also, apparently he killed some legislation, we were talking about putting more teeth into laws, like the Foreign Agent Registration Act, FARA was one of those.
And there was an effort a few years back to, there was a bipartisan effort to go in and revise that law, make it more stringent, put actual penalties associated with it or whatever.
And he single-handedly killed it in the Senate.
And- I wonder why? And apparently, like, there are witnesses in this case that basically say, yeah, he did that specifically because he was doing things that would be illegal under the revised version of the law.
And so apparently, again, he was taking bribes from these people, cash, gold bars.
He claims he's hoarding the cash because his parents got their money confiscated in Cuba's Castro before they escaped, and blah blah blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:29]
| And he just decided that that's the safe way to store money.
Look, can I just say something?
|
Sam:
[1:06:36]
| He said he said he pulled $1,000 every month or whatever and yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:40]
| Look look I I Have experience of these matters with people I know and relatives that have done this.
Okay, and You know what? All of the people that I know that did this in In these amounts Even more Okay, that I know, weren't doing it for the reasons that he stated, but for the most part, they were all trying to under-report income for taxes.
|
Sam:
[1:07:18]
| It wasn't just because they were afraid that the United States would turn into a communist dictatorship and take all their money from the bank? No.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:27]
| No?
|
Sam:
[1:07:28]
| That wasn't it?
|
Ivan:
[1:07:31]
| No. I remember, listen, there was there was a guy who, uh, we know that, um, he got robbed and under a tile.
In his living room or somewhere in his house, you remove that that that false tile and they took from him about two hundred thousand dollars in cash.
And look, I'm not going to lie.
It that was basically money. That was he ran a cash business.
And how do you hide cash from reporting it to the tax authorities?
You go, you stuff it under a fucking tile. That's what you do.
You don't deposit it in the damn bank.
|
Sam:
[1:08:21]
| Yeah. OK, so two things. One, a tangent for a second. Yesterday I was doing laundry.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:29]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:08:31]
| And in the dryer, when I'm pulling out the clothes, I find this thing. Yeah.
And I realize it's a $20 bill.
That's what it was a $20 bill. And I'm looking at it and I'm like, were these things always this small?
I don't remember. Like, cause it literally, it had been years since I'd seen one.
I'm like, what the hell is this thing? Like cash. Oh my fucking god.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:59]
| I haven't seen one in a long I I will say that there is somebody I know and I'm not gonna get that much into details That's stuffed in a fucking drawer and this is like 30 years ago 1 million dollars Okay, yes, okay one not 500,000 and then there are dollars Okay.
No, no, no, none of that. But look, that was a byproduct of something not above board.
And the main thing is that the way that they kind of like, you know, hit it was that the business had cash and other types of transactions.
So Hey, let's not deposit the cash. Okay. We'll only like the, you know, in the bank, we'll not deposit all the cash that's coming in.
We take a portion and that we, we stuff away and just, you know, report the, you know, the, the checks and the other stuff and the credit cards and, you know, that stuff coming in.
So, Hey, if every day that you sell, you know, say $7,000, and back then a lot of it is made in cash.
Are you also, you took 3000 every day, you know, out, okay, Hey 3000, you know, you know, or maybe not the 3000, say 2000 a day, Hey, over a year and a half, you got yourself a big bundle of money.
Guess what and nobody's the wiser because you're still running a business you're still depositing money in the bank anyway yeah so back to menendez for a second so yes that's what people do this Menendez, Menendez, not, you know.
Not saving the fucking money from the, you know, from the big bad evil government. Dipshit.
|
Sam:
[1:11:05]
| Well, and, and, you know, people have pointed out it is perfectly legal to have lots of cash.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:13]
| It is perfectly legal. That's correct. Totally. On a percent.
|
Sam:
[1:11:16]
| It is legal to have gold bars.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:18]
| Totally. A hundred percent. No doubt about it.
But but the one thing is like, like I said, and I and And uh, you know, uh, our discussion in the curmudgeon quarter slack and Greg had brought it is it brought it up was about, uh, forfeiture.
Okay. Because it, because the federal government's abuse forfeiture, when they say, Oh, look, this guy's got a lot of cash. Oh, we'll forfeit it.
Which I'm like, you know, that's bullshit. Unless you can show that it came from a crime.
That's BS. have what I, what I, what I, you know, what I said, said, and I believe is that the one thing that you can do is like, Hey, can you show, you know, that you've reported this income?
Because that's the one where everybody gets into trouble. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:12:08]
| Did you really, they have not charged Menendez with that yet.
I've heard some people speculating that's gotta be coming, but right.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:16]
| Because that's really the one that can stick. Because if you can't show that, okay, great.
We know where your income's coming. These are your paychecks is your money.
This is whatever. All right.
Where did this fresh 500,000 come in from?
|
Sam:
[1:12:30]
| Well, and here, here's the thing with Menendez again, too. Like he says he was just regularly withdrawing money from his bank and that's where all the cash came from. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:41]
| But wait, wait, wait, counting about this. And you, you know what, when they do that, you can track it.
|
Sam:
[1:12:47]
| Well, that's what I was going to say, is like, look, they've undoubtedly got all his goddamn bank statements already going back however many years.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:57]
| And they can't find all these $1,000 withdrawals.
|
Sam:
[1:13:00]
| Like either they can or they can't, but also they apparently, the actual cash that was stuffed in, and apparently it was all over his house, like hidden all over in different places. It wasn't all in one place.
Like if there were suits in the closet and all their pockets were stuffed with cash and stuff like that, you know Anyway, but They dusted the damn cash for fingerprints and found the fingerprints of the people who were bribing him.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:34]
| Ah, well, that now that creates a problem now, doesn't it?
|
Sam:
[1:13:37]
| You know, that kind of thing. And presumably I have not read the full indictment and they don't give all of their evidence in the indictment anyway, even in these talking indictments.
Presumably, they've got lots of corresponding evidence on the right.
It's not just it's not a lot of cash. Yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:56]
| I think that's, you know, now I will say that, look, Older people do have habits of stuffing away cash in the house.
OK, at least some I will say I still remember my my brother found my father in law, he was looking for something in his house one day and he opened a drawer and he found $50,000 in cash in a drawer.
OK. And he was like, well, the hell. OK, that's a lot of cash. OK.
He came down and said, shit, I was looking for whatever I found, 50 grand. And I'm like, well, what are we going to do with it? I'm like, no, no, no.
|
Sam:
[1:14:34]
| Well, and I'll get emergence corner slack. Yvonne shared like, you know, how much cash should you have on? And if it is a natural disaster and there's no electricity and blah, blah, blah, your credit cards aren't going to be much use to you potentially.
So like you probably should have some cash.
And I'm like, you know, my, my, my, my wife is big on emergency preparedness.
So there's some of the emergency food, emergency water.
She probably has some emergency cash.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:59]
| I have cash on me now. I will say that I count on my father for this because when my father went ill and I was like checking through the house just to make sure that all the bills were paid and stuff or whatever to see if anything was pending, whatever.
I go through one drawer. I found that he had ten thousand in cash.
|
Sam:
[1:15:16]
| Well, and I'm like, that's probably a bit overboard. I mean, like for just a tad.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:21]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:15:21]
| I'm like for the emergency preparedness stuff. Like the article that Yvonne sent around was like recommending and have enough cash to get you through like a week or two.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:30]
| Right now. Now, the one thing is that I will say, but but my point to bring that up is that older people tend to have like...
Bigger amounts of this in the house, OK? Right. But not half a million bucks.
|
Sam:
[1:15:42]
| Like I mentioned, it had been years since I'd seen a $20 bill.
Like, I just don't deal with cash at all anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:50]
| I, I, I, I don't I, I don't have 10,000 in cash, but I do have I know that I went to my wallet today and there was definitely cash and there were definitely 20s.
|
Sam:
[1:16:03]
| Right. You know, I will say to probably I think I probably had like at least a hundred dollars in cash, but, but, you know, not, not, not, you know, I used to like back 15, 20 years ago, I would usually carry around about a hundred dollars in cash just to have it if I needed it for something.
But now like my life is entirely digital. And like the only reason I ever have cash is if I know I am going to do something that is cash only.
And that is the last thing that did that was like I had a barber that was cash only and they started they started taking cards like four years ago now. So it's like.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:43]
| Now I will say one thing. OK, now what are the reasons I also carry cash?
Occasionally, if I go to I don't I don't go to say like a bar frequently, but occasionally I will.
OK, one of the things that I found out that bartenders really appreciate is if you give them a cash tip instead of putting it on your credit card.
|
Sam:
[1:17:04]
| Well, you're just helping them do tax evasion. Well, I know that's why I thought I thought you were going to talk about the strippers.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:10]
| Well, not. You know what? Strippers are pretty much they want cash.
OK, but I will say last time I spent a while, that's what it's up in forever.
But last time we went, I will say that Uh, they're more modern right now on the credit card thing. Okay. Yeah, I can, I can, I can say that for sure, because the last time I went, how do you drag my, did I drag my wife?
I don't remember. I don't remember exactly, but I, I can't tell you that.
Um, yeah, they're more modern on that right now. Oh, you don't have cash. Oh, look.
|
Sam:
[1:17:49]
| Oh, well, I, I, I mentioned to you a few weeks ago when you were dumbfounded that around here, I've even seen homeless people with Venmo on their signs.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:59]
| Oh, I mean, yeah. So, okay. Yeah. I mean, I guess that's, that's the new, you know, that's sound.
I will say I've never seen a guy down here with, uh, with a QR code or a Venmo code.
But I would say, I mean, I'm thinking, you know what? But, I would think that that's...
You know, hey, you don't have to roll down your window or anything, whatever. You just see the QR code and you go, boop, there you go. Here, I have 20 bucks.
|
Sam:
[1:18:26]
| Yeah. And again, like, there are a lot of people like me at this point that don't carry cash.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:34]
| Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, you're yeah, I will say that. Look, you are in the majority.
I would say like right now at this point, I'm pretty sure.
|
Sam:
[1:18:42]
| So, OK, back to the topic for a second. I just wanted to hit like the contrast, Like I was actually a little bit disappointed that it took a few days, but the general Democratic response to Menendez, he's a great guy.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:59]
| We want to stay.
|
Sam:
[1:19:02]
| Yeah, no. It's been like, dude, get the fuck out.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:05]
| Yeah. Resign. Just just Jesus Christ. Just fucking resign.
|
Sam:
[1:19:09]
| Now, like I said, I was a little disappointed. Fetterman came in right away, like on the first day.
But then it took over the weekend until the next weekend started.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:19]
| Oh, the governor, the governor had first Cory Booker got, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:19:23]
| And it slowly snowballed. I think at this point, there's 30 some out of the democratic senators, which still isn't like all of them.
But, uh, you know, I, I think the contrast is absolutely striking to the continual defense of people on the Republican side.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:41]
| An order, Sam. Yeah. Which don't you get law and order? Dun dun.
|
Sam:
[1:19:50]
| And look, I get the whole thing. Oh, wait. What, what, what, what did you save on?
|
Ivan:
[1:19:58]
| Oh, I. Oh, yes. You got the effect. There you go.
|
Sam:
[1:20:05]
| I was saving that for a special occasion, but there you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:09]
| Oh, we're getting professional! We're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're a professional podcast, dammit, with, with sound effects and shit!
Oh my god! Wow! Wow. Anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:20:22]
| Thank you.
Look, it is absolutely true, like, he hasn't been proven guilty yet, he may skate on this again, he may get another hung jury, he may get a whatever, and, you know, so people are like, why would you make him resign right now?
He's not been found guilty yet. And it's like, come on, really?
Like, there is a threshold of, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt that has to be proven in court to put your ass in jail.
The threshold for I get to be in the Senate is a hell of a lot lower.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:54]
| That's right.
|
Sam:
[1:20:55]
| You know, I mean, we rode Al Franken out of town for a hell of a lot less, you know, and others.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:05]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:21:06]
| You know, and I'm not saying Al Franken was pure as the driven snow either, but the point is the threshold for you belong in the Senate is a lot lower.
And yeah, I think the Democratic response in general to this is we can't tolerate this stuff.
Yeah. And if you're doing this stuff, we don't want you. Now, you know, we, uh, Dianne Feinstein also died.
We're now 50 49 in the Senate. If this guy goes to at least for a little while, we're 49 49. It's a really tenuous majority now, but reappoint other Democrats.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:59]
| Governor Newsom is going to appoint somebody quickly.
|
Sam:
[1:22:02]
| Yeah, no, I know that, but these vacancies will be replaced by other Democrats.
So it's a temporary thing, but still, it's like.
Even so. The guy has to go now. The, the one, the one thing that I remember though, like Democrats to have their limits on this kind of stuff.
If you remember that situation in Virginia a couple of years ago, where we had like the governor and the Lieutenant governor, both had like blackface issues and other stuff like that, and people were calling on them resign.
But then you realized if you go down the line of succession to the first one who didn't have one of these issues, it was a Republican and would have flipped the, uh, flipped the governorship.
And so at a certain point, the Democrats also sort of turned up their noses and said, okay, I guess he stays for now.
Also like we're, they were calling on his resignation anyway, but there was no mechanism to force him out for that.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:57]
| So, but here's one thing, But I will say that in the Virginia case, what they did was, It was it was shameful, but not criminal. You know, the stuff that we're talking about with with this guy is fuck.
I mean, you know, you're under federal fucking indictment for the second time because you've done this.
You shit you skated the first time, OK? You know, this is just a lot more egregious, you know, of an offense.
I mean, whereas we're talking about the Virginia governor, than a governor was is that, uh, you know, they, they did something that was extremely, uh, you know, shameful that, uh, was, was a disgrace and they did it.
Well, they were younger.
Um, you know, but, but yeah, they, they, they chose not to resign over that.
|
Sam:
[1:23:53]
| Um, you know, uh, and so, uh, And my point is just the Democrats aren't perfect here either.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:01]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:24:02]
| Uh, but, but I think the general immediate reaction seems to be quite clearly different on the Republican side.
One of their people does something bad and people immediately rally around them.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:15]
| They rally around them. It's a fundraising thing. I mean, you know, what's, listen, what's this guy, you know, I haven't heard about this guy in a while.
Um, uh, the, the, the, the guy, the, the, the, from there was originally, I guess he's originally Brazilian. He came from Miami.
The guy does Santos, Santos, Santos, Santos, you know, isn't he indicted?
Well, you know, hell they all rallied around him too. I haven't heard anything.
|
Sam:
[1:24:46]
| They sort of, they didn't quite rally around him.
They have, however, strategically ignored his existence.
You know, the, you know, they're not getting, and this again, this is nobody is bagging the table for this guy to resign.
Well, cause they've got a four seat majority or whatever. They, they're having enough problems. We'll probably talk about the goddamn like government shutdown and, and McCarthy and all that.
Like they have enough problems with him. Get rid of him. It would be even worse.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:22]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:25:23]
| So you can kind of understand it, but I'm just talking like gut reaction.
The immediate gut reaction on the Republican side is the rally around your house.
Yes the immediate gut reaction on the Democratic side when somebody is Shown to do wrongdoing is Fuck you get out Come on he's our guy He's our guy Come on, he's our guy.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:49]
| He's our criminal.
|
Sam:
[1:25:51]
| I mean remember Uh, Cuomo too in New York, like once it became clear, all the shit he was doing, it was like, okay, out.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:59]
| Did I hear something about him trying to run for something else again?
|
Sam:
[1:26:02]
| Or so he was trying, he was trying to sue somebody or something.
I don't know what he was doing, but yeah, but yeah, exactly.
This is my point. Like there may be some scenarios where Democrats decide the cost is too high to push somebody out that should be pushed out.
But the immediate gut reaction is no, no, no, you did that shit. We don't want you.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:27]
| I mean, I mean, like one guy, for example, I let's put it this way.
Who was it? Uh, oh, that, uh, Illinois governor blog. Oh, Jevick, Blagojevich, whatever the fuck his name is.
Look that asshole. Didn't Trump pardon him?
|
Sam:
[1:26:42]
| I believe so.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:43]
| I mean, you know, we want the fuckers in jail, even from our own party.
And though, hell, you're, you're criming, you're with us! Yes!
|
Sam:
[1:26:55]
| I don't know. It's just, I, I fundamentally don't get the mindset of, I guess it's the, it's the whole, like, don't snitch, like the thin blue line, like all this kind of stuff where like group loyalty is more important than making sure wrongdoers come to justice.
You know, and, uh, yeah, I'm like group loyalty. Fuck that. If somebody does something wrong, they deserve what they get, you know? Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:29]
| Well, okay. All right. So, um, I don't know.
We've are we even on topic time for another break?
|
Sam:
[1:27:38]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:38]
| Time for another break. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:27:40]
| Okay. Well, let me look up. Uh, okay. I know what's next. Uh, this is another Apple dream.
That's coming up. Boy, now I will say like I rolled an Apple dream and I actually rolled the same Apple dream as last time and I'm like No, I'm not gonna do the same one twice in a row It was the one about the IMAX on the table and blah blah blah.
So I rolled again So this is a different Apple dream.
This is Apple dream 19 I Remembered what it was That, dream But then I, forgot again Studying studying Wasn't it that was amazing.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:31]
| That was amazing. Just stunning stunning stunning insight into your mind.
|
Sam:
[1:28:35]
| Yes You know, that's often what my mind looks like these days Is it what was it?
|
Ivan:
[1:28:42]
| I thought I drew something.
|
Sam:
[1:28:44]
| And yeah, I don't know what it was anymore.
No, I think that's it's part of the whole get an old thing. But yeah. And yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:53]
| So my wife mentioned something about she asked me about today to talk about getting old.
It's like, have you had asked me if I had a midlife crisis? And I'm like, well, I asked her to find a midlife crisis.
Well, you bought a yacht, a sports car. And I'm like, what the hell am I saying?
You've been doing that your whole life. Never mind.
I'm like, OK, so either I don't or I've just lived a midlife crisis.
My entire life must be that.
|
Sam:
[1:29:28]
| I think it might be that second one.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:30]
| I think it might be. Yes. Just think she might not be wrong. put anywhere.
|
Sam:
[1:29:35]
| Yeah, I don't think I've had one yet now, but you know, I'm not ruling it out.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:41]
| I think she's I think she thinks that she's having a bit life crisis.
She, she, she, she, she, she wants me to go.
Now she's one saying, okay, I want a boat. And I'm like, wait, you want a boat? You never wanted a boat. Now you want a boat.
I'm like, all right. Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:29:58]
| So I think you should get her a rowboat.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:01]
| I think that probably if I did that, I'd be thrown off that boat.
Like, like in the first minute, not even 15 seconds.
|
Sam:
[1:30:12]
| You could make her one of those capsules to go down to the Titanic.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:16]
| I'd rather not. No, I have something that floats properly.
|
Sam:
[1:30:21]
| Bruce. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:22]
| Sorry.
|
Sam:
[1:30:23]
| Anyway, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. We're making. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:26]
| Sorry. Um, I, I, you know, I, I, I, my one thing also about getting a boat of any kind right now is trying to get something that, uh, trying to source biodiesel harder, you know, I see a lot of vehicles around here using it and it's a lot harder to source them than it, I would, I would expect.
So I would like to run it somewhat eco-friendly. And so I would like to use biodiesel instead of just straight up diesel.
But I know there is a lot of buses. And apparently our new trains, the the, you know, they open this high relative, well, not high speed compared to Europe, but high speed for the US.
We got a high speed line going now from here to Orlando. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:31:13]
| You know, I saw that in the news about that.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:15]
| Yeah. There's a station right here in town. It's like very close.
I'm going to probably do it when one of these trips to Orlando.
I mean, it's just once it's pretty fast. So it's just one stop. So it's pretty cool.
But those locomotives run on biodiesel. So.
|
Sam:
[1:31:31]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:32]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:31:32]
| So anyway, so Yvonne, what's your real topic? Newsy topic.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:36]
| Let's talk about.
Okay, you put this down and okay, let's talk about this. Trump making more mental acuity slips than Biden.
So what is this thing that I've been hearing about that, that, because I don't.
Avoid listening to anything Trump says.
|
Sam:
[1:32:01]
| Yeah. So I, I honestly, I, I brought this up cause I've, I've seen some discussion of this in the last week.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:08]
| I heard about this and I heard also about some people say, you know, holding back Trump from being in certain, certain, uh, events and stuff.
They've seen him just being completely ramblingly incoherent, but also, I mean, isn't that how he normally is?
|
Sam:
[1:32:22]
| That's what I sounded. This is what I was going to say. Right.
Um, and B and people have been talking about this throughout the entire Trump presidency, right?
They would bring up incidents and be like, ooh, this is proof that Trump is slipping.
And I'm like, look, is, was Trump of the 1990s more articulate than Trump of today? Yes, absolutely. Oh, totally.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:47]
| From 90s. Yeah. 100%. 100%.
|
Sam:
[1:32:50]
| Absolutely. There has been a decline over time.
But has there been something super significant in the last few years?
I don't know that we have proof of that. And basically, people have been talking, the specific examples from last weekend were things like, um, Trump talking about the 2016 race as if he was running against Obama and not Clinton, um, him talking about, well, by the way, I think that's a Freudian slip because I think that he is, he, no, no, no.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:30]
| But I think that he really, that's what he was doing. He was running against Obama in his mind.
|
Sam:
[1:33:37]
| I think you may be right. he had like a bunch of resentment against Obama.
He also apparently warned about how Biden was going to get us into World War II.
You know, some, some things like that. But, Two things, one, these individual slips, I make slips like that.
I mean, how many times on this show have you made fun of me because I've said Clinton or something instead of Biden, you know, or Obama and stuff?
|
Ivan:
[1:34:10]
| Well, not World War II, though.
|
Sam:
[1:34:12]
| Yeah, but you know, like, but there's slip, like it's World War II instead of World War III. I got the number wrong, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:19]
| No, I get that. I mean, I don't I don't see anything from either of them.
That is like, no, I mean, you know, because, you know, the one thing, you know, the shit they keep bringing up with Biden, I mean, damn it.
The reason why his presidential like bids in the 80s were derailed was because the man was a gaffe machine.
|
Sam:
[1:34:40]
| Yes, yes. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:43]
| Back then. Yeah, he's not lying. He hasn't really improved with age. Actually, he has.
|
Sam:
[1:34:48]
| I think he's, to be fair, more disciplined than it used to.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:52]
| He's got way more discipline than he used to. Okay. That's the reason why all his bids got derailed. I mean, he has a lot more discipline used to.
So you can make the argument that shit.
I mean, he's controlled a lot more of that. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:35:04]
| And of course he had the lifelong lifelong problem with stuttering has, which that doesn't help.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:10]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:35:11]
| And so you got all this, but in the Trump case, I mean, I mean, if you look at any of his off-script stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:23]
| It's a wrong word. Tell it's a mess. It's it's an intelligible garbage.
|
Sam:
[1:35:27]
| It always has been like the times he's reading from a script.
He can. It sounds dry. It sounds boring, but it's intelligible because somebody else wrote the shit for him and he's just reading it right.
But like when he is talking off the cuff, it's always been a bunch of mess, a massive unintelligible rambling garbage that goes in and out and in circles and blah, blah, blah.
And yeah, people have pointed to a few examples of that in the last week.
I saw someone post on Mastodon just in the last couple hours how they're like, I won't quote him, but what he's been doing at such and such speech tonight is, is worse than blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, look, I haven't seen the example from tonight either, but he's always been really, really bad at this. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:24]
| I mean, you know, any other speeches I ever heard? I mean, it was just, you know, it were incoherent messes for the most part.
|
Sam:
[1:36:32]
| Now there have, you know, there, maybe there are some signs that with all of the pressure that he's under right now, he's, uh, is under a little bit of a tension.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:43]
| You know, and look, I was hearing specifically, they were talking about the fact that, look, he's now he's starting to be really concerned about shit.
|
Sam:
[1:36:54]
| I'm going to jail like, will I have to wear a jumpsuit?
|
Ivan:
[1:36:58]
| Can I go to Club Fed? Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:37:00]
| Ah!
But, you know, and look, one or both, like, here's the thing.
I think for both Biden and Trump, they clearly are not as sharp as they were a decade ago, or two, or three.
But does that mean that it's some sort of crisis situation?
I haven't seen that yet for either of them. Both of them, well, But Biden certainly seems to be very on things where he needs to be on things.
Now, I'll say I'll get to Trump and again in a second. But on Biden, I will fully admit when I hear him give a speech or whatever, I do think, oh, my God, he sounds old.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:50]
| Oh, he sounds old. There's no doubt. You know, he sounds old.
I mean, yeah, you can't you can't. You can't get around that because he is around that because he is fucking old.
You know, yeah, he sounds old.
|
Sam:
[1:38:01]
| He sounds old. He sounds tired.
Um, but that job is exhausting.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:07]
| Fuck. Look, let me tell you something.
We've seen how that job ages people.
|
Sam:
[1:38:16]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:17]
| OK. I mean, we've seen that before. I can't imagine if if I were president year three.
Listen, right now, even at this age, shit, I would sound like shit.
I mean, I know I would sound like shit.
Because with all the stuff that's going on, knowing how I am, I would barely be getting any fucking sleep.
|
Sam:
[1:38:46]
| But meanwhile, with Biden, and I promise I'll get back to Trump in a second, but with Biden, regardless of his public presentation, when he gives speeches and stuff like that, he's been slowly but surely pushing out policy successes since the day he started.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:04]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:39:05]
| There he has accomplished all kinds of things that nobody was able to do.
Absolutely. A hundred percent, you know, and I I'm among them.
I was like, you know, there's no way in hell he'll be able to get any, any of this shit done with the Republicans in Congress. Nothing's happening.
And boom, like thing after thing, after thing, he's actually accomplished, even despite what was going on in Congress.
And where Congress hasn't let him, he's been persistent in trying to do things through executive action to get around things in one way or another.
And sometimes the court strikes it down and sometimes they don't.
But he's getting shit done. He's getting shit done almost every day.
And you may or may not like the things he's doing, but he is accomplishing them.
And so I think, you know, in terms of that, like.
Yeah, I'm not going to say anything negative about Biden's mental acuity as long as he's actually getting shit done.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:10]
| I'm with you. I'm with you. And, you know, he sounds old because he is old and it is what it is.
I mean, you know, they're actuarial tables.
|
Sam:
[1:40:21]
| Something could happen. He could get worse at any moment.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:24]
| You know, he could, he could.
|
Sam:
[1:40:26]
| I mean, you know, but so far, so good. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:28]
| For Donald Trump.
|
Sam:
[1:40:32]
| I was going to say something along the lines of, I also don't see him as being declined to the point of incompetence or whatever, except I got to stop myself.
No, he was incompetent from the beginning. Like, you know, there may not be a significant new decline, but oh my God, no, this man is not capable of doing a good job as fucking president.
And he never was, he just does not, you know, from the very beginning of his presidency, there was talk about how like he couldn't mentally comprehend the briefing papers.
So they had to boil it down to bullet points on note cards and pictures because they couldn't give him a 20 page document to read. He just could not do that.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:25]
| Well, I said, I basically I totally, you know, believe that.
What Biden said yesterday, was it yesterday? Well, yesterday that he gave the speech where basically he called him the greatest threat to democracy that we have right now. He's back in the presidency and he was 100% accurate. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:41:48]
| That's what the guy is and he's a buffoon he's a moron all he wants to do policy my ass and look all of these people who have made, i sort of armchair diagnoses of you know the malignant narcissism or whatever.
I mean i know you're not supposed to diagnose people if they're not your direct patient or whatever but you read all the descriptions of these, These, uh, they're spot on, they're spot on, they are spot on.
He, he has significant personality disorders that make him dangerous.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:19]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:42:21]
| And we're elevating him instead.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:23]
| And, and, and, and, and then on top of this, well, we've got us a situation where you shared this article where these, uh, focus groups that, well, they did this focus groups, these, these groups that were trying to run ads.
|
Sam:
[1:42:38]
| This is Republican groups who are trying to move the Republican party away from Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:44]
| And running ads, you know, trying any fucking ad they could see that would work against them.
And none of them worked. Not just none of them worked. Some even helped the bastard. Right. And most of them were focused around policy, things he did and whatever.
And it was all, It's like Teflon, nothing stuck to the son of a bitch, nothing.
|
Sam:
[1:43:11]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:12]
| And I'm just like, look, this is like, it's, it's what I said before, right? This is like high school shit. Okay. I mean, you're basically just standing up to Biff. It's what I said. Okay.
Biff number one, not, not from back to the future part two, the first one. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:43:32]
| Cause of course I pointed out that the Biff and back to the future part two is actually based on Donald Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:37]
| Based on Donald Trump, okay? And so, you know, look, I'm like, damn it, man, if none of that shit works, then I've come to the conclusion They've got to try basically high school tactics.
|
Sam:
[1:43:49]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:50]
| Which is okay. Forget about policy. Forget it. Just start making fun of the bastard and get under his skin.
|
Sam:
[1:43:56]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:58]
| Ridicule.
|
Sam:
[1:43:59]
| Ridicule. Um, yeah, I mean the, the one thing too, like, and I've heard commentary on this, um, about the, all of the Republican also rams, like the, the people that we had the second debate on this stuff, They are also trying to like, talk about policy shit, right?
And it's like, you know, they're, they're talking balanced budget amendment again. Like they're, they're, they're talking.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:36]
| I cannot believe they brought up the fuck at these bastards.
Bastards who have been like, you know, the creators of Trill.
I mean, most most of the debt that we've accumulated since the year 2000 has been the fault of the fucking Republicans. OK.
And they're talking about balance balance budget. I'm going to go fuck yourselves.
|
Sam:
[1:44:58]
| You can go back even further than 2000, actually. And that's what I'm saying.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:02]
| But yeah, I know. But the reason I'm saying 2000 is because Specifically because, fuck man, with Clinton we handed W a balanced budget!
We won a surplus! Right. And Bush was like, that's horse shit, let's just go back to the deficit, who cares?
|
Sam:
[1:45:22]
| Anyway, the point is, like...
The current Republican primary voter does not give a shit about any of that stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:36]
| Not one fucking bit, nothing. No.
|
Sam:
[1:45:40]
| Like, you know, scaremonger about immigration, scaremonger about the goddamn homosexuals, you know, anything like that.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:51]
| No, not the homo, the trans people.
|
Sam:
[1:45:53]
| Oh, yeah, they've moved on to trans.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:55]
| By the way. Yeah, right. Because right now I remember that I was looking at an article recently. I can't remember what state specifically where they were legislating and they were passing this legislation against trans people and realize that, you know, how many athletes that were targeting in the state?
|
Sam:
[1:46:11]
| There was like one maximum.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:12]
| That's right.
|
Sam:
[1:46:13]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:13]
| One. They were literally creating a fucking national debate about one fucking person.
|
Sam:
[1:46:24]
| Yeah, look, the point is that there's all of the stuff about bigotry, okay, that resonates with Republican primary voters these days.
You start trying to get them on fiscal conservative stuff and they're like, what the fuck is that bullshit?
No, nobody cares. And even if you, even if, and frankly, even, and the, the abortion thing used to be something you could rally them around, but not any more on that either.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:00]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:47:01]
| Not even that, because now that they got that, they're realizing that kind of sucks, right?
Um, anyway, what were we even talking about? I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:16]
| We're talking about the mental acuity of the of Trump and whatever.
And, you know, how, you know, I brought up the whole thing about that.
Yeah, he's a threat to democracy and that apparently he's made out of Teflon because none of the traditional attacks work on him.
But but the one thing that we do agree is that whatever any of these people are saying about his acuity seems to be just wishful thinking uh, that there doesn't seem to be any real impairment that is of any significant, that, that, that any recent impairment, the recent, they haven't right there, they haven't changed in how they have spoken, you know, in that, and it is noticeable in recent history.
|
Sam:
[1:48:00]
| Yeah. Like there, there, he, you can argue very strongly that he's been impaired for a long time, but is there something new and different right now?
I don't really think so again there may be a situation of him acting out because he's under stress Because of all the legal stuff coming down on him And, you know, Okay. But, you know, that's fine. He's allowed to be under stress for that kind of stuff. I would be if I had like.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:33]
| You've you had like 90 how many counts? Ninety plus.
|
Sam:
[1:48:36]
| It's 91 or 92. I forget which. Yeah. Have you had 90 plus?
|
Ivan:
[1:48:38]
| Well, listen, if I had 90 fucking felony counts against me, I would be very stressed.
I don't know how the hell I would get any sleep.
|
Sam:
[1:48:47]
| Just a tad stressed.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:51]
| I mean, I have less problems with that. And I have been struggling a little bit with my sleep lately. Okay.
You know, just over Mickey Mouse bullshit. I can't imagine if I'm under over 90 felony indictments.
|
Sam:
[1:49:05]
| So let's move on to the last topic. And I know we're running long, but I don't want to go past like we got Trump legal stuff.
We've got his there's stuff happening with the Georgia trial, somebody flipped, blah, blah, blah.
There's stuff moving forward in the D.C. trial, there's gag order stuff.
But what I want to talk about specifically, Yvonne, I want to get your insights on, is the New York case, the New York civil case, not even the federal criminal case that's coming up.
But the case against the Trump org, the significant thing that happened this week is the judge gave a bench judgment that, oh yes, this was all fraudulent.
It was absolutely clear that it was fraudulent.
We are stripping all your New York business licenses right now.
We're appointing receivers. We're going to do all that kind of stuff.
We'll still have a trial on some of these other issues to see how much- But if I'm the dammit, it's money you owe.
Yeah, to see what kind of money you owe in as well. But the and I know Trump is appealing this, but the judgment right now is we're already dissolving the trunk.
The Trump org, we're already dissolving the Trump org.
What's the impact of this, Yvonne, on like, well, I've heard I've heard conflicting things.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:33]
| OK, the biggest problem that I see that he has is specifically for the state of New York, that he can't run any of these businesses anymore, okay?
So that's the main problem. He can't directly run them.
Um, so it would mean they're ordering them liquidated, right?
Well, that, well, the here's, well, that's, that would be wind up having to be the case, because if he can't run them, can't own them, then they would have to be liquidated.
Now, it doesn't mean that Trump could get deprived of all the money from that liquidation. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:51:12]
| As far as I understand, well, that's where they have to determine that in the trial, how much money he's going to owe.
And basically what will happen is they'll have to liquidate all of these properties and businesses, and then they'll pull out of that whatever they decide he owes in penalties because of these crimes. And then he might get some money left over.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:33]
| If there's anything left. Now, as we know, most of these properties have loans against them.
|
Sam:
[1:51:38]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:39]
| So they're not free and clear. So therefore, Or, um, if it a liquidation, I mean, he also gets a massive fine. He may wind up with zero.
I mean, and lose them all.
|
Sam:
[1:51:53]
| If I remember some of our previous conversations, it's not entirely clear that these have a positive value. Once you take out the loans anyway. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:01]
| It, no, it isn't. No, no, no, it's not. Um, you know, especially because a number of them were, he had been somehow funding losses, you know, Robin Peter to pay Paul, borrowing money from here, putting it over here, whatever, doing a whole bunch of stuff because most of the businesses that he had been had been negative cashflow businesses.
Okay. Um, which is, you know, and one of the reasons why in the two thousands, okay.
As he was getting money for, you know, he, he started the apprentice actually was given him substantial cash, but why he pushed to liquidate his father's properties was because the cash flow that they generated wasn't really enough.
He needed to liquidate the properties and to get his hands on the cash.
But that cash seems to have been also.
Exhausted, OK? And so So as far as we know, the revenue from his properties has been way down.
Now he has found buyers for some of his shit that have paid.
|
Sam:
[1:53:17]
| Well over what most people consider market value for certain things that isn't this specifically was one of the defenses That the judge shot down Trump specifically said or his lawyers said that his valuation on for example Mar-a-Lago or some of these other properties Was absolutely fine regardless of all of these quote-unquote objective analyses of what it was Because he could get the Saudis to pay whatever he wanted But that doesn't mean that that's what it's worth.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:48]
| Okay. A market value is something is the, is the value that if you go out there, well, yeah, the judge, the judge told him he was full of shit.
It's that's a full of shit.
|
Sam:
[1:53:57]
| The fence is your, you're, you're almost admitting another crime there, right? Correct.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:04]
| Exactly. That's exactly what you're doing. That is exactly what you're doing.
Basically admitting that you're, you're open to be, you know, you know, I mean, it isn't right now that he's not president. Okay. Right.
It's not criminal for him to be overpaid.
Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:54:25]
| By, by somebody, but the fact that one, unless you could show he was being overpaid in compensation for something he did do while he was president, for instance, exactly.
Like people are talking about that 2 billion Kushner got from the Saudis right after they left the presidency.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:46]
| Oh, hell, I mean, yeah, I mean, for sure.
I mean, he got, you know, he got several billion from them.
|
Sam:
[1:54:57]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:02]
| And so the one thing that what I'm saying is that just because somebody overpays can't get that price that that means that that market price is that market value is bullshit.
Okay, um, and so that's just not.
Yeah, it's a ridiculous defense. And but but the one thing what I was talking about in terms of him, it would mean that what happens in New York, OK?
It would be he would basically be out of business in the state of New York.
I just don't see, you know, what how he unless he wins on some kind of an appeal.
He's basically, he right now is in a situation where because of the fraud that he's committed, he's going to be fined a massive amount of money and he's going to be out of business in the state of New York.
|
Sam:
[1:56:04]
| Well, and people have said his chances on appeal seem to be pretty slight.
I mean, you never know what's going to happen, but also it was interesting reading this judge's opinion. I didn't read the whole thing. I read about like a third of it.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:17]
| Maybe this judge was so pissed off at them well because but like every judge has been pissed off at any fucking lawyer that Trump has said that keeps fucking filing bullshit filings man they've gotten like this bar they've gotten reprimanded they've gotten fined repeatedly because he keeps finding some fucking lawyer that will file because goes to 20 lawyers 19 of them say listen I'm not doing this because I'm gonna get into trouble for doing this because it's bullshit he finds number 20 that does it and then that guy winds up being disbarred and fined and reprimanded.
|
Sam:
[1:57:03]
| Because it's ridiculous is everybody else with a fucking legal ad saying you're out of your mind I'm not putting my legal is up for your stupid bullshit and the whole thing about this this Ruling before that they're going to go to trial monday for the amount of damages and all that kind of stuff But like the whole thing here was the judge was like look there's not even a dispute here.
It is so Absolutely clear that you did this right?
Um, because what one of the things is the new york law specifically says says that using a false document in business is the crime, correct?
It doesn't matter if somebody was hurt by that. It doesn't matter what your motives were. It doesn't matter this or that or that. Was it was it false?
|
Ivan:
[1:57:48]
| By the way, in federal law, it's the same thing for submitting false information for a mortgage loan or a loan or any any of those in a transaction where you misrepresent the assets.
Okay. Are you, you, you lie on a mortgage application or any of those, that's a crime.
It doesn't matter. Even if you pay back the loan, it's a crime period.
And that's what he committed. It's he fucking committed the crime by lying on the, on all that paperwork repeatedly and often.
|
Sam:
[1:58:22]
| So the other thing that I've heard, and I know this, it'll be a while in appeals and blah, blah, blah.
But like, for example, one of the companies that involves this is the one that owns Mar-a-Lago.
Mar-a-Lago also, even though Mar-a-Lago is in Florida and this is in New York, it was a New York company that owns it, it.
It is a it is not a residence it is barred from being a residence it's a club and it's a historical thing so there are all kinds of restrictions on what you can do with that property donald trump is allowed to live there as an officer of the company and he's not allowed i say live he's allowed to be there a bunch but even there there's a limit on how many days well how was that not that he was it that was not supposed to be a residence that the initial restrictions the palm beach But on there, he was not supposed to be able, well, he wasn't supposed to be using it.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:18]
| He wasn't supposed to be able to live the way that he has lived right now at all.
|
Sam:
[1:59:22]
| Right, right. And even now there's limits.
And I guess he registered to vote using that as an address and he's not supposed to do that either.
So there are all kinds of laws he could be breaking, but the point is, if he is no longer an officer of the company because of this legal thing, he can't live there anymore because he can he's he's only living there as an employee as an employee housing essentially i mean i suppose like he could be a guest like any other guest at mar-a-lago and pay for it like a hotel but like he may be kicked out of mar-a-lago and same thing for trump tower not that he spent any time in trump tower lately well i think that's the one that I'm pretty sure more jeopardy.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:10]
| I mean, that would in New York. I mean, I think, I think, you know, they're going to wind up liquidating all of this shit at the rate he's going.
|
Sam:
[2:00:17]
| Yeah, yeah. So, like, I mean, he's he's still got other places.
Apparently, like Bedminster is not involved as whatever entity owns that is not New York based or whatever. so he could live in Bedminster.
Or I've heard people speculate he's got a golf course in the UAE, he could go to that one.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:36]
| I guess the only guy that I know that kind of like lived like this to a certain extent was Howard Hughes.
Because Howard Hughes did live at the top, you know, would buy properties of hotels and so forth and so on and live at the top of, you know, at the penthouse of a hotel in Vegas.
He was hell I've been to there was a property in Grand Bahama where he built this building that I know the penthouse was a place that he lived for a lengthy amount of time.
And so that's the only other guy. But this this thing about building a club and and and and living at your golf course and other stuff is so fucking weird, man.
It's just bizarre. And I get but but it goes back.
You're talking about the diagnosing the guy without seeing him, whatever. Yeah, yeah.
The one thing that he gets by being, say, at Mar-a-Lago is attention.
Oh, all the people coming in all the time. I mean, you know, look, those guys are paying 200,000, 400,000, you know, initiation fee and monthly dues or whatever, unless they fucking love this asshole.
|
Sam:
[2:01:52]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:54]
| So he's in there and he's getting all the fucking love, you know, from all these people. It's like, you know, it's his fucking daily drug.
|
Sam:
[2:02:02]
| Yeah. And of course, if he ends up in jail, he's going to lose that one way.
But it would like just with the New York judgment, if he starts losing his properties left and right and has to like, you know, consolidate. And, you know, I, this, this will be interesting to watch.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:22]
| I really would love it if he can't live in Florida anymore and we send the fucking Jersey, I, I, that would make me very happy. Set up a fucking Jersey, get him the fuck out of here. I'm so done with him down here.
|
Sam:
[2:02:36]
| Yeah. Okay. I think we're done, Yvonne. Okay. So the stuff at the end, go to curmudgeon's hyphen corner.com.
You can find all the ways to contact us. If you're, if you're any of the people from all of those parts of the world that we listed off at the beginning, who's not already on our curmudgeon's Corner Slack, who hasn't talked to us, you know, contact us, curmudgeon-corner.com.
It has our email, has our Mastodon, has our Facebook. Just give us a ping.
And it also has a link to our Patreon. Oh, yeah, it has our archives and recent ones have transcripts.
And it has a link to our Patreon, where you can give us money.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:21]
| I did buy the big Powerball now, so hopefully...
|
Sam:
[2:03:26]
| I bought one too. You know, the other week we said, uh, I think my new limit is like 750, like anytime it's above 750 and I missed two drawings that were over 750, but now it was like 925 or whatever.
I got that one. I got, I got, I bought, I bought 40 bucks worth.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:44]
| With hopefully with part of that funding that will construct the brand new curmudgeon's corner studios.
|
Sam:
[2:03:50]
| We can buy Trump Tower.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:55]
| You know, I will say that just to fuck with them, if I got this thing, I'll go fucking buy Trump Tower just to fuck with them.
I'll go to the liquidation auction. It just, you know, just buy the fucking thing.
|
Sam:
[2:04:14]
| And you can take off the Trump and you can put in big gold letters B-O-U.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:18]
| B-O-U. Oh. I'm hot, I'm hot!
That Okay, tell me one thing. I'll do I'll Then I'll transfer the property after I do that, then I'll transfer the property into the To be owned by the foundation, right?
Anyway, um, this is a good one good fucking reason to win this fucking powerball shit, man Oh, man, I'm telling you I'm gonna be there.
I'm like, I'm chomping at the bit. I'm fucking doing this I'm gonna be live on fuck. I don't want any faith, but goddammit to just piss all over that son of a bitch. Hell.
|
Sam:
[2:04:55]
| Yes Anyway On our patreon at various levels.
We'll mention you on the show. We'll ring a bell. We'll send you a postcard We'll send you a mug all that kind of stuff But very importantly at $2 a month or more or if you just contact us and ask nicely We will invite you to our commerciants corner slack where you can chat with Yvonne and I and share links and stories and blah blah blah, we would love to hear from one of you people from like, where was it?
Portugal. We had a couple of downloads. The Portugal. Somebody Portugal.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:27]
| You know what? It's not something that's a Portugal. You know who it was?
|
Sam:
[2:05:31]
| Who was it?
|
Ivan:
[2:05:32]
| Ed. He was on vacation and.
|
Sam:
[2:05:35]
| Was he in Portugal?
|
Ivan:
[2:05:37]
| He was in Spain and Portugal. Yeah, I'm going to bet that that's what's it.
|
Sam:
[2:05:41]
| Add add. Was it you in Portugal?
|
Ivan:
[2:05:44]
| Yeah, he was over there. He said he was going for three weeks over there.
So that's ad listening was from Europe. There you go. Yeah. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:05:51]
| Okay. Well, if you are in Portugal and you are not ad, right. No.
Um, and, or if you're from any of those other places we listen, I was trying to bring up the list again, but I, I lost it.
I, I closed that file a long time ago. Um, anyway, but we would love to hear, like, if you're, if you're the person in like Ohio or Minnesota or wherever it was, you know, we'd love to hear from you.
Um, anyway, we'd love to hear from you. Um, so Yvonne, how about one thing from the curmudgeon's corner slack that we have not talked about on the show?
|
Ivan:
[2:06:28]
| You know, I'm not the CEO of, uh, any social media company.
|
Sam:
[2:06:33]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:06:35]
| But if I were to sleep CEO of social media company and I'm out in public, I would have the app for my company on my home page for my of your phone.
|
Sam:
[2:06:48]
| OK, and so why do you bring this up?
|
Ivan:
[2:06:52]
| I bring this up because X CEO on the news this week, X CEO shows her iPhone's home screen with her favorite apps and X isn't in there.
This is nine to five Mac reported this.
There's some conference this week. I don't know, is the Vox Media, I guess Vox Media bought code.
That was like the old D conference that used to be Wall Street Journal conference.
And so I guess now Vox Media owns it. And so they were having their conference there and she showed her phone while she was being interviewed.
And lo and behold, she doesn't have the app for her company on her damn homepage.
|
Sam:
[2:07:37]
| Now, why, why, why would you use your own app, Yvonne? It's it's crap.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:41]
| I yeah, I guess I mean, that app is crap.
I will say that this lady looks like she's aged appreciably ever since she took this job.
|
Sam:
[2:07:52]
| OK, what has it been like six months now?
|
Ivan:
[2:07:54]
| Yeah. And yeah. And, you know, I, I, I listen, I will tell you flat out If I'd been offered that job, unless there, there was like some.
$100 million cash upfront payment or something or whatever. I would have never taken that job because that job is just that, that job is such a reputation killer because it was a no wind job. There's no way to win.
And what she's showing is that that's exactly what I expect.
|
Sam:
[2:08:30]
| I mean, honestly, even if Elon Musk disappeared off the face of the Earth today, it would still be a no-win job at this point.
|
Ivan:
[2:08:38]
| I think that, well, if you get rid of him, the problem is that now you're taking on a ship that is hemorrhaging money.
|
Sam:
[2:08:47]
| And with massive debt.
|
Ivan:
[2:08:48]
| And yeah, with massive debt, there's no quick way to turn it around.
If you had told me that I had taken Twitter on the first day after the merger closed, I'm thinking, it's difficult, but I may be able to renegotiate the debt, turn it down.
We're still making money. But right now, the damn thing is losing money.
|
Sam:
[2:09:12]
| What I was going to say is even if Elon disappeared, this would be impossible or nearly impossible.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:19]
| Oh, right now, right now. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:09:21]
| With Elon, they're looking over with Elon. They're looking over your shoulder, undermining everything you do.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:27]
| It's even worse because that's the problem. The problem is that, you know, and I've had, unfortunately I had a manager like this once I wanted to kill that bastard. Okay.
Who you would go and say, Oh no, we're going to go do this. I'm going to change this thing. And the son of a bitch would be at another meeting undermining what the fuck you're doing in this meeting.
And I mean, you can't work like that. And that's what she's doing every day.
That's what what's what he's doing every day.
|
Sam:
[2:09:57]
| Well, in this particular just this week, she apparently made comments about how they were going to beef up the team that deals with governments.
And then two days later, he fires them all.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:07]
| Right. So I'm not sorry.
She took this stupid job. probably saw the letter CEO on there or whatever.
She wasn't to see where the hell she was at. Not even close.
And, you know. It was just a fool's errand to try to do this.
|
Sam:
[2:10:30]
| I don't know. Hopefully she did get a nice payday out of it. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:35]
| I hope she negotiated that, because otherwise she's fucked, because the other problem is that, you know what?
I mean, who who's going to hire as a fucking CEO now?
I mean, she better, she better be getting a fucking real payday.
|
Sam:
[2:10:49]
| She better have enough out of this so she can happily just go and not work for the rest of her life and kick up on a beach somewhere. Yep.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:56]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[2:10:57]
| Which, you know, hey, if I was, if I ever had that kind of position for like, even like a nanosecond enough to like fill my savings, I'd be like, okay, that was nice. Thank you for the six months. I'm out of here. All right.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:10]
| We gotta negotiate that. What if the son of a bitch just gave it to, the, it offered it all to her based on stock.
|
Sam:
[2:11:15]
| Yes. Then, then she said, you're fucked.
Like, but she had to have known like she could, she wouldn't be dumb enough to.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:24]
| I'm going to tell you something. She was an Elon Musk fan girl.
It, she, she had that reputation is why she picked her. So therefore she might not have at all.
And she just went in and is now, Oh fuck. I'm screwed.
|
Sam:
[2:11:43]
| Ah, nice.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:46]
| Not, not going to shed a tear. She was a, Hey, you were dumb enough to be a fucking fangirl. Viz.
Good, good luck with that shit.
|
Sam:
[2:11:55]
| She was a big girl, knew what she was doing.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:57]
| Exactly.
|
Sam:
[2:11:58]
| Yep. Okay. With that, we are done. Everybody stay safe. Have a good week.
Believe it or not. We are entering October already. Yeah. The months keep coming.
Anyway, have a great week. Stay safe. All of this stuff I usually say goodbye, bye.
|
Ivan:
[2:12:21]
| Do I have to sing again?
|
Sam:
[2:12:25]
| Oh man, the outro is not starting. And every time it's every time the outro hasn't started when we're recording like this, I've lost the whole track that has the sound and I've had to add those bits in later. It's very annoying.
Wait, can I hit, stop? Try again. I'm gonna try a couple of things.
Wait. There we go. Yeah! ♪♪♪, Okay, and now we're done for real. Bye, Mr. Bowe. Bye.
| |
|
