Badlands Media - Badlands Story Hour Ep. 168: Bulworth

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Chris Paul is joined by his good friend Josh, a literature professor and screenwriter from Louisiana, sitting in for Burning Bright. The two break down Warren Beatty's 1998 political satire Bulworth, which Beatty wrote, directed, and starred in opposite Halle Berry, Oliver Platt, Don Cheadle, Isaiah Washington, and a nearly silent Sean Astin. Josh argues the film sits on a fascinating cultural crux point. He thinks 1998 was the pivot year when Hollywood shifted toward heavy programming, citing The Truman Show, Deep Impact, Armageddon, and The Siege all landing in the same window. The guys dig into Bulworth's opening confession that political assassinations are just a normal Tuesday for a senator with a fixer on speed dial, the eerie parallel between Bulworth dropping the mask once he had a hit out on himself and the way Trump later dispensed with the political pretense entirely, and Aaron Sorkin's fingerprints on the worst Halle Berry monologues about NAFTA and manufacturing. They also wander through the rise of West Coast rap as a marketing tool aimed at young kids, Public Enemy's 1994 song calling out a fake World Health Organization pandemic, the hierarchy of corporate political influence, and the difference between memory and story.

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all of these soft disclosure gift cards? He goes by Zach Kay. Getting over the beer, bruntary work by Zach Payne. All right, as you can see, Burning Bright is not here. So instead, we are bringing on a good friend of mine. My pal Josh, he is a literature professor and a screenwriter in Louisiana. And so here is Josh. And Josh, before we get talking, let me just introduce the show, especially because we have a bunch of new viewers tonight joining us from Rumble.

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Badlands Story Hour. I am Chris Paul. That is Josh sitting in for my buddy Burning Bright. And tonight we are discussing Bullworth from 1998, written, directed, and starring Warren Beatty, as well as Hallie Berry, Sean Astin as the mostly silent cameraman, Christine Beranski, Oliver Platt, and many others. It's a very interesting film. And Josh, welcome to Badlands. Welcome to Badlands Story Hour.

I'm very happy to have you here. And this was actually a Josh selection. So why don't you tell everybody why you liked Bullworth and why you wanted to talk about it on this show? That is a great way for you to get out of all the people who hate the movie. But no, I, I. I picked it because I think it's right in the center of which you guys on your wonderful honestly I just picked the movie because I wanted to get to talk to you for an hour or so.

But it's right at the center. It's like the, what is it? What's that? The, the middle of what you guys always talked about on your show between the fake and sort of the real. And to me, it hits both those things. I know you're not, you weren't a fan. I can tell that from the text. But I think it's supposed to make people uncomfortable.

And it did it right at a point when you could do that. And I think there's a clear line between what came before and what came after. We were talking about the, the baby stuff later, the, the music and all that stuff later. But I really think, I don't know. it just, it hit an earth. Yeah, okay. And so, by the way, I don't hate this movie. I thought it was, I thought it was pretty good, charming in ways.

It was just so chaotic that it wasn't like one of those fun, comfortable watches. Right. But I think, you know, in terms of movies that work for this show, this movie's actually been on my list for a year or more because of the crossover between the political world and the movie world. and how this kind of just, it's obviously both things. A lot of the times we focus on films that it kind of has this undercurrent of cultural relevance, no matter when the film was made, it kind of comes back and touches something in this moment.

And I think this film actually does that pretty well. So let's kind of just flesh out what it's about. We have a senator here from California. He goes back, he's going to do a bunch of fundraising, appearances and other appearances in kind of the Los Angeles area. But he has already hired a hitman to kill him because he is suicidal and doesn't want everything that he's done all this terrible work for to just go for nothing. He wants to set his daughter up.

His wife's like with another man. He doesn't care about her. But he needs to get this insurance policy cashed out for his daughter so that he can just stop doing all of this because he knows basically, everything about his life is a lie and the advertisements where he's supposed to be promoting himself as the guy everybody needs to fix their problems that's probably the biggest lie of of all of them we're at the dawn of a new millennium that's what he keeps saying yeah like he keeps repeating himself yeah so uh the original idea for the uh the script was just a guy that takes out a hit on

himself and then falls in love. That was, I think, I think that was Beatty's idea, like maybe 91, 92. He adds the, he adds the political stuff to it. And I think that's what makes it, what it makes. Wow. Wow, that's interesting. So you're saying that the political stuff wasn't front and center for him. He didn't get, like, inspired by rap music and how dishonest the politics were on both sides

in those days? Well, I think, I mean, I think he got inspired. By later. Yeah. You'd get inspired later. But yeah, that was the crux. You know, and another interesting thing about this movie is that it came out in May of 1998. Saw it with my friend Brennan.

And we were not expecting to see that movie. Like we saw the trailer and it was something else. And it was great. But we just thought it anyway. How did they advertise it? They advertised it as it's almost like jokey. Like it was more satire than it was. And I don't know if I can even call this satire.

But we can get into that later. But they advertised it basically with the South Central Church sequence. And it's like, I'm like, oh. And as a fan of like Norm McDonald and like, comedy that is, you know, over the lines. I'm like, okay, I'm all in. Plus politics, blah, blah, blah, blah. Plus rap music, blah, blah, blah.

But the crazy thing is it came out 98, but it set 96. Also in 98 was Labowski, which came out 98, and it was set 91. So we're having like these, like, sort of tinkering with what had come before, right? when it'd come right before with some of these things. And I think that's kind of something to hit on. Now you're speaking my language. Yeah, that's one of the most interesting things that I've kind of, I'm not suggesting it's like I'm the first person in the world to discover it,

but it was something that I came to myself discovered through my life experience or whatever, the influence of time on how we think of these stories and the ways that historical events can be revised just simply by shifting public narratives even slightly. You know, changing around the events of 1991 a few years later or 1996 a few years later, while those events are still fresh in people's minds, if you have a mass movement of people, millions of people go to this movie and they all kind of get a sense like, oh yeah, maybe it was like this and not the way that I remembered it. Because, you know, it's not like I knew everything about it at the time.

I had a sense of how it was, but now I'm seeing this movie, and this movie is telling me how it really was. So everybody just has their memory, whatever they experienced in reality, is now replaced by this piece of mass marketing propaganda. Right. Now, and I don't go all in with, I think it's all mass marketing propaganda or whatever. And this movie failed at the box office. Yeah, I was speaking generally in principle, not this in particular. But it was, it did come out in a year, 1998, that you could say maybe was the start of a lot of mass movie propaganda. I mean, you guys have already covered Armageddon, which I love, which I love so much that I bought it for Nick again, like at his birthday that one year, like an idiot.

even though he already owned it. The same year, Armageddon comes out, you have deep impact. So that's like our mass media disaster porn or whatever. Same year Truman Show comes out. That's our reality porn. Same year, the siege comes out. Have you guys covered the siege yet?

No. I don't think I've ever seen it. Okay, well, that'll be the next episode I'm on. If you don't get canceled, if this. But you're on cancel. simple okay coming that's that that I got I got your merch I got your merch I like that yeah cancel code too dot com so yeah so you got you got the siege which okay you have to watch the siege which is basically it it predicts 9-11 and then the pay and the Patriot Act in the same movie

so you got that there's just all these all these things happened in 98 and our friend Dallas was telling me the other day how he thinks 97 was the last great year for movies. Like classic movies before, and he's not, I'm not subscribing him to your, um, think that everything is fake or whatever,

but like 97, it all had, like everything was like great, good. And then 98, it was like, it started being programming. I think Bullworth sits right in the middle of this. And it makes us uncomfortable in a very good way.

But that's what Beatty's always done. And we can talk about Beatty's career and the connections to these other movies. And I've got a ton of notes on this movie in particular. But that's how I feel like about this point. About this point in movies. We did Arlington Road as well, which is 99. 99. But it's still in that same in that same.

Supposed to be released in 98, I think. Oh, really? I mean, yeah, I knew. I know that it's Mark Pellington. You know what else Mark Fellington did? I think that we talked about his work at the time, but I don't recall offhand. The music video for Jeremy. No kidding.

Well, that's an interesting combination of pieces. So he's talking about the Pearl Jam song, Jeremy, and the music video famously had a kid being shot in his classroom. No, he shoots himself. Yeah, yeah. heavy stuff, man. Okay, so you're talking about kind of a shift in cinema where it goes more heavily toward propaganda. And I suppose in that era coming into, I mean, 2000 was a mess.

Gore versus Bush. And then we have the first term of George Bush right into it. What is it? 10 months into his term or no, eight months into the term we get 9-11. and everything after that, I mean, they used to use the term of post-9-11 world. We don't think about it so much that way, but we really, it's still present every day in the sprawling aspects of the government that are just the global security state embedded in our anti-constitutional American governmental form at this point. the Patriot Act and the rest of it. I don't know.

Anyway, shall we spend more time on the era or should we get into the movie? Let me talk about the era one more time because obviously, I mean, you know me and I know you and politics change and, you know, we evolve as people. but 98, I look back at it as a college kid. And I remember it being a time where my dad and I finally saw eye to eye only with different, like, people. Like, we both hated what was going on. But, like, I was, like, leaning towards, like, Nader and he was, like, with Buchanan. And it was like, like, NAFTA was at the center of it. So there's something there.

There's something there about 98, I think. I mean, I think, I mean, we had the attacks. Those attacks, if they happened, or whatever, from Osama, were in 98 too, right? I think in September. Anyway, it's fine. But, yeah, it's like, I don't know. it was sort of a bonding experience because I was all over the place as you're supposed to be as a young person. Like you're supposed to sort of learn and kind of grow into things.

And, you know, we can't all be as smart as our wonderful friend, MP, but ahead of time. But yeah, so yeah, let's dive into the movie. So wait a second. August of 98 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Is that what you were thinking of? I think so. And then the USS Cole was an Al-Qaeda. The whole 2000.

That's 2000. Yeah, that was wrong. I was off on that. I don't want to be called out for fake news. You don't have to worry about that here. So before we actually get into some of the cinematic aspects, Warren Beatty as the writer-director and star of this. And then you went back and re-watched.

I think we actually covered Parallax View on this show. We did not do Heaven Can Wait, and you watched that last week? Yeah, Heaven Can Wait. First of all, Jack Warden's in it. He's basically in this movie as an aside. I think it's just because he's really good for everyone. was really good friends with Warren Beatty. It was wonderful.

But Heaven Can Wait is one of those what if stories, but it's more on the fairy tale version of that. And it's like, you know, I don't know. Did you watch it? I have not. Have you seen it? No. Okay.

Football player gets killed. He comes back and in like sort of in the body of another football player. It's really, really wonderful. but it's sort of a what if type of thing which bulworth also feels like um the other movie i mentioned was shampoo um and shampoo weirdly enough is 75 and it takes place in 1968 election day 1968 and there's a lot of stuff connecting with you know what if Bobby Kennedy had

not been shot and that sort of thing because Beatty was friends with Bobby Kennedy and and then so that kind of to me with Bullworth makes it even more I don't know it a little

a little bit more substantial and it I don't know touches me a little bit more I guess do you know much about Beatty's political leanings because I mean Parallax View is a very interesting film to be in and it wasn't it doesn't

feel like it was a big film even at the time and maybe I'm totally wrong about that. Maybe you know I don't know if you do or not but some interesting statements he's making with some of these films.

Yeah I mean You asked me if I know about Baby's political leanings. I mean, I don't know what mine are because I mean, 20 years ago, I'd have been called a liberal. Yeah.

You know what I get called. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think he's, I don't know. I mean, he's clearly a, you know, he's clearly a Hollywood leftist. But he's always picky with his wrong. roles and I appreciate that and I appreciate the things you've said he said and we'll get into I mean this movie this movie hinges on the fact that a senator has a weekend program person he goes

to which is apparently just an assassin so like it's just opening the door to the fact that like, oh, assassinations are just a normal thing. That's an interesting read on it. You mean, did you perceive that character? Are we talking about davers right now? Yeah, yeah. I mean, the weekend project. That's kind of like, like a political fixture or a cleaner or whatever?

Yes, it's right there. It's in the first 10 minutes that it basically establishes that, I mean, if he's doing it now, he's like okay who who I need this is the first time I've done this where I need and I haven't seen the person then then he gives him the thing and it's really funny it's a great and I'm gonna say this is maybe my favorite baby movie because of his reactions like he's just so funny and like laughing about it but like if he shows him that because the guy says this is the first time I've done this when nobody that i that i don't know the person who's like that we're killing that means he's done it for him before yeah so they're admitting he's admitting up front that political

assassinations are the norm and i suppose in some sense they are the norm um i've been kind of watching rewatching um some of madmen um over the last couple of months. Me too. And it's nice. I can't believe we haven't talked about that. It really like strikes me how they have an episode that's kind of centered around each one of those assassinations over the course of the 1960s and then the social reaction and the rest of it. And of course, all of that is processed through a lens of the Obama administration.

essentially. So it kind of takes on its own, its own tone from the current political climate, even though they're showing events from the 1960s. But yeah, I mean, assassinations have been part of American culture for many decades now. And then it kind of went away for a while, I guess maybe because the people who need assassinations were in sufficient control that they didn't have anyone who they needed to kill. But now we just get assassination subplots all the time. And all of these events at this point are just so hard to take seriously if you're me. So that kind of changes up what it means to be delivered an assassination event by the political power structure.

Right. So what do you mean that political assassinations went away for a while? Well, I don't feel like today were. At least the high level ones were really a part of our normal, like news consumption time. School shootings, we got a lot of those. Terrorist events, we got a lot of those. But assassinations of leaders in America. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I do. Maybe I'm just forgetting examples. No, school shootings is an interesting one too because of when this movie comes out. This movie comes out in May of 1998. there have been a few school shootings that are politicized and mediized or whatever. And then Columbine comes the next May or April, April 99. So that's an interest. I mean, I don't know.

That's something. But there was a point where I looked it up and there was as many school shootings before Columbine as they were after. Nobody covered him. And it was like the, you know, I don't want to get into like weapons or whatever, because I have many. But, you know, it just ended up being the caliber that was different. It's not like the kids that were different. That is, that's interesting. Now we have them constantly and they do get covered and people kind of check out on them.

I mean, my perception at this point is that the school shooting events last in the news cycle for a day or a couple days and go away. And, you know, anytime one of these things happens to the extent that there are real people who have to deal with the tragic consequences of these events, obviously that is awful. And we can pray for the victims of these scenarios and the rest of it. But from a detached level, we should understand that these things are like intelligence and paramilitary operations designed to terrorize the American public. And we can call them terrorist acts. I have no problem saying that they are terrorist acts. But to pretend that they're like these random isolated events where a kid gets some weird ideas online and then gets a gun from somewhere and goes and does this sort of thing. all in his own, man, there's just too many anomalies with all of these events.

There are too many coordinated messaging campaigns that just roll right out as soon as the event happens to really ascribe the sort of reality that we thought these events had throughout our entire childhood and even our adult life up to 10 years ago. For me, maybe some people are kind of tuned into this long before I was. of course that's true, but yeah, I don't know. We don't have to get deep into that unless you want to. No, I mean, we're at the dawn of a new millennium. I'm sure.

That was the joke I was going to do the whole rest of the podcast because that's such a great bit in the movie. But no, yeah, I hear you. I don't hear you all the way. I mean, I think there's certainly the opportunity that there are loonies out there. but I also, I think both things can be true. Yes. Yeah. And the things can be true in the same event, by the way.

Correct. Yeah. Correct. But again, just taking it, bringing it back to the movie, 98, like that, again, it's just this crux point where, like, I don't know, man. the I was in just to get some of my background that nobody wants to know or cares about or whatever but I was like everybody wants to know you Josh yeah right so I mean I was I was ready to be like a high school teacher and I swear to go I swear to God I was like taking all the classes everything and then the the Columbine thing happened I was like you know what I think I'll uh I'll do college

And I can just not go to my office ever. And I'll be safe the whole time. And it worked out. I get. You know, well, there's even another story about that. Like the place that Nick and I went, Arkansas, there was like a shooting there. While you were there? No.

The year before we went, like right when I was getting an. accepted there was a shooting. Did they offer discounts at that point? No, but there was a funny, it's not funny, it's horrible, but there's a story where one, a person we knew like was going in and they told him not to go in. Like there were cops there because they thought there was a shooter on the roof. And he's like, well, why can't I go in? Just because he's like, well, why can't he?

Idiots don't know what to do. But, Douglas, two dead in Arkansas. Let's talk about Bullworth. Let's do it. Okay, so, go ahead.

Take it off. The first sign, the first image, we get the, the, the, the Chirons about its 1996,

we get the dole stuff. We get all that stuff. And then, the first thing we see is it's raining in Washington. So it's not lovely to look at. I love Washington. I love going. I love the history.

It's one of my favorite places to be in the world. I've taken my family there three times. I've been there five. I love it. Do you know that there's going to be a reflecting pool at a ballroom now? This is the first I'm hearing of it. But the first thing we should. is a do not enter sign.

That's the first shot of the movie, which is kind of nice. I thought that was the nice type. And then we get his offices, and we see the shots of, you know, Malcolm X and MLK, and they would both hate AOC so much. And he'd get his ad rolling.

I don't know if you notice this too, but every time his secretary answers the phone, it's like the names, I actually wrote these down. The names are Chow, Ling, Song. These are his contributors. Like that's in there. And then you have this diagetic,

I think it's spelled diagetic stuff. That's in the background with the TV, and we see OJ on the TV. actually see the nicks on the TV. We see all this stuff. There's so many things we're seeing all at once. It's, I don't know. I think it's a great opening.

It may be chaotic to you, but I don't think. No, no, I didn't find that part of it chaotic. I thought that was, I thought that was good. And it was kind of funny because his faces were so dramatic. And the first thing you do is meet this guy sitting in the dark, hating himself, hating how he looks and sounds on camera, hating the fact that he's saying these tired, you know, supposedly clever lines again.

I mean, that's what so many politicians are now. And he breaks that mold over the course of the film, which is kind of funny because that's what Trump did in many ways. And I think that that stuff is super important because we had been taking politics just so seriously. All of these different, political figures are just such self-serious people and just always the pretense, always the manner of speaking and the gestures and the rest of it. And Trump was like, I'm not doing any of that.

I'm just going to come in here and talk how I talk and say the things that I think. And, you know, somebody tells him that they want him to say certain political things. You can tell when he's reading off the teleprompter and he switches stuff and he makes fun of what's in there. And there's something very natural and authentic and appealing about that. And, you know, they riffed on it in in Bullworth. But that was kind of like Jay Bullworth, according to his political advisors, should have immediately face planted in politics and be done. And that's not how it went at all. Right.

And I didn't make we bring up Trump at all tonight. You're joking. Yeah, I am. I'm completely joking. Good. Okay. I was like, the big, that's like the elephant in the room. But yeah, I completely agree it.

It was, I'll dive into it now. I had it sort of posted a little bit for later. So the thing is, because we see those shots early on, we see Martin Luther came into Malcolm X in that shot, right? We're panning through, and we see the pictures on his, on his wall. And some of that is obviously the

Beatty doing his whatever he's doing whatever he's pandering to whatever he's like everybody's entitled of their own beliefs or whatever but there's a few shots where he is where we see

Robert Kennedy and there's one where we see Beatty with Robert Kennedy and this time that I started watching this for this podcast and got me thinking that same way shampoo, which you haven't seen, which you will. We'll do it on podcast, um, 594 or whatever.

Okay. That's going to be a while. Yeah. So, so with shampoo, it takes place in 1968. The, the, the, the, it's still lingering that RF, has been killed and all this stuff, but it inspired that movie. And what's kind of weird about Bullworth, again, which I mean what I'm talking about when it sits on that crux, is that RFK is there in the movie, and then we move from that.

And I don't know if you have seen this or not, and I tried my hardest to find it. And I couldn't. I think it's been scrubbed from the internet, but there was a meme. In like 2016, I didn't mean to rhyme, but it's Bullworth, so what the fuck, where it's Bernie Sanders coming out of Bullworth's mouth. Right? Did you ever see that? Man, something about it sounds familiar, but you couldn't find it? I could not find it. It may have been scrubbed from the internet. I really don't know. But here's my point. My point is, is we like movies used to be inspired by politicians and now and then after that it's like

politicians were like trying to latch on the movies or something does that make sense yeah it does and I think that there's some additional relevance in this film with the the crossover between politics and hip-hop culture since there we go you know and I mean I'm sure you have plenty stuff on that. We can get into that for a little bit. But, uh, you know, Barack Obama used to have Jay-Z and Beyonce come to his like huge events before elections and even had them come to the Hillary Clinton event. I think it was in Chicago two nights before the, the election in 2016. Kanye West visiting Trump down at the White House, Trump getting rappers out of prison. And one of one of the big things that I think has, I was talking about this yesterday with someone in regards to influencers, but celebrities used to communicate us to us all of these different kind of social values and they would model behavior for us. They would show us what stuff we should want to buy. And eventually people started kind of tuning out from celebrities. Celebrities started like proliferating in such numbers.

that it was hard for any of them to really stand out like they used to. And so then it was like, well, we need more of these sales channels. We want to introduce people to way more celebrities so that a celebrity can give them any opinion we possibly could want to feed into them. And so what they did was just actually make little people in all these different targeted microd demographics famous so that they could be the go-between between people who want to sell something, whether it's ideas or products or what have you, and the consumer, the celebrity endorsement has diminished the kind of micro celebrity influencer has taken over the space.

Oh, that's interesting. It's actually, yeah, I mean, I mean, that's, I mean, obviously CBS is just going to be in a tank now because they don't have Covaire anymore because he brought in so many viewers. yeah i don't know what you're going to do well at least they have very weiss running the news yeah i'm not going to dive into that either but but nonetheless um yeah that's a i mean that's a fair point but to i don't know to get to the uh you know let's uh let's go to uh your uh your first interaction with with the hip hop oh you mean like back in the 90s

what do I remember man I got one band I got one band and I got a few others and I'm totally into it I will absolutely

fall on the altar know that I admit to that I was all in total wigger all that stuff Vanilla ice. Oh my God, shut up. I, I, I, that might have been, I mean, vanilla ice, I think, B.

So when I was really like getting into hip-up in that stage, when kind of everybody. That brought you in? No, no. Well, no, but I was very familiar with it prior to that. And they kind of pushed, like, the new kids on the block in that direction a little bit. And then you got MC Hammer and stuff like that. Run DMC was out there, but it really didn't penetrate where I lived. I grew up with the country.

But once the, once kind of 91 happened, 91, 92, and it was like Dr. Dre's the chronic, that was when the era began for me. Okay. So for me, it was public enemy. Okay, fair enough. Yeah. I mean, certainly conscious that before then, yeah. Yeah.

And I heard it because I watched movies and I heard it. I heard fight the power. Again, like this movie, not edicts I agree with, but I love the fight. You know what I mean? I love to fight about shit. So that's wonderful to me. That's wonderful. So it's not like I agree with the politics of the song or whatever, but like public enemy did it for me.

And it got me thinking about this movie because public enemy is. actually on the soundtrack to this movie. They were actually on the soundtrack to another movie this same summer called He Got Game, which we might have to do at some point. Have you seen that? I saw pieces of it back then, but didn't really pay attention to it. I think that I had already seen White Men Can't Jump, and that was like enough basketball movies from me.

One basketball movie? Well, I get it. I get it. I would post you up, buddy. but public public enemy like spoke so much to me when I was a kid not because of any politics I could understand it was like politics I was trying to come into or learn or whatever and it was it was they were they were raging against the machine so to speak so it was great and they had a song in 1994 and you can look this up and I'll send it to you after we get off

the podcast here is a song called The Race Against Time and it came out on their 94 album and this is after they're sort of not popular anymore because what's popular at that point is like

gangster shit and drugs and whatever blah blah blah but there was a point where public enemy was actually saying some really profound things. And they had a song called Race Against Time. And it was about the World Health Organization putting out a fake pandemic.

And it blows my mind to listen to it now. I'm going to look these lyrics up now. Look them up. Right. Who did it? Who pandemic? World health organized. murder rise

for the booty I rocked it I got it all I got them all in my head wow wow yeah and then we go from that to they're like hey everybody wear a fucking mask

like at our shows at a holiday inn or whatever oh you're saying in 2020 they went from they went from 30 years ago or 26 years ago calling out fake pandemics and the corruption of the World Health Organization. And then in 2020, they are pro-mask.

Correct. That's what I'm saying. I mean, obviously. Disappointing. It's very disappointing. But it's also on that curve where like, like it feels like they're like the Bullworths now. Like, who are just sort of sad about like what they become or whatever. I don't want flavor of

Flav to come at me at any point Well, he's a reality show star now, right? Wasn't he a flavor of love or whatever? Right. So hip-hop at the time was the edgiest thing that could have possibly exist. Like, we should have been getting in trouble for listening to the chronic.

You know, I was listening to that at 13. And at the time, time, it, I don't know, it felt rebellious and fun and cool and like something that no one had ever done before. I remember listening to that and Ice Cuban Wu-Tang and I still love Wu-Tang. I still love all of it. Yeah, yeah, yes. But now I look back on the chronic in particular and some of that West Coast rap. And like some of it is disgusting.

And a lot of it is about just really terrible shit. And I have to think that that was put out and marketed to young kids so that they would adopt many of the slogans, the phrases, the morals. Some of the think that some of the activities were cool. And the rest of it, there were movies that followed that up like, why can't I? Why can I think of that? What were those two LA Gangland movies that everybody watched? It was like in 1994. Boys in the hood and Minister's Society?

There to go, yes. I don't know either. Those were saying to do this. It almost said to get out of this. Oh, no. I'm not suggesting that those movies were promoting it. And even the music to some extent was describing the horror of it and whatever, but it's still communicating, hey, there is this part of the world,

this is what people in that part of the world do. And even if you get past the drugs and the violence and the robbery and the assault and all the rest of it, then you just get into what you're doing to bitches and hoes and tricks. You know what I mean? I look at that stuff now and think, would I want my child as a 13 year old to be listening to that music? I think the answer is no. And I look back on it myself. And I think, oh, they indoctrinated the use, the nonstop incestive use of the N-word into my brain.

And then as soon as everybody my age knows that that's the word and all the songs that black people call each other, then it's like, hey, don't you ever, ever, ever think about saying that word anywhere, even if you're rapping along to one of these songs or you are. racist for the rest of your life. Nectarine? Yes. No, nuclear. Nuclear is the end word. No, nuclear. That's Bush. Yeah.

Man, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, this is a weird, we got to get back to Bullwurst. For sure. Yeah. But did you get East Bay magazine?

I did. that was that and again I grew up in a town in Missouri Southwest Missouri it's like 10,000 people but it's pretty small but that and MTV what in obviously CDs were my connection to hip-hop and that sort of culture I also played basketball that was my connection too I don't I don't think I ever went so far as to just lose my mind over things and I'm wondering and I'm wondering now if

it's just because somebody has a fucking device in their hand or whatever it's as easy as that they're like that's the thing that like put like if if I had a phone in my hand I'm watching TikToks 24 hours or whatever and like would I just been on that in the end what I ended up being was a guy from the middle town, Lebanon, Missouri, who played basketball and wanted to be black and wasn't and went to college and ended up being around a bunch of black people who I loved and loved them still and then decided that, oh, wait, here's who I am type of thing versus I'm on my phone all the time and dealing with all this media shit

which Bullworth deals I'm trying to wrap this all back to Bullworth but Bullworth deals with the media too I mean like its biggest target might be the media It's interesting how they have the media in a van outside all of his events

Sean Aston almost silent the entire time but the two the producers or whatever in the van are like, what is this guy doing? He's burning his career down. And then, yes, there's two other instances with, well, the media is following around, flocked around this guy all throughout the movie, but the crowd grows as he gets stranger and stranger.

The way he calls out the media in the debate scene where he's talking about, I work for rich guys. I need rich guys to give me money so I can keep doing this job. You guys work for rich guys. You asked me questions about what I'm doing for these rich guys, and we both actually end up working for the same rich guys.

And that is a dynamic that I think people overlook. And I'm not suggesting that people aren't fully well aware of that. I just don't think that people think a lot about its function and how important that function is. I'm writing a piece right now about hierarchies. and the fact that because hierarchies exist, there is a command element in any hierarchy. There are people who are better performers within that hierarchy, so they kind of control more resources, they have more responsibility in decision making because they're the ones who are

ultimately going to lead that group forward and the hierarchy forms. And then that level of the hierarchy will interact with other hierarchies and those form their own hierarchy. And there is actually a top command element to all of this stuff. And it doesn't have to be coordinated in its activity, but it coordinates itself automatically because everybody's participating in the same incentive pool. And when that is the case and when multiple elements of a system like this are getting funded and directed by the same elements, well, then you have all of these disparate elements scattered throughout the operational layer of this hierarchy that don't know that their activity is being coordinated. They don't know that they're playing a game with

these other people on that operational layer. But the real world effect is that they are and that their behavior is actually coordinated. And if they were to coordinate it directly amongst one another, it probably wouldn't even flow as freely and operate as effectively as it does because it's decentralized and it's just the spontaneity of their own like market behaviors operating this entire conspiracy. And so it's it's on display in that scene is what I'm trying to say. No, I think that's very well said. It's it's said more well than I could say it and more passionately. Well, that's good because I think about it all the time and you don't. So if you were saying it better than me, I would be in real trouble.

I can give you some details about how the film was shot. Don't for it. I was sort of joking there, but like, you should notice, and you can notice this on the second time around. There are so many blues and reds in the movie, like purposefully. He's doing that on purpose. There's also green.

Which mean go. And that's in the rap club scene. Like just, I mean, it's beautiful. I mean, we haven't even talked about the people in this movie. I mean, oh my God, Don Cheadle was on a fucking, can I cuss on this show? Yes. Yeah. Sorry.

He was on a role at this point. Like, he was in the goat, boogie nights, this out of sight, like right in a row. It was unbelievable. I mean, just killing it. Isaiah Washington, who never had anything bad happen and get canceled for after that. Hallie Berry crushing it.

I mean, just so many great things, but like the visuals, the red, the blues, the greens, also good. I was thinking that Warren Beatty might have done this movie just to

star with Hallie Berry as his romantic opposite. Oh, that was actually a joke I was going to make to you later. Like, hey, wouldn't it be great if

if I play the senator who is kind of out of style and I don't know, I get Hallie Barry to dance at me like drunkenly. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. she is a wonderful she is a wonderful looking woman

but do you notice okay can we talk about Oliver Platt yeah oh my god he's the ultimate like a political advisor or whatever character love it the the character arc for him when he is just blowing like he bumps in rails of cocaine. He just, he was like, he just unshackled himself from his pretense as like the responsible political operator who's very career focused and making sure that everyone just plays their part and stays on

track and does the appearances, shakes the hand, says the words, does all the things that a political actor does on behalf of his benefactors to keep going. I mean, just the level, and to be clear about how I'm using this word, the level of fakery there, I mean, there's a guy who's hired to make sure that the politician is acting fake in the right way, or is faking acting in the right way. Oh, wait, explain that more. The handler, he's essentially this guy's handler. Like, yes, he's assistant or whatever role that he plays. He's an underling for certain.

But he's also supposed to keep Bullworth doing the right things, the things that make his campaign work. The things that make the campaign happen. Yeah, exactly. So he's got to make sure that Bullworth, no matter how inauthically, fakes like he's actually doing all the right things for all of the different political interests involved in his career. So he's essentially hired a guy to make sure that he fakes it the right way. Yeah. Yeah. Well said.

I really don't have anything else that. Other than I love all the reply. Yeah, no, he's great. I'm doing this. The cocaine spin out was fantastic, yes. And the whoever is, I guess, his assistant. is pretty funny too. Was that guy in Veepe or am I crazy?

Maybe. I don't know. I mean, I need to try that out right now. I love Bullworth walking into the club with the girls. And he's like, no, they don't have any weapons on them. And they just throw down a whole bunch of fucking weapons. And then Oliver Platt's not allowed in because they can tell that he is

the square and nobody wants to let the square into the right yeah that was great that was great let's see oh my god I mean we have you know maybe I think I think the clips speak for themselves

and we could get into trouble and talk about them but that's what we should do I love that he manifest chicken wings for himself he talks about chicken wings and then he's like hey pull over for some chicken wings yes but didn't go to like the uh like the the down home local spot where you go for wings he went to kfc right doesn't he doesn't oliver platt mentioned roscoes does he oh he said i don't technically i don't think that that's Rosco's because Roscoe isn't on

Island if I recall. I think Roscoe is on God damn man, it's been a long time. I think it's on Vine. My, no, it's on Gallup. Whatever the case. Yeah. Because that's what I was to get.

He goes to KFC and gets reinvigorated. And I think all of us can, I mean, that's the other thing I love about this movie is it's, it's not just it's not a political movie it's a movie about a guy who has been up for four days and needs food yeah and hallie berry to slide into his life and uh he does and then he starts speaking whatever he thinks is his truth but uh let me let me make sure i don't miss any of the stuff I had

Oh Go ahead When he's at the club This fact that They Misrecognize him twice Oh yeah Clinties

He's doing one says George Hamilton And he's fine with both of them And George Hamilton Peters later Yeah And as does one of the bald ones Um Damn it

I forgot what I was going to... Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, that's fine. Oh. Oh, here. I can talk. I can vamp if you need.

Yep. Like, one of my favorite things about this movie is how many real figures from the 90s, like, just appear. Like, we hear about them. We see them in the background. I said, you know, dietic or whatever earlier, but, like, we see. OJ, we hear about Clinton, we hear about Dole, we hear about all this stuff. It's, it's, it's really fascinating how well he works to all that stuff in. Yeah, and just the fact that he's, like, combining that much real world political stuff

that the audience is going to know because that was the big news of the day and how he puts it in the fictional context. I'm always especially interested when I see movies do that. I remember what I wanted to ask you. What is your feeling about that strange little homeless man that keeps showing up in different scenes and approaching him and telling him to sing and telling him to find the spirit so that he doesn't become a ghost? Oh, okay. So you know who that that is, right? By all means, tell me.

an African-American poet and maybe have won I'm sure he's won some sort of award and I'm glad I'm on this podcast so I won't get like slam for not knowing but yeah he's a poet

so I think to me that's all about the difference between memory versus story. And that comes from something else. That's a book I teach all the time. Tim, Kim O'Brien's things they carry. But you have to be a story and you can't be just a memory.

Memory, spade, stories live on. And I think. think that's the ghost or spirit thing there. Wait, so explain that one more time because I want to get what you're saying. So the character himself that plays this character, the man who plays the character is a poet in real life. Correct. Okay. And I'm not saying that it's done well.

I'm just saying that this is what I think it's trying to do. Yeah, just repeat that one more time so I can get it. It's trying to explain the difference between someone who has a memory. Let's say this. Let's say you have a memory of a great day you had with me. I do have memories of that. I know. But you've never told it to anybody.

That always stays a memory. But if you turn it into a story and tell it to somebody and they hear it, and they know it's a story, then they can tell it later on. Got it. Does that make sense? Yes. And so is this?

And you're saying that that's... No, I'm saying this is the Broncos game. Sorry. Wait, are you watching a Broncos game right now? No, I'm saying this is the... I mean, for fuck's sake. I mean, I'll never forget for the rest of my... life watching the Broncos come back from 22 down in the fourth quarter.

Oh, my God. Yes. And then, and then Monday or Tuesday or whatever it was, I watched the Knicks come back from 22 down with seven minutes left. It's incredible. You think it's because they both have blue and orange as they're. I think it's because Nick has some sort of special magic. That could be true. But my thing, all jokes aside, that's the difference between ghost and spirit.

It's memory versus story. Got it. Okay, so that makes sense and it's cool. And he kind of gave me the vibe that I get when I see that thing appear from around the corner. after the diner scene in Mahal and Drive. Oh, wow. I think about that creepy character way too often, probably because the first time I saw it,

I was like, that was a movie. I used to watch movies like while I was falling asleep, and it doesn't matter if it was like the first time I've ever seen the movie or the 50th time I've seen a movie. But I think that the first time I was watching Mahal and drive, I fell asleep and like woke up. during that seat. I was like,

what the hell is that? Oh my God. You should not watch that movie the first time while you're falling asleep. I've watched it many times. What were you thinking? Yeah. So,

yeah, I mean, and again, it's a, it's a famous poet. And I will, again, I'm going to get his name wrong

if I try to pronounce it and I don't want to do that. But, uh, But yeah, I think I think that was sort of the point. Not one of my favorite parts of the movie, but, you know, it's an all over the place movie. I just wanted to make sure that he wasn't the spirit that entered Bullworth and became Bullworth's like spirit rapper. What's the line?

he called it a miry baraka is his name yeah okay he said and you got to be a song and the song and that basically means story yeah so so that I mean that's what it is

but yeah Mary Barack I'm I'm sure he was that has been in a lot of Trump events um the uh you you wanted to

I think there was something you wanted to touch on with the scene where there, where Hallie Berry tells Bullworth to guess her age and he's off by years, guess is a little younger and then she nails him

at 60, like just kind of got him dead to write in his expression. Oh my God. It's such a good scene. And it's like Warren Vady God love him

same week I think maybe within a week maybe it came out one week before one week after but Robert Redford does the horse whisper right and that whole

movie it's like gauzy photography where you can't see any wrinkles on his face. And then you got this movie where Warren Brady's like saying like, hell, do you think I am?

And she like tells him straight up. And he looks bad the whole movie and he owns it. I kind of like that. I don't know. That may have been the thing that I don't even give a shit about the politics of the movie or anything about the movie.

I think that's the thing I like about the movie the most is that like Warren Beatty was like, you know what? Whatever. I'm doing this, you know? I'm not going to have any intimate time with Halliberry if I don't do this movie. Go ahead. No, no, no. Go on.

I was just, I was kind of floored about the Democrats don't care about African Americans because it kind of reminded me. of this. And I bet you know what I'm going to do. You don't know. Wow. Well, I don't know. I mean, I know they don't.

I know they don't. Oh, my God. Thank God. Remain in the area. The destruction of the spirit of the people of southern Louisiana and Mississippi may end up being the most tragic loss of all. George Bush doesn't care about black people. I love that the, uh,

the curb your enthusiasm. Yeah. I didn't know that was coming. It started popping there. I love, it's an honor that I am on a podcast with you and Kanye West.

Yeah. It's my favorite. It's an honor for me too. And who could have thought this was ever possible? But it's true. It was true in 1998. It was true in

1965. It was true in 1865. I mean, they don't. And it's also true what Bullworth said in his kind of long rap monologue in that final interview, that he said, you ain't got to be black to be a slave. And I don't think that they care a whole lot about normal white people or any of the other types of people either. In fact, a lot of the kind of control system that operates in America and the incentive structure formed around telling white people, especially white men, that they were terrible, that we were terrible. Correct.

I think that's 100% true. Like I spent like and again and I'm not in any way saying I wish I wouldn't have done this or whatever but like I spent a lot of my my high school years like celebrating rap and all this stuff and I think it was fine but at the same time I'm growing up around white people who literally are in the the same positions that he's talking about. Yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, and they don't have the, the musical outlet to be able to get out of

the hood. What? You've never heard the Kentucky headhunterment. You've never heard the Kentucky headhunters? I don't know what you're talking about right now. You've never heard of Toby Keith? Oh, are they referred to as the Kentucky headhunters?

Is that the country music way out? So the whites have the country music? I don't know. I'm not comfortable. Remember that Oliver and the guy? I don't remind me. That guy that had the song in late 2023, he's from West Virginia and kind of has like red hair

in the beard and was just playing I think he was playing a banjo or something but God I can't I can't think of the lyrics right now which that song kind of got big for a little while oh rich men

down from Richmond Oh yeah Rich man Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah South of that guy Yeah nothing Did he get murdered? It was like a few days I thought he was a talented guy

I mean, I know people kind of had mixed feelings about that song, but I thought he had some good songs, and he just disappeared. I tell you what, you better get that fucking public enemy song, running out time song. The racing against time song on there. Got a few more things to say about this movie. Do it. I love the fact that he acts well when he acts better or whatever once he knows he has a clock ticking on his head. You know what I mean? Well, he becomes honest all of a sudden.

Yeah. And have you ever read the Flanarri O'Connor short story, a good man is hard to find? I don't think I have, no. Okay. You absolutely should read it. And you should absolutely should read all of Flannery O'Connor. You would love her. Okay.

But there's this scene at the end of a short story where this hypocriteical grandmother ends up getting shot. But the big line is She would have been a good woman If she'd had a gun to her head Her whole life And that's what I Like Bullworth is Like he's like

Oh Now that all this is going on Maybe I should be nice Or say what I want to say Not even nice or right But just be honest Yeah You know what I mean

Well you know The old kind of sports analogy that we've heard thousands of times players talking about how, you know, well, our back was up against the wall. We had nothing to lose. So we just kind of went out there and did our thing. There's something to that. And that's the Bullworth situation where we find him.

He's got nothing to lose. He kind of does want to burn the whole system down. So you might as well go out swinging, go tell the truth and see what happens. At least redeem yourself a little bit. Right. And again, we may have, you know, we've sort of circled around it before, but there was a guy who, who picked up on rap music or who was talked about rap music a lot. And I actually looked it up. It was over 250 times. And his name was Donald Trump. And I don't think it's a coincidence that, uh, that he won the way he won because of this wait which part because he was like willing to go out there and just lay it all on the line and talk about how things actually work behind the scenes well earlier i i mentioned that uh shampoo uh talked about uh robert kennedy because it was somebody who existed but And then after the fact, Bernie Sanders tried to latch on to Bullworth, which was a fake thing. But I think Trump was just the thing that was the thing.

I mean, he was, I mean, he's literally mentioned in so many rap songs that both of us listen to. And not in a negative way. I don't know. I think there's something there. I think that's what sort of broke the system. Yeah, I mean, obviously volumes have been written about this, and we spent plenty of time on Badlands talking about these kind of dynamics. But he has been one of the most famous men in the world,

and certainly in the country, for over four decades now. I mean, we're probably going on five at this point. He was not universally loved, but people aspired to be Donald Trump. They wanted to have lives like Donald Trump. They wanted to know the people that Donald Trump knows, have the glamorous experiences that Donald Trump has. They can call us taste tacky. They can go through all of the various things that people who don't like Donald Trump say about Donald Trump. But most of those people live aspirational lives that are trying to attain some small portion of the things that Donald Trump has attained.

And so it's very weird, I think, to have focused, as so many liberals and so many kind of elites and wannabe elites have, to focus so much anger at Donald Trump for being who he is when they are all clearly aspiring to be some version of that themselves. Yeah, I mean, I think that's very well said. And I mean, Donald Trump would have been, I mean, it wasn't too long ago that Donald Trump was called a liberal. Yeah. So or what? In some corners of the quote unquote right online, which I don't think is actually any kind of right at all, they still try to paint Donald Trump as the liberal in all sorts of cases. Now the kind of the bad is to say that Donald Trump is owned by Israel, which Bullworth kind of threw off in the scene in Hollywood, which was, you know, hilarious and however angry people might get about that. And however angry, the people in the room, of course, were in that scene.

I mean, what are you saying? Again, isn't untrue. Hollywood for as many brilliant and amazing pieces of art are made in Hollywood and there certainly are plenty of those. There's also just a ton of trash that's degrading and offensive and useless and just slop to get people to show up in a theater or to stream it online and just collect all that money. And then there's tons of influence on society directly and indirectly based on what Hollywood content. does and then the influence that Hollywood has in politics on display here? Yeah.

For sure. You want to take it back to like 1998 though? Let's do it. Is this the pivot point? Is 1998 a pivot point? For Hollywood, you're saying? I mean, for jumping in on everything's fake? or whatever.

Well, I mean, first off, just to be clear and to be clear for the audience, like, I don't think everything's fake, obviously. I think that they're... I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I didn't mean that. No, no, no, that's okay. I just want to be, I just want to make sure that we are, like, on the right page here if we're going to engage that part of the discussion.

I'm happy to at any point. But in all sorts of everything that comes to us mediated by a screen is mediated with different interests involved at every level of its mediation. And, you know, our, depending on the subject matter of shows on our network, for instance, they'll be influenced differently by the algorithm than other people's content will be. And so other contents will be pushed out to everybody every day so that people adopt the ethics and values and ideas portrayed in that content, whereas other content will be

completely barred from discussions for you. years at a time so that nobody can actually engage with that on the same footing. They don't take things seriously because those things are not popular and they don't attract a lot of money and massive followings. And so it's very easy to shift public sentiments in a certain direction on that basis. And so when things are presented to us, there are elements that cater to that dynamic and falsify events. They create PR campaigns and whatever. You can go back to Bernays and whatever else on these things. And then there are events that can just be orchestrated from the top down, and we see a lot of that stuff too. So all of these things are very important.

You know, 1998 is when the Internet is really starting to grow in its adoption around the country. So the effect, the kind of feedback loop effect that can be utilized when you have the Internet and people discussing parts of culture and then the culture feeding into that discussion, well, yeah, I mean, if there was going to be one, One of the shifts that you're describing, I would think that somewhere in this kind of time, this era is when a shift like that would have occurred. Yeah.

And I think that happened. Now, the thing is, this movie was not very successful. So nobody went to it. I mean, I did. I went to everything. I still got everything. I actually saw this the same week, or not the same week.

but within the same week that I saw Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Oh, cool. Have you guys covered that yet? No, no, we should at some point. Eh, maybe. I think there's a lot of weird gems in that movie. That's one of the things about this show.

I watch a lot. It's fantastic. Like, I love it. It's very quotable. It's funny. And it's really so you, honestly. Like, you are my, Hunter S. Thompson.

That's very sweet, Josh. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. You want to hear an interesting piece of trivia, by the way, some Hunter's Thompson trivia. So do you know the very famous little news clipping of what purports to be Hunter S. Thompson's daily routine when it comes to his creativity and his eating schedule, the sorts of things he eats? and then of course the drugs he does and the the cocktails he drinks have you ever seen that no i have

you have never seen this wow i'm amazed hold on let me pull this up because i think it's worth it but continue what you were saying and then we'll come back to this um not sure what i was saying before hunter s hunter s thompson yeah i was just talking about like 98 all that stuff and uh i mean again i was I looked back at it and I was 21, 20 at that time. And I'm just trying to find myself. And thankfully, I understand that finding yourself is a continuation. But seeing Bullworth kind of jerk me out of this thing. a little bit where I thought

it had to be one thing or another I guess it had to be both and or either or both and blah blah blah and blah and I don't know I yeah I so so much to say

about all the bad decisions I've made voting over the years You, I mean, God, our friend, N.P. Introduce me to you with your great, great piece. I don't even know if it's available anymore, which was called, I think, don't make me vote for Trump.

Yeah. That was like in, yeah, it was kind of near the end of 2019, I guess, when it seemed like Bernie Sanders was going to be nominated. And the audience knows that I used to always vote Democrat. And I basically- I did too. I mean, I didn't either. I mean, I voted all over the place.

Sure. But yeah, I was basically just making the case that, like, if you guys make this crazy old socialist, the nominee, I will absolutely vote for Trump. And I thought much different things about voting back then, but, and the importance of it. But, yeah. That was a great piece, man. You know, I read that, I read that on a cruise ship.

Nick sent it to me, or MP, sent it to me. And I read it and I was just, like, blown away. It was such good riding. And then that cruise ship immediately got shut down. because of coronavirus. I'm not joking. They're giving us new viruses with cruise ships lately too. Wait, check this out.

So this is, this is, I mean, it's printed in many places. This is the independent UK. Oh, good. Hunter S. Thompson's daily routine was the height of dissolution. Okay. I don't understand. So 3 p.m. rise, 305, Chivas Regal with the morning papers, Dunhill cigarette, 345, cocaine.

350 another glass of shivis and another Dunhill. Whoa. Didn't mean to do that. I got to get some shivis. Yeah, 405 first cup of coffee in a Dunhill. 415 cocaine, 416 orange juice and a Dunhill. And then it's just cocaine, cocaine, cocaine, cocaine. His drinks.

He goes to Woody Creek Tavern. Orders a cheeseburger. Cheeseburger there is amazing, by the way. And blah, blah, blah, blah through the rest of it. The thing that I want to call your attention to is that the woman who, put this together for the Associated Press is none other than one E. Jean Carroll, the woman who accused Donald Trump of raping her in the department's store's dressing room, which I think is. Yeah, I think that that's quite amazing. Well, I just, I want to go on the record and say that I'm

against rape. Good. Okay. Well, yes, it's important to to get that out there so people know. because otherwise all bets are off like like a really really against rape good well thank you i mean i'm sure that everybody in the chat is is comforted by your extreme opposition to rape if we know that there's one person i never rape i didn't say i didn't say extreme oh this really really against it. Like a strong normal amount is what we're going for. Correct. Okay. So did I bring up the Sorkin stuff? No, please do. Aaron Sorkin wrote the worst parts of this movie and you can probably guess them. Okay, well, let's just say right now I can't. It's all of Halliberry's dialogue. in the bar scene.

Ah, yes. Okay. So he brought Aaron Sorkin in to do the liberal wine politics. Right. Yes. That makes sense. Yeah. And it sounds right.

And like, again, I mean, I think parts of it, like, might even be right. But it does feel, you know, it feels too much. It's like, oh, my God, you guys should just do a whole season on. the newsroom. Holy crap. You know, it did strike me the

manufacturing thing because that is the The manufacturing is real. I'm not suggesting otherwise. Yeah. But they do it

for urban black and rural white, both crushed by the by manufacturing being sent overseas.

Isn't that by NAFTA? yeah naftna kna kna kna kta killed all this like they're literally he's literally attacking nafta and again this is like the part of the movie where i connect with my i connected or whatever at that point wherever i was in my stupid young political whatever i thought i was blah blah blah type of thing connected with my dad just decided like nafta was so stupid at the time and there were like a few people against it. It was like Rossboro, Ralph Nader, and Pat Buchanan, and Bullworth, apparently. So, uh, good. Oh, no, I'm, I'm, I'm just trying to make sure I'm not missing out on my other

point, but, um, there, uh, you, you, you put in the nappy dugout clip. Oh, yes. And, uh, what an unfortunate phrase that is. It is. But I mean, is this movie like truly hinting at everything? Because the whole, that whole end of that rhyme is about if senators get it, blah, blah, blah. I mean, are we even diving into Epstein here? Well, that's interesting. You mean because, uh, he's talking about how available sex is for senators?

Yes. Yeah, I mean, I guess you could take that reading. I guess I feel like maybe that's kind of a stretch because he's talking specifically, he mentioned specifically the way that women fall for power. And certainly in Hollywood, I saw that dynamic everywhere all the time. So I have no doubt that that's correct for senators as well. But sure, I mean, there could be more to it than that. No, it was basic. It probably is a stretch.

I know this. When Chris Paul says, hey, maybe that's a stretch, it's probably a stretch. Hey, man. People think that I'm doing something crazy. I really just focus only on the things I actually know. And the things that I don't know that I'm told by the television or by social media, by any aspect of the news, I assume that those things are not true until proven otherwise, and it very rarely fails me. You know, I tried to make a list, and it was, I mean, like, literally you had China, you had the hood, you had Israel, and then he had, you had political assassinations.

And then maybe I was like, wait, is that Epstein in there too? It's like that, is that part of it too? I mean, I don't know. That's a thought. Yeah, could be. All right, you got anything left? Because we're kind of hitting the end portion of the show. Oh, good.

How bad? How bad are the comments? I think everybody's been having a good time in the chat. We have, we generally have people who just, like watching people try to think and discern for themselves and have good, friendly, interesting conversations. Well, I generally, I generally love listening to you guys talk about movies, and I can't wait to hear you talk about some more movies.

You, uh, do you guys, have you guys talked about election yet? No. Um, man, I don't think I've ever even seen them. movie. Okay, so. No, we definitely haven't done it. All right. So mark it down. That's the next one we're doing. Alexander Payne, huh? Yeah, and the weird thing is about election, and I'm tying this into Bullworth, because

it's 99, it was actually made 98, it was going to come out, and then they waited. The weird thing about election is that it was, it's based on a book written by Tom Perota, who did the leftovers. Yeah, show. Yes, I absolutely love that show. I think that's fantastic. And I know that there is some disagreements among our circle about that, but I think it's fantastic.

Among our circle. Our circle of one more. But, but yeah, and I'll agree somewhat with that. But anyway, so election, he wrote it in like, I don't know. It was a few years after the 92 election. And it's based on the 92 election kind of, but it's about a high school of stupid student council election or whatever.

Right. And there's a nerd who always wants to be the person who wins. There's a jock who's just sort of the every man. and then there is like a person who stirs up shit right and that's based on 92 it's it's hw bush clinton and and perro who i voted for 96 as a write-in just one i'll go ahead and go on record crush it on record so anyway that's when it take that's when the book is written the crazy thing is the movie gets made 99 and it predicts

2000 even better where you have Bush Jr. who's like the dork everybody loves. You have gore is the nerd everybody hates. You have Nader's shaking up things. It's insane

how much it all lines up. That's the one we got to do next. All right. As long as I don't get you, canceled. I don't think that, man, I'm not sure if you've heard the things that I've been saying for the last six years, but it's not going to, it's not going to happen from this. Well, listen, like, it's insane if you don't do the movie called election. Yes, I suppose at some point we do have to do that.

And I really appreciate you, like, letting me watch the Knicks win as a whole this. Did that happen while we were doing this? Well, they were ahead by like 20, but I never feel like anything. I know. I don't feel like anything safe until all those ballots get counted in Atlanta at 2 o'clock in the morning. It do be like that. Yeah, it do be like that. It's good.

God, I miss you, man. We got to hang out again soon. Let's make it happen. We'll figure it out. We will. We'll do, and then election will be our next movie we do. All right, man. Well, Josh, thank you so much for taking the time and coming on.

And thank you for suggesting Bullworth. You got me to take one of the films off my list. that list is like 50 films long at this point and since I trade off with Burning Bright every week that's two years of movies and every time like every week someone suggests a new one so it never actually shrinks it only just keeps growing bigger so we got one of them down well and and listen I I'm so disappointed that I haven't been able to talk to Burning Bright because I I'm telling you, that no country for old men podcast was absolutely amazing. Oh, good.

It's where to go. Well, thanks, man. That's awesome. And thanks for not ruining back to the future for me either. Oh, good. Yeah, that's right. And wait, what was the thing that you said, I said that you hadn't thought of because that was one of your favorite movies?

That you didn't ruin it? What do you mean? No, no. There was something. You were like, you. said this thing that I actually hadn't thought about Back to the Future before. Wasn't there like, maybe I was thinking of. No, yeah, we had some conversations about it on text, but I think about Back to the Future every day.

It's my favorite movie. I'm just glad you guys didn't ruin it for me. That's reassuring. Thank you for that. All right. Well, hey, listen, you're doing the Lord's work. You're great. and keep it up, buddy.

All right, man. Thanks so much. We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye. Bye. All right, everybody. Okay, so before we get out of here, we have a couple of words,

one from, let's do this, and then we'll be right back to kind of close things down. It's finally here, our second annual mega sale. This sale only comes around once a year, so take advantage of the best offers ever while you can. For example, save 50% on our Giza Dream bed sheets as low as 2998. And for the first time ever on TV, My Pillo Mattresses and My Pillar Mattress Stoppers as low as 9998. And you save 50% on our Luxpeer six-piece tall sets, regular 6998, now only 3998.

And our best-selling standard, My Pillows, regular 49998, on sale for 17998. way not mega sale only 1498 so go to mypillow.com or call the number on your screen use this promo code to take advantage of our second annual mega sale but wait there's more to make the mega sale even more special when you order right now your order's going to ship absolutely free all right so mike lindel we got that out of the way check out my pillow also In five weeks, we return to Deadwood, South Dakota, for the Great American Restoration Tour. All of us will be there. Badlandsmedia.tv slash events for tickets or virtual tickets as well. Whether you're attending in person or virtually, Guard veteran or a virgin. There's something there for everyone. And we have merch packages also available for in-person and virtual. ticket holders. Get your Gart 12 tickets today at badlandsmedia.com.T.V.T.m.m.

TV slash events. I'm going to check. I think I saw some rumble rants at some point. scrolling, scrolling. Now there's one. There we are. 417. Patriot says, I'm from Springfield, Missouri. What year did you graduate? And one of my best friends who is black just left my house. We were talking about white people using the N-word in songs. So good crossover from our little internet TV show to your real life, I suppose. And it's too bad that Josh is not here to have fielded that Missouri comments. Last business of the evening is the film for next week. and Burning Bright has selected Uri.

This is written and directed by David Ayer, starring Brad Pitt, Shilabuff, Logan Lerman, and John Bernthal, among others. Really cool film, beautifully shot, great action. So we will be doing that for next week. We will see you then, Burning Bright. we'll be back and we will discuss the movie Fury. Good night. Thank you so much for joining us and don't forget to hit the thumbs up on this video.

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