Automated Transcript
Sam: [0:00]
| Let's do this and then I gotta go. Here we go. Intro. Intro music.
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Break: [0:06]
| We'll be back.
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Sam: [0:23]
| Welcome to Curmudgeons Corner for Saturday, October 18th, 2025, just after 1730 UTC. I am Sam Minter. We have no Ivan. Once again, he let me know at last minute that he couldn't make it. Well, not really last minute. Like we were going to record Saturday morning. He let me know Friday morning. I sent out one of my emails asking if anybody could do anything Friday night once I got home from work. And I did get one response. Todd responded.
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Sam: [0:55]
| But Todd said, hey, dude, Saturday is No Kings Day. No Kings 2. I'm going to be doing that. I can't record then. And of course, my plan was to record here in the morning and do No Kings in the afternoon. But for East Coast folks, like Todd is, Todd, it would conflict. And of course, I fully support this because I am indeed about to leave for that right now. My wife is probably anxious that we should have left already because she's trying to get to an earlier one. Not, I, I, I was thinking about a 1 PM one does apparently 11 PM one in a different place. We want to get to both of them. So we are going to go do that. And so I am doing the thing where I stake this podcast in the right Sunday to Saturday week. And then we go from there. I, and I will record more later. I will record my impressions of the no Kings thing. And we'll do all that in the next segment of this. And I'll probably do some movies as I usually do and that that'll be the show that's the plan uh but i gotta get out of here i do have to say one thing though i i need to rag on yvonne just a little bit before i go which is the thing that he forgot until the last minute for the reason why he couldn't do saturday was his anniversary you're not supposed to forget that dude it's your anniversary and.
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Sam: [2:21]
| Anyway, he remembered in time. He prepared, presumably, whatever he was going to do with his wife for his anniversary. I conveniently scheduled my anniversary for January 1st. It's New Year's Day, so it's a lot harder to forget. Otherwise, I'd probably forget. I forget my own birthday all the time. I struggle to remember birthdays of loved ones, you know, but I can remember January 1st. Anyway let's do a break and then i'm out of here and we will we will finish more later so here we go break the breaky break break break break i know it's really quick and early and blah blah blah i don't have time to do the full intro this is just to make sure i've started the podcast in the right week because i don't know exactly when i'll get back to do the next part here you go guys You're.
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Break: [3:12]
| Supposed to say doo doo doo. Doo doo doo! Alex Emsala! Alex Emsala is awesome. Its videos are fun. And today, once again, we have one of our most loyal subscribers here to tell you how awesome Alex Emsala is. I'd say on a rate from 1 to 10, Alex Emsala is awesome at, I don't know, 37? 87, 82. He's pretty radical. His videos are phenomenal. They're full of creativity. And they're so funny and exciting to watch. Wow, what happened to your voice then, Amy? Was that dad pretending to be you because the audio was distorted when it really wasn't because I told him to? Yes! Good job on remembering, dad. Do, do, do!
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Sam: [4:11]
| Okay, well, I am back. As I mentioned in a little intro, I did the No Kings thing, and we can talk about that a little bit. But while I was there, I bumped into someone and somehow acquired a co-host. So let me introduce Emily Wicks, who is a co-host of the Um Sir podcast that I mentioned on the show a couple weeks ago. Welcome, Emily.
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Emily: [4:36]
| Hello. Welcome to be here. Welcome to be here. I'm used to welcoming people. I'm excited to be here.
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Sam: [4:43]
| Awesome. Yeah. And so, yeah, I bumped into her at the No Kings thing, and then we started chatting on Facebook Messenger, and here she is. So we're going to do the rest of the show. And we've talked a little bit about what we're going to talk about, but as usual for this show, we're going to just wing it. I want to start by saying I was in preparation, knowing you would be here. I made a point of listening to the beginning of your last episode for your show of UMSUR, which came out on Wednesday. And you spent the first few minutes talking about Yvonne and I. So thank you very much for the shout outs. I enjoyed your commentary on the episode we did where we mentioned you. So.
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Emily: [5:31]
| Yeah, it's fun to go back and forth on that. We've I've really been enjoying listening. It does feel like you are our older brothers, our smarter, more wise, older brothers. And I definitely identify with Yvonne because he loves to chat and he needs to be reined in like Sammy needs to rein me in a lot. So I'm excited to have another Sam, but very much the same type of, you know, vibe as Sammy.
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Sam: [6:06]
| Absolutely yeah and so we'll we'll we'll we'll talk about some of the newsy stuff and some other stuff and maybe podcasting stuff this we are going to do sort of what yvonne and i usually do we're going to have this sort of lighter looser segment and talk about a couple movies and things like that first and and then we'll take a break and then we'll do more news stuff including no kings and anything else that we want to talk about from the last week. So I have a couple movies on my agenda. I know you'd mentioned perhaps having a couple that you'd seen recently that you wanted to talk about. How do you want to start? Should I do one of mine or do you want to go?
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Emily: [6:43]
| Two of yours. I love it. I actually, like, when you did the update last week and I was like, oh, if I don't know the movie, it's going to be hard. But I got really into what you shared. So I love hearing about your movies and just wanting to watch. So, yeah, you start with yours and then it'll probably prompt me to watch him.
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Sam: [7:03]
| Okay. Well, let's see here. I had, of course, had prepped by bringing up the Wikipedia pages. So the first stop, and, you know, I know those of you who listen a lot know this already, but I am way behind in talking about movies on this thing.
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Emily: [7:22]
| You have so many movies on that list. It was overwhelming.
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Sam: [7:24]
| Yeah. I mean, like, you know, I always had a hard time. Like, so first of all, the way this started on here, I used to like post like little mini movie reviews when I watched movies on my blog. I have not posted anything on that blog in years now. And at some point I decided, hey, you know, I can just talk about this on the podcast. Sometimes, you know, we need a little something to mix up. Like we're talking about Donald Trump. We're talking about horrible world events. It's, you know, let's throw a little bit in that's like a little bit lighter. Let's talk about some movies. And so I started doing that. And, you know, I have this very systematic regimented way of watching movies, which isn't necessarily the best way to do it. But, you know, it's me.
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Sam: [8:14]
| And so I have this list to get through and go. And I never did a great job at keeping up because it turns out the rate at which I'm watching these and almost exclusively, I watch these with my son, Alex, the two of us sit together and watch the movies. It's one of the things we do together along with some TV shows, but it turns out we typically get to more, one, more than one movie a week. So if I do one movie a week, we never catch up and the list just grows on the podcast. And I'm, I'm already like the one I'm going to talk about next. I watched January 7th. I barely remember watching the movie, you know, so it's not as good. like if I, if I reviewed it, like a couple of days after I watched it, it would be fresh in my memory and all that, but no. And then we had that like, Hollywood strike. And we decided not to review any movies while the strike was on. So I fell much, much further behind, you know.
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Emily: [9:14]
| So you had the solidarity and solidarity.
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Sam: [9:17]
| And, you know, I mean, most of the movies on this list are old movies anyway, but still, still, it was the point of it, you know? So anyway, one of the things that my son and I have been doing, we have a variety of different ways we pick movies, but one of the things we've been doing is I started, the American Film Institute put out a list in 1998 of 100 Years 100 Movies. It's basically the first 100 years of movies, they put out a list of what they thought was the best 100 movies of all time of those first 100 years. Obviously, nothing past 1998 was in this list, but I started going through this list in 1998. And roughly 1998. I might have had a slight delay at him. But anyway, we're working our way up the list. I started at number 100. Obviously, my son Alex didn't exist in 1998, but he started joining me at a certain age. Anyway, today's the first movie I'm going to mention is number 13 on that list.
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Sam: [10:28]
| And full disclosure, in the time since January, we did finish. We got to number one. And we started, AFI put out a revised version of the list in 2007. So we've started at number 100 on the 2007 list. Where last night we actually started 99 and are halfway through it. We'll finish it today. Anyway.
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Emily: [10:49]
| Is number one supposed to be their best? Yes.
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Sam: [10:52]
| Number one is their best of all time.
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Emily: [10:55]
| Okay. It's not just 100 thrown out there.
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Sam: [10:57]
| No, they are ordered.
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Emily: [10:59]
| I mean, Citizen Kane is on that list, right?
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Sam: [11:02]
| Citizen Kane is number one.
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Emily: [11:03]
| Oh, goodness.
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Sam: [11:07]
| And, you know, I've got a few weeks till I get to it. We did watch Citizen Kane. It was actually, I mentioned this on the show already, even without reviewing it. By pure coincidence, like when we got to number one on the list, I happened to be flipping through TikTok. The next movie to watch was going to be Citizen Kane. And I was flipping through TikTok and saw someone mentioning that for one day only, Citizen Kane would be in the theaters that day.
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Emily: [11:37]
| Oh, wow.
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Sam: [11:37]
| So we went to see it in the theaters.
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Emily: [11:39]
| I bet that would be better. I watched it in a video productions class in Niagara. And they're like, this is the greatest movie of all time. And I'm like, nah.
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Sam: [11:50]
| Yeah, I mean.
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Emily: [11:50]
| What it was. I get that it was big for the time. But it's hard for me to watch.
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Sam: [11:57]
| We, we, I I'm happy to talk about citizen Kane for a minute, even though it's out of order, I'll eventually get to it in order.
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Emily: [12:04]
| Yeah. Like, yeah.
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Sam: [12:07]
| I mean, and the, here's one thing too, like, you know, I actually knew absolutely nothing about the plot of Citizen Kane except two things before I watched it. One was that it was based on William Randolph Hearst or whatever, the historical journalist, newspaper guy, whatever. It was sort of roughly a take on him. And two, I knew what Rosebud was. That's all I knew about the stupid thing, and I knew that. And it's like, I felt like it wouldn't have felt better if I hadn't had that spoiler. I don't know. I felt like I saw, I recognized that you mentioned taking it and watching it in filmmaking class or whatever. I guess one of the things it's known for is it like pioneered a whole bunch of techniques, directorial techniques, camera angles, ways of doing shots, things like that. And I guess for, yeah, okay, it pioneered a bunch of those stuff. I guess my bottom line take on it, my usual thing, I would give it a thumb sideways. It was okay. It was a fine movie. I was somewhat entertained by it. It has that sort of style of the time that it's a little bit stylized rather than realistic, but that's okay. Do I think it deserved number one? No.
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Emily: [13:34]
| No. I agree.
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Sam: [13:36]
| And they kept it at number one in their 2007 re-ranking, too. And no, I don't think so. I mean, fine. I certainly wouldn't say it's a bad movie. But does it deserve number one of all time? I don't think so. Like, number two in the 1998 was Casablanca. I'd put Casablanca above it.
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Emily: [13:59]
| Oh, me too. Absolutely.
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Sam: [14:00]
| I actually really liked Casablanca. Citizen Kane was sort of, Okay.
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Emily: [14:07]
| Yeah. I mean, I think nobody wants to take it off the list just because it was a, you know, pioneer type movie, essentially, doing all that, you know, technical stuff. But I wouldn't say that the screenplay is definitely very good, but I feel like you have to kind of take all of that into account, right?
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Sam: [14:27]
| Right. Yeah. It just...
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Emily: [14:30]
| Yeah. It doesn't hold up.
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Sam: [14:32]
| It's a meh at best. You can recognize it as pioneering and good for its time and all that kind of stuff. And you can see like the grand scale of it and all this kind of stuff without necessarily saying it's the best movie of all time.
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Emily: [14:46]
| Yeah, exactly. It needs to be removed from the list. Sorry. Hot take from Emily. It needs to be removed from the list.
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Sam: [14:53]
| At the very least, not number one.
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Emily: [14:56]
| Okay.
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Sam: [14:56]
| Put it in the 80s or something.
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Emily: [14:58]
| Yeah, 100.
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Sam: [15:02]
| Anyway, the one I was actually on this time, we watched number 13 on the 1998 list, which dropped to 36 in the 2007 list. But Bridge on the River, why?
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Sam: [15:15]
| From 1957, as I usually do, I'll read the first couple paragraphs of the Wikipedia summary for anybody who doesn't know the movie. In February 1943, a contingent of British prisoners of war led by Colonel Nicholson arrive at a Japanese prison camp in Thailand. United States Navy Commander Shears describes the horrific conditions to Nicholson, who forbids any escape attempts because they had been ordered to surrender by their own headquarters. Colonel Saito, the camp commandant, informs the prisoners the camp needs no fences because the surrounding jungle makes escape impossible and that they will be used as labor to construct a bridge over the River Kwai for the railway connecting Thailand and Burma. Nicholson objects, citing the Geneva Convention exempting officers from manual labor. Saito threatens to have the officers shot, but Major Clipton, the British medical officer, warns him there are too many witnesses. The officers are left standing in the intense heat until evening when Saito confines them to a punishment hunt. Nicholson is beaten and locked in an iron box. Shears becomes the only survivor of an escape attempt and recuperates in British Ceylon after being tended to by Thai civilians. The movie continues. It has things going on in the camp, what's going on with the bridge, what's going on with the rescue attempt, what's going on with how this all interacts with the rest of the war, blah, blah, blah. First of all, have you seen this movie?
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Emily: [16:43]
| I have not. I almost watched it yesterday. but I just could get through one.
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Sam: [16:50]
| Yeah, no, no, quite all right. I can definitely see why this was on the list. It's got, a big part of it is sort of how the officer that they talked about, spoilers, I mean, it's a 1957 movie, sorry, spoilers, if you're concerned, move ahead.
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Sam: [17:13]
| He actually starts building the bridge for them And he gets so invested in the bridge, he actually cares more about that than anything else. Even though he's theoretically being forced to build the bridge under duress as a prisoner of war in an effort that's going to help the enemy. He ends up really...
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Sam: [17:37]
| All he cares about is building the best bridge he possibly can, because it's like, you know, if he's going to do it, he's going to do it right and all of this kind of stuff. And then, you know, tension comes in when, of course, the British actually want to destroy the bridge that he's building. And and then, you know, things happen. I'm not I'm not sure it's number 13, but this was it was a good movie. I'll give it a thumbs up. It definitely, you know, is a movie of its time. You can tell it's a 1950s movie in terms of the styling and the pacing and all this kind of stuff. But worth watching. I liked it. And of course, it's got that the song they whistle. Do do do do do do do do do. Oh, yeah. And like it only happens, you know, at the one moment where it's really a part of what's going on. But it's it's it's an iconic bit. And so, yeah, thumbs up. I don't have a lot more to say about it. Like I said, I saw it in January, so it's not fresh in my mind, but I do remember it as being worth the watch. It is, how long is this thing? 161 minutes, so it is a fairly long movie.
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Sam: [18:50]
| When Alex and I watch these things, even shorter movies, we typically watch half and then watch the other half the next day. It's just easier for time, but certainly on longer movies we do that. But sometimes we even split them into three or four parts. I don't remember how, how long, how many we split this into, but yeah, I have, you know, it's one thing when you're sitting in the theater, even then, like I, I get annoyed at the long movies. Like, you know, I don't want to get to the end of the movie desperate to use the bathroom, you know, especially when you've had the big movie theater drinks and all this kind of stuff, you know, Watching at home does alleviate that because you can pause whenever you want. You can get a snack. You can split it over two or three days, you know, whatever. And that's useful for the long movies. And I'm glad for this kind of movie, I was able to do that.
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Emily: [19:45]
| What's kind of crazy for me is that i i'm not much of a movie watcher anymore but i can watch i don't know what it is it's like i can't sit through a movie but i could sit through two hour long three hour long television shows i don't get it i don't understand well they.
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Sam: [20:02]
| Have that pacing where it's sort of like you stop there's a moment that is a natural pause point i.
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Emily: [20:08]
| Guess that.
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Sam: [20:09]
| Lets you reset i guess both both for like taking breaks like i said but also just even if you're watching straight through, it's sort of a mental reset. I mean, I guess it depends on the show. Some have like cliffhangers that roll right into the next episode, but yeah.
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Emily: [20:24]
| Yeah. I just think there's more character development in television shows. I don't know what it is.
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Sam: [20:30]
| So, you know, since, since you brought up TV before, before we get to like the next movie, is there something you're watching right now that you really like? I, I usually talk about, I talk about TV shows on the, on the show too, but only when I've completely finished all existing episodes. Oh, okay. So I've got a number of TV shows that we're on our way through, but I don't talk about them sort of episode by episode, season by season. But what are some things that you're enjoying right now? And I'll add them to my list if I don't have them already as things to potentially watch.
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Emily: [21:05]
| Well, if you haven't seen Outlander, have you watched Outlander?
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Sam: [21:08]
| I have not. I think I've heard of it. Is that the one with the woman who goes back in time?
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Emily: [21:14]
| Yes. The woman in the 1940s goes back 200 years. okay. years to the 16th century, Scotland.
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Sam: [21:22]
| My wife, Brandy, who you also know, I know she used to read the books that this is based on. She's probably watched the TV show too. I don't know. So I knew a little bit about the outline and the plot, but I've never watched it. So good? The TV show is good?
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Emily: [21:42]
| Oh, it is my absolute favorite. They also just came out with a prequel show, Blood of My Blood, on Starz. So yeah, the whole thing's on Starz. It is on Netflix, but they don't have the complete series on Netflix. I think they don't have the last. I don't know, with the writer's strike too, there was a lot of issues with them halting production. So I think the seventh season has been broken up. And this last season is coming out in the new year, I believe. So I've been recently re-watching the episodes because I love it. And now watching Blood of My Blood, which is the prequel, you catch a lot of the things and the little Easter eggs that they add in there. But I thought that the last episode of the seventh season was episode eight, where he's, It's called Written in My Own Heart's Blood. That was, I think one of the books is called that too. And I was, as I was rewatching it, I saw that there was another episode. Sammy and I had thought that the episode eight was the last one. And there was like a whole nother episode, which was weird because I had read the book and I knew all of the parts that happened in the book.
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Emily: [22:52]
| And it's, they also go, it's kind of weird because the way that you can write a book is very different than how you can tell the story in a show. You know, it's chapter by chapter versus, you know, the people are actually in different time periods across like the last season. So they're in a variety of different areas and a different time periods and places across the world. So whether it was Scotland or the United States, but right now it's on basically the Revolutionary War and, you know, nearing 1776 and they're involved with George Washington. He makes an appearance in it. The Marquis, how do I say his name? Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. Lafayette, right?
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Sam: [23:34]
| Oh, Lafayette. Lafayette, yes.
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Emily: [23:35]
| So it's just, I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but I absolutely love it in terms of the historical context and what happened. And it's interesting to see the relationship because in Scotland, the Scots and the British have such a tumultuous history. They basically ended the way of life for Scots when they had the war, Culloden. That was I think at the season three where they had the battle of Culloden and now you know they ended up in America and now they're fighting again against the British and the woman who Claire who's the main character in it she is British she was a war nurse in the 1940s and so they call her Sassenach which is you know I guess a mean term for someone that's out a British woman maybe or just someone that's outside of Scotland and that's Outlander too. But I just highly recommend it. I'm always shocked when someone says that they haven't watched it because it is, I mean, it's up there to me with Game of Thrones, more realistic and, you know, historical context and putting, I love putting history in context because I think it makes it more understandable than just reading in a history book, you know, or, and books, but the books are great. And I always think about, could I go back in time?
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Emily: [24:54]
| You know, I mean, Claire being in the 40s didn't have the benefits of that we have or the benefits. I don't know if social media is a benefit, but most of the time I would be like, I need Google, you know, half the time.
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Emily: [25:09]
| There's a point where she asks, like, where's your health department? And everybody's like, what the heck is that? Yeah.
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Sam: [25:15]
| I mean, people, people romanticize various portions of the past all the time. And, you know, It's so problematic in so many ways if you actually start thinking about it. The past was horrible.
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Emily: [25:30]
| People were wiping their butt with corn cobs. Do you want to wipe your butt with a corn cob?
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Sam: [25:36]
| Yeah, no. I mean, first, start off, if you're not a privileged white male, you're screwed. But even beyond that, I've seen people do the comparison. that even if you took the richest person in the world, Their standard of living in terms of, you know, health care, you know, nutrition, even what their luxuries are, are like, you know, an average middle class person probably has them down cold.
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Emily: [26:16]
| Yeah.
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Sam: [26:17]
| Like, you know, you would probably if you actually had to compare, you would probably prefer your standard middle class life with your job and your car and your Internet, your phone to to being like the king of a country 500 years ago. Yeah you know i mean unless you are really just super into like the power and the sadism and whatever you know okay you know maybe you get off on that but otherwise yeah no it's it was miserable you know i mean.
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Emily: [26:54]
| They make the sex scenes like you know so hot but you're like no they're disgusting like they are not showering everyone stinks.
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Sam: [27:02]
| I've been inspired to.
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Emily: [27:05]
| Make one about going back in time in Seattle, like before or after the fire, the great Seattle fire. And I just can't even imagine if somebody from 2025 were to go back in time and, and survive. And the funny thing is I, I always justified Claire going back in time. I'm like, she was an intelligent doctor. You'd think that she'd be accused of being a witch. She was like three or four times in the show and almost killed for it. But there's multiple times on a rewatch where I'm like, oh, she would have been dead. Like if she, she would have been dead. What she just said, she would have been, yeah, gone. Like she talked back so much that even then they would have been like, no.
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Sam: [27:51]
| Another historical thing people have talked about, especially for the upper classes, but like before the advent of clean water, People just drank alcohol all the time. So they were just constantly drunk.
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Emily: [28:05]
| Yeah.
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Sam: [28:05]
| You know, and like you can probably explain a decent amount of human history by the fact that everybody involved was drunk.
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Emily: [28:13]
| Exactly. Well, I mean, you can explain now because Pete Hegseth is probably drunk all the time, too.
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Sam: [28:22]
| Hey, hey, he promised he would not drink anymore.
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Emily: [28:26]
| Oh, OK.
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Sam: [28:27]
| Yeah.
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Emily: [28:28]
| Sure.
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Sam: [28:29]
| Yeah.
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Emily: [28:31]
| And I'm not going to smoke weed anymore. Oh, goodness. Well, I also watched All the King's Men, the 1999 version, which I imagine is very different. You said you watched all of them, right? So I was like.
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Sam: [28:47]
| Oh, shoot. No, no, I watched none of them.
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Emily: [28:49]
| Oh, you've not? Oh, okay. Oh.
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Sam: [28:52]
| So I added them all to my list when you sent them to me.
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Emily: [28:56]
| You answered them?
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Sam: [28:57]
| And well, you know, what I do is like the list is long enough at this point. The things I want to watch that I long ago stopped checking when I add new things. I figure if it comes up more than once, it just makes it more like because I pick randomly from the list when I pick new things to watch. It just makes it more likely it comes up if it comes up more. So you watch the 1999 version. So I'm just reading the very beginning here. All the King's Men is a British World War I television drama by the BBC. First broadcast in 1999. Film derives its title from a line in the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme.
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Emily: [29:37]
| Oh, I didn't know that.
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Sam: [29:38]
| And is based on a 1992 book called The Vanished Battalion. Okay. Tell me about it. I know nothing. I know nothing other than what I just read.
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Emily: [29:48]
| Yeah. So very different than the one that's like in 2006 with Kate Winslet and Sean Penn. That was the one that I was thinking because I was like, oh, let's watch something like All the King's Men, which is it sounds like.
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Sam: [30:00]
| Is it basically a remake of the same thing or just share a title?
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Emily: [30:03]
| They're all very different. There's one that there's the 2006 one that you had mentioned. And then there's another one that was like in the 50s, I think, that came out. This one's completely different. It's actually really positive. I think the other ones are really about corrupt politicians. And this one is about George V, their company in Sandringham. They send, you know, these are all people that, worked for the royal family, essentially. And so some of the higher-ups were generals that went to fight. And this is when we, in World War I, when we invaded the Ottoman Empire. And, you know, they go there. It's awful circumstances.
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Emily: [30:46]
| It's really sad. And it does show the horrors of war, I think, even more so than I've seen in a lot of things, really how bad it is. And it's upsetting in the beginning to see all of these people so excited to go to war. And there's even a 14-year-old that's like, I enlisted and I went. I don't know how he ended up getting to go. But there's a story in it where when they ran into the battlefield and this cloud comes over them and then everyone just disappears. But what really did end up happening is that all of them were shot and killed and shot in the head. They found the bodies. But I don't think anyone will admit to the fact that that's what happened. They make up this magical thing that they all just disappeared over this cloud and no one could be found. But it turns out that they did end up finding them. But even still, when you look up the stories about it, they will never confirm and say that that happened. They just disappeared. So it was really sad. And I think this one puts the king and the monarch in a really positive light essentially and you know shows that they you know had their bath water at you know you know two inches and stuff like that all the sacrifices that the royal family was making to you know for the war efforts but i i think it's really interesting too that we.
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Emily: [32:13]
| In this time, we invaded, you know, and so when they were doing like recon later and trying to figure out what happened to people, the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire to Turkey was like, remember, you invaded us, but they didn't want to take any prisoners. And that was shocking for the UK government and the British because they were like, you are required to take prisoners. And they're like, no, we're not, you know, but they were going on their land and in an attempt to for oil, essentially. It was a stupid trip. Why have that? And it makes me think about why are we invading other countries? Let's just use our military to protect ourselves and to protect what we have. It was really sad. And it was pretty, pretty grotesque. I think I had to close my eyes a couple of times. You know, people were at the end just killing themselves, knowing it was the end. Right. It was rough. Yeah. Sorry, I went on and on about it. But it was a good movie. Very different than what I thought I was going to watch, which was about corrupt politicians, which would really tie into our next conversation.
|
Sam: [33:16]
| Which is what the other ones, the other ones with the same title have that thing.
|
Emily: [33:20]
| And I'm really excited to watch those two for other reasons. But it's yeah I had no idea about this missing company and their connection to the royal family and it was it was really good it was good I mean it was also I'm not really keen on 1990 movies don't really like.
|
Sam: [33:40]
| And not only 1990s British made-for-TV movies.
|
Emily: [33:45]
| Yes, yes. But, you know, I love the BBC. They always deliver.
|
Sam: [33:49]
| Yes. Yeah, there's a lot of good quality stuff coming out of there still.
|
Emily: [33:55]
| I definitely needed captions, and I definitely needed to look things up, though, too, because I didn't— I like to understand what people are talking about and the references that are being made. So it makes.
|
Sam: [34:04]
| It— So this was a watch a little bit, pause, look things up, watch a little bit more, pause, look things up.
|
Emily: [34:10]
| Yeah.
|
Sam: [34:10]
| Okay. Yeah. We always watch with captions on.
|
Emily: [34:13]
| Oh, you have to.
|
Sam: [34:14]
| You have to. Like, it doesn't matter what it is. Occasionally, there are a few shows that we'll put on every once in a while where, for whatever reason, the captions are messed up.
|
Emily: [34:26]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Sam: [34:28]
| They're not synced with what's going on on the screen or various other problems. It doesn't happen all that often, but it does happen occasionally. And in those cases, we turn off the captions because it's one thing when they actually match what's happening on the screen. When it's like completely unrelated, almost, it's like, no, but yeah, no, captions have to be on.
|
Emily: [34:53]
| Yeah. Well, and I'm deaf in my right ear. So I like hearing wise. I really need that. But when I'm watching Outlander, for instance, I mean, I can barely understand what they're, you know, the Scottish accent is like, what? I had to tell when we were in London, I met a guy from Scotland and he was talking to me and I had to have him repeat it like four times. I was like, I need captions for you. Like I need for Jamie. I was like, I'm so sorry. That's what's hard too yeah good movie i yeah thumbs up probably won't watch it again but glad i did.
|
Sam: [35:29]
| That's definitely a class of movie that good movie will never watch again like you know or you know some sometimes like we'll we'll watch again many many years from now like there's there's the things that are fun and you don't mind re-watching they're the ones that are like okay that was incredibly awesome but it was so emotionally draining and so affecting it's going to be at least 20 years before i even consider watching that thing again yeah so we.
|
Emily: [35:59]
| Should watch all the oscars movies i've always wanted to do that i.
|
Sam: [36:04]
| Had a.
|
Emily: [36:05]
| Friend who would do oscar night parties but.
|
Sam: [36:08]
| Right can.
|
Emily: [36:08]
| Be so hard to get to all the movies and i think it was last year or the year before, I got to one, which was Saltburn. Did you ever watch that one?
|
Sam: [36:16]
| I have not seen Saltburn.
|
Emily: [36:18]
| Not for children.
|
Sam: [36:18]
| Adding it to the list.
|
Emily: [36:19]
| Definitely not for children. No, I mean, I am not, I am not better off for watching Saltburn. It was a fascinating movie though. But that, and it's, it's always like that.
|
Sam: [36:32]
| Okay. Since you brought it up, give just like a minute or two about Saltburn and then we'll take our break and move on to news.
|
Emily: [36:38]
| Oh no, we don't need to talk about it. I think that anyone who's watched salt burn can, can attest to that.
|
Sam: [36:47]
| Okay. Then that, that, that is fascinating. That is intriguing. It's like, okay, what, what could possibly cause that reaction? Okay.
|
Emily: [36:56]
| I'm nervous for you to watch it. I'm nervous for anyone to watch it. It did not win.
|
Sam: [37:02]
| It did not win. It did not win. I'm only the first sentence from, it's a black comedy thriller film.
|
Emily: [37:12]
| I don't know if I would put comedy, but definitely black and definitely a thriller.
|
Sam: [37:18]
| Okay.
|
Emily: [37:19]
| Yeah. There's just a lot of really uncomfortable sex moments. Okay. And I, yeah, and I can't explain them without, you'll have to watch.
|
Sam: [37:31]
| So be especially sure to watch this with my 16-year-old son.
|
Emily: [37:35]
| Oh, yeah, absolutely. No. To be like you with your sarcasm, that's hard to tell.
|
Sam: [37:44]
| For the most part, we haven't pulled any punches on movies that have come up. Our determination is if he wants to self-censor himself out of it, he can decide to leave, but I'm not going to make him leave.
|
Emily: [38:02]
| Yeah.
|
Sam: [38:03]
| However, having said that, we have yet to have one come up that is really so far over the line that like I'm, you know, completely squirming. I mean, we've we've had movies with sex scenes.
|
Emily: [38:21]
| Yeah.
|
Sam: [38:21]
| We've had movies with lots of violence. You know, he he squirms most at swear words. He does not like swear words. like he still has an issue with that but it doesn't stop him watching them he just sort of like, cringes when there's swearing and so occasionally we've had movies that are like you know three f words a minute for two hours right or whatever and he's just like but you know he he's he's twitching and sort of like clearly like at some point it seems like a little performative like are you really that bothered because if you were really that bothered you would leave the room you would not watch but but he might not.
|
Emily: [39:02]
| Want to listen to our podcast then.
|
Sam: [39:06]
| Yeah no he he he has been very clear about his low opinion of this podcast yeah oh of yours of ours yeah oh.
|
Emily: [39:15]
| Oh i of mine he would be.
|
Sam: [39:17]
| No not of yours not of yours like i don't think he's listening to yours i.
|
Emily: [39:21]
| Love the self-deprecation and like playing you know all of his hate for the podcast it actually made me want to support you guys even.
|
Sam: [39:31]
| More oh you you heard the you heard the the break where he talks about how he hates the podcast yeah no.
|
Emily: [39:38]
| Don't help them.
|
Sam: [39:39]
| Don't, yes yes i love that break he recorded that that was like recorded when he was like eight years old or something so like years and years ago but i still love that break, okay speaking of breaks we will now take one okay the luck of the dice has you know i i don't want to like self-deprecate too much on this one but this is one of our apple dream series which are for a couple of years. And this was also prompted by my son, Alex. He made me like, whenever I had a dream and woke up in the middle of the night and remember it, he made me record it onto my phone. And so this is Apple dream 46. And I apologize in advance because most of these are at least somewhat amusing. I think this one's kind of boring. And it's about four minutes long. At least I think it's boring. Maybe you'll be amused. I don't know. But I'm going to play this This is Apple Dream 46 Which was probably recorded I don't know, three or four years ago At this point, We'll play this And we'll be back And talk about newsy stuff.
|
Break: [40:55]
| I was sitting in this tent thing with Brandy, and there were other people there. But then two new people walked in. One of them was apparently a producer of Doctor Who. And then I realized that next to Brandy was John Nathan Turner, who was a producer of Doctor Who decades ago. And, yeah. And then I realized another person who was sort of walking up was the person who played the fourth Doctor, but much older, but not looking like he does in real life right now. This is Tom Baker. But instead sort of looking sort of big and overweight and roly-poly, which is not what he looks like in real life. And so, and him and, I guess him and John Natan Turner in real life didn't get along that well, at least in certain parts of time. And, oh, and by the way, this tent was sort of off to the side of a playground. There was a playground over there and there were kids who were playing and stuff like that. And we're sort of like, hmm, what's going on here?
|
Break: [42:14]
| Once John Nathan-Turner and the current producer, although it wasn't actually, like, Russell T. Davies, the guy who just got, like, appointed to that again, I don't know, is some random guy. But anyway, they got up there and they had, like, papers in their hand on a clipboard, and they motioned for Tom Baker to come over. And Tom Baker actually came over and they were showing him this stuff and he's like and.
|
Break: [42:50]
| Then he sees that sort of Brandy and I and one other person off to his side I don't know who they were were sort of carefully, just sort of frozen and saying should we be here for whatever is happening here is this like secret stuff that we shouldn't be hearing. And then Tom Baker looks to Brandy and says, I'll tell you, because I trust you because of the other night. And then he points to me, too, and says, And you, you were wearing the T-shirt with Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. And so I trust you, too. Too and because we were wondering like is he secretly returning to the show again is there some special cameo is this a script he's got what is going on here and why is he talking to these people and why is he doing it at a playground in wherever we were and so and then he's like telling him you know i'll tell you this thing and i think he said was like either gonna be like the best thing ever or everyone's gonna hate it and then i woke up.
|
Sam: [44:11]
| And that's it. That was you? That was me.
|
Emily: [44:14]
| That does not sound like you.
|
Sam: [44:16]
| That was me in the middle of the night, having woken up for a dream, opening my phone and putting what I remembered. And like, you know, that one sort of just rambled and didn't really have anything much happening or much of a point. Like often in these, like there's one that my son really likes where bears are chasing our dogs. There's ones where I'm driving a car, dodging tornadoes. There's one with a flying bus. You know, there are a whole bunch of ones that are actually like someone and there and there's some where I just do like stupid stuff that Yvonne laughs at or whatever. This one's just sort of like, oh, I don't know. I met these people and then I woke up.
|
Emily: [45:04]
| Sounds like me when I'm trying to tell my husband my dreams. Like I you know you think you got it and then you're trying to explain it and it's just not going to work out.
|
Sam: [45:13]
| And this is another thing which by the way got so far behind on like I I did this for like a couple years recording all of these on my phone and to with the intention they were supposed to be all posted to TikTok and the first 72 are indeed posted to TikTok and then after that like I just fell so far behind I've probably got like another another 70 probably recorded on my phone that have never been posted anywhere yet and maybe someday I'll get to them maybe someday I won't and and and so I basically stopped recording them although every once in a while like once every I don't know couple months I'll have one where I wake up and I was like okay that was actually kind of interesting and i record it and send it to him anyway and we'll see i don't know i.
|
Emily: [46:03]
| Think it's so important to save all of this stuff too i mean i have maybe like unwarranted fears about you know everything being lost.
|
Sam: [46:13]
| Um in.
|
Emily: [46:14]
| The internet and.
|
Sam: [46:15]
| So i constantly put.
|
Emily: [46:18]
| What me and Sammy record on external hard drives. And that comes from like reading or the book Wool or watching the movies or the show Silo, which basically no one has access to anything and they're all like blind to everything. Yeah. Are you adding that to your list too?
|
Sam: [46:36]
| Yeah. I mean, I, I, I know they are, I know Wool and Silo are already, I know I have them already, but I'm adding them again. Um, yeah.
|
Emily: [46:46]
| But yeah, the fear is I just want this stuff to somewhere exist, even if it's, you know, stupid to other people.
|
Sam: [46:56]
| Well, my sister calls me a data hoarder for that. I mean, frankly, I'm a hoarder for everything. For those of you watching on video, you can see what it looks like behind me. But yeah, no, I'm absolutely a hoarder. It is a problem. Brandy and I are trying to work through it and deal with it. But we just never have time. So things are building up and it's a disaster. But like data specifically also, like from a very young age, I started like trying to make sure stuff I was doing was captured and not lost. And so, yeah, I have, I have boxes in, in my garage of elementary school homework.
|
Sam: [47:41]
| You know, that I still have, I have piles of papers stacked all around me. I have, I have mentioned on the show before, but not in a long time. Like in the, when I left college, there was not a good mechanism for me, for me to electronically store email. So I printed out years of college email that reflected like, this is my history through college. You know, this is like my back and forth with friends and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so again, somewhere in my garage are probably around the order of eight large boxes that are full of printed out email from college, you know, things like that.
|
Emily: [48:27]
| You're like Hillary Clinton.
|
Sam: [48:30]
| Exactly. Somebody will get me for this stuff one day. Like they'll find that incriminating email from my, you know, senior year of college that just looks awful. And by the way, there are definitely incriminating emails from my senior year of college that have me doing things that I am utterly ashamed of today and admitting to them on paper, you know, but you know, it's there, you know.
|
Emily: [48:56]
| My college, I started my freshman year, the year Facebook started. So yeah, The things that we put on Facebook, I did. Yeah, I've had to remove a lot just for other people, not because I wanted to. But I'm I own my stuff, you know, we own our shit, you know, and I said that I was like, you know, when I ran for office, and when I served, I was like, I'm accountable to myself. And that's completely fine. Like, we're not all perfect. And I'm a better person today as a result of other people and my experiences. And, you know, we're always learning and growing like, but Yeah, no, absolutely.
|
Sam: [49:40]
| I mean, it's a lot better than sort of, you can't, I don't know, like you can't just pretend it didn't exist or didn't happen. Now, at the same time, you know, I can tell you there were things I did in college I'm embarrassed about. I'm probably not just going to come out and tell you what they are right now, this very second. You know, I'm not. But if somebody confronted with me with them, I'd be like, yeah, that happened. I'm sorry.
|
Emily: [50:10]
| I'm embarrassed about things I did last week. You know, I'm embarrassed about saying welcome, excited to be here.
|
Sam: [50:18]
| Yeah, no, I mean, yes, absolutely. Yeah. But in the end, you have to own them. It does no good to like try to deny them or pretend it was, you know, I mean, I guess for some things you can plead the, you know, I was young and stupid, but even there it's like, yeah, okay, but. If you're young and stupid at 20, you're still old enough to know better, you know? And so.
|
Emily: [50:47]
| So is Donald Trump. And.
|
Sam: [50:49]
| Yes.
|
Emily: [50:50]
| In his 70s.
|
Sam: [50:51]
| So before we get into pure news stuff, I was reminded you mentioned right before the break that listening to my son say how much he hated the podcast prompted you to contribute. So I do want to. You became a patron on our site. And so rather than delay it to some other time, let me give you your proper rewards. So number one is just we will mention you and thank you on the show. So thank you. Thank you, Emily Wicks, for becoming a patron. Second, at the level you've gotten to, at which we give to anybody who asks. But also, you were invited to our Commudgeons Corner Slack and have logged in at least once and said hi. So thank you for that.
|
Emily: [51:33]
| Oh, I read all the stories. I was I was following everybody's comments. So.
|
Sam: [51:38]
| Oh, excellent. Yeah, we've got we've probably only got like four or five people who are like in there every day. And then probably another four or five who like chime in like once every month or so who seem to be lurkers. And then we've got a few more people who logged in once and haven't really logged in again. You know, but, you know, whatever. That's fine. People have their their different levels. But we have fun there. And then we've had a few people who are regulars for a long time and then sort of dropped off, and that's okay too.
|
Emily: [52:09]
| Well, I was holding off on getting Slack again because I have WhatsApp, Discord, Signal, every single way that someone can get a hold of me, I feel. But when the podcast network invited me to a Slack, I was like, oh, I'll get in. And so I'm in now.
|
Sam: [52:30]
| Yeah, and you know- Someone reminded me the other day, too, like, you know, Slack, if you look at the ownership of Slack, it's, like, people who you might not necessarily like if you go up the chain and, like, whatever. But I'm, like, you can't avoid that. Yeah. I'm sorry. Like if you, if you, you have to pick and choose your boycotts over like people you don't like being like partial owners of some whatever, or even like major owners. I mean, you know, if you boycotted everything where anybody involved was problematic, you couldn't do anything. You'd be sitting at home doing nothing. And so you have to pick and choose. And I mean, there are occasional things I will avoid. And, you know, the person who reminded me about Slack the other day, I'm like, well, what, is Discord better?
|
Emily: [53:30]
| Yeah.
|
Sam: [53:31]
| Yeah. I don't know that it is. you know all of these things have one issue or another or whatever so you know yeah we we picked slack years and years ago for whatever reasons that made it attractive at the time probably it's what you could get for the free tier stuff like that and and you know moving would be a pain anyway so welcome to the slack as well and then finally at the level you have contributed to our patreon we get to ring a bell in your honor so here's a bell, thank you for joining our patreon, and and and also for actually co-hosting you also get a mug oh yes i'm so.
|
Emily: [54:20]
| Excited for the mug too.
|
Sam: [54:21]
| I'm gonna not.
|
Emily: [54:23]
| That we did compare all of our mugs.
|
Sam: [54:24]
| Yes the yeah lots of people have too many mugs but you know and and you showed me like she sent me a picture of where she has her mugs and it's very full uh but you know we'll we'll get get you a mug anyway and anyways that's really.
|
Emily: [54:39]
| Why i left the legislature, I didn't need any more mugs. Every year they give you a mug.
|
Sam: [54:45]
| So actually, like we didn't do this at the beginning when I when I first introduced you by name. Do you want to give like two minutes on like who you are and what your history is and plug your podcast a few more times, you know, and then we can move on?
|
Emily: [54:58]
| Yeah. So I grew up in Snohomish County, born and raised in Marysville, Washington. I live in Everett, Washington now. I worked at a few public affairs firms. I got really lucky in 2008 and got a job in the middle of a recession, paid absolutely nothing. I worked on Governor Inslee's 2012 campaign for governor, which really took off my whole career. When I came back to live in Snohomish County after connecting with my spouse, who we reconnected at our 10-year reunion. I ended up working at the Marysville School District in communications for a while. And during the pandemic, one of our state senators retired and there was an opening for a spot in the state legislature. Ended up being a House seat. Senator June Robinson took the Senate seat and there was an opening there. And so I went for the appointment process and I won and then ran that year, served for two years in the state legislature, had enough at that point. It was really hard. You know, I think your partner can attest to the difficulty of that experience. And she knows the experience of going through the appointment process, which is tricky too. And I think that was even harder than running a full-on campaign in some ways.
|
Emily: [56:16]
| And then after that, decided to start a podcast. I've always loved kind of acting. And I mean, the same thing with you. My friends and I used to make time capsules and record ourselves on tapes and put them in there. And I still have those as well. And I'm also the executive director of the Washington Institute for a Democratic Future. We recruit 32 fellows every year to go across the state, learn about civics and meet all of their delegation. We get to go to D.C. They meet their delegation there. We get to meet with all the Democratic members. They really respect us. We go on extended learning trips this year. We're going to Arizona, hopefully pending the government shutdown. But I really love being in that space. I did the program in 2013, and it was just really meaningful for me and the opportunities to network with folks. So putting that out there for any 21 to 39 year olds who are interested, we really try to get a diverse set of people from across the state. It's heavily, those who heavily apply or apply heavily are from King County and sometimes Seattle. So having people from Snohomish County, Spokane County is also really great. So that was my little drop on that. And then the UMSUR podcast I did with my neighbor, Sammy, it was, I started out on my own, but you know, the Sammy was a guest one time and I go, why don't we just do this together? Cause I need a partner in crime. And, you know, she comes to the.
|
Emily: [57:40]
| To the podcast, you know, as like, I don't know, I want to, she'll, she'll call herself a lay person, but it's always, it was always nice to talk to her about what she's hearing, you know, not someone not deep in the politics, like not deep in that space. And so to, to hear her perspective and then to provide the insight that I know, um, and share that with others is really fun. So where it's a, it's been a work in progress. I know that you, how long have you and Yvonne been doing this?
|
Sam: [58:04]
| We started in 2000, June, 2007. That's awesome. Yeah.
|
Emily: [58:09]
| You're an inspiration too to just you know to keep going and no i mean we're so impressed with you guys and and yeah it's really given us like a new like a you know a little bit more oomph to our work and love it and i have so many ideas for us so i can't wait to talk like offline about ways that we can promote our podcast in the snohomish county podcast network so excellent should be fun.
|
Sam: [58:33]
| You know i'm i'm, I'm very interested to hear what you have to say and figure out what we can do together. It should be fun. And yeah, very cool. So let me start with, as we dive into the newsier parts of things, we bumped into each other at No Kings yesterday. I heard someone say it was actually the third one, but this was the second one. I think the first one was labeled differently. It wasn't labeled No Kings. It was just No Kings, not New Kings. Wrong, wrong direction. No, but the first one was labeled something else and was a lot smaller. And they really got their speed with the first one back in June, the No Kings one. And now we've had the second one.
|
Sam: [59:19]
| What were your thoughts over? Brandy and I showed our faces at three of them yesterday. We sort of did. She was thinking about four, but we sort of ran out of steam. But we went to Monroe, Snohomish, and then Everett. Everett's where I ran into you. Just a quick report on those. Monroe and Snohomish, they didn't have rallies. They just had sort of people with their signs lining the streets at a designated location. Both of those, I'd say, had rallies. On the order of 500-ish people, so it was not bad. It was a good turnout. Snohomish felt like more people because it was crowded into a smaller area, whereas it was more spread out in Monroe. But I think if you actually counted, it would be about the same size of people in terms of number of people.
|
Sam: [1:00:13]
| And they were doing the signs. There were people in the inflatable costumes. There were people honking as they drove by. Lots of excitement there. And then Everett was the big one we went to. Like, obviously, you know, Seattle, New York, L.A. All had, you know, many more people than a place like Everett, Washington would have. But Everett seemed to have, I saw one estimate as around 4,000, but then it grew after that. So I'd say probably close. If the 4,000 was correct at the time I saw someone say that, then it was probably 5,000 by the time it was over because it grew after that. People kept arriving.
|
Sam: [1:00:52]
| And what were your thoughts, both of this one and also how it compared to June and what's going on? I know you were taking video.
|
Emily: [1:01:02]
| Yeah, I got some video. I always love bringing that, getting the signs and getting the cheers and everything. You know, I think I will say that I am somebody, and probably since the first women's march that I participated in in 2017, after he was elected to his first term. You know, that was, I remember feeling so good at that event. And I, almost like the way that they're telling you not to feel now. Right. Like, so I'm a little skeptical.
|
Sam: [1:01:35]
| Wait, go into that more. What are they telling you not to feel right now?
|
Emily: [1:01:39]
| Well, I mean, OK, so I think we you know, a lot of things that I see and I'm a little bit of a, rally skeptic skeptic, you know, because, you know, Ijeoma Alou, who's a wonderful writer from our area. After the first No Kings protest, she put out a post by The Conscious Citizen about how every successful protest movement has six core pillars. And if we have these, then we maximize our chance to win. One is clear, non-negotiable demands. Escalating pressure is number two. Three, non-cooperation. Four, narrative control. Five is safety and security. Six is long-term support and infrastructure but if you dive deep into some of those things like the no kings protest is misses.
|
Sam: [1:02:24]
| A lot of those.
|
Emily: [1:02:25]
| It misses a lot of it and and she even mentions like in the end to like where's this one hold on on here i just think what it was was i say she i'm not sure if she wrote this or someone else did and she just posted it are the organizer are the organizers building power with other grassroots organizations or encouraging investment into the democrat party True collective power comes from the people, not Republican or Democratic parties, who have both failed us. Effective movements should seek to build power structures away from what created the current problem. So the positive power building is collaboration with mutual aid groups, sharing alternatives and other collectives, promoting skill building and volunteering opportunities, providing leftist education, provide viable next steps for protesters. The power illusion is not having next steps for protesters, avoiding organizing with existing leftist groups, encouraging investment into the Democratic Party. And I go ahead.
|
Sam: [1:03:22]
| No, I'd say the first thing I'd say is like, I definitely agree that. If you're looking for sort of immediate change or action, a lot of the six points make sense. You know, you need the clear demands. You need the whatever. But I feel like that misinterprets what this is trying to do right now.
|
Sam: [1:03:52]
| The main thing I got, and I'll be honest, I felt this more in June than I did this time. But maybe that's just because of the way I personally interacted and I was sort of in and out more this time. But I think the biggest thing that I get out of this is not a, we're going to organize and take actions XYZ that will make a difference in the next six months or something. Because I think it's more recognizing you're not alone in a period of darkness where everybody sort of recognizes that the darkness is going to last a while. And we are in a defensive position where you're trying to minimize damage and protect yourselves as much as possible to sort of get through it. And then the pieces will be picked up afterwards. Like, I don't think because like, realistically, what is the alternative right now?
|
Emily: [1:05:00]
| Yeah.
|
Sam: [1:05:01]
| You know, are you really going to like, you know, and I have heard some people advocate like, oh, it's time for an actual revolution. Let's do a violent like overthrow of the government or let's actually do secession and have some states try to leave. Or, you know, let's let's do a military. Hopefully the military does a coup or whatever. My take on a lot of those things is. If you look at other places where those things have happened, you would not wish for them.
|
Emily: [1:05:37]
| Yeah.
|
Sam: [1:05:38]
| Because they, the amount, there's sort of an accelerationist tendency that says, and they actually call them accelerationists, and they're accelerationists on both the left and the right, where they're, you know, it all has to be burnt to the ground and we have to start over. So the sooner that happens, the better. But the problem is when you cross that Rubicon into those kinds of rapid change, the typical result is a generation or two of complete chaos, lots of people dying, the situation getting much worse before it gets better. And I'm not sure. I mean, the alternative is not great either. Like, you know, wait for the end of the Trump administration and hope that, you know, not enough damage has been done that you can do some sort of recovery afterwards. Hope hope that he dies and Vance isn't worse you know or or whatever like we're in a dark scenario right now but I feel like the the situations that really try to.
|
Sam: [1:06:54]
| Super rapid change risk making it worse as, as bad as things are, they risk making it worse. Now, even be beside that point though, I guess there's, you could have, you know, the specific set of demands that, okay, we want the Donald Trump administration to shut down ice.
|
Sam: [1:07:17]
| The Trump administration is not going to shut down ice. Maybe at some point in the future, if you do get it, Democrats back or something, you could get them to, but you're never going to get the Trump administration to do that. Like, regardless, like if, if you, you know, if you get the, the millions of people in the street demanding it, you know, they're far more likely to crack down on the million people in the street than to give into the demands. I mean, it's just the nature of the, the beast we have right now. So I don't know. I feel like, I think it's worthy in and of itself, like it would be great if these demonstrations could get more done. And, you know, I've also been skeptical of demonstrations all along, but I remember, especially at the first one of these, just coming out of it with a lot of positive feelings just from, oh my God, there's so many people driving by and honking. There's so many people waving their signs. And you get pictures from all around the country where even in the reddest parts of America, there are people coming out and doing this in places where you have to be brave to do so.
|
Sam: [1:08:31]
| And I know warm and fuzzies are warm and fuzzies. They're not necessarily making the change that you want, but I think they're still important.
|
Emily: [1:08:42]
| I think they're really important for community. Absolutely. And especially I feel like there was a lot of people at this last one that are coming into this newly coming in to to this that were that this.
|
Sam: [1:08:53]
| Was significantly bigger than last June.
|
Emily: [1:08:55]
| It was.
|
Sam: [1:08:56]
| And June was already big.
|
Emily: [1:08:58]
| Well, they said it was like, I don't know, they said upward like five million to eight point two. Right. But like last night I read that it was seven million, which was two million more than they had before.
|
Sam: [1:09:09]
| Yeah, on that, just the $7 million was the official estimate put out by the organizers. The best independent measurement of that that I've seen is from G. Elliott Morris. He used to be with The Economist, and he's now independent. But his estimate, having compiled spreadsheets from all kinds of volunteers, pictures from everywhere, their median estimate at this point is 5.2. So that's their best estimate. But it could be as high as 8.2. There's a lot of uncertainty in estimating crowds like this. So his take on the official $7 million estimate is that it's probably a little bit optimistic, but it's within the realm of possibility. And even if you're at the lower end, at 5.2, it's still likely the largest single-day protest event since 1970, at least.
|
Emily: [1:10:15]
| Yeah. I mean, it's and and I think, you know, with the clear non-negotiable demands and those pieces, it's really hard to do that when they're literally upending everything. So it's like, you know, everybody's coming with their ideas. It's really hard to have one demand. Also, it's.
|
Sam: [1:10:35]
| Pick any demand you want. It ends up being divisive and send some of the people away.
|
Emily: [1:10:40]
| Yeah.
|
Sam: [1:10:41]
| You know, like the idea of No Kings specifically is they're making a broad statement, about the value of democracy and the value of rule of law. And that's something that you can get lots of people behind. If you make it a very specific demand about a specific policy, you're going to be shedding supporters left and right. Like the whole idea is like, what is the broad coalition that you can make against the trend of things that's going on? One thing that my wife, Randy pointed out and a number of other people, then nodded their heads along, is at the Everett event, there was a speaker from the League of Women Voters. The League of Women Voters, for those who aren't aware, are notoriously neutral.
|
Emily: [1:11:34]
| Yes.
|
Sam: [1:11:35]
| Their whole thing is they are a nonpartisan organization. They organize, like, debates between candidates. They organize voter registration drives. But they are meticulously neutral. I mean, they've got nonprofit status that requires that. But even aside that, their whole philosophy is we don't take sides. They spoke at this event because this was not a specific anti-administration thing. This was not a pro-Democrat, anti-Republican event. It was a pro-democracy event. And so even somebody like the League of Women Voters could get behind this and have a speaker there and that kind of stuff. Whereas, you know, if you made it a very specific, let's say, you know, an anti-ICE demonstration that was like, we have to stop the, you know, we have to stop the abuses of ICE. We need to stop deporting people. We need to reform our immigration laws and do X, Y, Z, amnesty for people who've been here a while, blah, blah, blah. You would not get anywhere near the size that you got with No Kings as it is. I'd like to think you would because I agree with all those things, but the reality is you would lose a bunch of people who could get behind No Kings but couldn't get behind all of the specifics of detailed proposals.
|
Emily: [1:13:02]
| Yeah. Well, you know, just going back to like being at that first Women's March and, you know, I guess I'm kind of tired and I'm of the mind, and I hate to say this, and I understand that if there was violent protests, you know, that wouldn't serve anything as either. But I do think that something needs to break. And I do think that part of the problem, which is what Ijeoma always talks about, too, which I myself have a hard time, like, really, I would say, personally, actually committing to it on a full scale, because capitalism is just so ingrained in everything. And it's either like you survive right now or you don't, you know, because you have to live in this space. Like we're talking about Slack and the fact that you have to you're just going to use it. I was, you know, people were talking about boycotting Costco for not having Plan B and Mifepristone.
|
Emily: [1:13:52]
| But it's like the reality is, is that people just aren't going to do that. I mean, you already have a hard enough time, like getting your basic needs, you know, without going on Amazon. And, you know, you try your best to do that. But I truly do believe that something needs to break. And I am at a point, you know, you can put this out there, but I'm like, if we're not burning something down at this point, like, I'm not really sure what we're doing. And I hate, I hate admitting that. I don't hate admitting that, but... I just get tired. And I think that's another reason that I couldn't do the legislature anymore, too, because I felt so restricted in that space by everything else that I said, I need to be someone who's poking people from the outside and have that freedom to do it and be the supporter where I can and do all of that stuff. But I I one thing that I really appreciated about the protest or about the rally was that because it wasn't a protest. I mean, at the end of the day, like, you know, it wasn't it was community building. Absolutely. But the no one gave a shit about their signs. And I mean, like design wise, which I loved. There was I mean, that's what I appreciated. It was like, you know.
|
Sam: [1:15:06]
| Like people would throw together whatever that they could do quickly. They make a statement without worrying like, oh, does it have to look perfect?
|
Emily: [1:15:12]
| Yeah, there was that the perfectionism on that was gone. Nobody cared. I did not see any like perfect signs. I love that. Like, why spend your time on that? That is just a waste. I will tell you that I was there purely to hand out cards for the Washington Institute for a Democratic Future. And I wanted to do that because I wanted to make sure that we're doing that part that's long term support and infrastructure, that we're getting people involved and that we We are, you know, doing that education and bringing people to the table and talking about the different groups. I signed up for the Democratic Socialist newsletter, you know, and grabbed a few things from their table so that I could use that and speak to like the big tent that we have, you know, in the Democratic Party. And then the thing that makes me laugh and because and I'm going to take credit for this too. Bob Ferguson was there. I talked to one of the organizers earlier, Governor Bob Ferguson.
|
Sam: [1:16:07]
| Washington for anybody who's not familiar with the name.
|
Emily: [1:16:09]
| What?
|
Sam: [1:16:10]
| I was just telling people who aren't in Washington state, that's our governor.
|
Emily: [1:16:14]
| Yeah, yeah. Our governor, Bob Ferguson, was there. The amount of... Time he has been spending in Snohomish County is almost like, why are you so obsessed with us? I'm not really sure. And I'm going to say it's because Sammy and I have been dragging him through the news. But I saw an organizer when I was there that I've known for a while. And actually, I was with your spouse.
|
Emily: [1:16:37]
| And she's like, we have a special surprise. A special surprise is coming. I'm like, oh, what could it be? And I had left before the speeches started to go and sign wave on Broadway for a while. And I was like, oh, it was Governor Ferguson coming again. He came to the gala that we had a couple, maybe like a month ago, the Snohomish County Democrats gala. And there was no need for our attorney general, our treasurer, our state treasurer, and him to be there. And his speech was exactly the same, I think, from what I've seen. But it makes me laugh that he I'm just curious what the what the you know so much time in Snohomish County and why and probably because Seattleites dislike him even more right now for his unwillingness and side note for people the Cascade PBS did a three-episode podcast called Ferguson versus everyone, which he did not comment on. But they interviewed Rep. Corey, who was Republican in the statehouse, the minority leader. And then the next episode, they interviewed Senator Jamie Peterson, Democratic leader. And then they interviewed media in the third episode, which was Jerry Kornfield from the Washington Standard, Axios, and just how he hasn't.
|
Emily: [1:18:01]
| He won't talk to the media. He doesn't have the relationship that other past governors have had with the media and how interesting it is. So it's been pretty fascinating to watch that happen. And I'm really curious why he's there. But I mean, I live...
|
Sam: [1:18:18]
| Most people wouldn't complain if the governor was giving them more attention. Lots of people complain that they don't get enough. I'm not complaining.
|
Emily: [1:18:26]
| I'm just like, what's your angle here, buddy? Like, I mean, and for him to like, you know, I think my our biggest complaint, though, too, my biggest complaint is that he cut eight million dollars from the state budget, along with the this with our legislators for Planned Parenthood and abortion resources. And then basically made us eat the shit by then moving money from the health care account to backfill what the Supreme Court decision had done, which was, you know, end funding to Planned Parenthood and other abortion related services and health care related services. And then, you know, Planned Parenthood and all of these other groups had to be like, yay, thank you. But after you've just taken the money away and then he uses that as his, look what I've done. He literally brought it up at the Snohomish County Dems Gala. And I was sitting there being like, do not say that. Do not use that as you're like, look what I've done. And he did it. And I was like, how dare you? I just, I can't, I can't stand that. And we need.
|
Emily: [1:19:34]
| I think we're going to, and for those who don't know in Washington, we have really regressive taxes here. So nobody likes taxes already, but when they're super regressive and they're not progressive taxes like income tax that can actually go after people with money and not inequitably harm people that do not have money, I think it's going to end up creating a lot of problems for our state in the future and harms this bubble of this progressive bubble that we have here and this democratic bubble that we have here and the wins that we've had. So it's like, it's very concerning to me. Like the Institute for a Democratic Future came about in the 1997 when we had a red wave in Washington to make sure that we had people coming into the space and could build an ecosystem. And I think that that threatens like that threatens democratic policies. It threatens good governance. And I don't want to see that happen. So, you know, the result was that we ended up passing more harmful regressive taxes. And I don't think that's good for Democrats. And I don't think that that that's good for Washington overall. So it's been really interesting to see. I was not I was always a Bob Ferguson skeptic, but it's just continues. Sorry, I went on a tangent, but I think it's really funny that he showed up. I can't.
|
Sam: [1:20:48]
| Yeah, no, that and I know like I know from talking to my wife that they were under last session all kinds of constraints that were really tough. Like there were no good choices. It was picking between the bad choices. And I know there was a lot of frustration that Governor Ferguson was making the wrong choices in terms of like, yeah, yeah, you have a whole bunch of bad options, but you don't have to pick the worst one.
|
Emily: [1:21:16]
| You know, I know you can tell all of our legislators get a little defensive, you know, But I know what it's like. You're you know, you're one of many. You're one of one hundred and forty nine, you know, and when the governor tells you that he's going to veto everything, you're like, what do we do with that? You know, what do we do with that? But no one's hanging with them.
|
Sam: [1:21:40]
| So getting back to the marches or the no king stuff for a second, you had mentioned in passing sort of like actually making these violent, burning things down probably wouldn't help. I'd say one of the things that has stood out and one of those, starting with Portland, but also with all of these on the no king that I've seen nationwide at this point is the distinct... Well, look, the bottom line, the Trump administration has been looking for an excuse to escalate from the beginning. Like when they are putting troops into Portland or troops into Chicago or whatever, it is almost palpable how they hope there ends up being violence and they can use that as the excuse for a crackdown. And instead people are showing up in their inflatable animal costumes dancing and singing and just being ridiculous which in turn makes them look ridiculous because they are they you've got all these armed people standing around with big big guns facing off against inflatable frogs and chickens and such and they just look stupid and i think this is one of the keys actually that you know.
|
Sam: [1:23:06]
| People have been listening straight through the election know I've said this over and over again and are sick of it. But like, I feel like the one point where the Harris campaign was really, hitting all cylinders and working its best, and it also lines up with when they were doing the best in the polling in my election graphs analysis, was when they were mocking relentlessly. And this started with walls but they were doing it more generally their social media team was doing it harris even participated a little bit herself they were mocking relentlessly and that is something that all the way back to 2015 when trump first decided he was going to run for president has had you know.
|
Sam: [1:23:58]
| Has hit the hardest and like, and it fits with his narcissistic personality disorder too. Like if you treat them as a threat that gives them energy and there's no question, Trump is a threat, but when you treat them that way and where you act scared and when you say they're, you know, they're, they're going to destroy the Republic, they're super consequential. This is the end of democracy, blah, blah, blah. That only gives them energy and makes them seem strong. But when you mock them and belittle them, A, it really gets under their skins and they tend to react in ways that makes them look even worse. And two, it takes away their power and makes them look silly. And the people who are sort of marginal in terms of their ability, you know, how much they're attracted to them. They like the strength. They like the certainty. They like that kind of thing. And you can argue about whether that's really something people should be attracted to in politicians, but they are lots of people are, and this pierces that. And I, I, I.
|
Sam: [1:25:13]
| I get so mad thinking about the Harris campaign when they pivoted away from the mocking and pivoted hard into they're a threat. You have to vote for us because they're a threat. And immediately the polls started dropping. I mean, the mocking works. And so I am I like the fact that one of the things, you know, like I said, it spread from Portland. The inflatable costumes were everywhere at these things yesterday all over the country so many costumes um there there i've seen that there are people who have been set up in the bigger cities who are just they're taking donations of the inflatable costumes they're taking monetary donations they're just buying costumes and have i'm.
|
Emily: [1:26:01]
| Getting to the inflatable costume market.
|
Sam: [1:26:03]
| And have racks of them to give out for free for people who want the inflatable costumes i saw a tiktok from somebody who's an employee at a spirit halloween who's like, they're just they're buying us out of everything we have you know yeah and.
|
Emily: [1:26:20]
| I saw a tiktok that called it you know tactical frivolity and it's been used over time you know the mocking is important i mean what gavin newsom and his and i say not gavin newsom i'm talking about his team and much smarter people than Gavin Newsom.
|
Sam: [1:26:35]
| Are doing.
|
Emily: [1:26:36]
| I mean, it does work and it does make people mad. And I noticed that too. Like, you know, I used to, you know, people would go out, trolls, you know, they used to affect me, but I don't let that affect me anymore. I'm like, my own party can be mean to me all the time. So go ahead. And it does, it drives people nuts. So when, you know, Sammy and I have the audacity to like write something, you know, online that, you know, people will, I either ignore it or I just hammer down even harder. Right. You know, like, yeah, keep going. Let it go. Doesn't hurt me. And it drives people nuts. And we, you know, you see that everywhere. I used to do that to friends. Like, when I was younger, like, I had a friend who... And I'll laugh about this, but, you know, she started dating a guy that I was dating behind my back and all that stuff. And I just was like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm fine. Like, whatever. Well, it's OK. You know, and she just got so mad that I didn't respond, you know, that I wouldn't be mad at her, that I just wouldn't go after it. And to this day, she's like, oh, that made me so angry. And I'm like, yep, I knew what I was doing.
|
Sam: [1:27:39]
| And i think here like this is this is also the i i think you know for there again you started with some legitimate criticisms of like the no kings approach i think the power of the no kings approach is that you show you show the large numbers you show the disdain like because the vibe of this is not fear. The vibe of this is not respect. This is all about mocking and disdain. And we are not giving like, if you look at Donald Trump and his sort of psychological profile, you know, and, and, you know, people have done these like armchair psychoanalysis stuff, but But it really seems like his entire life is about craving mainstream respect and, And even as fucking president of the United States, he cannot get it.
|
Sam: [1:28:45]
| You know, and that drives him nuts. And I'm not saying that the purpose of demonstrations like this should be to piss off Donald Trump that no, but it doesn't hurt. And I think like, if you are going to be, I know there's a lot of advice in terms of like, you know, let's produce a positive vision and, oh, let's concentrate on, you know, meat and potato kitchen issues and all this kind of stuff. And some of that is valid, but I think it is very important as well to sort of pierce the mystique of the strong, powerful leader and instead be, like to use Walls' term, they're weird. They're a bunch of weirdo freaks who are obsessed about things that no healthy person should be obsessed about and pierce that veil, make them unattractive in that way. And at the same time, you can talk policy. I disagree with the ones who are just like, it's the economy, stupid. Only talk about the economy. Only talk about inflation or whatever, because I feel strongly that, you know, we should not be throwing vulnerable populations under the bus in order to try to win a mythical median voter who's probably not going to support you anyway. And instead, like...
|
Sam: [1:30:15]
| People sense inauthenticity from a mile away and people sense your conviction. Like, even if they don't fully agree with you, they respect if you have convictions and stick to them. And I feel that's like, when I'm looking around for like, who do I want to be leading over the next few years on the non-Trump, non-Republican side? Like, I want somebody who's unafraid to stand up for what they believe in and goes strongly for it and isn't like reading the polls and trying to compromise and trying to win over that medium voter by adjusting their positions wherever. And so I find myself, like, being, like, you know, historically, like, you know, the AOCs of the world I have disagreed with on lots of things policy-wise. Mamdani in New York as well, those kinds of things. I probably am not as far left as they are on a bunch of positions. But you get that feeling of, like...
|
Sam: [1:31:33]
| They really believe something and they're going after it and they're not adjusting what they're saying based on what they think will win. And that, that gains a lot of respect. And, you know, whereas some others, you know, like Newsom, okay, he did some good clap back at Donald Trump. And I actually enjoyed like some of what you said, like is probably actually his social media team, not I even saw some interviews where he explicitly acknowledged, like, I wasn't sure about some of this stuff, but they said do it, and it seems to be working, you know.
|
Sam: [1:32:12]
| But at the same time, on actual positions, he's not that great. And he's and he's waffled on all kinds of things. And he's been like, oh, let's let's move. Let's say this thing about trans issues, because like that's a divisive issue. And I can get like people to to support me. And, you know, where where where are the people who really care about that issue going to go? They're not going to vote for the Republicans. So I can throw them away and worry about getting the person who's wishy washy on that issue. That's not the right way to go. The right way.
|
Emily: [1:32:45]
| The idea of us moving to the center just pulls us further right. It pulls us further backwards. You know, that's not a good excuse.
|
Sam: [1:32:53]
| And it's also not believable. I mean, you certainly do have some middle of the road politicians who actually believe that. But for the most part, the sense that comes out of the politicians who seem to be trying to hold that space and trying to go after the middle is that they're pandering. And, you know, you have to come from a position of, no, no, no, I believe this and I'm going to convince you that I'm right, or at least convince you that you should respect my beliefs on this. Not, oh, oh, oh, wait, like, this is pulling sort of wishy-washy, so like, I'll make sure my position is wishy-washy too. And also what's really frustrating about that is you see some of these politicians who are trying to grab that center space who are actually going against issues that actually do poll at 60, 70, 80 percent approval. And they still are like, oh, well, I won't support that because it's viewed as radical. Well, have a spine. I don't know. Sorry. Sorry, I ranted for a while. Your turn.
|
Emily: [1:34:12]
| No, I love it. Hey, you're the Yvonne. I love it. I love you, Yvonne. I absolutely do. Can I share? I had a friend that posted this chart. What do you call those? Oh, my God, I'm embarrassed.
|
Sam: [1:34:30]
| Flow chart?
|
Emily: [1:34:30]
| The circuit charts.
|
Sam: [1:34:31]
| Oh, pie chart. Oh, Venn diagram.
|
Emily: [1:34:34]
| Venn diagram. There you go. So it has conservatives at the top. Yes. And then it has leftists on the left, and then it has liberals on the right. And it says, and it's like for people that need to understand this. And in the middle, conservatives can't tell leftists and liberals apart. And underneath there, there's likes guns, hates leftists, likes capitalism. Leftists don't bother telling conservatives and liberals apart. Also, likes guns is like the crossover, hates leftists, hates Trump. And then liberals think leftists and conservatives are equally bad. And they're likes capitalism, hate leftists, and hates Trump. Like it was it's a I'll share it with you. I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but yeah, we don't like leftists don't bother telling.
|
Sam: [1:35:21]
| Well, and this actually is something that like I I have been following this sort of I'm going to call it a change in nomenclature because like I'm old here.
|
Emily: [1:35:33]
| It is.
|
Sam: [1:35:34]
| You know, because this usage of the terms is actually relatively new to me. Right. It is. It's new. It's hard. And I mean, like, the... The... I don't want to fall right into don't distinguish between left and liberal, but like they used to be synonyms, you know, at one point they were cinnamon, synonyms, cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon toast crunch.
|
Emily: [1:36:02]
| I couldn't even remember what a Venn diagram was.
|
Sam: [1:36:05]
| But no, like there, there was, there were certainly things that were left of liberal, like the socialists are left of liberal, the communists are left of liberal, et cetera. But liberal was left. And so I think this, it does reflect that there are certainly some things like starting with the Clinton administration had this triangulation strategy where they intentionally did move to the center a little bit in order to win. And so there is a more nuanced breakdown that you can make sort of dividing up the non-right-wing part of the spectrum into bits. And you always have like, you know, I've seen diagrams going back decades comparing like sort of the U.S. Political spectrum to the international political spectrum, where the Democrats that were determined, you know, viewed to be the left in the U.S. Were in the center internationally. And the entire U.S. Political spectrum was off to the right, you know. So you definitely see that. But I think some of the distinctions that are being made, I don't know, I feel like.
|
Sam: [1:37:24]
| What's the right way to put this? I think certainly you've got your mainstream Democrats who absolutely are acting like they see those further left to them as an enemy just as much as the right. And I think that's problematic that they do that. I also see the folks that are further left that see, you know, I go back to the people who are like, you know, Harris versus Trump is picking, you know, the best of two evils, and I'm not going to make that choice. And I'm either not going to vote, or I'm, you know, going to vote, do some protest vote. That's not helpful either. You know, there's a reality of what our system looks like. And, you know, if you are further left than Biden and Harris, your best chance of getting policies that you like was still to support Biden and Harris. And, you know, I remember when I was young and stupid, like, you know, telling a friend of mine, like I was at the time I was defending the idea of voting for a libertarian action.
|
Emily: [1:38:45]
| You're one of those.
|
Sam: [1:38:47]
| I was one of those. I have moved on. But, you know, and saying you don't get bonus points for picking the winner. You know, vote for the person who you like the best, who you're most aligned with, even if it's somebody who's not going to win at all. That's the argument I made, like, in my 20s. And I will happily say now I was wrong. You know, there is a, in certain circumstances, you can get away with that. Like, you know, given the way our system works, if you're not in a swing state, you can do your little protest votes and it's not going to hurt anybody. Like here in Washington state, it was clear the Democrat was going to win. You can do your protest vote, whatever. It does affect the popular vote, which, you know, is not how we pick like presidents, but it is, it matters to bragging rights. Like Donald Trump won the popular vote this time. you know? And, but the way our system works is structured so that, It really is a two party system. You really are. And you by sitting on the sidelines, by not voting, by voting for protest candidates, if you are in a place that has a competitive race, that can throw the election to somebody you like less.
|
Emily: [1:40:06]
| And for those who think that way, they should be advocating for rank choice voting. Like it's it should so much be issue based at this point. We should be doing that. because you don't think anyone knows what they are anymore.
|
Sam: [1:40:20]
| Yeah, I mean, I actually, I like rank choice voting. I like various forms of instant primaries and runoffs. I actually like how Washington State has the jungle primary with all the parties together in the first round of primary. I like a lot of those things. And voting reforms at the national level are very, very hard and certainly in this environment are not going to happen. And so, yeah, I would get rid of the Electoral College, even though I run a website that would not exist without an electoral college and I have a lot of fun with every four years. But I'd get rid of the electoral college. I would reform the Senate in a variety of ways or get rid of it. I would increase the size of the House. I would do all kinds of stuff. I like ranked choice voting wherever it appears. There's all kinds of things that you could potentially do. But in the absence of those things, Yes, advocate for all those things. In the absence of those things, you have to make decisions that make sense in the system you actually have.
|
Emily: [1:41:19]
| 100%. Well, and I mean, the reality is you have a legislature. I was trying to show my husband, too, and we went to the governor's ball like eight years ago or whatever, or more than that. What was eight years ago? I said the structure of the building is literally created for two parties. Like there's no place for that other person to go. That's why they say the independent who caucuses with the Democrats or caucuses with the Republicans, because there's really nowhere else for you to go. And that's not great. But I do think we're in the midst of a real change in our parties. I mean, it's going to be a slow process, but I do think we are experiencing that where our parties are going to look extremely different. I had a friend who is a political consultant and he did a survey and surprisingly more people in that survey like progressive was a like what where do you fall and progressive was on the the same line as liberal and I was like what do people think is different about that though necessarily like I just I was like I don't even know I know what I think but I don't know what other people think too when they're responding to that question. Because sometimes when the.
|
Emily: [1:42:36]
| Republican Party is calling, you know, this the stupid libs, you know, some people don't even want to be associated with that terminology, whereas there's a lot of like moderate Democrats, I feel. And I say I'm moderate is too nice. I think it's stupid. But there's a lot of Democrats that do still think that they're liberal.
|
Sam: [1:42:53]
| Well, yeah, no, there was, I remember on this show, like in the sort of excitement of the Obama years, talking about looking forward to the time when the Republican Party would inevitably die off based on demographic techniques. And the Democratic Party could split up and we could have our new two parties would essentially be, you know, well, at that time, I would have said the Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton wings of the Democratic Party would become the two major parties and the Republicans would die off. Instead, of course, we have had, you know, the backlash to Obama that strengthened the right and gave us Donald Trump. Do I feel like eventually, inevitably, that will lose out? Yes. But unfortunately, my view of eventually has moved from, you know, the foreseeable future to, you know, maybe my grandkids will live to see it, you know, because generally speaking, when we've had this kind of backlash, you know, you don't recover it for it for 50 years.
|
Emily: [1:44:11]
| Yeah.
|
Sam: [1:44:12]
| You know, it takes a long time just to get back to where you were, let alone make future progress on top of that. And, you know, and it's a big fight. And would I rather have lived in a world where, you know, I mean, it would have taken a hair of a difference for Hillary Clinton to have won. Now, I've said before, my prediction was if Hillary Clinton had won, one, she probably would have been a one-term president because you don't usually get more than three, a single party in a row. But I don't think what you would have gotten after Hillary Clinton would still have been Donald Trump. There might've been a chance for an old school Republican being next instead. And for you to hang on to that a little while longer, maybe not, you know, there was a huge backlash to a black president. There probably would have been an even worse one for a woman president. Who knows?
|
Emily: [1:45:11]
| That's why I was so scared when, I mean, because obviously I was a Hillary supporter at the time. I wanted to see the first female president and I was a Kamala supporter, but I even, I wrote a blog like you. I haven't written in my blog for a long time, but my fear around Kamala jumping into that because they basically just threw the, Biden was running. And we've been running the same campaign that they've been running since Obama and that worked in 2008, but it's not going to work today. And so it's, it was hard to see that happen. And I knew she wasn't going to.
|
Sam: [1:45:50]
| I think, you know, I've said before on the show, and Yvonne has disagreed with me sometimes where we were in September, she had a good shot. The the the mocking was working she had momentum and then they made some strategic changes in direction and it was it deteriorated from then on out and and by by the time we got to election day the odds that i had on election graphs were roughly a two-thirds chance of trump winning and one-third chance of her winning, and we got what we got, you know?
|
Emily: [1:46:30]
| Yeah. I think where she lost it, I mean, I watched in a room when we were watching her acceptance of the Democratic nomination at the DNC, and when she brought up Gaza and Israel, I was like, we're fucked. Like, that, because I don't know why they included that. I don't know why. I mean, yeah, even— I saw people go, like, cringe or just get angry in a room.
|
Sam: [1:46:56]
| I mean, this is an area where the entire Democratic leadership has been well behind the Democratic voters in terms of their shift, in terms of thoughts on issues. Israel, the Palestinians, et cetera. And Joe Biden couldn't keep up and Harris wasn't willing to make distance between her and Biden on that. I'm not sure. Like if given her own druthers completely, she might have, I don't know, but she's under the circumstances. She wasn't willing. She felt like she had to do that. She felt like, and look, there were, there are trade-offs here. And we talked on this show about it a number of times. If Harris had come out full-throated, or Biden before, with a, Israel, you've gone too far, you need to stop, you know, whatever, and just been full-throated in terms of that, would she gain more people than she lost? I think that's actually an open question, but it would appear honest and straightforward. Like I was saying earlier, like have a position and really own it.
|
Sam: [1:48:15]
| What they tried to do was keep the standard pro-Israel position, say a few things about the Palestinian plight, but don't make any changes on it. It sort of gave the impression of someone who very consciously was trying to weigh the polls and try to figure out the right answer that would let them keep some of the never Trump Republicans, but not, you know, not lose them too much on the other side and was really banging on the people who really have the strong line. Position on the left aren't have nowhere else to go so we you know all of that and and it just doesn't work and and you know, Even staying completely silent would have been better, although that wouldn't be good either. That wouldn't be good either, but it would have been better than the approach they took. But at least that's my opinion.
|
Sam: [1:49:23]
| Maybe they did have detailed polling that if Harris had gone there, it would have lost her an additional 2% to 3%. But I think you can't make decisions that way. You can't make decisions by trying to craft your position to the current public opinion. The way you win is you stake out a position and you defend it vigorously. People respect that.
|
Emily: [1:49:51]
| Yeah. We needed that authenticity, not going to the polls. I think, you know, people say that on the, you know, mega side all the time. They're like, oh, I don't know. He's just authentic, you know, but I do think that that is.
|
Sam: [1:50:03]
| And of course, like that's so misguided. He says what he means. No, he lies all the time.
|
Emily: [1:50:08]
| Yeah, exactly. But he does say the racist things that he means. Yes, yes.
|
Sam: [1:50:13]
| Well, and that's what they really mean. That's what they, he's not afraid to be racist. That's what they really mean. Lots of.
|
Emily: [1:50:21]
| But I, you know, I have some friends that are like on the conservative side that I, and I say, you know, that it shocks me sometimes that they're there. But, you know, as a legislator, oftentimes they told me and things that I, you know, got crap for a lot from my own party or from, you know, my other people. But they said, you said what you you. Mean and you held to that and and and they said that that mattered to me and that and and so i always have said like the authenticity piece and you don't have to meet everyone's needs but people do appreciate that you you know have an opinion stand up for it so i feel like yeah they were never i think for the harris campaign and for you know the biden i'm gonna call them the same thing because there was no way to change what that looked like they they should have stayed silent if they because they weren't going to go the other way. They just weren't going to do that. And I've seen the Charlie. Sorry, my dog is making weird noises.
|
Sam: [1:51:17]
| And I feel that's the kind of thing where, honestly, if we had had a Harris administration and she was actually president and could move out from Joe Biden's shadow, like during the campaign, she was like, no daylight, no daylight, because Biden was pressuring her. No daylight, no daylight. And for whatever reason, she decided submitting to that was the thing she had to do. I think if she actually become president, she probably would have moved on that issue, but she didn't feel like she could during the campaign.
|
Emily: [1:51:44]
| Yeah, I think she felt very stuck in that space. And I think it was a group of people that were running campaigns. And no offense to all of these wonderful people. But I often listen to the crooked media folks, too, which are all like former Biden folks, or sorry, former Obama folks. And sometimes I have to, I have to just put, I push back in my head because I like, I don't actually go out on a limb and tell them, but I'm like, every, so much of what you say is just so rooted in this. And I think, you know, to go back to everything, the problem is, is that we're in this system and the system has to break. And that's why I say like, I, I, it does need to break because what does it look like in 2028? You know, when we, okay, we've got Donald Trump out. I don't think anyone's going to be happy. I think part of the reason that we're here is that the capitulation and all of that stuff, even when Democrats were in charge, that they the system has let so many people down. Right.
|
Sam: [1:52:45]
| And one thing I one thing I saw someone is probably on TikTok give a summary of was if you look at. Democratic societies that have had authoritarian backsliding and then start to recover from it, there are a number of options, and he laid out four or five of them that I'm not going to remember. However, the most common by far is that you sort of get back to something with a lot of the trappings of democracy. But in fact, the opposition party that takes over again actually takes advantage of the additional authoritarianism that was given to them. And so you don't get back to where you were before. That just doesn't happen.
|
Sam: [1:53:30]
| One of the rarest outcomes, but the one that in the end leads to the most positive results, is when you actually end up essentially scrapping the system. You write a new constitution, you start a new government with new rules that explicitly fixes the problems that led to the authoritarian backsliding in the first place. But they pointed out that that is very rare, and what it requires is a highly unified, highly organized, pro-democracy opposition who is committed to those principles above and beyond any conflicts they have amongst themselves, which we don't have right now.
|
Emily: [1:54:19]
| We don't. No. And it's it's what needs to happen, I think, because I just think we're just going to repeat this over and over again. I, you know, I.
|
Sam: [1:54:31]
| Yeah. And like I said earlier in the podcast, we're in a dark time and I feel like we have to do everything we can to fight it. But unfortunately, it's going to get worse before it gets better and it's going to last a long time.
|
Emily: [1:54:45]
| Yeah. How long do you think? Oh, go ahead. Finish, finish.
|
Sam: [1:54:48]
| I would love to say, you know, Democrats win in 2026, start doing some, you know, investigations and stuff. Democrats win in 2028. And whoever becomes president aggressively reforms, like, you know, expands the Supreme Court, adds in new states, does whatever is necessary, passes laws to not, you know, to undo gerrymandering and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
|
Sam: [1:55:20]
| I want that to happen. I feel like it's unlikely. I feel like it's more likely that, like I said, with this kind of backsliding, when it happened after Reconstruction, after the Civil War, we essentially had 50 to 80 years before we had the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s get us back to somewhat where we were right after Reconstruction. And, I've said many times before on here as well, I prefer to be pessimistic and then get surprised by things that happen that are good than to be optimistic and then be constantly disappointed. So I take the pessimistic view. I think we're in for a generation or two of darkness. And it looks like the trends are worldwide, not just the U.S., where, you know, things are going to be pretty grim until they get better. Now, to be clear on pretty grim, even in authoritarian societies, the vast majority of people go about their daily lives and don't notice anything, you know, and don't care. But the vulnerable populations suffer mightily during those periods, and even the people who are going about their lives aren't doing as well as they could otherwise. And but yeah i'm pessimistic but i hope i am wrong.
|
Emily: [1:56:47]
| I know what's your take and then we need.
|
Sam: [1:56:50]
| To wrap up.
|
Emily: [1:56:50]
| Oh i'm exactly with you like with you i'm i think people call me wixana like the pollyanna thing like i'm there i i have like a i'm an optimistic person in the face of.
|
Emily: [1:57:05]
| Badness. Like I know it's there and I'm just like, yep, I'm doing fine because I have to be. And I mean, I'm constantly sitting there being like, I'm not going to complain here in the United States. I will complain, but I'm not going to complain on the big scheme of things because I'm not trying to spend my day trying to find food for my kids and potentially be shot trying to get soup. So I'm an optimist in that sense, but I'm with you. I don't think it's ever really been that good. And for us to sit and pretend as if everything, you know, we will get to a point where it's better like soon or that an election is going to change, you know, the system. I don't think that's going to happen. The election is not going to change the system. We have to change the system and that's going to take a lot longer. And hopefully we can find people that can slowly move us into, like you said, a better place through our democracy and strengthen that. So, yeah, We didn't get to anything else, but I am curious. Do you think the government shutdown is going to be over soon? Because me either. Someone said, we're going on a trip, you know, November 13th to Arizona for the Institute for a Democratic Future. And I'm like, I don't even know if we'll make it there. And someone's like, oh, it'll be over by then. And I'm like, I don't think so. Yeah.
|
Sam: [1:58:22]
| I don't think it'll be over, but I think you'll probably be able to make your trip just fine. They will. I think the things that need to stay open for day to day stuff will stay open. You know, like, you know, I made my trip to Toronto. It was only a few days into the shutdown. But if anything, it was smoother than my last international trip.
|
Emily: [1:58:44]
| Yeah, I heard you say that. Yeah, it sounded good.
|
Sam: [1:58:46]
| Yeah. And I think things will start to deteriorate over time and people will start to feel it. But I, I think that Trump's approach, I think I said this a couple of shows ago, will be sold to selectively reopen the things that are causing pain, even if he does not actually have the legal authority to do so. And do that like he does with everything else is who's going to stop me. Like he already announced he's like paying the military. He has no legal authority to pay the military.
|
Emily: [1:59:24]
| It's like, okay.
|
Sam: [1:59:25]
| He's going to either. And he's going to anyway. He announced some other program that he was going to keep running by reusing tariff money. He has no legal authority to do that either. He's going to anyway. And, you know, this is one of those things that puts the folks like the Democrats in a Catch-22 as well. Like, you know, not that the courts are fast on any of these things, but like if if they go to court saying, no, you can't pay the military, that doesn't look good. No, no. You can't keep this critical program open because you don't have the legal authority. One of the things that I characterize the whole pro-democracy take during the campaign is fundamentally for most people that boils down to you're arguing about esoteric process issues. You're arguing about are you following the right procedure to do whatever. We don't care about the right procedure. We care about the result. Now, I'm one who thinks having the right procedure actually matters quite a bit. But for the most part, that is an argument that does not win people over. Most people only care about the results. So I think Donald Trump is going to do like, he's going to keep as much shut as he can. He's going to use the opportunity to continue to shut down more things. But for any particular thing that starts becoming painful, that he starts getting flack over, he'll just reopen it.
|
Emily: [2:00:50]
| Yeah.
|
Sam: [2:00:51]
| Whether or not he has the legal authority to do it. You know?
|
Emily: [2:00:54]
| Exactly. Well, and I'm glad that Democrats are holding out. I mean, they should for the ACA subsidies. They absolutely should. We're like definitely at a catch 22. And Lisa Murkowski, you know, she even said she understands. She's a Republican from Alaska. She's like, why would we trust that when you, you know, our budget director is just going to cut things anyways or do whatever the heck you want? So like what reason do we have to trust that?
|
Sam: [2:01:20]
| And for the moment, the politics on both sides favors keeping it shut. Like, yeah, you know, it's better for the Republicans to keep it shut. It's better for the Democrats to keep it shut. And as long as that's true, it's not going to reopen. I mean, people have pointed out that the they could use the nuclear option in the Senate and reopen it tomorrow with Republican votes only if they wanted to. But there's not a political incentive for them to do so.
|
Emily: [2:01:47]
| So anyway, yeah, for sure.
|
Sam: [2:01:48]
| We should wrap up.
|
Emily: [2:01:50]
| We got through so much news.
|
Sam: [2:01:52]
| I promised you you'd be done by now, but... Okay.
|
Emily: [2:01:55]
| Well, that was my bad. I had to bring up more.
|
Sam: [2:01:57]
| That's okay. That's okay. Let's wrap it up. I'll say the things I usually say at the end. Go to curmudgeons-corner.com. You can find all the ways to contact us. Oh, do you want to give any social media contacts for you? Anything?
|
Emily: [2:02:11]
| Oh, yeah. Well, the UMSUR podcast. We're on Instagram, TikTok, and that's it because we don't need to be anywhere else.
|
Sam: [2:02:18]
| And the podcast itself, find it in any podcast player you like.
|
Emily: [2:02:21]
| Any podcast player, we're at Transistor where you can find everything.
|
Sam: [2:02:25]
| Search for UMSUR in your podcast player of choice. You'll find it. Google it. You'll find it right away. And it's a lot of fun. I've listened to the last few episodes and a smattering earlier than that. I was going to ask you about that. On a recent podcast that I listened on the plane flight back from Toronto a couple weeks ago, Emily mentioned that she actually lost some business at her business because of the Charlie Kirk stuff. That was very interesting. Go back and listen to her episode on that because I didn't get a chance to ask about it here. And like I said, in the most recent episode that's out right now, she talked about us at the beginning. Her and Sammy talked about us.
|
Emily: [2:03:06]
| Sometimes I get things wrong, so I'll have to do some corrections, but I'm an armchair expert.
|
Sam: [2:03:13]
| Your main theme in the current episode was the RFK autism stuff, right?
|
Emily: [2:03:20]
| Yeah.
|
Sam: [2:03:20]
| Which is definitely an area of interest. You know, Yvonne, myself, both of our kids are all on the spectrum. And so a topic of interest, check them out. Okay. For us, conventions-corner.com, you can find our old episodes, our archives, our transcripts, all the ways to contact us. A link to our Patreon, which Emily just joined. Thank you very much. As mentioned at various levels, we'll mention you on the show.
|
Break: [2:03:47]
| We'll ring the bell.
|
Sam: [2:03:47]
| We will send you a postcard or we will send you a mug, all of that kind of stuff. Very importantly, at $2 a month or more. Or if you just ask us nicely, we will invite you to the Curmudgeons Corner Slack, where Yvonne and I and a bunch of our listeners and now Emily are hanging out and sharing links, talking about the news, talking about other stuff. It's a lot of fun. Emily, you mentioned you'd actually checked out recent links. Do you have one you want to highlight that you saw on there that we haven't talked about?
|
Emily: [2:04:16]
| Oh, I loved the story about... Hold on, I pulled it up. Sorry, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. The Walmart story.
|
Sam: [2:04:25]
| The witch?
|
Emily: [2:04:26]
| No, the Walmart story.
|
Sam: [2:04:28]
| Oh, Walmart.
|
Emily: [2:04:28]
| Walmart is, yeah, and the commentary, I think it was Yvonne that commented, oh, surprise, paying people more actually is good for business.
|
Sam: [2:04:36]
| Yeah, the story basically talked about how even though Walmart was once known for being really stingy with everything, they have started to improve and have for a few years now in terms of how they're treating their employees, what they do, et cetera, et cetera, and it's actually working out pretty well for them.
|
Emily: [2:04:56]
| Yeah. But I still won't be shopping there.
|
Sam: [2:04:58]
| Thank you. You know, I never got into the Walmart vibe. For a while, when Brandy and I lived in Florida, it was the closest place to us and they were open 24 hours. And we did go there on a fairly regular basis. And then, you know, no, but I never liked it. I never, you know, enjoyed the vibe there.
|
Emily: [2:05:20]
| But I have gone in the past. I'm just trying to be more thoughtful about where I spend my money, you know, like I can't boycott everything, but I'm trying really hard to, you know, either shop local or, you know, thrift store.
|
Sam: [2:05:34]
| Be thoughtful about it.
|
Emily: [2:05:35]
| Yeah. Just be thoughtful, like thinking about my purchases and like, what's the best option here? So that's what I encourage people to do.
|
Sam: [2:05:41]
| Yeah. I admit I have not yet gotten to the point where I think that deeply. I'm all about the convenience, you know, like, yeah.
|
Emily: [2:05:54]
| I think I'm lucky though that I don't have children. You know, I say that because I don't have to make those same decisions. You.
|
Sam: [2:06:05]
| Okay. Well, with that, let's wrap it up. And thanks everybody for listening. And hopefully Yvonne will be back next week. I'd mentioned before you joined Emily, the thing he forgot until the last moment that he realized he couldn't make the time we had agreed to talk was his anniversary.
|
Emily: [2:06:27]
| Oh my gosh. That's fabulous.
|
Sam: [2:06:32]
| He's like, I knew I had some reason that I couldn't do it. But anyway, so.
|
Emily: [2:06:36]
| It's got to be hard. It's hard enough for Sammy and I in the same time zone to schedule things together. So I don't know how you do it.
|
Sam: [2:06:46]
| Anyway, that's it. Hey, everybody, stay safe. Have a good week. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Have fun, but not too much fun. All the stuff I usually say. Goodbye.
|
Emily: [2:06:55]
| Thanks for having me, Sam. Bye.
|
Sam: [2:06:57]
| Thank you. Here we go. Okay, that's it. That was a lot of fun. I'm going to hit the stop button. Once I do, wait till it says it's 100% uploaded before you close the window or anything.
|
Emily: [2:07:38]
| It's really fun. I hope I was okay.
|
Sam: [2:07:40]
| Oh, no, you were great. This was a lot of fun. Did you actually see the email I sent out about needing a co-host before? Because it gets put in people's junk a lot.
|
Emily: [2:07:51]
| Oh, weird. Okay, I'll find it. Yeah, because I was going to, yeah, I didn't get it.
|
Sam: [2:07:55]
| I sent out an email Friday night to like everybody I usually ask for co-hosts.
|
Emily: [2:08:00]
| Oh.
|
Sam: [2:08:01]
| And I sent it from my Apple email address instead of my personal email address because I've noticed like sometimes like my personal address ends up being people spam because it's my own domain I've had for like 20 plus years.
|
Emily: [2:08:15]
| Yeah, where did that Ables Me come from? Because I always question that with Brandy ever since I've – what is that?
|
Sam: [2:08:21]
| That is Samuel scrambled up in a way that I made up in sixth grade with a B added. And cause it's, it's every other letter of Samuel. So you, A-U-L-S-M-E, and then I go through and add consonants or vowels as needed to make it more pronounceable in English. So it would be owl-smeh, but it becomes ab-l-smeh. I made that transformation up in sixth grade. There's a mathematical function related to it that I did lots of analysis on in high school related to if you take that and do it over and over and over again, how long does it take to get back to the original and various patterns that show up in that, depending on the length of the word you're taking through the permutation. Anyway, it's something I made up in sixth grade and I've used for things like screen names and everything like that ever since. That's where that comes from.
|
Emily: [2:09:11]
| Oh, I love it.
|
Sam: [2:09:12]
| But yeah, no. But yeah, like even the mail sent, I noticed it showed up in my own spam. Like I copied myself on the email and it showed up in my own spam. So I think the like three or four paragraphs that I send that are like, you know, hey, I need a co-host, blah, blah, blah, or just, you know for some reason like getting flagged as spam by some people so i think like most people i send the email to might not be getting it i do get responses no i.
|
Emily: [2:09:39]
| Got it i got it i just have been really bad at.
|
Sam: [2:09:42]
| My it's.
|
Emily: [2:09:45]
| Been a busy week it's been a busy year it's been a busy night.
|
Sam: [2:09:48]
| No no that that's okay cool cool okay i'll let you go okay hitting stop now all right.
| |
|