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