A Geek History of Time - Episode 167 - The Popes, Walter White, and John Cena Walk Into a Bar Part II

Episode Date: July 16, 2022

So first thing foremost, I think being the addition of pant leggings is really when you start to see your heroes get watered down. The ability to go straight man, that one. Which is a good argument for absolute girls. Everybody is going to get behind me though, and the support numbers will go through. When you hang out with the hero, it doesn't go well for you. Grandfather took the cob and just slid it right through the bar. Oh god, I'm sorry. Okay.

And that became the dominant way our family did it. Okay. And so, both of my marriages, they were treated to that. Okay, wait, hold on. Yeah, rage, I could. How do you imagine the rubber chicken? My grandmother actually vacuumed in her pearls. Oh my god, you always had to sexual revolution.

It might have just been a Canadian standoff. We're gonna go back to 9-11. Oh, you're gonna get over it. And I don't understand the book, it's a school. Agra has no business being that big. With the cultists, wind, we all win. 1.5-2-3-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4- This is a peak history of time. Where we connect nursery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock.

I'm a world history teacher up here in northern California. Northern California with a side-order of English, currently contractually unemployed. I spent a significant portion of my day trying to deal with lawn maintenance, now that I'm on lawn maintenance, now that I'm on summer vacation. And I have some very theological thoughts about what exactly lawn maintenance involves and how different groups of folks would approach it. But I haven't quite codified it enough to make it an episode or to tie it in with anything nerdy yet. So yeah, anyway, that's what I've been working on. What are you

up to? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin and drama and US history teacher at the high school level up here in Northern California. And as far as what I've been up to, I've been assigning reading to my children because it's summertime. And I am that dad. So they are going to finish up what they didn't finish from last summer, which was March. They called this enemy and barefoot again. and then they're also going to read the jungle and mouse. So that's there's some reading. So I'm looking forward to that. In other news, my children have both learned the neuter gender in Latin.

They're handling it with a plum. So that's pretty fun. Very cool. Yeah. So hold on one second. Cool. Made it work. All right.

So when last we spoke, yes. You had an outgoing Pope with a 76 approval rating. Yeah. Pretty good. Pretty good. Although to lose nearly a quarter of of the Catholics in the room when you're the Pope, that takes some doing, but he does. He's also suffers from the post John Paul II syndrome. You know, that guy was insanely popular. Like I think I remember reading it, he was at about like 87% when he died.

And he died. Yeah. And so when someone dies, you tend to think kinder of them. He'd been at it, you know, like he was an institution in most people's lives. He was very good at the publicity, all of those things. And he just looked poppy, you know, and hepy. He was what you pictured when you pictured a Pope. Whereas Benedict, he also retired, which was again the first time in 600 years someone retires. So that's going to chip away at some people's approval. And again, he's not the last guy. It's kind of like when I have a substitute and asked my students how the sub was and I go, they were blah, blah, blah, and they're awful in their trouble. I say, well, are they just guilty of not being me? Because that's not fair. But, you know, same, same kind of idea. So.

So yeah, and I want to clarify, because we talked about this in the last episode. He was the first Pope to relinquish his office since Gregory the 12th was forced to resign in 1415 in order to end the Western schism. And he was the first Pope to voluntarily resign since Celestine the 5th in 1294. That's a lot of people that couldn't read the room and he clearly could. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So now he did call himself Benedict partly. I found conflicting reports on that, but one of them was it could have been a subtle signal to the fact because the last Benedict had been kind of a placeholder Pope and who and had not served for very long and he was recognizing that he was also that guy. Could be. He was in wrestling terms the transitional

champion. Yeah. Yeah. Could be. Certainly could be. In 1936 Mario Berg oh boy Italian name. I'm going to say Bergolio. There's a B-E-R-G-O-G-L-I-O. I'm going to say it's Bergolio because that seems like you might swallow one of your consonants. Yeah. Mario Bergolio and Regina Savori who'd fled the fascist in Italy for Argentina in 1929 had their first child. What an unfortunate place to run to. Yeah, to get away from fascists. Well, you know what it is.

It's like when you have allergies and you live in Boston, and you move out to Arizona, and then everybody in Boston likes the idea, so they come with you, and they're like, you know what we need? Mulberry trees. Yeah. And they bring them all in, and you're like,

you know what? Yeah, like why did you do this to me? Now it's hot. And there's more. It's small. Small, very ball and fuck you all. But their first child's name was Jorge Mario Bergoglio. And he would be the oldest of five in a family

of pretty good Catholics if you got five kids. Now, he ended up working as a food chemist in a lab, as well as as a balancer in a bar during his early years. Living a fairly normal everyday life, he didn't feel the call to the priesthood until he stopped by a church for confession and found great inspiration with the priest there. At that point, he pivoted and became a Jesuit novice at seminary who struggled with the temptation of the carnal by at least one crush that he had on a gal, and he admitted to this pretty openly.

But in 1960 Jorge took his vows of perpetual poverty, chastity and obedience and became a full-on Jesuit. He got the equivalent of a master's degree in philosophy, so points there, and he taught at a Jesuit high school in Santa Fe de la Veracruz in Argentina and a private pre-12 Jesuit, pre-through 12 Jesuit school in Buenos Aires. Yeah. Dude was a teacher and I'm a fan of that. Now while by all accounts Jorge was an effective and good teacher, he yearned to learn more.

So he dove back into his theological studies in the late 1960s, getting ordained as a priest in 1969. Again, he taught theology and most of his promotions from here on out were two different professorships and theological studies. So whereas the other guy was very big on orthodoxy and journalism, and I mean writing different journals and that kind of periodicals, this guy is about the colloquy the professorships. Now he spent time in multiple European countries arguing vehemently with Jesuits about matters of orthodoxy and liberation theology to the point where he was asked firmly

not to live amongst his fellow Jesuits anymore. And now, minus the not having sex part, he lived a life that I could say would definitely have NB'd. Yeah. As of that. Yeah. As the 1990s wore on, however, he started working his way up the chain, becoming the archbishop of Buenos Aires. Now, as everyone knows, the archbishop is somebody who is over a bunch of other bishops who oversees the diocese. Everybody knows that that's common knowledge. Now, after some people got schooled last episode. So, once in that position, Jorge worked really well to reach out to the poor more, more specifically focusing on them.

And he did other archbishop stuff as well, leading the anti-bottle autonomy for women initiatives and starting a commission on divorce. But he also did double the amount of priests who were going into the slums. And by all reports, you know, a really good way to fight against the idea of abortion is to make it so that people have enough of what they need so that they don't have to consider such a decision. And he's certainly approached it from that perspective, but at the same time, he is very much a Catholic priest or archbishop. So it is a construct in which he exists. There's no really getting around it. I quite honestly, I don't know if he would have advanced

this far. Had he not been against bodily autonomy for women. But there you go. And he started to mission on divorce, which again, he's seeing a problem problem he's looking to solve it but you know it's kind of like um he's attacking the process so that the result changes that's cool um others would argue that perhaps that result's not really a bad one perhaps we should look at the uh the fact that people feel compelled to get married in a society um regardless um he did. So regardless, he did, like I said, double the amount of priests who are going into the slums. And if you're going to take this on good faith, which I assume you would, and I will, he was doing good things for people by sending priests to the poor. Now, others would argue that that's the last thing they need, and I could honestly very much understand that argument too. Now, he really seems to have taken

the poverty thing very seriously by making sure that he disaggregated the Buenos Aires Church from investment banks to force better avoidance of financial excess, as well as a compassion for the poor, starting weekly footwashings. And that was a big thing for him. Like from early on, he was big on the footwashing thing. Now, if I recall correctly, a woman wept on Jesus' feet and washed it with her hair first, and then at the last supper, he washed his buddy's feet.

Yes. I think those were the only two times where footwashing is mentioned in the Gospels. Yes, and it is a common practice in many diocese that during Holy Week there is a ceremony during which

parish the pastor of the parish and the Bishop of the diocese, washed the feet of members of the community. And in some cases, there is a very specific point made. I know in the last two parishes that I've been in, rabbis from local Jewish congregations are invited to participate and there is there is

washing of of their feet as part of that. And you know the the symbolism of Christ doing it is if you want to be a leader, then you have to be a servant and take care of those who are in your, you know, the people that you want to lead, you need to help. Yeah, basically. You know, I also, I think that there's, I mean, first off, there's as the profit Bono said, if you want to learn to fly better, if you want to kiss the sky, you better learn how to fly. You learn how to kneel on your knees, boy.

And so there's an inherently per se humbling aspect to washing someone's feet. You are literally prostrating yourself. Is that the word? Yeah. Okay. You're a little extruding. I kind of want to start a church. You guys the other way. Church Dionysus, baby. There you go. We accept all bums. Even the whiny bumps. So even the whiny bumps, uh, had done 2020, uh, incremental.

That's it. But, uh, you know, like, uh, they prostrate themselves in front of a person. They are literally lowering themselves to serve the person in front of them. And if you make sure that that is a person of lesser means, you're kind of doing like what what Jesus said in the in the in the the gospels. So that's

pretty cool. Symbolically as well as have you ever had your feet washed? A couple of times. Okay. Shit feels wonderful. Like I went to a massage place once an actual legit massage place. And I didn't give it you the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. Yeah. But I went to a massage place once and that was their first thing that they did when you got there. And I was like, oh my god, this place is amazing. Like it. Oh, yeah. Wonderful. like, oh my god, this place is amazing. Like it, oh yeah. Wonderful. With my wife, a couple of times she has insisted usually

in the beginning of every summer. And this summer is no exception. In a couple of days, we're gonna be going and doing this. She insists if I'm gonna be walking around in public with her wearing sandals. Pedicure time. I have to get a pedicure. Oh, wow. That's sweet. And, you know, part of it is, it's her, her to get one. But, but no, no, I, I need to get one, which, and she's not wrong.

Cause I, I got some, I got some muggly feet. But I get a man I ignore what I can't see. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, that's what it comes down to. Yeah. And so, but yeah, having having that done, I have a really, really strong tickle reflex. So it's really hard for me to have somebody else scrubbing my feet. Sure. Sure. Like I feel bad for the people that do it because I'm a twitchy wreck. And I work and I work and so hard to just like a relax just, you know, let hang the foot out there, just leave it there. But, you know, I it's difficult. I've never had a pedicure, but I like the idea of a date wherein y'all get pedicures. That sounds good, man. You know, yeah, it doesn't suck. I will say.

So, yeah. So, wow. I like the idea also of Jesus being a tickler. Peter was a stickler. Jesus was a tickler. Yeah was a stickler. Jesus was a tickler. And I can see that. It's a fact. Yeah. It's a tickle tickle tickle tickle tickle. Yeah. So when Pope John Paul II died, no, actually in 2001, Jorge was made cardinal. He refused the ornamentalism

that normally accompanied that position prior to him in Buenos Aires. He continued to live in a small apartment. He took public transport and he cooked his own meals. These are often very little things but they really resonated with the folks there. And I would like to point out here, he didn't subscribe to the same cult of poverty that Mother Teresa had. I have big problems with her and I will

admit that up front. And I do say that she instituted a cult of poverty. And I think it was abusive and manipulative. Okay. You didn't get much of the way of argument from me. Yeah. On that. He didn't seem to do that from what I could tell. He wasn't fetishizing it like she did. Now when Pope John the Paul, John when Pope John Paul the second died, Jorge was considered briefly and early on as a front runner for

the position. I didn't get the Vegas odds on him for that particular time, but Benedict won it after about four votes. Yeah, it was a really... It was a quick selection process, too, wouldn't it? Yeah, well, it depends, depends on how you wanted to find that. There have been some of them that have gone to a whole lot of ballots. And there have been some of them that have been decided pretty quickly. That one is on the quick side, but it was also, I mostly remember as a new convert. Well, as somebody who was in the process of going through CIA at the time. They're there being a

certain amount of of nail biting over, you know, how many times are they going to flip and do this? Like come on. And how much of that is made? How much of that is, you know, that number of votes being a thing? I don't know. Sure, sure. But yeah, so yeah, no, it's right, because you don't want to balance. You don't want to send the message that like we chose it ahead of time, so you can't do it on the first ballot. Yeah. You know, but you don't want to make God wait. Well, the the belief, the dogma within within the church is that dogma within within the church is that the the ultimate goal is to have the ultimate selection or his election to the papacy as being entirely guided by the Holy Spirit. And you might look at it as being they kind of they kind of tripped over their own

feet and and there was politics involved. I'm just saying. Sure some people. Yeah. That might be an argument. Well, while he was Cardinal under Benedict XVI, Jorge also insisted on an investigation into the members of a junta who'd murdered three priests

and two seminary students during Argentina's dirty war of 76. During that dirty war of 76. During that dirty war, by the way, it should be noted that Jorge was never in favor of nor incahutes with the dictatorship. Did he stand bravely in front of armed soldiers and challenge them to turn their guns and apply with shares, protecting young girls and boys from their would-be ravaging? No, no, he did not. But neither did he collaborate with them at all.

Most of the accusations that came out against him afterward, post-1980, were, he did not. But neither did he collaborate with them at all. Most of the accusations that came out against him afterward, post 1980, were that he didn't do enough and that he could be taken, and that could be taken as tacit endorsement. But I spent a few hours on that very issue, and it feels like folks are carrying water with a sieve there. There is a bit of truth to it, but it does seem to also ignore the larger context of the time, the Hunto was relatively popular to the majority of Argentina, and their awfulness wasn't known to many at the time. And still Jorge did not climb aboard despite there being in power. Could he have done more?

Sure. He has said as much, and he has anguished about it publicly for a long time But this feels very similar to the they thought they were free Aspect of things like where we want to say that they could have done more to but the fact is most folks did what they thought they could at the time Jorge included So you know, it's like people I would have helped Harriet at Tubman. No, you wouldn't have, because you're not helping kidnap people now. No, you wouldn't have stood up to internment of Japanese Americans. Right. You wouldn't have been marching with with Dr. King. Right. No. So stop it. Still, or perhaps because of what he saw as his own failings, Jorge got more vocally aggressive with those in power in Argentina. When President Kirchner came to

Jorge's mass in 2004, Jorge let him have it with both barrels. He delivered a mass that specifically requested that the government listen to its critics more, not follow the rest of the world when it came to increased intolerance and do away with overblown rhetoric. The next year, President Kirchner did not come to his mass. Kirchner's wife succeeded him as president, by the way, because that actually happened sometimes, and she was elected, and he became the first, uh, first man of the country. Um, because of course that happens at the top levels of power in this hemisphere. Jorge called on hit on her to stop fighting against the agrarian strikers in Argentina and he stood against her support of same-sex marriages. Can't win them all.

No, you can't. Can't win them all. No, you can't. Quote, this is from Jorge. In the coming weeks, the Argentine people will face a situation where outcome can seriously harm the family. At stake is the identity and survival of the family, father, mother, and children. At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance and deprived of their human development given by a father

and a mother and willed by God at stake as the total rejection of God's long graved in our hearts. I'm going to stop there for just a second. I want to go back to the part where he said that there is discrimination in advance. You probably wouldn't have that if you didn't have a church standing in the way saying, yo, don't let the gaze marry. You have a lot less of it. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to go back to his quote. Yeah. He says he continues, let it's not be an IE. This is not a simple political fight. It is a destructive proposal to God's plan. This is not a mere legislative proposal that is just in its form, but a move by the father of lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God. Let's look to St. Joseph, Mary, and the child to ask fervently that they defend the Argentine family

in this moment. May they support, defend, and accompany us in this war of God." End quote. He did just say that Satan is involved, didn't he? Yeah. Yeah, and that this is a war of God. Yeah, I didn't. Yeah, well, God lost just like against Minsmik Man and Shane apparently. Yeah.

So, yeah. In July 22nd, 2010, same-sex marriage became legal in Argentina. I did some digging on this one. Argentina was the first Southern hemisphere country in the world to do this. The second Western hemisphere country to do it. The first, I think, being Canada or Cuba, I forget. And the 10th worldwide at the time. I wanna say Canada was the first one.

Thank you, right. I'm just here. Yeah, Cuba, just in the news, just to date this a little more. Just in the news, Cuba is doing like this radical restructuring what it means to be family. And it is the most progressive, liberal definition, civilly of family. Yeah, for policy purposes, benefits, whatever.

Yeah, I know it's remarkable. It's too bad. They're so backward that they can't be a first world country. What with their, what is it that they're doing that we're, what are we doing better? Oppressing Cuba. Yeah. Yeah, what is it that they're doing that we're what are we doing better? depressing Cuba Yeah Well, so let's move on to 2013 Jorge gets elected Pope is elected is that the right word?

Yeah, no election amongst the Cardinals. All right He became the first Latin American Pope and the first one to be named Francis. Yes. Yes. Now, just real quick, I would like to back up just so that you're seeing where I'm coming from. Yes, I tell jokes. Yes, I want to still be funny,

but I think my joke so far have been not poking fun at the institution beyond the institution itself. I think I've, have I been? We can finally ask this panel. Yeah, no, yeah. I've been fairly, fairly, I'm not gonna say reverent because I'm not, but I haven't been irreverent toward it as far as I can tell.

I would, I would say you've been a little bit irreverent, but you haven't been mean. There you go, okay, that works. So I will go over that. So, that's why I asked about the elected part. So he's also the first Jesuit Pope. Yep. He's also the first Pope in 1100 years to not take a prior name. Yes, this is true. The last one to do so flew the Millennium Falcon Okay, yeah Pope Landau there was a Pope Landau I found in the 900s He was like, you know, so you know how Rutherford B. Hayes and William

Henry Harrison's nephew, or grandson, Benjamin Harrison, and James Garfield and Chester Arthur. They're all kind of just these kind of forgettable presidents. The 900s was like the forgettable popes. There are a lot of periods. There are a lot of periods in history that are forgettable popes. Well, I found, the only record I found of Pope Lando was something from the 1400s at reference something he did in the 900s.

Yeah. And I'm like, wow, dude, like y'all don't just keep a list that you like write their names on or something. The Romans did. For a very long time, the job of the Pope, to a certain extent, was to be a caretaker and not do anything that got your name in history books. The idea was continuity.

The idea was defending the faithful or made, and status quo was what was sought and being interesting times kind of fucking sucks. Yeah, basically fair. did big shit during that time period. Gregory, being one of the first that comes to mind, who essentially asserted papal authority in a big way. And then others after that, Leo, I wanna say the 10th, throwing such lavish parties that he drove a German priest to complain about the way he was raising money for it, which led to the fracturing of Western Christendom. You can either be forgettable or you can be that guy. Yeah. Like let's let's look at you know Which which one do you want to emulate sure sure? You know, and now of course we're living in a very different time. Yeah, well because yeah, we're very much more cult of personality

very much more and and there is society in general is changing in a much faster rate. And so hopes become memorable for not not changing things as fast as we would like them to. fast as we would like them to. Right. We meaning sighted at large and a certain subset of Catholics high how you're doing. Um, you know, and, you know, but there was also, but kind of kind of the flip side of that is there was also a time when literally everything the Pope said was X cathedra. I'm when literally everything the Pope said was X cathedra, which meaning, meaning the purpose everyone off. Yeah, well, the Pope is the Pope is speaking from the seat. Oh, yeah, yeah, and when the spoke, when the Pope speaks X cathedra, he is speaking

as God's representative on earth and is therefore incapable of being in error. Just want you to know how hard I'm biting my tongue right now. that is on earth and is therefore incapable of being an error. Just want you to know how hard I'm biting my tongue right now. I know, I know. I know. Because the skit that's coming into my head. I know. So, but since, yeah. Since, I don't know,

now that we have 14 or 14 hundreds. Yeah, since the 13 or 14 or 100s, the poll does not speak X-catheter very often. Right. J.P.2 put out a couple of very important for church policy and kind of teaching reasons. He put out a couple of encyclicals that really solidified the church's position on things like in vitro fertilization, birth control, abortion,

all of that kind of stuff. Right. And the thing is those are treated as being doctrine. Yeah, because the Pope put it out. But if somebody was really going to be an enterprising can and lawyer, they could point out, well, he didn't say it, ex-Cathodora. Okay. So it's kind of that that has as a tool used to be ubiquitous now that's softened. Yeah, and so but at the same time there is an understanding of You know, it's kind of like the rules that I keep in my house like yeah, I don't have to yell every time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and

So you know, there's there's there's the issue of ex-cathode, and also the fact that, you know, if you think about in the 900s, and especially in the high middle ages, you have very notable circumstances of ex-communication being something that happened, like, you know, every couple of years. True, very true.

You know, some emperor, some King that the Pope said, all right, now you know what, you're excommunicated. Fuck. If anything happens to you until you get right with the church, anything happens to you, you're going straight to hell. Right. You're not getting buried in a church yard. Fuck off. Right. And, and that was, that was the, the big hammer that got Holy Roman Emperor's to,perors to walk barefoot through the snow. It was a very big public show of contrition. And you don't see that very much anymore. It was a war.

Well, because climate change. Well, number one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But recently it was a really, really big deal. Yeah. Uh, in, in certain circles here in Sacramento, um, there was actually a priest who got very close to getting himself excommunicated. Wow. Um, for being a hyper conservative, uh, and refusing to follow the instructions of the pulp. And I'm going to get to the bishop and the bishop in regard to COVID.

Oh, okay. Is the one I'm talking about. Okay. Yeah. There's some doctrinal stuff that I'm going to close with with this. Okay. So instead of taking Pope Lando the second, which would have been the coolest name, the only thing that might have been cooler than that is if he would have taken the name Clement, because Clement the 14th was a Franciscan who specifically repressed the Jesuits. And I'm petty. Okay, all right, I can see that. So instead, he went with Francis. And I'm petty. Okay. All right.

I can see that. So instead he went with Francis. He went with Francis because Francis of a CC was down with poverty and and he's he's hang with that. So he's also continues efforts toward the poor as showing a lot of the wealthy trappings that he deemed excessive and not very Jesus-y. He went on to continue washing prisoners' feet specifically, kissing them, and mixing in men and women when he did so. He also did this to Catholics and non-Catholics alike, including Muslim prisoners.

No. Francis has continued much of the same focus that Benedict did, by the way, but his trappings and rhetoric are different. So from a policy perspective, I didn't find too much difference with a very important exception that I'll come to. But he speaks with a lot more latitude toward grace, especially toward those who differ from the Catholic ideal, including we non-believers. He spoke much more certainly against sexual abuses as well, which is nice, even holding multiple summits on the subject. Now, again, I'm going to come back to policy. Has much shifted? I would argue no, but the

cosmetics of what's going on have shifted. And it could be that you do have to go outside in for this to work. And there is something to be said for the symbolism of simply changing those things. I absolutely, I absolutely think so. But this is an ongoing theme that I'm going to point to. Okay. The one thing I'm going to say in response has a believer is you as a historian

and as somebody who knows a thing or two about Rome, particularly having Land, for as long as he did. The inertia is a defining characteristic of the Catholic Church. Yes. And for those of us within the church, a change in tone is monumentally important because we know that it's going to be, it's going to take decades or centuries for anything policy wise to change concretely. Yeah. And I think a way to think about it is like he is a rudder on a really big ship. Yes. So you won't see his changes potentially until the end of his tenure or two or three down the road. Yeah.

the end of his tenure or to his way down the road. Yeah. Yeah. Now when COVID broke out, Pope Francis actually canceled, by the way, he's not Pope Francis the first either. He's Pope Francis. Yes. You don't become the first until there is a second. Until there's a second, which is what? Just like John, John of England is not John the first. Right. Because he was so shitty at the job. There's never been a John the second. Now, he actually canceled public gatherings to hear him speak, but he also chastised his priests who closed their churches. Given that he did this when things were just underway, I'm going to give him a bit of grace for that bit of ignorance. And he encouraged his priest to go and visit the sick. So he is And he encouraged his priest to go and visit the sick. So he is, he is airing, I think,

but he's airing on the side of compassion. Like, his heart's in the right place. His imagination is a bit lacking, but let's be real. Everybody at that time, very few people were like, oh, this is exactly how this will work. I can clearly. So what I did like though, that he told them he's like straight up, do not forget the marginalized

members of your flock. Still, Italy needed to lock the fuck down and it didn't. So his criticism doesn't really sit well with me considering how many corpse vans came through towns in Italy, specifically Italy. Now Francis did come out in favor of vaccinations too. So he said flat out it's a moral imperative. So that's also pretty cool. Further, he's opened up certain positions to women in the church, which hasn't been

done before. It's also cool. Now, again, I would say much of this is surface level stuff. If you look at the policy, he hasn't changed much in the way of the policy in terms of like the real, like he is not replaced a cog with, I don't know how that metaphor works, but you know what I mean, like he's not doing core changes here.

It doesn't have to, but I just when people are like, oh, yeah, this guy's awesome. Let's go Francis. You know, keep in mind how much is really changing now? He's also told prison bishops to chill the fuck out about queer folk, about abortion and about contraception. However, policy hasn't shifted yet that I've seen. He's still in favor of separate but equal when it comes to gay marriage, saying, quote,

that way they are legally covered. This is, okay, I'm breaking in here. That's fucking awesome that he recognizes there's a secular world that people will live and die by. I love that. And then he comes, and that people will live and die by. I love that. And then he comes, you know, and then here's more that I dig, but it still comes down to separate but equal. But he does say that way they're legally covered. They're children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or made

miserable because of it. All of that's awesome. All of that's rad as shit. because of it. All of that's awesome. All of that's rat is shit. These stops short at policy. And I understand I completely understand like you said in inertia, but the Vatican later said that that quote was two different quotes taken out of context and smushed together. So God damn it. Well, okay. So now that's the Vatican. Yeah, inside baseball. Sure. Okay, so now that's the Vatican. Yeah, inside baseball. Sure. One of the issues that has plagued Francis from the day he took office

is ratsinger installed a whole bunch of people. Yes. Into positions within the Vatican who are hyper conservative. The guy was, what is this sound familiar? Yeah, the guy was the pit bowl of orthodoxy. That was his nickname. And so there are there are elements within the Vatican that Francis doesn't have the power to fire. Who are not on board with his hippy dip agenda of, you know, of saying that they're people

too. Yeah. Yeah. And again, in that world, he's getting credit for bare minimum shit, but again, it's still better than rat fucking everything. So yeah, he's never been officially in favor of same-sex marriages. So again, I'm going to call out policy versus rhetoric. And he even told parents of LGBTQ kids to show them love and not the door.

Pretty damn cool. Still no policy shift. He did straight up apologize in 2018 to people who were harmed by his support of Baros. Baros was a child predator who was a bishop who covered up the abuses of others. He was like, I fucked up, I'm sorry. Yes. Now, when he sent out his tradition, it's called the, I'm going to say it in Latin because it is in Latin.

Tradito Onis Custodes, his intent was to stop having two different types of liturgy in the church. Now, since Vatican II's creation, there was a massive backlash against it by subsequent popes, John Paul II and Benedict specifically, trying to keep papal supremacy by not criticizing the reforms But by allowing and encouraging workarounds for conservatives who just didn't like the idea that people would actually know what the mass said Francis sent out a letter specifically stating that no Stop it especially the tridentine mass, which was exclusively in a

ecclesiastic Latin. And he said, you need to get on board with what reforms Vatican II was trying to do, which is often called the ordinary form. He said, no more half measures, no more, well, you know, you can have it on a special thing. No. In many ways, it actually reminds me of variances within a contract where he's like no more variances. This is the thing Vatican II is liturgy. Vatican II is canon? What's the word I'm looking for? Well, Vatican II is dogma. It's established dogma. And he's like no more of this work around bullshit. Yeah, none of this cheating shit. And now I'm trying to remember when it happened. That was in 2018 that he did that. Okay. So I will say that to me is policy shift. He gets credit for that. That he absolutely, he's, you know what it

is? That's policy cleanup. He's like, no, unless you want to unless those guys wanted to say old pope was wrong, which you can't. You all need to step off. Because the thing is because the thing is it wasn't just the pope. Vatican II is the name of the council. It was the second Vatican council. Right. When was the first one? It was the 33. Something like it. Yeah.

That's the NIC and council, right? Well, no. Oh, there's another one. NIC and NIC was at the town of NIC, which is Greek. But the Vatican, first Vatican council, I don't remember, how long, but it was a long time ago. And the second Vatican council was a council of bishops that was called by the Pope at the time

and my godmother is gonna be so mad at me that I can't remember his name before he was Pope, his name was Brun Cale. Who called them all together because it was like, okay, no, look, we've moved into a whole new century. The world has changed and we as the church need to meet parishioners where they are. Oh, that was Vatican one, right? That was, I mean, they didn't call it that because you don't get it, it doesn't get called

Vatican one until Vatican two until Vatican two happened. But that was like, I want to say that was like either right after or right before the golden spike went in. Something, yeah. Yeah, it was like the late 1860s. I remember, I remember. So that would have been pious. The fuck, not the 10th because that was Hitler's Pope. Pious the ninth.

Sound about right. Yeah. I, there's a weird thing in my brain where I remember that council and the spike because the spike joined the country. Even though the Vatican council was not about America. It's not, yeah. It was like, whoa, it was late 1860s

about bringing shit back together. That's interesting. Yeah. So, so the second Vatican Council October 1962 by John the 23rd. John the 23rd. He's the one that didn't last long. No, he didn't last long. He had cancer as I recall. and JP John Paul II took his papal name partly from John the 23rd as an indication that he was going to be a a a continuer of his legacy. Right. But so the second Vatican Council essentially had had a whole bunch of stuff to say about reform of the experience, essentially, of being Catholic

and of making the mass accessible to the people, to the Voliate. And it was essentially, we're going to translate the mass into the languages of the world. Because previously, it had all been done in Latin up until 63, 64 when the council ended. I do love that a Jesuit is specifically going, no, no more just Latin shit. No more of that. No. Yeah. So that's your bread and butter, buddy. But okay. Cool. Yeah. Um, and so the thing is, ever since John the 23rd, and called the Second Vatican Council, there has been a faction within the church that has argued, say, Deve Conte,

within the church that has argued, say, De Vicante, which is the Sieges vacant and depending on how wingnut you want to go, they're either anti-reformists or they are full on, like no, there has not been a legitimate Pope since the guy before John the 23rd. Right. Which is wild. Which is nuts. And when you want to talk about people getting excommunicated, by the way, in the modern era, most of the folks who have wound up getting smacked on the hand hand that hard are, I'm just going to say it, cultists who are insisting that, you know, the seed has been vacant since prior to June 23rd. Right. That's something like John Burr,

Opus Day, shit. Oh yeah. Yeah. So anyway. Yeah. Well, it's good thing people that believe in that shit tend to go into the CIA and FBI in in way out of proportion numbers than two other. It's good times. Yeah. At least they're sticklers for procedure. I don't know. Yeah. Anyway, hella Cardinals, hella priests and hella bishops and others wrote in criticism of Francis, which was much more loud in public and ubiquitous than when popes were only from Europe. Some of that can be attributed to a mass media culture. Absolutely. They've had Twitter since 2013, I want to say. But also, there's a weird rejection of Francis as the Pope going on there, too.

A kind of what you were talking about with John Paul or with John the 23rd. It's especially worthy of note since a vast majority of Catholics are on board with the Vatican two version and not the Tredentine version. And this gets at the heart of why I think that Francis is a far less popular Pope among Catholics than any other Pope in recent memory. He only carries a 60% approval rating amongst Catholics in the 2010s. Joseph Shaw, the Welsh head of the Latin Mass Society, said this in a blog. And of course, he starts it with a word that has a lot more consonants and vowels.

Staggering document, exceeding our worst expectations, Pope Francis has completely undone the arrangements of Samoran, Pantifikum, and Crested a situation which seems entirely unworkable, banning the extraordinary form from parish churches. That's some cheeky shit right there. And I didn't see that much critique of Benedict from within the church. I saw it from without the church, but from within the church, there has been a upspring of people thinking that they can, they can be writing about, about Pope Frank that way. Yep. As a result.

Yeah. Heretics. Well, the fuck all back could be one way. I'm you know what? I'm just going to my roots. This is my heritage. This is what we do. I hate.

As a result of this, many bishops and priests, especially in America, are making decisions that run counter to what the Pope, the head of the whole church, is mandating. So now people are like, nah, not my Pope. His liberalizing of the church in key visible ways is more than enough to sour people's opinion on him, despite Francis' efforts to largely carry on with what the deeply entrenched policies

that haven't really been changed that much from John Paul II through Benedict XVI through Francis. It's not enough to simply carry on the policies, though. It's what people see that matters. And even though that sounds like I said, people see, I didn't. But I find it fascinating that he's really just kind of changed the color of the trim and included a rainbow flag in the front planter and people are like, that's not my subway. Now if you want to understand why this has been happening specifically since Francis took over as Pontifex Maximus,

we need to understand a few things about television. In January of 1999, HBO launched a new drama that would be at once less visceral and more violent than Oz. The sopranos original pitch was that Tony soprano was a crime boss in an Italian northern New Jersey crime family who starts getting suffering or who starts suffering panic attacks because the family of ducks who'd nested in his backyard had left for good. And since you can't look weak in front of those under you, he goes to a therapist in secret, played by Lorraine Bronco who played Karen in Goodfellas. And with this as the in the door, with an amazing cast, the sopranos became a hit that was so much more than the patient therapist relationship. James Gandalfini was able to balance the vulnerability and anxiety that his character had with

the menace that his character required. It took two years to get it on the screen, but ones that finally hit it hit big. According to the president of original programming at HBO Chris Albrick, it was because Tony Prasoprano is quote, turning 40. He's inherited a business from his dad. He's trying to bring it into the modern age. He's got all the responsibilities that go along with that. He's got an overbearing mom that he's still trying to get out from under.

Although he loves his wife, he's had an affair. He's got two teenage kids, and he's dealing with the realities of what that is. He's anxious, he's depressed. He starts to see a therapist because he's searching for the meaning in his own life. I thought the only difference between him and everyone else I know is that he's the dawn of New Jersey." End quote. So it's very relatable, but with a hell of a quirk, and that certainly was an early lure for a lot of people. Now you add that, add to that, the excellent production value and tremendous acting,

and you've got yourself one hell of a hit. But what really made it popular from 1999 to 2007 was its moral ambiguity and its darkness. We don't want to root for Tony, but we want to root for Tony. And that contradiction, rooting for a man who orders murders, struggles with finding meaning in his life, has affairs deeply loves his wife and has to deal with the consequences of his actions makes us wonder to what extent he'll have to pay for what he's done 12 million people a week watched on premium cable Because Tony soprano got away with being bad and normalized our darker cells

Tony Soprano was a very, very human character who had deep flaws. Some of them were recognizable in ourselves. He is overweight, he's uxurious, and he doesn't like his work. But some of them were monstrosities. He kills people, he assaults people, he extorts money from people by threatening to kill or assault them. There's no denying how real the characters are. They're not one dimensional cutouts. They're real. They're always flawed, but they have complex internal lives. They are characters that are human. That said, several organizations took them to

task repeatedly for negative Italian stereotypes. And understandably so. Yeah. So Pannos is also a dark underbelly of the American dream. And just like Scarface, the American dream gone rotten, people missed the goddamn point, or rather they got the goddamn point. Show creator David Chase wanted to show that challenged and trusted the audience to rise to that challenge, and he saw moral ambiguity as the linchpin to doing that. Now in 2002, the wire debuted. and he saw moral ambiguity as the linchpin to doing that. Now in 2002, the wire debuted again on HBO and again in East Coast crime based drama.

This time though, it's a Western. That's not really Western, but it's it's it's Hela a Western. David Simon and Ed Burns wrote a series that explored five different subjects that were impacting people in Baltimore, the same problem from five different perspectives, ultimately. Illegal drugs, the port system, the city government, public schools, and print media. Those were the five seasons. And you had characters weave through them. Now, Ed Burns was a former homicide detective and a public school teacher, so you know it was going to be very very bleak David Simon said that he'd set out to write quote a meditation on the death of work and the betrayal of the American working class

It is a deliberate argument that unencumbered capitalism is not a substitute for social policy that on its own without a social compact raw capitalism is destined to serve the few at the expense of the many or I'm sorry at the expense of the man. How does this not sound like soprano so far right Simon was very clear about his intent he said quote we are not selling hope or audience gratification or cheap victories with this show. The wires making an argument about what institutions, what bureaucracies, criminal enterprises, the cultures of addiction, raw capitalism even, due to individuals. It is not designed purely as an entertainment, it is, I'm afraid, a somewhat angry show. Okay. So the wires first season was the illegal drug trade and it followed several characters

but centered on those in charge of the barksdale drug cartel and those trying to catch them. A fox in the hound kind of structure. So the police were problematic individuals with some serious demons, violence, ambition problems and their closet. The drug dealers were actually sometimes more honest, but just as complex. They killed in dealt drugs, but they were also sympathetic characters with

their internal struggles. Some had guilty consciousness, some had personal struggles, some were kids, and weaving through it all was a character named Omar Little, who made this whole thing into a Western. So at this point I have to ask have you seen the sopranos or the wire? I have seen bits and pieces. I have not actually watched either series all the way through. Okay. One of my one of the bits I'm I know and enamored of from the wire is at one point and I don't know which season or how far into whichever season it is, that it happens a whole bunch of the gang leaders

get together and I think it's Omar Little has decided we're gonna run this all like a business we're gonna handle this professionally, we're gonna run this all like like a business. We're gonna handle this professionally We're gonna be organized and all this and one of his underlings And any he runs he runs the media according to I don't remember whose rules of order, but basically Robert's rules of our order Yeah, essentially Robert's rules of order and and at the end He looks over one of his underlings.

And he says, what the fuck is that? And his underlings says, I took notes. The rules of order says that she's supposed to take notes. Did you just take notes on a fucking criminal conspiracy? So that's not Omar Little that was running that meeting. That was, oh God, I forget his name now. But the well-dressed partner of the Barclayl gang. Okay. little that that was running that meeting that was um oh god I forget his name now but the the well-dressed partner of the Barclayl gang okay um played by Idris Elba oh yeah oh awesome yeah cool

unless I'm blending characters again but Idris Elba played the legitimate face of the bark still gang. Okay. So yeah, no, just take notes. I love it. Omar was a stick up man actually in the area. And he was the bane of the bark still drug gang. He literally wears a duster. And he whistles the farmer in the del a duster and he whistles the farmer in the Dell as he's hunting down drug dealers. He's so very menacing that people will literally shout his arrival as they flee the area. He is what Bowwaffet could have been. He is a stone cold killer with a moral code that is so intense. He never harms innocent people. He dislikes swearing. He speaks in the third person and he's compelling to watch. And perhaps the most compelling parts are that he tends to his grandmother with care and tenderness. And he's a gay

and gentle lover. Wow. Yeah. All right. The audience is fully drawn to this, this Baltimore African American boba fat, despite, or maybe even because of all the violence that he carries out with a ruthless cleverness, he regularly will set up his quarry, chase them down, accurately predicting their moves and their choices ahead of time, and then finally trapping them all the while whistling the farmer in the Dell. That's actually fucking spooky. Oh, it's awesome. It's awesome. Okay. That actor does such a good job with that character.

Now, the other four seasons certainly weren't a discussion, but I'm trying to draw a pattern here. So I'm just sticking to the first season. Now, so that's that's that's two TV series that we've seen so far. And I think that takes us up to the first one starts in 99, second one starts in 2002. This next one starts in 2004, and it's HBO again. So we're seeing a pattern here. HBO keeps having these kinds of shows. This time it's an actual western. You may have heard of it, little show called Deadwood. Yes.

Have you seen that one? Yes, the first series, not the whole series, but the first season. Okay. So I'll stick largely to that first season because the character I'm about to talk about. Now, this was definitely set in a specific time and place and it dealt with real historical people. As such, the amount of creative license was necessarily less.

However, David Milch still managed to make very memorable characters. The show lasted for three seasons and followed Seth Bullock, a lawman trying to turn businessmen to Deadwood, South Dakota. This town doesn't actually have any law to speak of, which is why people are going there. The series goes from camp to town and all the various and sundry that comes with such a growth. The main two characters aren't so much juxtaposed as they are forced into a conflict by the circumstance of being there.

And of the two, it's not the law man turned businessman who's the more compelling character. That doesn't mean we don't follow Bullock, we certainly we do. He beats a man terribly who has it coming for threatening his own daughter's safety as a means to extort money from a claim. But that's just it. The former law man is doing the right thing. But it's not the lawful thing. The character that we actually are drawn to follow the one that the show turns into being about is not Timothy Olyfant. The one that the show turns into being about is not Timothy Olyfant. As everybody expected it to be, he is after all the prime mover in the show.

But there's a guy who's staying put in Deadwood who suddenly everything starts to orbit around him and people are much more interested in seeing him. And that's Al Swaringen. He runs a brothel and a bar. In many ways, he is the only law in that town by virtue of the fact that he has hired muscle who commit unspeakable brutality on his behalf,

including murder and swearing gen as his abusive can be. He gains more and more centrality to the story as the show wears on, including several heartfelt profane and tell monologues at the end as he's being flated by the new prostitute that he employs. And the amount of pathos that he puts into that, it is disturbing to see a man go through this emotional rollercoaster while being blown by somebody who doesn't really have a choice in the matter.

Mm-hmm. Technically she does. She's an independent contractor, but he owns her contract like it's all kinds of awful. Yeah. Ian McShane is the actor who portrays Warrantian. Yes. And he is fucking brilliant. Yes.

He might in my own family, Ian McShane is best known for the kind of detective series that he did for the BBC a bunch of years ago when he was much younger, called Lovejoy. Okay. years ago when he was much younger, called Lovejoy, in which he played a mostly reformed art forger, who was investigating crimes related to that kind of world. And he was always charismatic he was always charismatic and had a gift with comic timing, but could also play very, very straight. And as Swear engine, it was like all of that. He had grown into his powers like a dragon over the ensuing years. And it was just, yeah. So yeah, he's an amazing actor.

And Swarongin is an amazing performance by him. Yeah. In the first season alone, Swarongin smothers a minister to death. Yeah. But it's a mercy killing because the minister has a brain tumor that's destroying the man that he is. He engages another person to kill a man who's

trying to extort him. Swaringin and Bullock actually end up in a physical fight after Bullock becomes the law that takes them over the side of the second story balcony and Swaringin nearly slits Bullock's throat but thinks twice about it when he sees the arriving wife and child of Bullock. Eventually the two of them call a truce and Swringing gets into a shooting feud with George Hurst, who's actually a much worse man than Swarringingian,

setting up Swarringing as the one that we're sympathetic to, because he murders Cornish miners for trying to unionize. So I'm sorry about the spoilers to a show that started in 2004. Yeah, I know. Al gets a finger chopped off by Hurst Scoons.

Bullock actually arrests and publicly humiliates Hurst, who then hires a bunch of Pinkertons, so you know he's a bad guy, to wreak havoc in the town, and he manipulates the sheriff election and has people killed. Now, this point, swearing Jen is kind of the hero, until one of his prostitutes, Trixi, seeks revenge for the murder that her's ordered, but she misses her shot. And she does a clever thing.

She knocks on his door, draws his her pistol, and then pulls down her pants and pulls up her top so that he sees boobs and bush, and then she shoots him. And she misses. She hits him in the shoulder. The result is though, he never really saw her face. So at this point, in order to draw a truce, and her says, you know, I'll leave, but you have to execute the whore that shot me. Swaringin then says, fine. And he murders another prostitute who looks just like, or who looks enough like Trixi in the hopes of passing off her corpse to her so that he leaves. And it works. And that's how the series ends. Nobody was good. Most people were really bad.

And yet we end up sympathetic to the one who from the very beginning was an unapologetic bastard. But he's got a moral code because he's scrubbing up the blood from the woman that he murdered. So to recap, cap. 1999, 2002, 2004 all started with shows on HBO that had us following a dark, gritty, morally ambiguous story and protagonist all capable of and having carried out horrific violence. Okay. Now, Genji Cohen created weeds for showtime. Finally, we break the HBO's pattern. And it aired starting in 2005.

Now, she pitched it to HBO, but they passed because they're like, well, we already have these really good shows. So it came to showtime. And weeds took its inspiration directly from the sopranos. This time though, it was from a middle-class woman's perspective. Suburban newly widowed woman who sells drugs to keep their upper-middle-class lifestyle intact, complete with conspicuous consumption still being the goal.

The opening credits are actually set to a very specific song that critiques the upper middle class lifestyle called Little Boxes by Melvina Reynolds, which was first performed by Pete Seager in 1963. But this version is actually performed by Locke Laman, which, but Melvina actually recorded it in, I think, 68 herself, but by then Pete Seagars version was supreme. She wrote the song in 62 as a folk song, and she was a folk singer-songwriter who was also a political activist in the 60s and 70s, according to her daughter, Nancy Reynolds. Nancy said, quote,

my mother and father were driving south from San Francisco through Daily City when my mom got the idea for the song She asked my dad to take the wheel and she wrote it on the way to the gathering in La Honda Where she was going to sing for the friends committee on legislation When time magazine wanted a photo of her pointing to the very place She couldn't find those houses because so many more had been built around them that the hill sides were totally covered. The song is like the antithesis of nothing but flowers by the talking heads. Little boxes on a hilltop all made of Tikki Taki and everyone the same. That's the one. You know, it's funny. My parents

referenced that song because they lived in one of those houses in daily city during where my dad's assignments in the Navy. He's probably an alimed at the time. Yeah, I think so, yeah. Yeah, and yeah, and they remember it being done by Tiptoe through the two lips. Oh, this is a tiny Tim. Tiny Tim. Oh, okay. On a ukulele little box, a zone hill top. Yeah. And so yeah, I've grown up not actually having heard

the song, but knowing of it because of that, because of that reference. So anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this show is about the descent from Grace that the main character, Nancy Boughtwin, experiences when her husband dropped dead of a heart attack while jogging. There were definitely a family based around conspicuous consumption, just like the song Speaks up, tons of style, very little substance. Now, in order to keep that lifestyle after the loss of her husband and his income, she starts dealing weed. She eventually see the shows titles, weeds, right?

But also weeds are like the most they're going to grow where they're going to grow. They're the most hard to plant. So it's several, several meanings. But she eventually develops a front line or a front rather for her business. She creates her own strain of weed She moves her family around to keep them safe So this is she's got the tiger by the tail, right? And again, she is one of many very well-developed Characters who are deeply flawed and very relatable as a result She's trying to raise two troubled boys after her husband's death and she's navigating Increasingly treacherous social situations and the PTA

In short the mundane Social situation The most dangerous predator of them all But in short the mundane is shown on screen not just as the part that hooks us in just like Tony soprano just like Omar screen not just as the part that hooks us in, just like Tony soprano, just like Omar. I find it interesting that there's an element here of a fall from Grace. Tony soprano, by the time we see him, he's fallen. There is no suffering for his fall. Okay. And his fall is completed by those birds leaving. Okay. And that's why he has to go to therapy. Okay. Al Sweringen didn't fall from grace. No, he was just in the muck. He was just, yeah.

You could say that Omar didn't either. But yes, I think Tony and Nancy, they're absolutely as a fall. But yes, I think Tony and Nancy, they're absolutely as a fall. Okay, I can see that. But it's interesting that that that is a more, how to put it, the poetry of that is more obvious. Yeah. In the portrayal of her character. Yeah, yeah, I think it's gendered too. I mean, yeah, I have a woman whose whose expectation was that her husband would take care of her, and now she has to turn to illegal shit. Yeah, enter into commerce, like she's stepping outside of the private sphere. There's a lot of stuff going on there. And I would say that all four of

these characters are shown with their mundane shit getting in the way of their lives to such an extent that it humanizes them for all of us. She's got PTA meetings, Omar has relationship struggles. Tony, absolutely, I mean, his mom, Henpex him. Al has a kidney stone at one point that dominates the story for him for about two or three episodes. So to recap, in 1999, 2002, 2004, and 2005, all these years started with shows on either

HBO or Showtime that had us following a dark gritty hidden underbelly morally ambiguous story and protagonist all who were capable of and having carried out either directly or by proxy horrific violence And I think that I want to save Mad Men and What is it called? Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad. For the next. I'm gonna go to Breaking Bad. The title.

Holy shit. Yeah. Okay. But I think I want to save those two for last, because I do like the idea of pairing those two together. Okay. So that's, that's, I think we're all stop. So we are in, again, the mid 2000s.

It's 2007, where we're gonna pick back up next week. Okay. And again, folks, if you've listened this far, you didn't take my advice that was at the end of the last episode. Binge these together. Listen to this one and the last one together, and then wait two weeks and listen to the next two

together as well. It'll work better. This right into throwing into a five-parter because of where I'm stopping. But okay, well, we'll see. Yeah. So anyway, you figured out the plot early on last time. Yeah. you figured out the plot early on last time.

Yeah. So have you gleaned anything further? So it's... I think not really anything terribly new, though I think there's a shading involved There's a shading involved in who it is that we're looking at as the maybe not the hero, but who it is that people are identifying with. And part of it, like I said at the end of the last episode, part of it is cynicism.

But wrapped up within that is a certain level of bruised idealism. That, you know, like the, the Omar little character in, in the wire, what you describe about, you know, the, the side of him that is humane, the side of him that is tender with his mother and the side of him that has to deal with relationship issues, you know, and the vulnerability involved there is a really interesting counterpoint that I think points to the bruised idealism at the heart of every cynic. If that's the way I'm saying that. Yes, and I think, again, you are remarkably prescient with your analysis here. We're going to get into that very specific thing because I think bruised idealism will lead to agreement.

Okay. And that will lead to some very dark places. Okay. So, yes. All right. All right. So, anything you're reading this time around? I think anything you want to recommend.

I'm going to double down on the recommendation of the Caves of Steel by Isaac Hasimov. Okay, yeah, Caves of Steel. Because that's preparation for what I'm going to be doing next. And also because it's a fascinating example from the early days of science fiction as a genre of science fictional elements being used to tell what is basically a murder mystery. Okay. So yeah, I highly recommend you do that. Check that out.

How about you? I'm actually gonna recommend something. I'm not gonna recommend any books. I'm gonna recommend two pieces of media. The first one is on TikTok. If you have TikTok, go to TikTok and type in Corey Baringer, CORY, B-A-R-R-I-N-G-E-R. He's a local Sacramento comic

who his brand of comedy is sweet. He is madly in love with his wife, who is a nice lady. And he has plenty of just wonderful sweet content, but lately he's doing something that is like, you know, like Prairie Home Companion is just kind of like not even cracker barrel comedy, just sweet comedy. He has this series called Does It Dunk? And you type in ideas of things to dunk and what they should be dunked in. And so, he took a biscoff cookies

and dunked them in an iced chalate. And he tasted it and was like, does it dunk? Somebody suggested he try a hot dog in a frosty, so he does. It's just delightfully fun. And he is such a sweet, sweet man. It's it's really quite a brand. And he's he's just he's there should be more people like him in the world. So I'm going to suggest that. Now the other piece of media I'm going to suggest is an album by a group called Windborn born with an E at the end. And it's an album called of Hard Times and Harmony.

And I found their songs quite uplifting, quite interesting. Their lyrics are very, very dynamic and a very work or oriented. And they harmonize quite well, and I love listening to them during strike. So I'm gonna recommend Windborn of Hard Times and Harmony. You could probably get them on IndieGoGo if you want to throw them some money. You definitely should. So yeah, check them out. So that's what I'm going to recommend. Cool. As always, you can find me at Daharmony on Twitter and Instagram, Daharmony one on TikTok. If you missed the August 5th show for capital punishment,

then you can always go to the show in September. It will be the second Friday of September because Labor Day is, we try to keep that holy. Also, people just don't come out to that show. We always notice that. I just think that one's a practical issue. What? Yeah, you can come out to Capital Punishment at Luna's

if you're fully vaccinated in the second Friday of September. You can find my partner here at EH Blaylock on the Twitter. Yes, sir. Mr. underscore Blayock on on TikTok. Yes. And I forgot the insta, but that's okay. Matt. Yeah.

And you can find us collectively at geekhistorytime.com. This is the 2020s. You don't need to put WWW dot in front of anything anymore. I wish you want to. Yeah, I mean, if you really know, if you're going to do that, go ahead and hit that HTTP colon slash slash while you're at it. Yeah, you know, I kick it old school, boot up your net scape and see what you can do. Go to down.

So, so do that. Check it out, check out our website there or you can always find us on the Apple app, the Apple podcast app. And on Stitcher, just a little bit of geek history of time. Hit that subscribe button. Give us the five star review you know that we deserve. And I think I covered everything there. I think you did. Go me. So you for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s. history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock and until next time, keep rolling 20s.