Sam: There we go. Boom. Boom. Okay.
Sam: Music. Live.
Sam: Any preliminaries or can I just take go?
Ivan: Go.
Sam: Okay, here goes. Transcription by CastingWords
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday,
Sam: February 14th, 2026.
Sam: It is just after 18 UTC as we are starting to record. I am Sam Enter and Yvonne
Sam: Bow is back this week. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hi.
Sam: Happy Valentine's Day, Yvonne.
Ivan: Oh, happy Valentine's Day.
Sam: Will you be my Valentine, Yvonne?
Ivan: Sure. Why not?
Sam: Ah so it's it's it's a week it's
Sam: a week uh we'll do our usual sort of less
Sam: newsy stuff up front and then newsy stuff as we go along i don't know yvonne
Sam: well you know i i i am i i i i'm still discombobulated via various things i
Sam: just woke up a few minutes ago as i often do when we record on saturdays you
Sam: know so i i'm still like oh.
Ivan: You you you have been you know we have been through a series of health issues and crises.
Sam: Oh yeah over the last i had several months right i mean you.
Ivan: Know my son had surgery i had surgery i mean what the fuck man.
Sam: And and i and i'm not done i have
Sam: one more surgery i it was just scheduled it's scheduled for march 9th which
Sam: is later than i hoped it would be originally they had me scheduled for uh february
Sam: 23rd but then they couldn't get some piece of equipment they needed booked so
Sam: they had to push me back so you know that doesn't.
Ivan: Sound great when they need like specialized equipment to deal with you sam.
Sam: It it was a laser they couldn't get the laser.
Ivan: Exactly. They need a laser. I mean, you know, what the hell?
Ivan: What are we getting this from? We're bringing this down from the ISS? What are we doing?
Sam: No, I think they just had other patients booked to use the laser because apparently
Sam: they don't have enough lasers.
Ivan: When it's this specialized that the laser needs booking like a month,
Ivan: you know, plus in advance. I mean, this isn't great.
Sam: So, yeah. So I was excited when they said the 23rd. I'm like,
Sam: that's pretty soon. I'll be done with this crap.
Sam: You know, they'll, they'll take the stuff they put in my body back out again and I'll be done.
Sam: Right. But then they called back and you're like, you know, I'm sorry.
Sam: We can't actually do the 23rd.
Sam: How about March 9th? And I'm like, crap, that's like, that's like so far in the future.
Sam: I mean, it's not that far in the future.
Ivan: But, you know. Well, it's a thing, like, we got, like, my son's,
Ivan: like, when he broke his arm, and then, I mean, we got him to see a doctor.
Ivan: It happened on a Friday night. I mean, we got him to see the specialist on Monday,
Ivan: and we did the surgery on Wednesday.
Ivan: So that was like, you know, yeah, we had boom, boom.
Sam: Well, I am glad the doctor, by the way, the surgery I had this Monday could
Sam: have been later because the doctor was about to go on vacation.
Sam: And the first dates he was having for the first one were like after he got back.
Sam: And then he managed to squeeze me in before he left. So I was like,
Sam: that's good because, you know, I have further progressed and I'm in a better
Sam: state than I was before Monday.
Sam: And I will be in a yet better state again after the March 9th one.
Sam: I just have to wait for the March 9th one.
Sam: It's like they started to break up the kidney stone and stuff.
Sam: They put in an extra drain and they used the laser the first time and apparently
Sam: they got 90% of the stone.
Sam: But they could not get that last 10% because of where it was located.
Sam: They would have had to do something else in some different way, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: So they would have had to have me back in anyway because they put in an extra little...
Sam: Like thing thing to like increase the drainage between my kidney and my bladder.
Sam: I, whatever does some, I don't know. There's something inside me.
Ivan: But like I said before, if we can figure out a way to harvest these stones,
Ivan: apparently they're very, you know, difficult and we could use them for some kind of purpose.
Ivan: We could sell these for something. I mean, imagine we could sell some of these,
Ivan: you know, it's like a diamond or something, you know, and sell for a million
Ivan: dollars or something, you know, and I'm all for harvesting Sam for stones.
Ivan: I would like, I mean, we just start harvesting, you know, fuck everything else.
Ivan: We'll just start harvesting Sam for stones. That's it. There you go.
Sam: That'd be beautiful.
Ivan: I'll start, I'll be the stone dealer here.
Sam: Yeah, it really is too bad these aren't like diamonds or something.
Ivan: Exactly. I mean, if we were like going in there and we're like,
Ivan: you know, we're extracting diamonds out of Sam, I'm like, what the hell,
Ivan: man? you know, or I don't know, some other rare metal or whatever,
Ivan: you know, whatever or something.
Ivan: Yeah. But you know, maybe we could use it to power your car or something. I don't know.
Sam: Exactly.
Ivan: Like some kind of like, you know, like nuclear fusion material,
Ivan: you know, material could be used in nuclear fusion or something or fission for
Ivan: that matter, whichever, there you go.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Now, exactly like that.
Sam: Yeah. So, so now like, yeah. So I, you know, so I still have like,
Sam: I'm still on painkillers. I'm still on antibiotics. I have the prescription
Sam: painkillers, but after the first day after surgery, I switched myself to over-the-counter.
Sam: So I'm taking some ibuprofen, some Tylenol.
Sam: I'm mixing them up to avoid... Because I could just take Tylenol or whatever, but I want to be careful.
Sam: You're not supposed to take too much Tylenol. So I'm taking a little less Tylenol.
Ivan: I mean, yeah, you're supposed to limit it to under 4,000 milligrams a day.
Ivan: Really, the dose that gets you effed up is 10. But the reality is that,
Ivan: look, you can mix e-ibuprofen.
Sam: Right, so you can mix them, so I am. So I'm taking a little less Tylenol,
Sam: a little more ibuprofen, and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And so I still have some aches and pains, you know, because I just had freaking surgery.
Sam: God damn it. So, and of course, this was just to be fun and entertaining and graphic for our users.
Sam: This is not the kind of procedure where they made an incision.
Sam: This is the kind of procedure where they went in through an existing hole.
Sam: If you're heading towards my bladder and kidney, you can imagine which hole they had to go through.
Ivan: What? Yeah.
Ivan: Yes. Yeah. I'm assuming it's in the front, not in the back. That would be quite a long route.
Ivan: That would be quite a weird route to get to your blood, to get to your kidneys. But yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Sam: So, you know.
Ivan: They didn't go through your mouth. They didn't go through your ears or nose.
Sam: That's right. You know, so.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: And there's a good reason why you are asleep when they do this.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: So.
Ivan: Yes. I, you know, I, I, you know, look. I highly recommend anesthesia.
Ivan: Look, there's nothing great. You know, I'm sorry, but I had my surgery,
Ivan: and there's nothing better than, boom, I'm out.
Ivan: And I wake up, I'm in recovery, and I felt all of a sudden I started feeling
Ivan: pain. I said, nurse, painkillers.
Ivan: Now, oh, we gave you something. No, not strong enough.
Ivan: No. Whatever I want. No. Stronger. Ah, that feels better.
Ivan: Okay, good. All right. Now I can sleep again. Thank you.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's fun for both of us.
Sam: We've had a great few weeks, few months, whatever.
Ivan: Well, the thing is that last week was.
Sam: Well, last week you weren't. It wasn't a health issue. You had a birthday.
Ivan: Well, it was like, yeah. And the thing is that my, my, okay.
Ivan: My brother that lives in Texas that, uh, uh, came over for it. Okay.
Ivan: It's funny, but, but, you know, he comes visit all the time. but there was,
Ivan: There's a couple of times that he tried to come over for my birthday and something happened.
Ivan: Like one time, like for my 40th, he was going to fly over.
Ivan: There was a there was an ice storm in Texas that prevented him from being able
Ivan: to fly in it. All his flights, everything got canceled.
Ivan: He couldn't he couldn't leave. So that was like one thing. So you see,
Ivan: like one thing or another always happened.
Ivan: And so but he managed to come over this time. My oldest brother told me,
Ivan: well, he was going to be out of town for business.
Ivan: The thing is, my oldest brother sells industrial products, and his route is one that,
Ivan: It's he goes, he has a work truck that, you know, from his company that he drives
Ivan: to these places because in many cases is not that convenient to fly. OK.
Ivan: And so he's covering, you know, places like Savannah, Georgia,
Ivan: Athens, Georgia, you know, northern Florida, stuff like that,
Ivan: which actually it's not even like that easy to fly into anyway,
Ivan: which is why he's driving. Okay.
Ivan: And he's driving, he's driving this truck right now. If I understood correctly,
Ivan: he told me he's putting in like 50,000 miles a year on this truck. It's a company truck.
Ivan: They pay for it. So, you know, but it's like crazy the amount of miles that
Ivan: he's having to, to put in for, for this.
Ivan: So he was going to be like in Savannah, like, and it's like,
Ivan: well, I don't think I could make it down, but he actually went and figured out
Ivan: because he heard that my other brother's coming in. He actually figured out a way.
Ivan: And all of a sudden, as we're at the restaurant, we're at the,
Ivan: we're at the bar area just waiting for a table, then all of a sudden he showed
Ivan: up. And I was like, whoa, you're here.
Ivan: Oh, good. So, so, so yeah. So, uh, so that was good. So we had a, we had a good time.
Ivan: So yeah. So because everybody was here in town, I was like, you know,
Ivan: take care of people. I didn't have time to record all of a sudden. So I was like, you know.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. I understand. Well, we had Ed, Ed was great. We did the thing, you know? So yeah.
Ivan: And I don't know. Well, I, I, I, I don't know if you mentioned it last week,
Ivan: but I'll mention it because I sent this note and I know that I haven't been
Ivan: in the podcast in the past.
Sam: Oh, I did not. I actually thought about it but saved it for when you were here
Sam: if I'm thinking about the thing you're thinking.
Ivan: The person that gave us the musical rights, the music that we have used on the
Ivan: show since back in college, WRCT, so this is like longer than 30 years,
Ivan: Ray Lynch, his family posted news that he passed away.
Ivan: He passed away in December.
Ivan: And I did not want to mention that, you know, his wife and him were very gracious
Ivan: to give us, you know, we were worried that we had been using it without permission.
Ivan: But we went and we reached out to them and said, hey, guys, you know,
Ivan: we've been using the music and I don't know. And we're small.
Sam: We're small. You know, we're not making money off this thing.
Ivan: Money off of it. But, you know, we just wanted to make sure that we were using the music just in case.
Ivan: I mean, I don't know. You know, sometimes this thing gets big or something or
Ivan: whatever. We don't want to be impinging on their rights.
Sam: Or even if it isn't, they could decide to be assholes, you know?
Ivan: Which some people are, you know, that we're using music without rights.
Ivan: But they gave us absolutely, you know, in writing, they put it down.
Ivan: We had absolute permission to use the music in our show.
Ivan: And we do promos regularly for them.
Sam: In exchange, we do that break. And, you know, the first break we take this time, I will do that break.
Sam: But yeah, it's and that was the deal. They said, just, hey, occasionally give us credit.
Sam: So like, yeah, the show descriptions always have, you know, the Ray Lynch information
Sam: and links to his website and all that kind of stuff. And we have that promo
Sam: that runs every few weeks. It comes up in our rotation.
Sam: And yeah, and that was the deal. And otherwise, they were they were very nice.
Sam: And in fact, Ray Lynch's wife, immediately after we had that conversation,
Sam: you know, start asking us for information because they were apparently they
Sam: were apparently actually going after and suing some other podcast who used the
Sam: music without permission.
Sam: Oh, you don't remember this.
Ivan: And oh, God, I forgot about that.
Sam: Yeah, it was some major like podcast done by like one of the big like,
Sam: you know, affiliated with a major news organization. I forget which one,
Sam: whether it was NPR or something else, but they, and it was one of these big,
Sam: like highly produced, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And, you know, they had, they had used the music without permission and,
Sam: you know, the, the lynches were trying to get them to cease and desist or whatever.
Sam: And they were trying, they were trying to claim that like that completely impossible.
Sam: We can't do that, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And I'm like, look, it's one thing for like a live podcast or whatever.
Sam: But like, if you have done a completely produced thing where you have assembled
Sam: all the musics and clips, you've got like some, some software somewhere with
Sam: the edited version of this,
Sam: where I'm not saying it would be trivial or not a lot of work,
Sam: but you could go in and re-edit and re-release those episodes if you had to
Sam: with different music or, or just take out the music entirely.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: It might not be ideal, but is it possible? Yes.
Sam: It's not, it's not like some, if you're doing a production, I mean,
Sam: hell, even I, like I have all the raw tracks that I use to put these together,
Sam: save from the beginning of when we started doing this show.
Sam: Now there are, there was a time at the beginning where we just recorded,
Sam: recorded live and whatever that was, it was, it was a single track.
Sam: But for years and years and years, you know, we record all the individual tracks
Sam: and I put them together and I, and the music gets added and it's all separate.
Sam: And I like, you know, do some editing.
Sam: At this point, I mainly do automated editing because I just don't have time
Sam: for the human editing anymore, except for very small little bits and amounts.
Sam: But like, you know, but I have all the originals.
Sam: And I would be really unhappy about it, but if somebody came up and told me,
Sam: there's a 2022 episode where you used a clip of something, you didn't have permission,
Sam: you need to take that down.
Sam: I could theoretically go back, find that episode, re-edit it,
Sam: and republish that episode and leave it up.
Sam: Or, of course, I could take it down. Right, right.
Sam: And I would be unhappy. I wouldn't want to, but is it possible? Yes. Come on.
Sam: Anyway, so we talked to them about that. And, you know, again,
Sam: and we never talked to Ray himself.
Sam: We talked to his wife, but she was very nice.
Ivan: Well, Ray, you know, Ray, what they posted had been in some ill health for a bit.
Sam: Their house had burned down.
Ivan: Yes. And that was the other thing, that their house in one of the California
Ivan: wildfires, I think it was in the Palisades fire, burnt down.
Ivan: And not just that, you know, the house fire burned his original master recordings as well.
Ivan: Which that was horrible.
Sam: Speaking of being able to go back and re-edit things, you can't if the masters go away.
Ivan: Yeah. I mean, their original masters were gone.
Ivan: So that was sad. And so, you know, according to what their post,
Ivan: he had been in ill health and he passed away in December and they did make a post.
Ivan: But they had not published it until like January that that happened.
Ivan: But I just wanted to make a recognition that, you know, because we did,
Ivan: you know, I know Kathleen passed a note on to Ray that we were very thankful
Ivan: for him to authorize us to use his music.
Ivan: And, you know, we really appreciate it. And I just want to be,
Ivan: you know, recognize how gracious they were with us and, you know, about it.
Ivan: And it's passing, unfortunately, that happened in December. So, yeah.
Ivan: He was, I mean, I don't know. Look, Ray Lynch's music is one that caught my
Ivan: ear a long, long time ago.
Ivan: And, I mean, I was in high school.
Sam: I mean, we used this as a theme song for this show when we did it on the radio in the early 90s.
Ivan: Yeah. And I remember that I think I heard the album from a friend of mine in
Ivan: high school. And I went and I, I'm pretty sure I bought the CD and Tower Records in New York.
Sam: Because we used this on the show. This was, I was not a music buying person up through college.
Sam: This was like one of the first five CDs I ever bought, I believe.
Sam: Because we were using it on the show.
Ivan: And it's uh and it's um i mean
Ivan: it's one of the he he is one of the first
Ivan: like pioneers in like new age music
Ivan: and the thing is that you know it's it's just one of those things
Ivan: and by the way he's a guy that's really a
Ivan: classical instrumental music musicalist he
Ivan: really mentioned that he's not not really good with
Ivan: tech and so but it sounds like
Ivan: it may sound like it was digitally produced but it really isn't
Ivan: but he was also one of the biggest
Ivan: independent you know he didn't have a a
Ivan: recording contract he was one of the most how
Ivan: do i say successful like independent music publishers that that have been out
Ivan: there and he published a few few records and they they were i mean they they
Ivan: sold millions of copies so so it was you know this wasn't you know he isn't an He isn't an artist,
Ivan: it's just some tiny artist that just had a few records.
Ivan: He actually was very successful, but it was all on his own.
Ivan: But, you know, so anyway, just want to recognize the fact that he,
Ivan: that this happened and my eternal life take care of him very well.
Ivan: Thank you, Ray. Thanks, Kathleen.
Sam: Okay. So moving on, I guess. I am going to do movies.
Sam: I have one additional thing I want to throw out there.
Sam: As I've mentioned on the show before, I've been working on this Robin Letter thing.
Sam: Basically, for over a year, lightly, but I didn't really get going until after
Sam: I was laid off at the end of October.
Sam: So basically, I've been working on it November, December, January, three and a half months.
Sam: I'm going to jinx myself here.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: But I think, I think.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: I should be able to be at the point where I can invite the first real test users later this weekend.
Ivan: Whoa.
Sam: Wow. Wow. Basically,
Sam: what I have left is taking everything that I've done in a development environment
Sam: and moving it to a real production environment and retesting things to make
Sam: sure I didn't break anything in the process and then starting.
Sam: I'm going to have it started out as basically, I'm going to start one of these
Sam: with my mother's side of the family and one of these with my father's side of the family.
Sam: Those are the first two I'm going to start.
Sam: I'm going to see how they go for a few days to a week, and then I'm going to
Sam: recruit for additional volunteers from other categories of people I know. I've got a list.
Sam: Already of people who have explicitly said, hey, I want to be included in early tests.
Sam: And so I will make sure all of them are included in the next round after that.
Sam: And I'll do one for people who are active on the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack.
Sam: I will start one with all of those folks.
Sam: So if you're on there, consider yourself automatically included.
Sam: If you've sent me thing saying you want to be included, you'll be included in that second round.
Sam: But also the way I have the way I'm setting it up is like once I invite people
Sam: for ones I create, they will in turn be able to make their own and invite more people.
Sam: So we'll see if there's any organic growth based on that.
Sam: But yeah, like all I have left is some some
Sam: moving between environments and some final testing and blah blah blah which
Sam: you know i i my intention at this point is to after we're done recording the
Sam: podcast basically just move into my god i have to get this done you know i've
Sam: only got a little bit spreading viruses and then we can start spreading viruses yeah so what.
Ivan: Is that what we used to do with like a lot of people used to do with like forwarding
Ivan: email you know they used to do all these email forwards like 20 20 plus years
Ivan: ago of shit oh yeah look i found this cool thing or whatever and sending it
Ivan: on to people and they were just like going and clicking on attachments like
Ivan: spreading viruses on a regular basis.
Sam: Yes yes so so anyway just for everybody out there we're not we're.
Ivan: Not gonna is that we're bringing it back we're.
Sam: Not bringing it back no no no no no no viruses anyway for anybody out there
Sam: who is not already familiar who is not already expressed interest if they're
Sam: interested robinletter.com,
Sam: There's an email address at the bottom if you want to be sure to be included in my early tests.
Sam: And the basic concept is an alternative to social media that's intentionally
Sam: slower, intentionally longer.
Sam: It's intended to not be sort of this thing where you're broadcasting to the
Sam: world, but instead small groups of people that are explicitly defined that you
Sam: want to keep in touch with.
Sam: And you have to update
Sam: when it's your turn. So it's not a free-for-all of everybody in the group can
Sam: post whenever they want.
Sam: You post when it's your turn. It ensures that everybody has an equal opportunity to contribute.
Sam: It ensures that it's sort of like, it's not an everyday thing.
Sam: It's not intended to be like, you know, the dopamine hit for your attention
Sam: where you're, you're checking it five times a day, every day, whatever.
Sam: It's like, Hey, you check in when there's an update and then you make an update
Sam: when it's your turn to make an update, et cetera.
Sam: So it's intentionally slower, which may hurt its virality, but you know, whatever we'll see.
Sam: It's a, it's a concept I've been thinking about for more than a decade.
Sam: And I finally built the damn thing. The initial version is only text, only text updates.
Sam: But if, if, you know, the next up on the agenda after I launch these initial
Sam: tests are, you know, everybody who gets invited will have a limited number of invites initially.
Sam: I'm going to build a way to buy more invites. I'm going to add a premium tier
Sam: that you can add images to your posts.
Sam: I'm going to do things like being able to comment and react on posts,
Sam: because right now you just make your own post when it's your turn,
Sam: but I can see it being useful to be able to comment and react to a specific post.
Sam: You know, that kind of thing i've got a whole bunch of things
Sam: i want to further enhance it with it this is sort of
Sam: the minimum viable product but if all
Sam: goes well cross my fingers like i said i'm jinxing myself i'll try to move it
Sam: to the new environment and absolutely everything will break or i'll accidentally
Sam: delete everything at the moment i try to launch it instead of launching it but
Sam: like if all goes well i'll have a test out this weekend if not within a few
Sam: days because my intention is i'm not going to do other other.
Sam: Other shit other than get this podcast out until
Sam: this is out as well so robinletter.com check
Sam: it out if you want to be in the first few waves of tests
Sam: and you're not already on one of my lists and
Sam: you're not an active curmudgeon's corner slack user then you know email the
Sam: email there and i'll make sure you're included for the second round i'm going
Sam: to make a post on facebook and say hey any any of my friends want to be in more
Sam: rounds like i'm going to make one for like people who knew Sam in college,
Sam: people who knew Sam in high school,
Sam: people who knew Sam from Merrill Lynch, people who knew what,
Sam: you know, I'm going to make lists like that, but only with volunteers who say they want to be invited.
Sam: Of course, I have built the mechanism so that once, um, once you're in a Robin.
Sam: You know, you can invite more people to the Robin, which may be problematic
Sam: in the future. We'll see.
Sam: I'll, I'll adjust things as needed anyway.
Sam: So like, you know, I'll only invite people initially who've said they wanted
Sam: to be invited, but then anybody else who's in there can invite whoever they
Sam: want. So it could go crazy.
Sam: Or it could immediately die because everybody thinks it's stupid and doesn't use it. So we'll see.
Sam: So anyway, uh, okay. Beyond that movies.
Ivan: What movies do we got, Sam?
Sam: First movie, another AFI movie from, and, uh, from the 1998 ranking, this was number seven.
Sam: It is dropped to number 17 in 2007 ranking.
Sam: And I noticed they have not issued any new rankings in nearly 20 years.
Sam: They probably should. but you know whatever um.
Ivan: I'm sure trump will order a new ranking that will be an interesting ranking
Ivan: if trump is trump's favorite movies yeah well.
Sam: They'll all be by that guy who made the melania movie and melania is probably number.
Ivan: One no no no remember that he also gave sylvester stallone like uh uh uh some
Ivan: kind of award so so it'll be a combination of like probably Sylvester Stallone,
Ivan: Kevin Spacey You need You need an accused Sex offender At least in there They
Ivan: all need You know Yeah I don't know Woody Allen Yes of course,
Ivan: Yeah, it'll be like, oh, who's the guy in Europe, the guy that fled the country?
Ivan: Rowan Polanski? What is it? God, I don't want to call. I don't want to. Wait, I don't want to.
Sam: The under siege guy?
Ivan: Oh, wait, Steven Seagal. Yes. Oh, my God. Of course.
Ivan: No, no, I wasn't thinking of Steven. No, God. But yeah, it's I mean,
Ivan: shit. I mean, that's got to be at the top of the list.
Ivan: I mean, you know, yeah. No, the
Ivan: guy that fled the country because he was convicted of rape or something.
Sam: Oh, Roman, that R guy?
Ivan: I think, well, the thing is, I don't want to disparage the wrong guy.
Sam: The wrong guy.
Ivan: Yeah, so let me double check. I want to make sure, you know,
Ivan: hold on before I call somebody a fugitive and criminal and things.
Sam: Roman Polanski.
Ivan: Yeah, it was Roman Polanski, okay. was arrested and charged with drugging or
Ivan: raping a 13-year-old girl. So this is like, you know, right?
Ivan: I mean, it seems like this would be up in the Trump movie collection. Yes.
Sam: Of course. Okay. Anyway, the movie in question is The Graduate from 1967.
Ivan: I don't remember if I've seen it. I got to look this up. Hold on.
Ivan: Oh, I don't know. Did I see it? I think I did. But I got to look it up.
Sam: This is one where, by the way, famous movie, I had heard things about it,
Sam: but I had definitely not seen the actual movie.
Sam: I had heard, there's a famous phrase from it that has been sampled in songs
Sam: that when the lady says, I am not trying to seduce you. Do you want me to seduce you?
Sam: Right. Yeah, that has been sampled in a variety of songs. It's also famous,
Sam: the whole thing about plastics.
Sam: You need to invest in plastics.
Ivan: You know what? I don't know.
Sam: And of course, it's referenced like Mrs.
Ivan: Robinson. I know about it, but I don't know if I've watched it. Right.
Sam: The Mrs. Robinson song from Simon and Garfunkel was actually made for this movie.
Sam: It was part of the soundtrack of this movie.
Sam: Anyway, basic. I'll read the first two bits of the plot from the Wikipedia summary.
Sam: First couple paragraphs.
Sam: After earning his bachelor's degree, Benjamin Braddock returns to his parents'
Sam: home in Pasadena, California.
Sam: During his graduation party, Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father's law partner,
Sam: asks him to drive her home.
Sam: Once there, she tries to seduce him. He resists her advances, but later invites Mrs.
Sam: Robinson to the Taft Hotel, where he registers under the surname Gladstone.
Sam: Benjamin spends the summer idly floating in his parents'
Sam: swimming pool and meeting mrs robinson at the hotel during one
Sam: of their trysts mrs robinson reveals that she and
Sam: her husband married after she accidentally became pregnant
Sam: with their daughter elaine when benjamin jokingly suggests that he date elaine
Sam: mrs robinson angrily forbids it benjamin's parents and mr robinson pester benjamin
Sam: to ask elaine out he reluctantly takes her out but attempts to sabotage the
Sam: date by ignoring her driving recklessly and taking her to a strip club.
Sam: She flees in tears, but Benjamin chases after her, apologizes, and kisses her.
Sam: They eat at a drive-in restaurant where they bond over their shared uncertainty about their plans.
Sam: After they visit the Taft Hotel for a late-night drink and the staff greet Benjamin as Mr.
Sam: Gladstone, Elaine deduces that Benjamin is having an affair.
Sam: Benjamin admits to having an affair with a married woman who he does not name,
Sam: because it's her mom. he tells Elaine the affair is over and asks to see her
Sam: again dot dot dot it continues uh,
Sam: It was a good movie. It's definitely, you know, it's a 1967 movie,
Sam: but it kind of feels 1970-ish to me.
Sam: But it, it, it is a good movie. I will give it a thumbs up.
Sam: Is it number seven of all time? Eh, maybe not, but it was a good movie. It was enjoyable.
Sam: And, and like I, again, like I had heard about the movie.
Sam: I had known about parts of the movie. It's, if I didn't say it's Dustin Hoffman in the lead role.
Sam: Um, and, it.
Sam: Because I wasn't spoiled, I didn't know what was happening other than sort of...
Sam: I mean, I knew it was about a guy having an affair with an older woman.
Sam: But that's all I knew. That's all I knew.
Sam: And it was good. It was good.
Sam: 1970s style, which I'm not always super into, even though it was 67.
Sam: But I enjoyed the movie. Good movie. Thumbs up. Watch it.
Sam: There you go. It's one of those things that's referred to in culture all the
Sam: time. and like, I mean, maybe less so.
Sam: It's getting old now. I imagine like there are probably lots of younger folks
Sam: who know absolutely nothing about this movie.
Sam: And even I, at our age, knew that it existed, but, you know,
Sam: had not seen it and was not aware of the details.
Sam: But it was a good movie. There you go. That's all for that one.
Sam: And I'll rush through one more. I think this one will be pretty quick.
Sam: This is also from the AFI list. next one on the list, number six in 1998,
Sam: dropped to number 10 in 2007.
Sam: But this is the 1939 Wizard of Oz, the one that everybody knows.
Sam: Everybody's seen, used to be on TV every year, I think around Thanksgiving, if I remember right.
Sam: And, you know, it was, you know, I mean, I don't need to describe The Wizard of Oz.
Sam: Everybody knows The Wizard of Oz, right? Like, certainly anyone listening to this podcast, right?
Ivan: Yes, I'm pretty sure, yes.
Sam: I'll give it a thumbs up. You know, it's one of those things where, you know,
Sam: obviously I'd seen The Wizard of Oz before. I've, but yeah.
Sam: I don't watch it regularly.
Ivan: I haven't watched it in, I'm sure, like in 30 plus years.
Sam: And by the way, just to be clear, we watched the original on our screen at home.
Sam: We did not go and see the one in the sphere on Las Vegas where they have recreated
Sam: it with AI. We have not seen that.
Sam: Where they have actual flying monkeys in the theater.
Ivan: This is black and white, right? did you or you watch colorized.
Sam: Dude the wizard of oz is quite famous for its color.
Ivan: Was it a color.
Sam: Which one.
Ivan: Is the one i'm.
Sam: Confused the wizard of oz from that age the wizard of oz is quite famous because
Sam: the first few minutes of it are are in sepia tone and then when she goes and.
Ivan: It switches to color which i'm thinking from that era that was colorized that
Ivan: was like very like controversial because it was colorized it was.
Sam: Like they've colorized a whole bunch of things from that era and it's always
Sam: controversial because it's like and not even that era but i mean there continued
Sam: to be black and white movies released well after this because color was more
Sam: expensive and some movies right it's didn't deserve it well.
Ivan: You see i don't know if you forget it started in sepia then it turns into color right when they're.
Sam: Right and there this And because of that, lots of people think like this was
Sam: the first color movie. It was not the first movie in color.
Sam: But because of that transition, people like that transition was shocking to
Sam: people because they come in, it looks like a black and white movie.
Sam: It was sepia tone, not grayscale, but like, and then all of a sudden,
Sam: kaboom, it's in Technicolor.
Sam: And that transition was very famous. Now, and it's interesting,
Sam: the mechanics of how they did that transition because Dorothy goes through that
Sam: door and beyond the doors in color.
Sam: And so they actually did a thing where Dorothy was before, they were actually
Sam: recording in color, but everything was colored brown.
Sam: So it was in sepia tone. Like the earlier scenes were actually recorded in sepia
Sam: tone, but that particular transition,
Sam: the beginning, you see Dorothy's back but it was
Sam: a stand-in wearing a brown dress and
Sam: then she opens the door and it sort of
Sam: zooms in towards the thing and the Dorothy the real Dorothy
Sam: yeah the real Dorothy Judy Garland in the blue famous blue dress comes in and
Sam: goes through the door and so the you know so that the you know because of course
Sam: this was you know special effects were all practical so this was done that way
Sam: anyway Wizard of Oz deserves its place in the pantheon, I guess.
Sam: There's some things that like every time I watch it, I'm like,
Sam: I never remember that part because some parts of it are clunkier than others.
Sam: But you know, the main parts are all famous and you know it and you know all
Sam: the songs and you can sing along to them and you know, whatever.
Sam: And you know, so, you know, The Wizard of Oz, what else can you say about it. So.
Ivan: Thumbs up. Okay. Good.
Sam: There you go. And now I guess we'll take our break and we'll do newsy stuff.
Sam: And as promised, we're going to start with the Ray Lynch break.
Sam: So thanks again to Ray Lynch and his family. We appreciate it. Here you go.
Break: No no it's not the beginning of the show again we're just taking a little time
Break: to credit the artist responsible for the music we use at the beginning and end
Break: of the show what you are listening to right now is the o of pleasure by ray
Break: lynch We'll be right back.
Break: The music we close our show with is Celestial Soda Pop.
Break: Both of these songs are from Deep Breakfast. Now Platinum, Deep Breakfast was
Break: the first independently released album ever to be certified gold by the RIAA.
Break: Ray Lynch's other albums are The Sky of Mind.
Break: And the best of Ray Lynch.
Break: You can check out Ray Lynch or buy his music at raylynch.com,
Break: iTunes, Amazon, or anywhere you usually find music.
Ivan: Well, I want to take the opportunity. I looked up our last emails that we had
Ivan: traded with Kathleen at that time.
Ivan: There was a note that Ray Han wrote, because he wasn't very techie, but that he sent.
Ivan: It was one of the last notes that he sent to us.
Ivan: And he said, Dear Ivan, an answer to your question, Kathleen and I are recovering pretty well.
Ivan: This was after the fire, because I had inquired about that. We won't have a
Ivan: home of our own for about a year and a half or so.
Ivan: We both appreciate your continued use of of
Ivan: the music and we do hope that your listeners find it
Ivan: as attractive do find it to be as attractive
Ivan: as you have by the way i can tell you that the music is
Ivan: very dear to my heart as well and that i listen to it often as an artist after
Ivan: all i have to get it right and i can't release composition to the public until
Ivan: i know that it is beautiful i hope you and sam are doing well and i thank you
Ivan: for your kind words kind words and your support my best regards ray lynch so
Ivan: that was that was his note to us that was after a fire because,
Ivan: as you mentioned they had they had they had reached out to us over that issue
Ivan: with they had with podcaster and you know we had inquired about the fire so
Ivan: i'm saying yeah there we go all right okay so.
Sam: Where do you want to start on other stuff as.
Ivan: Usual we have a list yes yes sam we are using lasers to shoot balloons the hell
Ivan: is going on did you see this Yes.
Sam: Is it the same laser? Is that why I can't get my surgery?
Ivan: That's it. Yes. That's what's going on. They're using it to shoot balloons.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Apparently, party balloons, Sam.
Sam: So they closed the airspace for, where was it, El Paso or somewhere?
Ivan: Yeah, sometime in the middle of the night. They send out a note of saying we've
Ivan: closed the El Paso airspace for 10 days.
Sam: Right, right.
Ivan: And everybody's like, what the fuck? 10 days? The hell's going on?
Sam: Right.
Ivan: They don't, no explanation. All of a sudden, all flights canceled, whatever.
Ivan: Then a few hours later, well, yeah, we didn't mean it.
Ivan: Airspace opened again. and then everybody's like
Ivan: what the hell is going on and then they said oh the
Ivan: story changed like a whole bunch of times yes i
Ivan: mean you know they said it
Ivan: was drones then somebody said that they were testing yeah it's a weapons test
Ivan: and then it seems that it was just some party balloons that were floating the
Ivan: wrong way and they used some kind of, like,
Ivan: new weapon that appeared to be a laser to shoot him down.
Sam: Awesome? What the fuck?
Ivan: This is, the hell are we doing, man? The hell are we doing?
Sam: They were attack party balloons from south of the border, Yvonne.
Ivan: Oh, I see. So important. That's the kind of a, so that's the kind of stuff.
Sam: You know, if the party balloon had said happy birthday instead of feliz navidad.
Ivan: Oh, then they wouldn't have shouted down.
Sam: I know it's Christmas, but you know what I mean?
Sam: I you know.
Ivan: It's close to december it's close
Ivan: yes i mean it could have been floating like since december yes exactly i mean
Ivan: yeah and it got up there like you know and so yeah it's possible sure yeah you
Ivan: know one of those things well.
Sam: You you know,
Sam: We did have, during the Biden administration, those Chinese spy balloon things.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: I guess they've just been miniaturized in some way.
Ivan: To party balloons.
Sam: To party balloons. And I don't know.
Sam: Look, it just seems like this seems like another place where you had different
Sam: agencies not talking to each other properly, staffed by people who are, I don't know.
Sam: I don't know. Is this a scenario where all the career people who knew what they
Sam: were doing are gone, and this is a bunch of, like, Trumpies?
Ivan: I think that this is just one of those things that it always shows the kind
Ivan: of, like, incompetence.
Sam: But is this normal incompetence that could have happened any time?
Sam: Like, this could have happened?
Ivan: No, no, no, no, no. You see, the thing is that under disadministration,
Ivan: incompetence at ridiculous levels is, like, the norm of the day.
Ivan: It's like there's this story about Christy Noem deciding that she fired a pilot,
Ivan: because they didn't bring her blankie.
Sam: Well, didn't Lewandowski fire the pilot on her behalf?
Ivan: I, okay, I didn't see if it was Lewandowski or her.
Sam: Because they're also having an affair and that's apparently semi-well-known.
Sam: Which they keep denying.
Ivan: But, you know.
Sam: But everyone knows it's one of those things.
Ivan: Yeah, but we fire a guy because a blankie didn't make it from one plane to the other.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And then they realize, oh, shit, we don't have another pilot.
Ivan: I guess we need to hire you back.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, this is the kind of idiotic shit that these people do every day.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Just. Hey, we, we, we, you know, we tear off the shit out of,
Ivan: I don't know how many products.
Ivan: And I'm like, you know, oh, this is no big deal.
Ivan: And then all of a sudden they're like undoing. They started like undoing. Oh, well, shit.
Ivan: Coffee is through the roof. Maybe we shouldn't have tariffed coffee.
Ivan: I guess we weren't bringing coffee production back to the U.S., Sam.
Ivan: We're not going to... Sam, it's ridiculous, but we're not making coffee.
Sam: I don't know why. We've had a few months. Why haven't...
Ivan: The tradition has not ramped up. We have a longstanding tradition of,
Ivan: like, you know, up in West Virginia and the Appalachians where we get all these
Ivan: coffee-growing regions that we have, as you're well aware.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: The famous Appalachian coffee. Right off the Appalachian Trail.
Sam: Just to be clear, in theory, you could have agriculture for any plant on the
Sam: planet, anywhere on the planet, with proper indoor agriculture.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: Yeah, you could do climate control. You can bring in the necessary nutrients.
Sam: You can do whatever, you know.
Sam: So, they've had a year, Yvonne. Why couldn't they ramp this up?
Ivan: I don't know, Sam. may have to do something with a thing called economics.
Sam: Yvonne, we have once again missed our opportunity. At this point,
Sam: we could have been the coffee kings of Nebraska or something.
Ivan: This is the new thing that I'm doing.
Ivan: We're going to become coffee kings. I didn't have this on my bingo card.
Ivan: Okay uh.
Sam: Uh any more on this or you want.
Ivan: You're officially talking about balloons yeah but but it's just you know it's
Ivan: just the thing we fuck why are we it's like every you know,
Ivan: we have a story like this popping up like just every week now every every other
Ivan: day I mean it's just it's just of just,
Ivan: sheer stupidity you know just just you know revealing itself on a regular basis right.
Sam: Okay so should we alternate topics do like.
Ivan: Lightning round style we can go what's the next topic what's the next big one you got okay.
Sam: I I'm gonna do what this thing where I pick one where I'm actually like asking
Sam: you and you get to talk of it.
Ivan: Okay But.
Sam: Let's hit the unbelievable economic data. What's going on with our economy, Yvonne?
Ivan: Okay. Well, according to the government, Sam.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: The economy is doing great. Awesome. I don't know if you've seen the economic
Ivan: reports, but a great inflation report, a great jobs report.
Ivan: I mean, everything just, you know, they keep saying the economy is like, it's doing great.
Ivan: The problem is that every other private sector data report that comes out shows
Ivan: quite the opposite. Okay.
Ivan: You know, it's like, hey, the tariffs, you know, the countries are going to
Ivan: pay the tariffs. One of the announcements that came out yesterday,
Ivan: a couple of companies announced where massive tariff bills that,
Ivan: tanked profits for automakers and other companies that just got crushed.
Ivan: You know, Ford had a billion-dollar extra tariff bill at the end of the year
Ivan: that crushed their profits.
Ivan: You know, housing sales, January had one of the worst drops in housing sales we've ever had.
Ivan: The private sector job creation report by ADP completely contradicted what that showed.
Ivan: But also, when the unemployment report got shown, they revised last year every
Ivan: previous report that they had issued downward.
Sam: All of them.
Ivan: Okay?
Sam: By a bunch, right? Not just like tiny.
Ivan: By a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. by two-thirds. By two-thirds!
Sam: Just a slight revision. It was off by like a couple percent.
Ivan: Right. By two-thirds.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Americans with higher income are starting to fall behind on payments.
Ivan: Rising debt levels and more mispacements push the financial stress gauge to
Ivan: its highest level ever. Ever!
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Okay? The U.S. cattle herd Okay, beef prices are soaring.
Ivan: The U.S. cattle herd is down to the lowest level in 75 years.
Ivan: I mean, it's just...
Ivan: Every single point of data from private sector, companies repeatedly stating
Ivan: how massive tariff hits, hits profits,
Ivan: you know, billions and billions and billions that they've had to take.
Ivan: Like, you know, but then on the flip side, they keep, you know,
Ivan: posting these economic reports that seem incredulous.
Ivan: They posted about inflation being down, you know, but there is no data.
Ivan: I mean, when you see the issue with, like, beef, there's nothing to,
Ivan: you know, that shows that any of this stuff is under control.
Ivan: December retail sales were flat, for example.
Sam: Year over year.
Ivan: December, yes. You know, this is usually a very recessionary indicator, okay?
Ivan: You know, you got flat sales. You got people announcing multibillion-dollar tariff bills.
Ivan: You've got private employment data showing terrible stuff.
Ivan: You've got financial indicators, you know, financial distress indicators.
Ivan: It's like I said, a late payments and shit, and even including people that make,
Ivan: you know, higher levels of income in distress.
Sam: Mm hmm.
Ivan: And but oh, yeah, we've had we had excellent hiring. No, no.
Ivan: But but ADP says totally the opposite. So.
Ivan: I mean, this is this was the concern that that, you know, we had like from before where.
Ivan: They've made the government data not trustworthy.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: At this point.
Sam: Well, and this aligns with, we've had more and more court rulings as well,
Sam: basically saying we can't, like traditionally when folks go to court,
Sam: the government gets sort of deference.
Sam: Like we're going to assume good faith on the part of the government.
Sam: And there have been increasing rulings from a variety of judges all over the
Sam: country, appointed by a whole bunch of different presidents,
Sam: including Trump himself,
Sam: basically saying that the government has broken that track record and we can
Sam: no longer assume the things the government says in filings are true without proof.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And and we can no longer trust them to do the things we tell them to without
Sam: measures to compel it, you know, and exactly the same thing with the economic data here.
Sam: And for that matter, not just economic data, you know, information coming out of CDC on health data.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Or out of wherever you just the you cannot. And lots of people say you could.
Ivan: How could you not trust our health information, the stuff coming from our top health officials, Sam?
Ivan: I mean, look, Health Secretary RFK Jr.
Ivan: Bragged recently that he wasn't afraid of COVID germs because he used to store
Ivan: cocaine off of toilet seats.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: And I thought, I swear to God, that somebody made that up.
Ivan: I mean, honestly, when I first saw it posted, oh, come on, somebody made this up, right?
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: But no!
Sam: And I'll tell you what, my guard was down because of that. You posted that video clip.
Sam: And then someone posted an AI-generated version of RFK Jr.
Sam: Pretending to be Jar Jar Binks talking about Epstein. And I was like,
Sam: well, you know, he's, he talked about licking toilet seats. I guess this is real too.
Sam: And I was fooled for, for like a few minutes and then it was taken down.
Sam: But like, yeah, at this point it's like, what do you know?
Ivan: I've done a lot of fucked up shit. Okay.
Ivan: Seriously I mean I'm one that has done a lot of fucked up shit,
Ivan: Damn it, RFK Jr. makes me look like just a saint compared to this shit.
Sam: Well, yes. I mean, I remember when he was running for president.
Sam: We had, like, new stories about his, like, craziness, like, every week.
Sam: I mean, the thing with the bear in Central Park.
Ivan: But, Sam, I mean, holy shit.
Sam: There was a whale head at some point. And we knew he had all kinds of drug problems.
Ivan: Yeah, but come on, man!
Sam: Yes. And women, of course. We had the nuzzy thing, and that was just one of many. You know.
Sam: There was something weird with how he broke up with his ex-wife, too, I think.
Ivan: Oh, my God. I mean, actually, I'm afraid to hear it.
Sam: Okay?
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah, but these are the people issuing information and direction to our country right now.
Sam: Right. And, you know, the systematic destruction of all of the actual professionals
Sam: and experts throughout the entire administration.
Ivan: Here's one thing. Can this be covered for? The answer is yes,
Ivan: but it is damaging regardless, okay?
Ivan: You know, look, Argentina for years, okay, had leaders that manipulated economic statistics.
Ivan: I'm convinced they still do. For like, they started really manipulating them like 20 years ago.
Ivan: You know, one of the things that Argentinians have shown me is that despite
Ivan: all of this kind of shit, which they've lived through this kind of shit for
Ivan: a long time, you can still survive.
Ivan: It's not great, but you can still survive. But it's not great.
Sam: Well, I mean, the thing with all of this is you get, there is a certain world
Sam: you can live in if you have reliable, trustworthy information,
Sam: a reliable, trustworthy government.
Sam: You can be sure that contracts are enforced. You can be sure that laws are enforced.
Ivan: Well, Sam, we don't have any of that shit right now.
Sam: Exactly. And that world, actually,
Sam: that regularity where you have the infrastructure in place so that there's a
Sam: level set on expectations, there's a level set on truth,
Sam: all of that kind of thing, enables a whole bunch of activity and potentially
Sam: prosperity that when all of those things are taken away,
Sam: it fundamentally puts...
Ivan: It puts everything at risk.
Sam: It puts society as a whole at a disadvantage. Now, the thing it does is it advantages
Sam: those with inside information.
Ivan: Wow. Which is the intent of... Really?
Sam: You know?
Ivan: Really? I mean, have you not known? I mean, it's like, that's one of the things
Ivan: that we've been talking about.
Ivan: How much insider trading, poly markets, weird bets, all of this shit is going
Ivan: on right now. And it's actually the same thing as in Argentina, for example.
Ivan: Look, one of the things that, for example, that was advantageous during all
Ivan: this era manipulation, one of the things we were doing with the currency was
Ivan: that if you had the right contacts, connections, or things set up, you could get...
Ivan: Currency at preferred rates. You could get all these other things at preferred
Ivan: rates and everybody else got the shaft.
Ivan: Okay. You know, they couldn't.
Ivan: You know, one example was of imports and exports because since they manipulated
Ivan: the currency, they limited your dollar buying and selling.
Ivan: And so when I was at my previous employer, because the company imported stuff
Ivan: that was deemed necessary,
Ivan: okay, we were able to go to the central bank and get currency in order to be
Ivan: able to properly pay and import shit, okay?
Ivan: But this distortion also created that the people that bought stuff from us,
Ivan: because we could get at the official rate.
Ivan: I have people like banging down my door to just buy shit because the official
Ivan: rate was so much better than any other exchange rate that people were just we
Ivan: just want to buy your shit and
Ivan: I'm like but why do you want to buy this much? well because it's at the.
Ivan: Preferred exchange rate then they could sell it
Ivan: at the at what it's really worth which is a
Ivan: ton more and they were like making tons
Ivan: of money off of that and this is the kind of like thing that happens with with
Ivan: these regimes and by the way and and by the way this applies to us in the terms
Ivan: of tariffs because like right now we have this fucking tariff regime right now
Ivan: where if you're in the right side of the tariffs,
Ivan: you're doing good. But if you're on the wrong side, you're fucked.
Sam: And that all depends on your personal relationship with Donald Trump and his cronies.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: And whether or not you're paying them off.
Ivan: Right. And if you're getting exemptions or shit or whatever,
Ivan: or you're getting fucked.
Sam: Right. Which is why you have things like,
Sam: you know tim cook giving that
Sam: little trophy to donald orb the gold orb the the the shiny customized iphone
Sam: whatever the hell you know yeah it is because of this because people know at
Sam: this point that how that it is 100 personal it is 100 transactional play.
Ivan: Man 100 you have to pay to play.
Ivan: If you're not paying to play, you're not going to be, you know,
Ivan: you're not going to be one of the people really making money.
Sam: Which again, like that whole structure is 100% designed to benefit a certain
Sam: group of people who control those strings.
Sam: But as a whole, if you're looking at the impact to the overall economy,
Sam: to society as a whole, to whatever, it's a negative drag, you know?
Sam: And, and so, yeah, I mean, there, there will be certain people making tons of
Sam: money off this and everybody else gets fucked.
Ivan: Basically, you know, so it's a new economy, Sam.
Sam: Well, and the thing is also the,
Sam: you know, there are many problems with this, but one of the big ones is let's
Sam: say the quote unquote good guys take over everything.
Sam: You know, come 2029 after the
Sam: next elections, you can't just snap your fingers and undo all this shit.
Ivan: No.
Sam: Like, there is... I mean, you can undo some of it.
Sam: You can undo some things, but there is a lot of stuff that has been broken that
Sam: will take a long time to repair.
Sam: Once you break trust, it doesn't come right back.
Ivan: It's easier to destroy than it is to create. That is just a reality.
Ivan: You know, this is just the nature of this.
Ivan: You know, when you have... When you've created over decades ecosystems of checks,
Ivan: balances, controls, and things, and trust.
Sam: Trust is a big part of it. Regardless of what is technically on the books and
Sam: what the laws are, if you have changed the culture,
Sam: if you have moved from an area where people can generally assume good faith
Sam: to one where everybody assumes everybody's out to screw everybody else,
Sam: it takes a long time to rebuild the culture you just broke, if ever.
Ivan: Look, one of the things, and why there are many foreign debt issuers,
Ivan: historically, issued debt that was either resolved in U.S.
Ivan: Courts or...
Ivan: Uk courts okay historically and the
Ivan: reason for that is trust in
Ivan: the legal system because if you if you signed it and then you did it that it
Ivan: was contracted in a country with a system of laws that you believe will be enforced
Ivan: then it's more likely that somebody's going to loan you money Right. Okay.
Ivan: And so now at this point still, I will say that one of the things that our courts have been.
Ivan: Even if they aren't making in many cases decisions that we like,
Ivan: what they have been is I think that they have shown more resilience than a lot
Ivan: of the other institutions just because of the way that our courts are structured.
Ivan: In terms of, for example, one of the things that we were concerned about,
Ivan: you know, prosecuting enemies, right?
Ivan: Most of the cases of this administration trying to prosecute people,
Ivan: you know, for stupid shit, keep being turned away.
Ivan: They don't get far, okay? The courts keep rejecting them,
Ivan: like like when they were trying to prosecute Comey or Letitia James or,
Ivan: you know, repeatedly, you know, when they were trying to prosecute like the
Ivan: guy that threw that sandwich in D.C.
Ivan: You know, it used to be that we said that a federal prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich.
Ivan: And right now they have been in a situation where.
Ivan: It's an unprecedented situation where they keep being turned away from indictments,
Ivan: something that normally doesn't happen because they keep presenting indictments
Ivan: that people look at them like, are you crazy?
Ivan: No. They tried to indict the House members, the Democrat House members,
Ivan: for example, because they said something, they made that statement about military
Ivan: people disobeying illegal orders.
Ivan: And they tried to indict them and they couldn't.
Ivan: The grand jury, basically not one person voted to indict them.
Sam: It was zero. It wasn't even like they couldn't get a majority. It was zero.
Ivan: No, it was zero. And so that is one of the things that I will say that thankfully,
Ivan: even at this moment, because of the way it's structured, they haven't been able to crack that.
Sam: Well, and I'll add on that particular case also, they were trying to go after
Sam: Mark Kelly's like military retirement benefits.
Ivan: That also got.
Sam: And the judge just slapped him down and said, this is obviously an infringement
Sam: on First Amendment rights of veterans. And no.
Ivan: Yeah. So so there is that like right now in which the courts still in many cases
Ivan: are still, you know, standing in this.
Ivan: I mean, listen, the main problem that we've got with this entire situation right
Ivan: now is a completely spineless Congress.
Ivan: OK, it this it isn't it's not that the the mechanisms aren't there.
Ivan: It's that the people that supposedly have the mechanisms aren't using them.
Ivan: Well, they're all like, in the large part, the Republicans are either,
Ivan: they are complicit, many of them.
Sam: Well, that's what I was going to say. I was going to quibble with the word spineless
Sam: because a good deal of the Congress is actually supportive.
Ivan: Yeah, they're complicit. They're either complicit or spineless,
Ivan: depending on which ones you're looking at. Right. Right.
Sam: So, yeah, I mean, and and and also listen.
Ivan: But Sam, you know, that in the listen in the in the whispers,
Ivan: a lot of these people go and say
Ivan: that he is a lunatic, that he needs to be impeached, but they won't do it.
Ivan: Well, and even a whole bunch of those that are that are that are going, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: Well, one of the things that I was going to bring up as a later topic,
Sam: but we can just merge into, is we are seeing more splinters on the Republican side.
Sam: Now, we've had various times where they've splintered before and then come back into the fold.
Sam: So, as usual, I'm not anticipating any major actions until or unless we see it.
Sam: But especially on this Epstein stuff, there are a half dozen Republicans, at least,
Sam: who are clearly upset and unhappy with what the administration is doing.
Sam: You have, you know, like Nancy Mace was ranting about what the administration
Sam: was doing with the redactions and she was upset about them like spying on Jam Paul.
Sam: Like those aren't exactly like allies. no
Sam: you know but and what
Sam: i mean is bondi when she was testifying in
Sam: front of whichever committee it was about the epstein
Sam: stuff had opened a binder that
Sam: included a list of exactly what jay paul had looked at when she went to look
Sam: at the epstein files that have been released to congresspeople to look at the
Sam: unredacted versions and you know even even johnson was upset about that and
Sam: said that should not be happening.
Sam: I'll talk to whoever I need to talk to. That needs to be fixed.
Ivan: Hey, Sam, how was Bondi's testimony in Congress?
Sam: So it went really well, I gather. She came off looking great.
Sam: Oh, for Bondi, of course.
Sam: She did wonderfully. No, of course. Like, look, she had her little burn books.
Sam: Where apparently she'd done this before, so they were ready for it.
Sam: Basically, her strategy for every question was to ignore the question and instead
Sam: look up oppo research she had in a little binder on the person asking her the questions.
Sam: And instead, why are you asking me about this when you blah,
Sam: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever oppo research she had on the person
Sam: asking the question? For the Democrats, of course.
Sam: And when asked about Epstein, she started yelling about like,
Sam: But the Dow, the Dow hit $50,000.
Ivan: Dollars.
Sam: Dollars. It hit $50,000. Why are you asking me about this stuff?
Sam: She was asked to apologize to the Epstein victims for not redacting their names
Sam: from the files that were released while simultaneously redacting all of the potential bad actors.
Sam: Right. And she absolutely refused to do that. And so like, and yeah,
Sam: a lot of, a lot of Republican Congress people are pissed at her now too.
Sam: So we'll see. And again, like,
Sam: and people just more generally on the theme of splinters on the Republican side,
Sam: you see a lot of Republicans increasingly uncomfortable about the tariff issues because they're like,
Sam: it's the economy stupid and we're coming into the election and our polls are all bad.
Sam: It looks like we're going to get slaughtered in the House, and suddenly the
Sam: Senate is competitive, and it didn't used to be, and meanwhile you're making
Sam: coffee prices high? What the fuck, dude?
Sam: Fix this. You know, so there are a lot of Republicans getting upset.
Sam: They're also, you know, it's just...
Sam: Again, they've been upset before. Every once in a while.
Sam: Going all the way back to the Access Hollywood tape in 2016,
Sam: you get a flurry of Republicans being all like, oh, no, we have to dump him.
Sam: Donald Trump's dead. He's over.
Ivan: But those were big swings that then reverted.
Ivan: Right now, it's more like a slow bleed. Yeah, it's more like a like a slow bleed
Ivan: of people either leaving Congress, resigning Congress,
Ivan: splintering and not going back to the mean and stopping being afraid of like
Ivan: calling him out on certain stuff.
Ivan: It's a slow bleed right now that that that he's enduring from from from those guys.
Ivan: And look, the economic data is not going to get better, Sam.
Ivan: Now, I will admit, and I said this because I finished my taxes this week,
Ivan: that there probably will be a bump this quarter because of tax refunds, okay?
Ivan: Because I mentioned, you know, on Slack that, look, I probably spent the last
Ivan: 20 years that I had to write a check, whether a big check or a small check.
Sam: Well, because you specifically designed it that way, right? So that you're not loaning the IRS money.
Ivan: Well, yes. Now, usually I try to design it that it was a small check.
Sam: Right, right.
Ivan: But, you know, so I try to like err on the side that I might owe a little bit
Ivan: of money instead of me loaning the government money for free. Okay.
Ivan: But look, with the tax law changes last year, I've had the biggest tax refund
Ivan: I've ever gotten in my life.
Ivan: Like, by a lot.
Sam: He was complaining about it a lot on the Slack, so I told him he should just send it to me.
Ivan: Yeah. No, I'm not sending it to you.
Sam: I'll take care of it for you. I'll happily take that off your hands.
Ivan: But my thing is that I'm expecting that a lot of people, because they did not
Ivan: adjust withholdings last year according to the law, and so that a lot of people
Ivan: are going to wind up getting very big tax refunds right now.
Ivan: Now, of course, the thing is that, as I mentioned, with so many people in debt
Ivan: distress right now, anyway, I don't know if that's going to make a big difference.
Ivan: What, by the way, surprise, surprise, debt distress.
Ivan: What do you think is the biggest issue right now in terms of people all of a
Ivan: sudden defaulting on debt that they had not been on default before?
Ivan: What do you think is the number one thing?
Sam: The school loans.
Ivan: Boom.
Sam: Because the deferments and everything were all taken away.
Ivan: Right. They, it is at a level, at the highest level, like almost,
Ivan: I think ever it was in the chart, period. Okay.
Ivan: That's where we're at right now with that. And then that's having a negative
Ivan: impact on people's finances that, you know,
Ivan: either you're paying them or you're
Ivan: going to, you know, you're getting a negative impact because of this.
Ivan: And, you know, this is something, this is another bond that the administration threw at people.
Ivan: Okay. And this is an economic bomb that hits disproportionately people that make less money.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So, you know, and it hits a lot of people with higher incomes as well,
Ivan: which is that's one change.
Ivan: Because if you think about it, say you studied a profession that was expensive,
Ivan: that then you had gotten all these deferments in terms of not having to pay on those student loans.
Ivan: But maybe you borrowed a couple of hundred thousand dollars for that for that profession.
Ivan: But then, you know, all of a sudden, you know, you're you're you're screwed again.
Ivan: So it's the the the stress behavior is is really bad, you know,
Ivan: because we have seen issues with auto loans.
Ivan: OK, auto loan delinquencies have been soaring.
Ivan: OK, credit card delinquencies are at their highest level since the Great Recession.
Ivan: Okay auto loan delinquencies are
Ivan: the highest level since the great recession as well student
Ivan: loan ones are at the highest level even higher than before the great recession
Ivan: okay and more and mortgage ones are also rising now they are not anywhere near
Ivan: level of the great recession because that was like the biggest precipitator
Ivan: but if you look at mortgage defaults they had gone from,
Ivan: a share of loans that are at least 30 days of liquid mortgages, they went from about,
Ivan: Like 1.5% to all of a sudden they're like closing in on 3.5%, 4%. That's a big bump.
Ivan: Now, it's actually back to where it was the norm up until 2020.
Ivan: So that would like rose. But the trend isn't great.
Ivan: So look the Trumpian economics is a mother fucking disaster Sam okay this is
Ivan: all these fucking people idiots.
Ivan: Fucking idiots that voted for Trump because he's $50,000 yes.
Sam: Like what are you saying the economy is horrible like all of these things are through the roof.
Ivan: You know i i i was going
Ivan: to try to pull for the podcast an analysis to
Ivan: try to separate in terms of the stock market
Ivan: performance where you've because because you've got a lot of a number of very
Ivan: large profitable companies that dominate these indices and they're doing well
Ivan: like we mentioned this whole thing about the economy where we've got winners.
Ivan: We got this winners and losers decided by the government. And you've got what
Ivan: a lot of people describe this K-shaped economy where people,
Ivan: some people are doing great and the other people are getting fucked.
Ivan: And the stock market is also exhibiting that behavior as well,
Ivan: where you've got restaurant chains going under one after the other. Okay.
Ivan: You've got Wendy shutting down 600 restaurants. Okay.
Ivan: For example, like they just announced like this week you've got,
Ivan: but, But on the flip side, you know, you got Apple that, you know.
Ivan: Just had one of their biggest quarters ever. No, their biggest quarter ever, okay, on the other side.
Ivan: And so that's the situation that you've got right now where you've got a lot
Ivan: of sectors getting bubbled.
Ivan: I mean, think about this thing about how housing historically has been a very
Ivan: big economic motor, okay, in the United States, okay?
Ivan: Home sales last month plunged, okay?
Ivan: They plunged. and this is
Ivan: already from a level that was already low and they
Ivan: dropped even more i mean if home
Ivan: sales are plunging it's because people can't
Ivan: afford to buy houses sam because there
Ivan: is and look people have talked
Ivan: about there is a dearth of on the flip side there's a dearth of of houses people
Ivan: affordable houses people are struggling to find homes but if you've got people
Ivan: struggling to buy homes and sales are collapsing it's it's the it's the worst of both worlds right,
Ivan: but according to the trump economic data it's the trump boom.
Ivan: It was Peter Navarro came on the news the other day, and I think that the reason
Ivan: he was saying this was because of all the restatements of the old labor data,
Ivan: where they had to cut down the previous reports.
Ivan: Once they took out all the bullshit estimates,
Ivan: because a lot of the more recent ones include estimates of certain things,
Ivan: extrapolations, because you don't have the full data.
Ivan: Peter Nomura went on TV and said some real, one of his usual lunatic lines.
Ivan: This was a different one, a new one. Let me see if I find it over here because
Ivan: I shared it on the Slack, where he said, it sounded kind of like Kellyanne Conway
Ivan: talking about alternative facts, like about many years ago.
Ivan: He said something along the lines of, you got to learn to look at this data
Ivan: differently from the past.
Ivan: And you're like, what? You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ivan: You can't look at those labor numbers like they used to look at the labor numbers.
Ivan: You got to look at them and you got to think about them differently.
Ivan: You know, because here, the revision to the labor numbers specifically, I pulled it up over here.
Ivan: Prior year the slowdown that job
Ivan: gains averaged only 15 000 a month
Ivan: for last year but the original pace
Ivan: reported was 49 000 a month think about that okay it is one of the slowest bases
Ivan: of any job creation since the great recession and i and i think that the reason
Ivan: why he was saying that you have to look at this data differently and here here's
Ivan: a quote peter navarro the jobs report comes out tomorrow,
Ivan: we have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job
Ivan: number should look like.
Ivan: Wall Street has to adjust for
Ivan: the fact that we're deporting millions of illegals out of the job market.
Ivan: If you're, if we're, wait a minute, I thought they were mooches on,
Ivan: on, you know, on welfare, Sam.
Sam: Once again, yet another place that exposes that all of the excuses about that
Sam: kind of stuff are bullshit and it's just flat out racism.
Ivan: Correct. So.
Ivan: It's a brave new world, Sam.
Sam: It is it.
Ivan: Is it is a brave new world.
Sam: Okay somehow i'm sleeping better.
Ivan: I don't know why i think i've gotten to a point where it's just like i just i i.
Sam: Well it's look it's so negative yeah well it's the thing that you know at the
Sam: very beginning when donald trump first won in 2016,
Sam: people were like don't normalize don't normalize but it's natural for human
Sam: beings to normalize You get used to the new normal.
Sam: And then, like, the things that were outrageous before are like,
Sam: well, that's just how it is.
Ivan: But it's just in general. Like, I got to think, like, Londoners during the Blitz,
Ivan: right? Okay? They were getting bombed every night, right?
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I could hear them. I'm sure the bombs were listening every night.
Ivan: I'm sure at some point, at first they couldn't sleep. But I'm sure at some point
Ivan: they started sleeping through the fucking bombs.
Sam: Because you have no choice.
Ivan: You got no choice! Yeah.
Sam: I mean, the humans are naturally resilient. You know, they will figure out how
Sam: to deal with whatever situation they're in.
Sam: That's not to say the way they deal with it may not have all kinds of negative effects over time.
Sam: Like there's all kinds of trauma, you know, like you, you can argue that entire
Sam: generations and how they interacted with the world were.
Sam: After the Great Depression, after World War II, hell, after what we are going through right now,
Sam: entire generations' ways of interacting with the world will be different and
Sam: not necessarily different in a positive way because of the trauma that they've gone through.
Sam: You know, you survive the trauma. You figure out how to deal with the trauma.
Sam: You go on with life, even through the worst of circumstances.
Sam: But that trauma impacts everything for the rest of your life.
Sam: And trauma usually does not impact people in a positive way.
Sam: No it doesn't with that excitement uh let's take a break we will be back and
Sam: uh talk about a few other things i have an idea for the next thing and i'm gonna
Sam: change the direction slightly but here we go change the direction slightly slightly
Sam: you know whatever here's a break.
Break: Okie dokie here it comes,
Break: It was just my internet being stupid.
Break: My internet being stupid is a new song we will make.
Break: Do you believe in the blue the blue the blue the blue the blue the blue the blue the the,
Break: Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on,
Break: come on, come on, come on. Come on, I'm tired.
Break: What's wrong? I'm really tired.
Break: You, you, you, it's, it's amazing. To get the show on the road. There's a road?
Break: There's a road? Oh my God, there's a road.
Sam: Okay, we are back. And so the first thing for my next thing,
Sam: rather than pick another serious newsy thing, I actually, I should have included
Sam: this during our media segment.
Sam: It is not, you know, usually I only talk about, like, movies that I've watched
Sam: or TV shows where I've watched the entire damn thing.
Sam: But I think based on an episode Alex and I watched last night,
Sam: it is time for another update on this show.
Break: Oh!
Sam: Okay. Okay. We are watching Law & Order, and last night, Alex and I finished season six. Okay?
Sam: Now, the one thing I'll say is, we were on the last episode of season six,
Sam: episode 23 of season six, and, like, we were just a few minutes into the episode, and I was like,
Sam: holy shit, this is...
Sam: This is different and noticeably better than almost all Law & Order episodes
Sam: that I've watched before.
Sam: And so I paused the show and I'm like, am I crazy?
Sam: I looked this up. There's a website called seriesgraph.com where you can put
Sam: in your show of your choice.
Sam: And it shows you a chart of the individual episode ratings from,
Sam: I don't know, IMDB or one of these others.
Ivan: I'm assuming this is after McCoy joined the cast.
Sam: McCoy is already in the cast at this point.
Ivan: Sam Waters, right. Yeah, but this is like, yeah.
Sam: Yeah, he's in it at this point. But sure enough,
Sam: and I stopped it after like five minutes into the episode,
Sam: maybe 10 at the most, to check this because I'm like,
Sam: holy shit what is going on with this episode this is
Sam: like it's like on a
Sam: whole different level than law and order usually is
Sam: and sure enough out of we are
Sam: now in the midst of season 25 of law and order is airing right now okay okay
Sam: yeah this episode season six episode 23 is the single highest rated episode
Sam: of all 25 seasons so far the one that i watched last night,
Sam: it break and you will probably remember it
Sam: because i know you're a law and order fan when i described the episode this
Sam: is the episode where at the very beginning most
Sam: of the cast witnesses the execution of somebody that they had arrested oh of
Sam: course and so instead of the usual you have the law half and then the order
Sam: half and they you know they go through solving the crime and then and then go
Sam: to court and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Instead, the whole damn episode.
Ivan: Is about the aftermath.
Sam: That's the name of the episode.
Ivan: Aftershock. It's Aftershock.
Sam: Aftershock. But it's the aftermath and it's all of the characters and how they
Sam: deal with having that experience.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Extremely powerful episode.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Ivan: Everybody dealt with it so different. And it's, I mean, it really captured how human nature is.
Sam: Yeah. And it completely broke the format that the show usually does because
Sam: it was all about the personal lives of all the people involved.
Sam: But it was, it was done very well.
Sam: And of course, and I'm not going to give a spoiler, but it ended dramatically as well.
Ivan: It ended all, yeah. Not end well.
Sam: Anyway, looking at all these ratings, these rate episodes from 0 to 10 or whatever,
Sam: this is the only episode of Law & Order in all 25 seasons rated over a 9.
Sam: It is rated a 9.1.
Sam: I also noticed looking at the graph sort of how consistent Law & Order is in quality.
Sam: You look at other shows and it's all over the place. There's some good episodes.
Sam: There's some bad episodes. It's all over the place.
Sam: Law and Order, like almost every, like if you, if you look at this chart,
Sam: there's seven, seven point something all over the place.
Sam: There, there's some eights there, there, there, there's some episodes in eights
Sam: and apparently season 21 kind of sucked. It had the lowest ratings by far, mostly in the sixes.
Sam: But overwhelmingly sevens with maybe 20-30% being eights.
Sam: And just remarkably consistent as well through the entire run.
Sam: Apparently, the season I just finished, season six, and the season following
Sam: it, season seven, are the highest rated seasons in terms of average episode
Sam: ratings of the entire run.
Sam: So apparently I'm at peak Law and Order right now in season six and seven.
Sam: And anyway, I just like, there are a handful of TV episodes in various places
Sam: where you are just immediately shocked by the episodes.
Sam: This was one of them. Like, I added it to the list to talk about as an individual episode.
Sam: And I don't usually do that because it was just like, whoa, what the fuck did I just watch?
Sam: You know? And so, I just figured I'd call that out.
Sam: And I'll note that, like, you know, Law & Order, very consistent in the sevens.
Sam: You know exactly what you're coming in to expect. I'm comparing.
Sam: There's another show that Alex and I are watching right now.
Sam: We're actually about to finish the series called The Closer.
Sam: It's also very consistent, but
Sam: consistent in the eights instead of consistent in the sevens. So, okay.
Sam: It's a different kind of show than Law & Order, a little bit more to it.
Sam: So I get that, but nice and consistent.
Sam: But like, again, like the consistency is actually valuable.
Sam: Like for, you know, you know, again, you know exactly if you turn on an episode
Sam: of Law & Order, you know what you're going to get.
Sam: It's a very consistent level of quality, and you can say, okay,
Sam: maybe that gets a little bit repetitive, but they managed to make it so that
Sam: there's enough different to do it.
Sam: We'll see when we get to some of these later series that have lower ratings.
Sam: I wonder what they fucked up in season 21.
Ivan: Well, season 21 was the return.
Sam: No, season 22 was the return, wasn't it?
Ivan: No, I think it's season 21.
Sam: Wasn't season 21 the last season of the old version?
Ivan: Hang on, hang on, hang on. Looking at our... No, it's the return season. Yeah.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And it was kind of... It was a little...
Sam: Shaky. Okay. Yeah.
Sam: It looks like they got their feet again in season 22.
Ivan: Yes. They started getting their feet
Ivan: back again after that. But that first comeback was a little bit shaky.
Ivan: I think it's just too much time off. They started getting their feet back again
Ivan: after that. But yeah, that was a little bit eh.
Ivan: And it was short as well.
Ivan: They only did 10 episodes. They went back. I know it's really hard like in this
Ivan: in this era where to get like full.
Ivan: Well, most, you know, companies only order 10 10 shows of a season.
Ivan: But but but, you know, I mean, these new season, like I'm looking at season
Ivan: 24 or low on orders back to like a full like 22 episode season.
Sam: And I've heard like people talking about like the need for TV to get back to this.
Sam: Like, rather than having, like, 10 super expensive, super involved,
Sam: high-end episodes as, like, a prestige drama or whatever, just start cranking the fuckers out again.
Ivan: No, and then way too many of these shows have gaps that are way too long between seasons.
Sam: They do 10 episodes. That too, but also people have pointed out,
Sam: like, you need to give the shows time to breathe as well. You need some of the
Sam: episodes that let you explore things.
Sam: If you're crunching it down to 10, it's basically a miniseries or a super long
Sam: movie, which is a different thing than a series series.
Sam: Okay. Now, before I move on, I had mentioned episodes of shows that really just live.
Sam: Individually knock you over i will
Sam: mention two more from other shows neither of
Sam: which i'm currently actively watching but one is buffy the vampire slayer episode
Sam: five no sorry season five episode 16 the body um i don't.
Ivan: Think i've ever i i i am pretty confident on this.
Sam: I don't think i.
Ivan: I've not even watched a single episode or a minute of the show.
Ivan: Maybe I passed by it on the TV and watched a few seconds, but I am pretty confident
Ivan: that I didn't watch like a full minute.
Sam: It was a good show. Unfortunately, this is one of the shows where it turns out
Sam: the creator turned out to be a scumbag, Joss Whedon, who did this.
Sam: But it's one of those separate the art from the artist kind of thing.
Sam: And also one of the actors in it also was a scumbag and ended up having all
Sam: kinds of issues in jail, blah, blah, blah, afterwards. But, like, whatever.
Sam: Like, anyway, The Body, season five, episode 16 of Buffy, it won't hit if you
Sam: just watch this episode in isolation quite the same way. You have to know the characters already.
Sam: But without giving...
Sam: Detailed plot stuff. It is the episode where Buffy's mother dies.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: And it is just so incredibly well done.
Sam: And it kicks you in the gut, etc. And I guess the episodes I'm mentioning have a theme.
Sam: Because the other one that I immediately thought of.
Ivan: Apparently a lot of death.
Sam: Yes, because the other episode I immediately thought of.
Ivan: It starts with a freaking execution.
Sam: Yes, yes. And the other one is,
Sam: just make sure I have the right episode here, there you go,
Sam: is MASH Season 3, Episode 24, which is also, spoiler for that episode,
Sam: from the episode that came out in what.
Ivan: 1979?
Sam: Yeah, something like that. 1975 for this episode. March 1975.
Sam: It's where the first commander that you got to know gets to go home.
Sam: And then in the last minute of the episode, you found out that his plane going home was shot down.
Sam: The whole episode is like saying goodbye to him happy farewells blah blah blah
Sam: and then he's shot down on the way home and you see everybody's reaction to hearing that news.
Ivan: Hmm.
Sam: Anyway, all of those happy notes.
Ivan: Just all these happy notes.
Sam: I mean, I'm sure there's, Oh, and the red wedding episode of game of Thrones
Sam: also is like one of those like episodes with like a major.
Ivan: I've not watched, you know.
Sam: And I have never finished game of Thrones, but I got up to that episode.
Sam: And anyway, it was, it's, it's one of those where people are surprised by what happens in it.
Sam: If they haven't been spoiled and, shocked and, oh my God, what just happened?
Sam: Anyway, there are a bunch of classic episodes of shows. I wonder if any of them are happy.
Sam: Our listeners suggest, are there any episodes of TV shows that are so incredibly
Sam: outstanding that you remember that one episode of the show over and above everything else of the show,
Sam: but where it's happy.
Sam: It's not outstanding because it handled tragedy well.
Ivan: I'm not going to say episode of a show, but I did post a lot about this.
Ivan: Okay. It was on TV this week.
Sam: But I will say that— I was going to transition into the Super Bowl next. Are you ready to do that?
Ivan: But listen, I'm sorry, but the Super Bowl halftime show that just happened with my compatriot,
Ivan: okay all right who i'm gonna let me clarify something here i'm not one that
Ivan: has a fan of his music not not because i was you know some people are like oh
Ivan: my god no it's like it's not my kind of music.
Sam: Yeah you're more into the ray lynch.
Ivan: Yeah exactly it wasn't my kind of music you know i many times that his albums
Ivan: have come out before i listened to listen to it i'm But I will say that one
Ivan: of the things that, well,
Ivan: a couple of things. His last album was very different, and I didn't realize
Ivan: that the album was that different, okay?
Ivan: And so I started hearing the music relatively recently, okay?
Ivan: Where he incorporated a lot more elements of actually, like,
Ivan: doing more traditional Puerto Rican music, like salsa, okay?
Ivan: There's, I mean, this is a guy who's in a genre, genre, reggaeton,
Ivan: which is, it's a, I don't know how to describe it.
Ivan: It's a combination of, like, it's a
Ivan: danceable music okay with it's kind
Ivan: of like a i will say that it's a style of rap that's
Ivan: puerto rican in a certain extent with a
Ivan: very different vibe and rhythm to it okay it's
Ivan: very puerto rican and you know my one thing was and this is my ignorance okay
Ivan: i will say is a lot A lot of stars of this kind of music usually are people
Ivan: that aren't thoughtful or nice people, okay?
Ivan: But the show, the halftime show, which I think that when the global numbers
Ivan: come out will probably have been the most watched one globally.
Ivan: Even in the U.S., it was like fourth of U.S.
Ivan: Watch numbers. But from what I could tell globally, this was this had a lot
Ivan: more appeal because look, Bad Bunny has been number one global music streaming
Ivan: artist for multiple years.
Ivan: OK, you know, topping Taylor Swift in many cases. They've been like up there.
Ivan: OK, right. You know, in that in that competition.
Ivan: So, I mean, I.
Ivan: The entire production, and I had seen one that he had done earlier,
Ivan: shorter, one in Puerto Rico that was also very moving that I realized,
Ivan: shit, this guy is more thoughtful.
Ivan: But the entire production itself was an ode to Puerto Rico and to people and
Ivan: to the Americas and to our diversity.
Ivan: And it also touched many themes,
Ivan: talked about the happy things, the great things, the hurtful things, the struggle things.
Ivan: You know, it started shooting, showing a sugar cane plantation.
Ivan: You know, people in Puerto Rico were, I mean, those plantations were slavery for many years,
Ivan: you know, for many people in Puerto Rico up until like the abolition of slavery
Ivan: in Puerto Rico, which was late in 1871.
Ivan: And then even after that, when companies took over, the employers were basically
Ivan: almost indentured slaves to the companies that worked for them.
Ivan: They wound up always, like, being in debt to the—it was akin to slavery,
Ivan: okay, for a long time, until that industry went away in the first half of the
Ivan: 20th century, finally, thank God.
Ivan: Than Puerto Rico for better and other employment opportunities.
Ivan: But it, it, it.
Ivan: To everybody that I spoke to that was from Puerto Rico that watched this,
Ivan: they all cried because of how beautiful it was and how it really shared everything
Ivan: that we have done from from how our culture is to the things that were the things
Ivan: that were hurtful and struggled.
Ivan: I mean, they had this entire scene where they did it with the,
Ivan: where all of a sudden the power lines, the utility poles like exploded.
Ivan: And that's a direct reference to the, what happened with Hurricane Maria,
Ivan: which is almost now 10 years ago, which was something that was very traumatic
Ivan: for everybody. I mean, it was traumatic for my family.
Ivan: Very much so. And so, and, but the one thing is that his message was one of joy and love,
Ivan: I mean, to everybody, and how he went through the trouble of mentioning every
Ivan: inch of land in the Americas.
Ivan: At the end to express the love for all of them. Okay.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Ivan: And, oh, it was, man, it was joyful.
Ivan: It brought tears, but it was more tears of joy, not tears of suffering to see him do that.
Ivan: Look, people are still, it's crazy.
Ivan: The attention it's gotten, like, on a global basis and how in media and other
Ivan: places, it just keeps being replayed over and over and over right now.
Ivan: So, you know, especially after Trump and a lot of MAGA idiots vilified him,
Ivan: that the show was just that good and that it was really done from the heart
Ivan: and with love and joy. Was so awesome.
Ivan: And I, you know, it made me very proud of him and my tiny little island.
Ivan: That, yeah, I mean, look, this kid, this kid is not from a rich family.
Ivan: This kid is from a town that's near from where my parents are.
Ivan: A very humble town, okay?
Ivan: This kid used to bag groceries, man.
Ivan: You know? And he started uploading music at the SoundCloud and all of a sudden
Ivan: started getting popular.
Ivan: And he started being popular. The thing about him that a lot of the way that he has...
Ivan: In general, is showing of such kindness and concern for everybody.
Ivan: You know, he mentioned that in his last album, one of his goals was why he made
Ivan: a lot of songs that were outside of his main genre was to give opportunities to people.
Ivan: And there's a public school of music in San Juan to give them an opportunity
Ivan: to shine, to get opportunities.
Ivan: So he decided that he wanted to do that because that's their kind,
Ivan: that's not, it's not a genre, but he wanted all those people to get opportunities
Ivan: to be musicians, to be successful.
Ivan: He said that basically, well, we're all going to die, so I need to do,
Ivan: you know, but that's just the way it is, so I love my people, why not help them out?
Ivan: Listen, he did that last year. You know, he held no concerts in the U.S.,
Ivan: and the reason he did that is because he did 30 shows in San Juan over like
Ivan: a month It basically said, hey, you want to see the concert?
Ivan: Come to San Juan to watch it.
Ivan: And that was a huge boost to the local economy. I can tell you I was there.
Ivan: I mean, it was packed with visitors during a time that is usually low season. Okay?
Ivan: And so, and, you know, you know, they keep talking about price being price gouged
Ivan: out of concerts, people, you know, oh, my God, you know, ticket master the fees.
Ivan: So the first 10 concerts, he made sure that people locally could get tickets at really cheap prices.
Ivan: OK, there were paper tickets, so they couldn't be resold like a line.
Ivan: You had to go like they actually printed the paper tickets and they sold them
Ivan: at like these old prices. So he does all these acts and things that are just
Ivan: to care for people and show it.
Ivan: And he's a joyful and genuinely happy guy. And that's what he was trying to share with the world.
Ivan: And, you know, the thing is that Maga, I guess, tried to do this stupid kid rock show, whatever.
Ivan: I don't know if you saw the thing that apparently the because he did this entirely
Ivan: live and he did not lip sync one second of it. Okay.
Ivan: Of the show. Apparently Kid Rock, they have to reshoot it like 30 times.
Ivan: They spent three days shooting.
Sam: And it was recorded like months ago, right?
Ivan: It was recorded like weeks. Well, it was weeks ago or something.
Ivan: And that they had to do reshoots after reshoots because people weren't getting
Ivan: excited. The people in the crowd were paid.
Ivan: I mean, it's just so fucking ridiculous.
Sam: But Yvonne, Yvonne.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Bad Bunny is spitting on real Americans by speaking and singing in a foreign
Sam: language and being like brownish.
Sam: And just not, you know, what's wrong with him?
Sam: Why can't we have real Americans at the Super Bowl, Yvonne?
Ivan: Ah, real Americans. Yes. So what are we going to do?
Sam: Just to be clear, I am not expressing my own opinion.
Ivan: Are we going to have like the Seminole and Cherokee tribes do a show like live
Ivan: on the stage? Is that where we're going to move to?
Ivan: I mean, I would be all for that, actually, by the way. That sounds like a great idea.
Sam: It would probably be a fun show, but no, like,
Sam: and by the way, all of these MAGA people talking about real Americans do seem
Sam: to get somewhat flustered when you start talking about Native Americans and being like, you know,
Sam: oh, we're going to kick out all the immigrants who came here without permission. Okay, okay.
Ivan: So where are we starting?
Ivan: Okay, you know, it's just so fucking stupid.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: The whole thing is just so stupid. The whole immigration enforcement,
Ivan: the whole fucking thing, the whole bullshit, it's all just fucking fascism and racism.
Sam: That's it. And look, it's time to wrap up, so I'm not going to get into this extensively.
Sam: But there was more that came out in the last week to two weeks about the conditions
Sam: in some of these camps, you know, that they're setting up for adults and kids
Sam: that are just I saw the stuff this morning about like, you know,
Sam: diseases.
Ivan: It's all about cruelty. It is all about thing to do.
Ivan: It is all about being cruel to to to people that are to black and brown people.
Ivan: Look, now there are some, by
Ivan: the way, there are some white people being ensnared, by the way, as well.
Sam: I saw a post this morning about, like, some Russians who are,
Sam: like, locked up in these camps.
Sam: Oh, somebody from Ireland that I saw. Yeah, no, you know, this is,
Sam: the clear target is non-white folks.
Sam: Right. But there's lots of collateral damage they're hitting as well.
Sam: You know, I mean, the stuff in Minnesota got attention because we killed like
Sam: reputable looking white people, you know.
Ivan: Very nice people, by the way. OK, I'm not I'm not going to because by the way,
Ivan: people that I by the way, I give my respects to them because they were out there
Ivan: protesting for people like me.
Ivan: That's why they were there. And that's why they lost their lives for people
Ivan: like me. And so I do appreciate it very much.
Sam: Yeah. Look, one of the things, you know, when talking about when this regime is gone and we have,
Sam: you know, hopefully somebody good in place, one of the things that I'm going
Sam: to be looking for, honestly, to evaluate success or failure is not just that
Sam: we stop doing some of these things.
Ivan: It's how we prosecute these fuckers.
Sam: Absolutely. Like we cannot do the things like, oh, let's look forward, not back.
Sam: No, like, no, no, we need to vigorously and especially look,
Sam: look, I care about all the corruption crap, too. That should all be like prosecuted as well.
Sam: But what really like what we are doing in terms of, you know,
Sam: setting up goddamn concentration camps and and all of the abuses of power that
Sam: are happening related to the immigration issue.
Sam: This stuff is like send them to the hague kind
Sam: of stuff yeah you know and yeah
Sam: you know we need we need to like and and i'm
Sam: not confident of the uh the ability of the of us to handle this stuff internally
Sam: so honestly like yeah some of this stuff is like sign us up to the world court
Sam: and hand people over you know and let let them deal with it as international
Sam: crimes against humanity,
Sam: you know, and, and, you know.
Sam: With, with a whole bunch of this stuff, but especially like how we're handling
Sam: the immigration issue, this is just completely intolerable.
Sam: It is, it's like, and it's, it's the kind of stuff that makes you wonder at
Sam: some point, and I'm not saying, I'm not advocating anything,
Sam: but at some point you do wonder where does the,
Sam: I still think nonviolence is the most effective way to deal with any of this stuff.
Sam: But at some point, if somebody is being clearly abused on the street,
Sam: when is it appropriate to intervene with violence to stop the cop from shooting the guy?
Sam: Like, if there had been another bystander there in the two cases in Minnesota
Sam: we're talking about that had a firearm and saw them about to shoot these innocent
Sam: people, would they be in the right taking action against the ICE agents?
Sam: I don't know. I don't know.
Sam: So, anyway.
Ivan: Anyway. On that happy note.
Ivan: We sucked out the joy out of everything again.
Sam: I'm sorry. I brought us down with very dramatic affecting episodes that like
Sam: hurt your soul, but like are incredibly good and powerful.
Sam: And then you were like, but joy, Super Bowl halftime show, joy, joy, joy.
Sam: And then I'm like, concentration camps, human rights abuses.
Ivan: By the way, another reason why Bad Bunny decided not to do the shows in the
Ivan: United States was he was afraid that ICE enforcement was going to go and,
Ivan: like, surround the shows.
Ivan: And so many of his fans are Latino. He was like, fuck this shit.
Ivan: No, no, no. I'm not going to expose them.
Ivan: In Puerto Rico, it's a lot, you know, because you blend in so much, it's not such a problem.
Ivan: And so, therefore, that's why all the shows were done there.
Sam: Right.
Sam: Okay, let's wrap it up. Curmudgeons-corner.com. Go there, find all our archives, find all kinds of stuff.
Sam: You can find all the ways to contact us.
Sam: I will say, I have a little graph at the bottom that has sort of a listener
Sam: chart, if you go to curmudgeons-corner.com.
Sam: I have something similar on Wiki of the Day.
Sam: And I will add that I'm not going to promise a timeline,
Sam: but because of some stuff i've done to help out the snohomish podcast network
Sam: that we're a part of for their stats i've got coming soon an improved dashboard
Sam: for curmudgeon's corner stats,
Sam: like i i i've i'm tracking downloads in a better way than we did before in terms
Sam: of what's valid versus what's robots.
Sam: I'm charting it in ways that show not only total numbers, but like downloads
Sam: of individual episodes and stuff like that. I got good stuff.
Sam: I've got it. I've built out some stuff for, like I said, for the Snohomish Podcast Network.
Sam: Go check them out. Check out all the other podcasts, including our UMSR.
Sam: Who've done shows with us a couple of times. I've been on their show.
Sam: They've been on our show.
Sam: Well, one of them has. Sammy hasn't been on our show. Sammy, if you're listening,
Sam: you should come on sometime. Anyway, but you can find all that stuff and archives,
Sam: transcripts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Sam: And of course, a link to our Patreon where you can give us money at various
Sam: levels. We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell.
Sam: We will send you a postcard. We'll send you a mug.
Sam: And at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we'll invite you to the Commissions
Sam: Chorus Slack, where Yvonne and I and a bunch of other people are chatting and
Sam: sharing links all through the week. Yvonne, do you have a highlight from this?
Ivan: I'll make some, back to comedy, okay? I got a couple, okay?
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: One is, this was in the standard, hospital evacuated as man found to have World
Ivan: War I artillery share in rectum.
Ivan: The discovery of the century-old shell prompted a hospital evacuation amid fears it could explode. Yes.
Ivan: Greg made a comment that he said that he wanted to eliminate his kidney stones in a hurry.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: That was part of his plan. So that, that's one that I got.
Ivan: I should have thought of that. Exactly. I don't know. You're, you're not.
Ivan: And the second one is that there was some novelty items being sold around.
Ivan: There's like a, but, but one is apparently somebody has made Donald Trump butt plugs for sale.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Yes. I, I, You know, that doesn't look very—I don't see who could be deriving
Ivan: any joy from having Donald Trump shoved up their ass.
Sam: It is not enticing to me. That's all I can say. I'm not going to judge anybody.
Ivan: Yeah, but I'm out on that one.
Sam: Yeah, I've had enough foreign objects inserted into orifices in the last week.
Ivan: Indeed. Let's quit on that. Yes.
Sam: Now, two more things to mention. One, Alex just came up to me,
Sam: wanting me to mention that I have shared this on the Commudgeons Corner Slack,
Sam: but apparently there's a site where you can do custom wordles.
Sam: And so he's made a whole bunch for me. But I was proud of one because it was
Sam: a 13-letter one, and I actually got it.
Sam: Because I realized with this custom wordle, every entry didn't have—I misspelled
Sam: my first attempt at a 13-letter word because I didn't even attempt to spell
Sam: hippopotamus correctly.
Sam: So I put in hippopotamus but misspelled, and it still worked.
Sam: So I was like, ah, you can put in non-words, and that helps with long words
Sam: because you can just try a whole bunch of letters and see what works and what doesn't.
Sam: Anyway, in five tries, I successfully got cephalothorax.
Ivan: Jesus Christ, that's it.
Ivan: I looked at it and my response is like, fuck no, I'm not doing this.
Sam: Well, he sent me some with even longer words and I had that same response for the others.
Sam: I'm like, okay, I did the one. I'm out.
Sam: He also did one that only had four letters, which I did do. It was liar.
Ivan: Okay, that sounds more reasonable. Four letters. Okay.
Sam: I shouldn't give... Lies? It was lies. It was, he, he's.
Ivan: He's upset at me because I'm not remembering properly.
Sam: Okay. What was it? He's going to tell me. While he gets me that,
Sam: I will repeat once again, Robin letter, robinletter.com.
Sam: If you're, if you're interested, send an email and I'll, I'll get you on the
Sam: list. I'll be expanding in waves.
Sam: Hopefully people like it. And frankly, even if you don't like it,
Sam: feedback would be useful for me to be able to iterate or just learn from my failure.
Ivan: Plus, we like feedback, positive and negative. You know, for some reason,
Ivan: we used to get more feedback, unlike other places. I think it's because we haven't been doing ads.
Ivan: But when we got feedback, it was funny, especially the guys that said we suck.
Sam: It was lies-a. Oh.
Sam: Oh, no. It was lies was my last guess, but I was wrong. So I never did find out that word.
Sam: Oh. It ends in a yes. So.
Ivan: Oh, well.
Sam: I thought, I misremembered. Anyway, robinletter.com.
Sam: Yes. And Phil, you know, and we don't even check, like, the iTunes reviews anymore.
Sam: I haven't looked in years.
Ivan: I checked it a while back.
Sam: Nothing new.
Ivan: I checked it in the last year, and I didn't see any new reviews.
Sam: That's because, you know.
Ivan: Well, let me try again. Let me check again. Hold on. Not that you mentioned it. There we go.
Ivan: But I did look not that long ago.
Sam: Well, and I guess it's not even iTunes anymore. It's now the separate podcast app.
Ivan: Podcast app.
Sam: Yeah. Anyway. See y'all.
Ivan: See y'all.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah, the last written review was years ago.
Sam: Well, we stopped asking, too. So, hey, if you're out there, go to your podcast
Sam: app, whatever your favorite player is, whether it's the most of them have associated
Sam: places to rate or review podcasts.
Sam: So, you know, go to the Apple podcast app or whatever other thing you have and
Sam: give us a rating and a review.
Ivan: The review I like the most. It's still here. This is from three years ago.
Ivan: Two guys ranting about stuff they barely know. Get a bloody editor.
Ivan: Unlistenable. By Basket Rabbit.
Sam: There you go. Best review ever.
Ivan: Yeah. See, I, you know. Okay.
Sam: We're done here. Thanks, everybody. Stay safe. Have fun. Blah,
Sam: blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. And yeah. Goodbye.
Ivan: Bye.
Sam: And that was, of course, more Ray Lynch. So thanks again for Ray Lynch.
Sam: And yeah. Okay. I'm going to head to stop button, Yvonne. Bye.
Ivan: Bye.