Behind the Bastards - Part Two: God's Debris, by Scott Adams (with Matt Lieb)

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Robert sits down with Matt Lieb to discuss Scott Adams's worst novel, God's Debris.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When they come to take what's yours. You're ready? Let's go! The only option... You're gonna hate this next part. Is to fight. Renate. Renate with me.

From director X. We take back what's art. And give what we steal to our people. All right, let's see what you got. A classic, new toll. Three were unstoppable. A legend, newborn. You wanted me?

Where I am? Robin Hood, new series tonight at Tannis, Turnon Global, also available in Stack TV. Sometimes the pop culture we love just teens hits differently in retrospect. Maybe it's a tabloid story we couldn't get enough of or an illicit student teacher relationship on our favorite show. We're Suzy Banna-Keram and Jessica Bennett,

posts of the new podcast in retrospect, where each week we'll revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped us, and probably you, to try to understand what it taught us about the world and our place in it. You're the first person that I've talked to about this for years and years. Listen to In Retrospect on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you find your favorite shows. I'm Penelope Spheras. I'm the host of a new podcast about the life and death of Peter Ivers. Peter was the host of a TV show featuring prominent L.A. punk bands until he was murdered in 1983. 40 years later, we dive into that music scene and the mystery of his passing.

Listen to Peter and the acid king on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Everyone in our country has a voice. It's something that says not just where you come from, but who you are. Welcome to MPR's Black Stories, Black Truths, a collection of podcasts and a celebration of the host and journalism who've always spoken truth to power. Our voices are as varied, nuanced, and dynamic as the Black experience, and stories should never be about us without us. Find NPR Black Stories Black Truths on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, I'm finishing my mini taco from Trader Joe's. All of the Trader Joe's. You know sponsor us. Dude, I wish that we could get sponsored by Trader Joe's.

I've never even seen them like doing ads. Because they gave all that money to the LAPD when the LAPD opened fire wildly into one of their stores, murdering an employee. Why can't we get some of that cash? Oh yeah, Trader Joe's. Was that in L.A.? Uh huh. I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There was like a criminal on the loose and the LAPD decided, you know, it will help this situation. Imptying our AR-15s into a glass storefront. And then Trader Joe said, thanks guys. Here's a donation. Matt Leeb.. What's up? Matt, this is part two. I don't know if it'll be airing the same week or months later. We'll probably slot the center round Thanksgiving or some shit when we've got some. Anyway, these are pinched. We're doing a little pinched. I want to be filler. Put me doing podcast

sweep sweep. I don't want anyone to hear this shit. We're reading some books because I need a little bit of a break. Well, actually, I just need to get a head up on production. I'm still writing episodes this week. But this helps out. So I'm going to be reading you a story, another little book, a canticle for Matt Leibowitz. Matt Leibowitz. I'm Matt Leib. Do you get my canticle for Leibowitz, Joe? Oh, yeah, I did. I did it. That's not bad.

That's a pretty good little reference right there. Pretty good little reference. Let me give you a little. There we go. Thank you. Thank you. I didn't have the Jarger soundboard. It's just, I got a new thing and now it's just all kind of boring ones.

So I won't be doing it. You know what? Because this is the in-between. It's the in between. And people are still, people are still gonna be petting someone's gonna be like, actually a canticle is like a him or a psalm or something like that.

It's not a book. And to which I would say we're reading another Scott Adams book and his prose is both musical and holy like the text of a psalm. You know, exactly. Yeah, what else is there to say? Matt, Matt, Matt. What?

So I was just out in between recording the first episode on Scott's terrible novels in the second, checking on my goats, because I castrated one of them the other day. Yeah, I wanted to hear more, I wanted to hear more about, why did you do that? Well, you can't have too many bowls or whatever rams with the testicles hanging out. Like, you don't really wanna have more than one because they'll hurt each other, right? And we're not gonna breed this one. So he's gonna live a long, happy life,

but he just is not gonna have testicles. It's like your cat, right? Or your dog, you know? Like, I had somebody get all on-ray at me online about this. I'm like, I don't know, man, like I had somebody get all onry at me online about this. I'm like, I don't know, man, like you do it to your animals. Like if you have a pet, it's just like it's not going to breed. It's going to get hurt or hurt anyway, whatever. I don't care what people feel about it.

What's interesting to me about it is that the way we do it is with rubber bands, right? There's like a whole set up. Yeah, where in you basically just kind of, you know, there's a little pain for an hour or so and then the nerves kind of deadened. And then the testicles as well. Like when Buzzfeed, they'll do a live stream where they put a bunch of rubber bands on a watermelon and they keep putting it on until it explodes. No, that would be a crime, I believe.

We use a specific device and specific rubber bands meant for castration. Oh, great. But what's interesting to me about this mat is that the first real powerful moment that I had as a young child on the internet. I think this occurred around 99. Okay. My debon is late as 2000, 2001. Is I'm hanging out, I'm sure I found it

through something awful. And I wind up on this web forum for gay men who are in a very specific kind of, I think you would say like, pro like Dom sub relationship. Okay. And it was a subset of these guys talking about auto castration,

which is how to castrate yourself and they also use rubber bands on themselves to kill their testicles and then eventually remove them. And anyway, isn't it beautiful that as a little boy, I learned that about the world, I read, I spend hours, I didn't know why, but I spend hours reading all of these to tale discussions about the best way,

because these guys, there's not like, there wasn't like a book how to castrate yourself, right? Like there was, I think people had back in the Catholic church days when you'd had to do it to like sing better, people had learned a lot of this stuff, but I think it was like an oral tradition. And so- And all the votes were probably in Latin too,

so it's like, you gotta learn Latin to learn how to come up on balls off. What is, I thought this was America. Much like in a cantico for Leboets, these people had to rediscover, you know, the knowledge of the past and I spent hours. And this is like, I can't remember one time like reading just like I'm going through this and stuff.

It's like early in a Sunday morning, I've gotten up early to check, read the internet before my dad takes the dial up. We've got to like go to church. And so I go to church just like thinking about these descriptions of how men castrated themselves using rubber bands, which I love about the internet. I credit that with a lot of the,

you know, just learning the vast panel. I make a lot of sense that that is like an early memory for you. Powerful. It's weird how much that probably dictated where you're at right now. Yeah, absolutely. It had no impact on me castrating a goat.

I did that because my neighbors who are more experienced with this sort of thing do it that way. Oh, I thought it was because it just loved the game. You loved the game? That's why I got that ABC tattoo, baby. Always be castrating. Yeah, man. No, like I was also, like I feel like goat's he had a huge influence on me.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it just, it showed me that humans are capable of remarkable feats. Humans are capable of remarkable feats. Humans are capable of remarkable feats. It also taught me a lot about storytelling. If you go back to, and if you're not, if you're young, right, or you just weren't terminally online, goat's sea was like one of the very first online memes. It was really the most influential early online meme.

The basics of it is that it's a photo, some fellow took with a prolapsed rectum of himself bending over and spreading his ass cheeks so that you can see what his prolapsed rectum looks like. And it is biologically a fascinating photo. And because it was just kind of like one of the more horrifying, I think it's how most people found it, things being passed around the early internet. It became like a shorthand for I am a very online person. And the way you would express this shorthand

is you would trick people into looking at the picture of this man's rectum by being like, wow, there's a fire at the power plant nearby. Check out this photo of it or something like that, right? Like this hyperlink, you know, and then it would just be Goatsy guy stretching out his asshole, hella wide. And you'd be like, oh no, not again. All of these different bits of internet culture

when they come down to normies, right? They get sort of softened. Like the softening of Goatsy was rick-rolling, right? Yeah, you know, it's just a video of this bad song, right? Instead of this man's's confounding ainess. Yeah. Well, to be fair, the guy doing Goatsy was Rick Astley. Yeah.

That's why he's got the ass right in there. Right there in the name, but that's good. That's good stuff. Well, it's also fun because I think Goatsy taught me everything that you really need to know about good storytelling, right? Open, obviously you wanna grab them right away and that prolapsed rectum as like a great intro paragraph, right?

You're immediately in the story. But you also wanna set up like mysteries, you wanna set up aspects of the plot that are gonna be relevant later because that's really just kind of satisfying as a reader. And the Goatsy version of that is, this dude's got a wedding ring, right? Like we don't know much, but we know there's,

we know there's a story going on with this vellisatus, right? Yeah, somewhere behind the scenes, right? And maybe one day we'll find the answer to that mystery. We know that he took a vow before God, and we know that he's got shiny hands, so you know that he's also safe when he's tearing his ass hole. Absolutely.

Absolutely. He's careful. He cares. There's a whole world implied in Goatsy, speaking of people who created a whole world. I want to talk about the pureless fictional crafting of Scott Adams. Now, the Goatsy of the comic book world. The Goatsy of the comic book world. The goat sea of the comic book world, right? The prolapsed anus of our modern discourse.

Yeah. I did. One of my favorites. So there's this thing in Vegas, the Madison Square Garden sphere, which is the, you've seen pictures of it all. I've seen this. And people are doing this. My favorite post about it is like, you know, somebody posted like a picture

of it looking like an eyeball. And was like, can't wait till someone hacks this and we get to watch Mr. Hands die on it. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And again, if you're not an old internet head,

Mr. Hands is a man who was part of a gang of zooafiles who would regularly meet up in Washington, I believe, and like molesta horse. And one day the horse fucked him and he died as a result of it. For reasons I shouldn't need to explain by watching. Yeah, I think you can all put that together. I mean, I think you could probably put it together. It wound up.

He was like a congressional later, some shitty, had some job in government. It was like a weird or he was like a contract. I think he was like a, so he was like a whole thing. Yeah. It was wild. There's a documentary about it called Zoo that is very uncomfortable to watch, but we'll give you the whole story.

There's also a movie semi about it called The Death of Dick Long, and you must watch it. Ah! That I haven't seen, but I'll check that out. Oh my God, I wish I hadn't said anything in fact, but no. You should see this movie. It's one of the greatest movies ever.

Now I have decided that if I ever get to set up like my canticle for Lebuwitt's style, like hidden, you know, a reservoir of human knowledge for people after the apocalypse to rebuild society, you know, my version of the foundation actually, it's just gonna be zoo and that other move That's all they'll need to know what was this culture about Fuck today guys were getting fucked it out by horses. It's gonna let to come hard I guess

I got you know hey to each their own I say we're delaying the start of God's debris now We read the religion war last time which delaying the start of God's debris. Now, we read the religion war last time, which is actually the sequel to God's debris, but God's debris takes place after the religion war. I didn't do this for any artistic reason. I did it because if Scott has any sort of pride at all as a writer, then he was very intentional in having these books set the way they are.

And I don't like Scott or respect him. So, fuck him. Yeah. Yeah. Now, welcome to death, like that horse did to Mr. respect him. So fuck him. Yeah. Yeah. Now, welcome to death, like that horse did to Mr. Hand. Like that horse did to Mr. Hand. Now, I feel like I should start with noting that on the inside of this book, we get the author's websites.

So we get dober.com. Fine. Dillberido.com, which is the burrito that he made that was an instant failure because it made people shit themselves half to death and taste it horrible. And then the, oh, you didn't know about the Delberino. We talked about it in the episodes. Yeah. He made a vitamin pill that was a burrito and it was horrible.

Oh my God. God bless him. God bless him. God bless him. And then he started a restaurant called Stacey's Cafe, which is the name of the cafe, the super genius works at. Yeah, he's got that website on here too.

Good to see how all of Scott's projects worked. So, introduction. This is not a delbert book. It contains no humor. Let's do a not exclusive Scott. I call it 132 page thought experiment wrapped in a fictional story. I'll explain the thought experiment part later. God's debris doesn't fit into normal publishing cubby holes.

Here's the bet I was telling you about last time. There's even disagreement about whether the material is fiction or nonfiction. I contend that it's fiction because the characters don't exist. Some people contend that it's nonfiction because the opinions and philosophies of the characters might have lasting impact on the reader. Again, like 80%. Not the definition. Not the definition of fiction and nonfiction.

So many of the most influential tech weirdos in the country's entire version of reality is based on misinterpreting Dune. Yes. Yeah, that's like what fiction is for. But okay, okay Scott, kind of shitting on the entire craft affiction, but fine. The target audience for God's debris is people who enjoy having their brains spun

around inside their skulls. After a certain age, most people are uncomfortable with new ideas, like for example, the existence of Turkey. That certain age varies by person. But if you're over 55 mentally, you probably want to enjoy this. You want to get your brain spun way to hear about Sunnis and she is. Yeah, it's gonna fuck you up, dude. That's gonna fuck you up. That's certain age varies by person. But if you're over 55 mentally, you probably won't enjoy this thought experiment. If you're 80 going on 35, you might like it.

If you're 23, your odds of liking it are very good. Yeah, this is how you sell to this demographic, by the way. He's got it down to a T. Yeah. You got it right at the beginning of your book. Hey, if you're young, this is cool and for you. It's one of smoked cigarettes. And then you say, hey, if you're old, you're not going for you. It's one of smoked cigarettes, and then you say,

Hey, if you're old, you're not gonna get this. Parents just don't understand. Why am I shit? That guy gets it, man. That's why Dilbert is the big hit with the kids these days. God, there's so much in here too, just about like his belief system,

because he's like, so the story's central characters of view about God that you've probably never heard before. If you think you'd be offended by a fictional characters on traditional view of God, please don't read this. The opinions in philosophy, here's the best part. The opinions in philosophy is expressed by the characters are not my own, except by Coincidence and a few spots not with mentioning.

Please don't write me with passionate explanations of why my views are wrong. You won't discover my opinions by reading my fiction. I begged a differ Scott. I think we might have picked out a couple of opinions. I think we've made it pretty clear that you are very, it's, you know, you can read him like a book, which is ironic here.

I love this. I love, I, the idea, every single book so far that you've read starts out with the sales pitch to the demographic and or the publisher. Which is, I do love the idea of like if every author did this, if Tolkien's like, you might not think a little guy who lives in a hole is very interesting, but let me tell you about this.

I'm it. He let me tell you about it. If you're just an old folky, you're not really going to understand this, but if you're a kid, holy shit, hold on to your brains, cause it's about to get spun around, dog. If you're over 55, you probably think it's okay to craft a series

of magical rings that allow you to dominate the minds of entire races, but let me tell you something, it's not. Yeah, oh, man. I love it too, cause it's not fiction, because the ideas of crafting the magical ring have been like thought about in an on fiction world. It is. You know what I mean?

I love that not what Hitler was trying to do. I wouldn't get Frank Herbert's version of this. I bet you guys think that fear's good. No, no, no, let me tell you, it's the mind killer. You know, little bit, it's like dying a little bit, to be honest. Yeah. Oh. Oh.

Oh, okay. The central character in God's debris, that's the avatar, knows everything, literally everything. This presented a challenge to me as a writer. When you consider all of the things that can be known, I don't know much. My solution was to create smart sounding answers using the skeptics creed. The simplest explanation is usually right. You know, why is he doing this? Why is he explaining literally every aspect of this? He knows the key to good writing is tell, and at no point show. Don't even write a novel. Just tell people what they should feel. Yeah. Oh my God. So funny. Like also, so the simplest explanation in that last

book was that you could stop people from believing in all of their fates with a single joke. With a fart. That's the simplest explanation. You might be getting Hawkins razor wrong. Yeah, I don't think you understand Hawkins razor. But it's, you know, for him, I'm glad he's like almost humble because he's just like, you know, listen, I'll admit that I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I get around that fallacy. I get around that by like saying smart things like fart joke and save people by making them not believe in God. Yeah, fart joke brain big. Yeah.

Fart joke brain big. That's, that is, I'm gonna get on good reads and review this. Fart joke brain big. Fart joke brain big. God did fart joke now. Man, so this does, the chapter one for this has the same name as if you were to do a book

about Mr. Hands, the package. Oh, here we go. That's pretty good, that's not bad. Not bad. Put that joke in our canticle for Leibowitz storehouse of human achievement, yeah. The rain made everything sound different. The engine of my delivery van, the traffic

is it rolled by at a film of fallen clouds, the occasional dull honk. I didn't have a great job, but it wasn't bad either. I knew the city so well that I could lose myself and thought and still do the work, still get paid, still have plenty of time for myself. So he's a delivery man. That's our character. He's about to go meet the avatar. He's gonna drop a package off. Yada yada yada yada. Oh wow, there is a fun bit about driving in San Francisco here where he's like, if you think too hard, you overshoot your target and end up at the pier

or the Tinder loin. If you relax and let the city help, the destination does all the work before you. I don't know, man, I've driven a lot in San Francisco. It's actually pretty hard to accidentally wind up at the pier. No, yeah, you definitely will not accidentally get to the pier. You will get to the pier because you mistakenly thought it would be easier

to do that than take an uber or take like Mass transit and then you'll realize you have to park at the pier which is a fucking nightmare Yeah, you'll take yourself stay away from the pier avoid the pier at all costs. Yeah. Yeah Anyway, tenderloins fine He gets to the delivery. Yeah, he knocks on the door and he's gonna meet the avatar. The old man, that's chapter two. I figured I would leave the package inside the door and sign the customer's name. I had signed for customers before, no one had complained yet.

It was a firing offense, but that only happened if you got caught. Inside, I could see a long dark hallway with red faux textured walls lined with huge illuminated paintings. At the end was a half open door to a room that hosted a flicker yet at God. Okay. If he's so smart, I'll come his doors already open. Yeah, I'll come his doors already. Well, because he's been expecting this guy.

I was startled. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the avatars like I've been expecting you, you know, one of those things. So they're naked with the towel around them just like rubbing his crotch. Mm-hmm. Okay. So he tells the avatars get a package that this guy needs to sign for. And then the guy does a mysterious genius old man stuff and it asks him,

if you toss a coin a thousand times, how often will it come up heads? The elderly are spooky when they degenerate into reflections of their younger selves. They say things that make sense at some grammatical level, but it's not always connected to reality. I remember my grandfather and his declining years, he spoke in non-sequitors. It was best to play along. About 50% of the time I answered before changing the subject, I need a signature for this package.

Why? Well, I said measuring how much information to include in my response. The person who sent the package wants a signature. He needs confirmation that it got delivered. I meant why does the package come up heads 50% of the time? Oh my God. So first off, don't ever do this to a delivery boy. Look, I don't care if you have all of the secrets

of the universe to pass on. He is getting paid hourly. He's got like a fucking more than that. He's got like a car full of shit to deliver. He's getting like penalized if he's not making his deliveries fast enough. You just fucking deal with this guy's job. He's got a deal with fucking traffic.

He's doing, these guys are overworked as it is. If you got a fucking little brain puzzle, like if you do flippies on a coring time anytime it go ahead, just the fucking keep it to yourself. Just, yeah. So he, the avatar, it's like you can just sign for me and he looks up the name on the package slip and it's avatar.

So he signs for him. And he's like, it's for you. What's for me? The package. I just delivered the packages, I said. My job is to bring them to you. It's your package. No, it's yours.

Okay, I said, planning my exit strategy. I figured I could leave the package in the hallway on the way out. The old man's caretaker would find it. What's in the package I asked? Coping to get past an awkward moment? It's the answer to your question. I wasn't expecting an answer.

I wasn't expecting an answer. I was head in a box. Exactly. Yeah, it's this, so the gist is that the avatar is doing this very frustrating, faux smart, like, oh, did you deliver the package? Or did the package deliver you? Because you wouldn't have come here if not.

Well, actually, I came here because it's my job and I have to make rent but whatever we went through over this in the episodes very frustrating let's move on to Jitsu we like to call it in smart guy circles this the delivery man's mind has been tickled by the avatars brilliant who delivered the package was the package the day who's on first and I'm thinking that she's saying who, but it's our guy. There's a guy name who is just. It's just a genius. This whole thing is a secratic dialogue. So the whole plot is just the two of them talking in a room, which is why this will be

shorter than our, than the epic about the religion war. But let's, uh, I just want to, I just want to come back. I was muted, but like a minute and a half ago Matt made like Matt made a funny And I want to acknowledge that oh did I miss Matt's I wasn't I went I Give you like a You didn't get to hear it because I was muted To keep it to you I don't know what I said

Smart guys and I was like Hell yeah, man. Hell yeah. Fuck yeah. Fuck you. I like when people I just want to let me know that. I appreciate it. We're not telling you the listener

what the joke was that made her laugh. Yeah. Nobody's saying shit. Go fuck yourself. Yeah, right in it. It also made you laugh. Yeah. Yeah. Let us know which also made you laugh. Yeah, yeah. Let us know which joke you think Sophie was laughing at.

I need a Sophie in my life, man. I need someone who was just like, who will be like, hey, by the way, a few minutes ago, you fucking killed that. Uh huh. Yeah, sometimes I do that to people and I'm just lying, you know, and then they wonder for the rest of their lives Like what it was they said that was smart or funny and I they think I'm being nice

So they like me, but I'm really just gaslighting like I'm actually just trying to damage their braids. Yeah, bro Are you are you the avatar? Uh-huh. Is this about you? Oh And the avatar is a fucking prick It's time for ads, I think. Sophie, you know what is the avatar of capitalism? Is the sponsors of behind the bastards, you know? Unless you have coolers and media, then ha ha ha, nose, and then you get it free. No ads, ha ha ha.

Paying us money to listen to this ad free on cooler zone media is equivalent to being chosen by the avatar during your delivery drive. Couldn't agree more. To inherit his wisdom. So, yeah, this package is for you. If you subscribe to Cooler Zone Media, you can pretend that Matt Liebeni invited you into our home that we share together in order to teach you our wisdom in front of a crackling fire. You're allowed to do that.

And our wisdom is just doing Abbott and Castello bits, but like smart. Nothing. Yeah. Well, you do the smart. And you do the smart. I do them badly because I can only kind of remember who's on first. And I think the mummy movie they were in, that's all I got. The mummy movie, that's the real smart guy movie. Yeah, yeah.

I watched part of that one morning when I got up early to watch the CGI Starship Trooper show that was only on on like 6am back in the, yeah. Anyway, great show, both of them. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Have you ever felt like your thoughts start racing at the end of the day when you're trying to get to bed or maybe right in the morning, you know, when you're trying to stay focused and get some momentum going for the day? Well, if you've ever experienced either of those things, and I share half,

one great way to deal with those racing thoughts is to talk them through. Therapy gives you a place to do that, so you can get out of your negative thought cycles and find some mental and emotional peace. If you are thinking of starting therapy, maybe give better help a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. You can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. So get a break from your thoughts with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash behind today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelpH's go! The only option.

We're gonna hate this next part. Is to fight. Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, Renée, A legend, reborn. You wanted me? Where am I? Robin Hood, new series tonight at Tanny's Stern on Global, also available in Stack TV. This is In Retrospect, a podcast about pop culture from the 80s and 90s that shaped us. I'm very much a product of the pop culture I consumed. Yeah. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm Jessica Bennett, a New York Times writer and bestselling author.

I'm Susie Beta-Carom, an award-winning TV producer and filmmaker. Every week, we'll revisit a moment in cultural history that we just can't stop thinking about. From tabloid headlines to illicit student-teacher relationships, and one, very memorable red swimsuits. I found myself in Pamela Anderson's attic, as you do. I put that red swimsuit in a safe because it seemed everybody wanted it. We're digging deep to better understand with these moments taught us about the world and our place in it.

I want you to really smell the ax body spray that emanated during this time. It was presented more as kind of like a crime topic. Okay, and that's not a love story. Not a love story. It had been branded on the uteruses of every single woman from C to shining C. Listen to In Retrospect on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Penelope Spheras. I'm a film director. I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine.

Back in the 70s, Peter Ivers moved to LA to start his music career. He scored Ron Howard's directorial debut. I didn't know one thing about Peter Ivers. I just said, okay. Let's meet him. And even hosted LA Night Cable TV show. It showcased LA punk bands in all their glory the crowd started getting bigger and bigger and then there was Beverly, Danze There was John Baloofer, but then it all went to hell It was murdered Peter Ivers was murdered on March 3rd, 1983, and it raised a question that 40 years later we still don't know the answer to. Who killed Peter Ivers? Listen to Peter and the Acid King on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or

wherever you get your podcasts. or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Matt, did you ever watch the CGI starship troopers show? No, I didn't even really know about it. Nobody did. Nobody did. That's awesome. Yeah. What was it also a satire or were they like,

No, it was like pretty close to aspects of the book. It was closer to the book than the show, but also did its own thing. I haven't watched it in 25 years, but I remember it being pretty cool. That said, it was easier to impress me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is before you saw Goatsy and Mr. Hans. This was right around when I saw Goatsy. This was probably before Mr. Hans though.

Oh, okay, okay. It is, I do wonder what it did to me and so many other members of my generation, just like watching a video where a man gets fucked to death by a horse is a little kid. It did something to me. And because like somebody tricked me into watching it, right? Because yeah, just like, huh. Yeah. No, definitely for me, I was just like all right, so avoid horses. So avoid horses. Yeah. Well, it's also this thing where like It was the first thing I can remember. I was like well, I probably can't talk to my parents about this like if I if I ask them about this video I'm not gonna be allowed on the internet anymore Right exactly. I'm just keeping this one from him. Right? Yeah, 100%, 100%. It was, in fact, I think I did the exact same thing.

And I'm not sure, but I low key blame that for my eventual drug addiction, because eventually I started to keep in more secrets. Like first I was Mr. Hands, then it was tub girl, then it was delotted. You know, that's how it goes. Can you imagine trying to ask your parents about tub girl or lemon party holy shit?

I don't even know, I don't even know how to describe that to the list. Well, lemon party's a bunch of old people have an orgy. I'm not going to try to describe tub girl. You don't need that in your head if you haven't already seen it. If you have, then you just the minute I said the words, even if you don't have a visual memory, a perfectly clear photo of it popped up in your head.

Like if you're driving, you just veered off the fucking road right now. Yes. Yes. And we're sorry about that. But we apologize for it. Legally, it's not our fault. It's a, we are safe from legal. Who is it?

What was it that made used to make web forums? What was the PHP or something like that? I forget the name of the underlying software. Whatever. Fuck it. It doesn't matter. Chapter two, after this delivery boys decided to stay and talk to the avatar is your free will. Do you believe in God? The old man asked as if we had known each other forever but had somehow neglected to discuss that one topic I'm sorry, but this is like everything. It's like he saw the matrix Yeah, I really only like the scene where they're sitting on the leather couches and he was like that whole let's make that the whole book Yeah, it's also like

You know this is this I'm actually the way I'm doing it It is more earned than the fucking way he wrote it because this is the first book in the series. We know nothing about the Avatar. There's no like when you get that scene Exposition dumps are always kind of a dicey thing in fiction, right? It's an easy to make that kind of like shitty writing like you have to be very careful with it And that's why we remember stuff like that scene in the Matrix because it's earned pretty well. But like, you are, you are as hungry for Neo for answers to those questions as he is

when we get to that point. This is just like, none of this is earned. I don't care what this old man asked to say. He's done nothing to impress me. He has not set up that he knows. Again, even a slightly better version of this would have like, there be a conflict that he's solved. Maybe like the one that we get in the religion war.

And then, you know, we, but even then, I'm not that interested in this old man, but either one, whatever. I mean, so far, all that he has done is, and we would say, yeah, he's irritated. Costy young man is job. Yeah, he's basically. Costy young man is job. Yeah, he's basically going to get this man fired all to do like a thing where he's like, oh, thanks for the package.

Here, I give it to you now. And now he's trying to convince him that he's smart. And it's, I don't know, he's missing the whole part of the matrix where there was like, fucking 30 minutes of movie before that. Yeah. So he they start this very irritating conversation where the the avatar asks do you believe in God and the delivery guy says, yeah, I believe in a God. Of course, there must be a God not because he believes in a God, but because he

he thinks that he's an old man and he wants reassurance about the afterlife. So the avatar then is like, do you think God is omnipotent? And you know, he has free will. And the guy is, and that people have free will. And the guy's like, yeah, sure. And then the avatar says the question that, I don't know, most people ask themselves when they're 13.

If God knows what the future holds then all our choices are already made. Aren't they free will must be an illusion. He was clever, but I wasn't going to fall into that trap. God lets us determine the future ourselves using our free will, I explained. Then you believe God doesn't know the future. I guess not, I admit it, but he must prefer not knowing.

I mean, that's not necessarily the case. Like again, I don't believe in an omniscient God, but if God is omniscient, he can let people make their own choices, while also knowing the instant they make them where those choices go. Those are not actually in conflict. Like, here's a good example of that.

If you watch a baby as many of us have, touch a hot burner on a stove. You know the baby's gonna hurt themselves. But they are still exercising their free will and touching that burner. That's right. And God is letting it happen. God is, that's the reason why my baby keeps burning herself.

Yeah. I tell her it's not me, it's God as I put her hand on the, just kidding everyone. Yes, no, no, no. No, no, no. It's my baby. Don't hurt a baby. But I will say, I can't not, whenever I listen

to these atheist arguments, because I was raised. For sure. Don't hurt a baby, but. No, I want to hear the butt. I'm here with it. I'm saying if you are trying to make an argument for the existence of God, and someone's counterargument is like, well, God can't be both all powerful and all-knowing and give us free will. Like, well, yeah, free will doesn't, like your free will is not impacted by the fact that God knows what you're gonna do.

That doesn't mean you don't have free will, it just means he knows what you're gonna do. Just like I know the kid reaching for the stove is about to touch it and get hurt, right? I'm not impacting his free will by the fact that I know where this ends, you know? Also, trying to figure out like the fucking like intricacies of the rules of God is some nerds.

It's always nerds shit, it's always nerds. But this is like, I've had a lot of arguments with with religious people over the years. This is a bad one from an atheist point of view. This does not make the point that you want it to make. Yeah. So, but this this dude, the delivery man just folds. And it's like, Oh, I guess God can't know everything if people have free will. And I everything if people have free will. And I believe that people have free will. So the avatar asks for whose benefit does God withhold his power to determine the future?

Well, it must be for his own benefit. And ours too, I reasoned. He wouldn't have to settle for less. The old man pressed on, couldn't God just give humans the illusion of free will? We'd be just as happy if we had actual free will. And God would retain his ability to see the future. Isn't that a better solution for God

than the one you suggested? Why would God want to mislead us? If God exists, his motives are certainly unfathomable. No one knows why he adorants free will, or why he cares about human souls, or why pain and suffering are necessary parts of life. Actually, again, I hate that I'm in the deficient decision of like defending Christianity,

but like libraries have been written of guys. Like this is a huge part of apologetics is like the problem of like, you know, paying an evil and whatnot in the world. And again, Scott, if you wanted to make the smart argument to this and you want to make this character seem smart, you could do 15 seconds of Googling to find like, what did, you know, what did like CS Lewis say about the problem of evil, right? You don't even have to go to like a religious scholar, find another fucking hack writer.

Sorry guys, if you CS Lewis fans, I loved him do as a kid, but find a CS Lewis argument on this, quote from that, and then your character seems smarter, and you have something to bounce off of that's not a straw man, right? Like, I'm pretty sure that Dober Guy is not like a big reader of other guys. He's one of those guys who I think is just like,

why would I need to read when all the smartest things are already written in my brain? If you were to tell him actually a massive amount of like Catholic literature over the course of the last thousand years has like been people positing answers to those questions, he would just get angry at you. Right, questions, yeah, he would just get angry at you. Right, yeah, he would yell at you and then say,

oh, I guess you're trying to be woke. And then you, then you would tell him Turkey exists and he was brain would catch on fire. It would spin around so fast at a skull. Once he learned about the existence of Turkey, this guy is gonna have fucking stroke. Oh, wow. And usually if you're frustrated the existence of Turkey, this guy is going to have fucking sure. Oh, wow. And usually, if you're frustrated with me defending Christians, don't worry.

I'm about to get to defend brain surgeons. So he starts talking about love. And the delivery boy says the one thing I know about God's motives of you is he must love us, right? The avatar responds love. Do you mean love in the way you understand it as a human? Well, not exactly, but basically the same thing. I mean, love is love.

A brain surgeon would tell you that a specific part of the brain controls the ability to love. If it's damaged, people are incapable of love and capable of carrying about others. I don't think a brain surgeon would say that the brain is pretty plastic and that people have suffered very traumatic brain injuries and retain their ability to love also.

Sometimes they're personality shift, but like, I don't know. I don't think they'd phrase it that way if they were a good surgeon. This is a guy who literally knows absolutely nothing about the human brain, but it's just like, no, brain is exactly like computer. You get rid of love program and then no more love.

It's like not how brain works. You know what it's also like, again, this is the dumb version of it, because he just, he doesn't even look up like what science there is, chemically on what goes on and we experience what we call love. Again, the slightly smarter version of this

is you like have some sort of little rant about how, well, the release of oxytocin in the brain is what, you know, causes what we call love. And if you damage that, then like people can't, like, and that's not entirely accurate either, but it's at least slightly smarter than just the region of the brain. Yes, yes, yes.

Whatever, fuck you, Scott. Google something. This isn't, this isn't complex. We're not talking about Jair or Tolkien, writing a billion words of backstory and his fucking like Oxford office. We're talking like, I'm talking about a region, it's probably Google for the name of that region of the brain.

I want this guy to sound smart, right? Let me, let me look this up. Oh, it turns out, anyway, whenever. There's no fucking way that he is doing any research for this book that he wrote in a conversation by himself, painting him as the smartest man in the world. I mean, come on, let's be real. You want to punch this up to be better.

We're talking 45 minutes of extra research. Not a lot. Are all, do all Muslims believe the same thing? Oh, there's actually differences, but yeah. No, but they have to get into and stuff and just trying to prepare for a palette of story forward and as a story about smart guy who uses fart joke to kill God.

Smart guys, fart joke, kill God, good stuff. So, yeah, so isn't it arrogant to think that love is generated in our little brains as the same thing an omnipotent being experiences? If you are omnipotent, why would you limit yourself to something that could be reproduced by a little clump of neurons? I shifted my opinion to better defend it. We must feel something similar to God's type of love, but not the same way God feels it.

What does it mean to feel similar to the way God feels? Is that like saying a pebble is similar to the sun because both are round? Again, I don't want to be a petent here, but there are different shapes of pebbles. God pebbles are all over the map. They're all over the map. I've seen a lot. I saw a rectangular prism pebble the other day, you know? Come on, Scott, at it. Sorry, I'm I am now being a a pet and but I hate him. He's irritating me. So maybe God designed our brains to feel love the same way he feels it. He could do that if he wanted to.

So you believe God wants things and he loves things. Similar to the way humans do. Do you also believe God experiences anger and forgiveness? That's part of the package, I said. So God has a personality according to you and is similar to what humans experience. I guess part of what's frustrating to me about this argument is that Scott repeatedly lets us know this delivery driver doesn't particularly believe what he's saying.

He's just giving the answers. He thinks this guy wants to try to end the conversation, which means I have no investment in him being proved wrong, right? We have not established this character. We haven't established that he believes things in a certain way. So like the fact that he is specifically notes, like I just said this, because I thought it was the right thing to say.

I thought this would comfort him. I thought he would stop talking. That means like I don't, I get like the slightly better version about this if you wanna do this whole religion plot, like have this avatar get fucking captured or something by a religious terrorist or have him be, you know, he's living in some sort of like dystopian world and he gets arrested by the religious police. And

he asked like, if he, maybe if he could like convince you want to do this socratic dialogue, I'm not saying this is a good book, but it's a better one. You want to do this fucking socratic dialogue. Have him talk things out with this like, you know, religious extremists who supposed to be torturing him over the course of a book and gradually change this guy's mind. And then this guy, you know, can write out how he influences everyone else to change things as opposed to like, what, this delivery driver has just told me he doesn't believe anything he's arguing.

I am not invested in him having his mind changed because he doesn't believe any of these things. He's just like, yeah. He's, he thinks he's doing a fucking Dostoyevsky here. That's the thing. Is he? He does think he's Dostoyevsky. Yeah, he does.

He's doing a, it's like a fucking Dilbert version of Dostoyevsky. And it's incredibly hard to watch, or to hear you read, because all I'm imagining is like a like a wife looking over at Scott Adams. I don't know if he was married at this time. I think he was. Yeah, because he hadn't gone. He hadn't had his spasmic dysphonia or whatever. Yeah. So like, I mean, essentially just watching her Dilbert ass husband writing something that is a thousand times scarier to see as a wife

then all work. Oh, and no play makes Jack a little bit of it. Absolutely. Absolutely. This is fucking... I would much rather walk in on my spouse, like designing a truck bomb than to hear like, I've decided to write a novel that's a secret dialogue that'll explain to everybody why religion's not real.

Like, just make a bomb, man. Just make a bomb, honey. I'll get some bottles and we'll do some volatile cocktails. Just seeing that you've titled the word document God's debris. I'm ready to die. Let's just go out, you know, fuck it. Yeah, I think we have not given sufficient attention to how fucking terrible of a title God's debris is.

That is a way to hear why that's the title. So I'm moving us ahead quite a while to God's motivation, which is a few chapters ahead. If you were God, the Avatar said, what would you want? I don't know. I barely know what I want, much less with God wants. Imagine that you are omnipotent. You could do anything, create anything, be anything. As soon as you decide you want something, it becomes reality. I waited, knowing there was more.

He continued, does it make sense? You don't need to do that, just give us the whole fucking line. We don't need that anyway, whatever, fuck you, God. Fuck you, learn how to write, fuck you, fuck you. He continued, does it make sense to think of God as wanting anything? A God would have no emotions, no fears, no desires, no curiosity, no hunger. Those are human shortcomings.

Not something that would be found in an omnipotent God. What would then motivate God? Maybe it's the challenge, the intellectual stimulation of creating things. Omnipotence doesn't mean nothing is a challenge. And what could stimulate the mind of something one who knows everything? You make it sound almost boring to be God,

but I guess you'll say boring is a human feeling. Everything that motivates living creatures is based on some weakness or flaw, hunger motivates animals, lust motivates, that tells us a lot, that he's like, lust motivates is a flaw in a weakness. Oh, Scott, oh, Scott, no. Like, my wife reads that and just like, oh, really, okay, all right,

so that's why you won't fucking go down on me. Look, obviously there are some people, you know, not everyone's motivation is sexual, but for people who are, lust is like, one of the, you know, there's people can take it negative ways, but like being attracted to someone and falling for them is nice.

Most of us don't see that as like, oh my weakness! Yeah, yeah, no, it's natural. And you know, if you wanna be weird about it, serve as a purpose, but fucking mostly just like, natural and fun. Yeah, it's fun, it's great. It's good even.

This is, it is like low key again, as much of an atheist, as an atheist influencer is this, that's extremely Catholic, right? Well, of course, when we're lustful, but that's a weakness, our weak human body's making us hard. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, of course, when we're lustful, that that's a weakness or weak human body's making us hard. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, very calf-like Scott. So clearly, Catholic. He's just like an atheist though. He's like, no, I'm a guy who doesn't believe in God who still punches his bone or every time he wakes up with one. Yeah. Fear and pain motivate animals. And again, that's also, like I raise animals.

And like a lot of my, you know, chickens are not smart animals, but it's not just fear and pain. For example, they are capable of taking like comfort in each other's presence and like the warmth that they generate. You certainly see that with animals like goats and with like sheep, you know, they are, there's a degree of like tenderness that they have towards their young, they play like other animals play. It's been proven in fact that like cows, they produce more milk, they're generally healthier when they have not just other cows, but specific, like cows pick out other cows that they bond with.

Like it's described in their, yeah, it's like their friends. Like that is how it's described in like the literature studying this, that like cows just kind of have buds. And I think a lot of animals actually do that sort of thing. Just like how basically every animal actually likes getting pet, like many different animals, surprising kinds of them. If they get to experience getting

scritched behind the ears, or like, this is pretty dope. That's not fear and pain. That's just like comfort. Like it's nice, it feels good. I don't know. I'm very much enjoying the idea that like don't tell Scott. Yeah. This because much like Turkey, it will explode as fucking mind when he finds out that there are cows with more friends than him. Yeah. Oh, at way more friends. And by the way, having lived with cows for a chunk of my youth,

I would much rather, cows are a much nobler creature than the Scott Adams. Oh, 100%. But, yeah, someone's going to show Scott that video of like a coyote in a badger hunting and he's, again, his brain is going to spin out of his head. Dude, what if all that would have like stopped this degeneration of his brain was like some, someone sends him some videos of animal best friends.

Like he could have, we could have stopped, you know, Dilbert from turning into the guy he did. Yeah, so it's tragic. If I had a time machine, I'd go back in time, I wouldn't kill Hitler, I would show him a duck being a best friend with a pig. Yeah, a duck in a pig hanging out. Yeah. Or like, yeah, one of those birds that like chills out on like the back of a crocodile's

neck. Yeah, it cleans it off. Like, no, it's not just fear and pain, sometimes you're motivated by another thing that makes you feel good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's because it's also like, I don't know, I do actually reject what Scott is

kind of incompetently doing, the idea that like human beings and animals have like fundamentally wildly different motivations. There's every now and then you get some asshole on like Twitter who will be like, oh, you're cat and your dog don't love you. They just know that you provide like shelter and comfort and security. And it's like, why do you think we like each other? Yeah, exactly. That's not a profound thing taking comfort and feeling secure in the presence of another? Oh, yes.

Yeah, nothing there. Anyone could offer that to anyone just willy-nilly. Just little robots making the world bearable through their presence. And like there's not, fuck you for just being like, oh, you know what? Yeah. The cat relationship is very transactional. Like the fuck up. Yeah. I'm gonna heal ass. It's the weaponizing therapy talk. Yeah, I fucking hate all these because again, I am, I am

not a believer that human beings and animals are experiencing fundamentally different things. We just have words and animals have, you know, I don't know. Whatever echo the dolphin is doing and that echo the dolphin video game. Anyway, whatever. We could, we could, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, my chain. I can conceive of only one challenge for an onniptant being the challenge of destroying himself. Oh shit. You think God would want again, potentially an idea you can have some fun with in a sci-fi book, right? The idea that like yeah, God's yeah, but also the way to make that fun is not like spoiler God's debris is God murders himself at some point in the past, and like, now we're all living in like the shattered remnants of God

trying to reconstruct himself, right? That's what intelligence is. Yeah, I don't know, I think a more interesting version of that is like, you actually. God is being built by the Dilbert guys, are we using that? Yeah, not written by the Dilbert guy. I don't know, you can do a lot with, you could do a lot with the idea of like a God who maybe is playing different

religions off of each other in order to like somehow kill himself, like trying to fit in like people uncover that mystery. And you've got to, I don't know, there's a fun like vaguely kind of fucking gnostic work fiction that you can work out of that. I don't work credit is do every, I guess on average, it sounds like 300 pages at Scott Adams writes. He writes one half good idea that he uses terribly. He has a guy who has, you know, the, in the last book, it was a general who had a guy falling around with a gun to kill him if he ever gets too powerful. And in this one, it's a fucking, I don't know, a suicidal God who kills himself.

Scott Adams is pretty good at coming up with half of a good idea. Like if he was a TV pitch man, you know, he'd be like, so this therapist moves to Seattle, you know, from his old home on the East Coast. And he, let me tell you, this guy hates the Irish. You think you don't like the Irish bully. Oh, he's got, he's made it. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,, you're gonna cut the whole, that's the whole point. Mm-hmm. Oh, I do want to see Scott Adams fresher.

That'd be too. It is funny because like, fresher is basically a parody of the kind of guy Scott Adams is, but back in the, yeah, yeah, very funny. Good stuff. All right, P. David Angel. All right. Yeah, and R.I.P. Kelsey Grammer, who died right after that show and has gone on to do nothing

else. Yeah. Well, you know, he played beast. He did. He played. That was actually really, I always thought was good cast. I thought it was a great choice. Yeah.

It was a good beast. Yeah, it's a good beast. Although I, having seen the Hellboy movies too, I kind of want to see David Hyde Pierce's beast. I know he didn't wind up being the, but he's, I think he could have done it. I think he would have been great. He would have crushed it. Ah, I love me.

That's why I'm not excited about the phrase, the Frazier reboot. Is that like, what? There's a Frazier reboot. Yeah, they're doing a reboot. He's back in Chicago, I think it is or not Chicago. I'm in Boston. Where will the fuck he came from? I think he's back in Boston.

Well, is this Seattle is where he's at? He, Seattle's where he's at, but when the Frazier series ended, he was moving to Chicago, I think. Oh. And I think this new one's supposed to start with him leaving Seattle back for Boston for like the next, where's the cheers bar? It's in Boston, like presumably we might see it.

Okay. I think they did film something at part of the episode there, although maybe I'm getting that wrong. But like, my frustration with the show idea is that, like, I think, because this is all Kelsey Grammers, baby. It's been confirmed that like, David Hyde Pierce isn't back, you know, it's him and a new cast of characters.

And I think they've like convinced themselves that, well, we all, the core of the show is always Frazier. And you know, we can always have, we can just move them to, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Frazier was a fun side character in Frazier, and you know, we can always have, we can just move them to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, what's his name? The guy, the Frazier actor, he gets so angry when people call the dog an actor. Because he's like, it's just memorized a series of tricks.

That's like, oh please. Like that's not what acting is. Let's be real. Acting is memorizing a series of tricks. Cry, look hard. I get it. Same thing. Speaking of a series of tricks,

it's time for some ads. Ooh, I love ads. Thank you. Thank you so do I. what's art and give what we steal to our people. All right, let's see what you got. A classic new tool. Three were unstoppable. A legend, newborn. You wanted me? Where am I?

Robin Hood, new series tonight at Tannie's Turnon Global, also available in Stack TV. This is In Retrospect, a podcast about pop culture from the 80s and 90s that shaped us. I'm very much a product of the pop culture I consumed. Yeah. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm Jessica Bennett, a New York Times writer and bestselling author. I'm Susie Bannock-Harram, an award-winning TV producer and filmmaker.

Every week, we'll revisit a moment in cultural history that we just can't stop thinking about. From tabloid headlines to illicit student-teacher relationships, and one, very memorable red swimsuits. I found myself in Pamela Anderson's attic, as you do. I put that red swimsuit in a safe because it seemed everybody wanted it. We're digging deep to better understand

with these moments taught us about the world and our place in it. I want you to really smell the axe body spray that emanated during this time. It was presented more as kind of like a crime topic. Okay, and that's not a love story. It had been branded on the uterus of every single woman from C to shining C. Listen to In Retrospect on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

I'm Penelope Spheras. I'm a film director. I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine. Back in the 70s, Peter Ivers moved to LA to start his music career. He scored Ron Howard's directorial debut. I didn't know one thing about Peter Evers. I just said, okay. Let's meet him. An event hosted a late night cable TV show. It showcased LA punk bands in all their glory. The crowd started getting bigger and bigger

and then there was Beverly Danza. There was John Baloozy. But then it all went to hell. He was murdered. Peter Ivers was murdered on March 3, 1983. And it raised a question that 40 years later, we still don't know the answer to. Who killed Peter Ivers?

Listen to Peter and the Asset King on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone in our country has a voice. It's something that says not just where you come from, but who you are. Welcome to NPR's Black Stories Black Truths, a collection of podcasts and a celebration of the hosts in journalism who've always spoken truth to power. Our voices are as varied, nuanced, and dynamic as the Black experience,

and stories should never be about us without us. Find NPR Black Stories Black Truths on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, we're back. We're thinking about how disappointing the Frazier reboot is gonna be. It's gonna be bad. Yeah. Doesn't have any of our favorite characters. And in fact, the fuel of a morn, yeah, no longer with us. Scott is promising in this terrible book about God to like wrinkle our brains and and spin them around pleasantly,

whereas the biggest shock to my mind, the thing that most shook my fundamental belief of about reality was hearing that Martin from Frazier was played by a British man. What? Yeah, oh man, yeah, that accent is all like acting. Not one break, there's not a second in that show where you don't believe he's a fucking

street smart cop from the fucking working class Seattle neighborhood. It's amazing. It's crazy. Oh my god, it's so cool. British people are really good at doing the accent. I really, it's like, we just, yeah. I can't do that, it's like a reverse, it wouldn't work. I could never be on Peaky Blinders, you know? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, you know boy, he boasting. What? Oh, what about doctors?

He's big. He's out. Oh, I am. That's what that shows about. He's a very big doctor. Mm-hmm. Boy, I bet that we probably lost about a third of the audience with that little spree of accent work.

Yeah. So, these shows I'm just shaking her. Livid. Furious. Let's continue. Let's finish this last bit of Scott and Adam. We gotta finish. We gotta finish.

Through flawless logic that we're all totally convinced of. Scott has gotten us to believe that all, the only reasonable thing for God to wanna do is commit suicide. You think God would wanna commit suicide, I asked? I'm not saying he wants anything. I'm saying it's the only challenge. I think that God would prefer to exist than not to exist.

That's thinking like a human, not like a God. You have a fear. So I'm not trying to say what God thinks, but you're thinking like a human, not like a God. And I know what a God would think. You have a fear of death, so you assume God would share your preference, but God would have no fears. Existing would be a choice, and there would be no pain of death. Nor feelings of guilt or remorse or loss. Those are human feelings, not God feelings. God can simply choose to discontinue existence. There's a logical problem here, according to your way of thinking, I said.

If God knows the future, he or she knows if he will choose to end his existence and he knows how he will succeed at it. So there's no challenge there either. Your thinking is getting clearer. Yes, he will know the future of his own existence under normal conditions, but what is omnipotence include knowing what happens after he loses his omnipotence,

or what is now, this is again all like, I'm high with my fucking dealer, and he won't stop talking to me. I got all like, I'm getting anxiety because I'm like, bro, you're definitely fired. You're definitely fired. No, it's okay, he becomes the avatar. That's what this avatar is doing,

is he's pulling this guy to make an avatar. Yeah, turning that to make an avatar. Yeah, I'm turning that to your fucking manager. Okay, I was late because I became the avatar. I became the embodiment of all human knowledge and potential. Oh, I'm sorry. I missed my last, like, dozen deliveries, bro. Yeah, I'm sorry about that.

I'm gonna show that to myself. Real fucked up. Yeah, yeah, dad. Did you hear the thing where God did suicides to himself? God and Hitler both both did a suicide Hitler who is not that bad in this version of the future because another guy didn't even worst genocide of the Jews That's right. That's right. Hitler's the number two in terms of genocide's of Jewish people in this That's the way that Scott likes it. That's the way Scott likes it.

Some of this way off of Hitler's show. Yeah. This guy, I think we've been misjudging him a little bit. Let's light him rest in peace. I'm gonna make a worse Hitler and he's Muslim. Yeah, he's Muslim. Which kind of Muslim, all of them? All of them.

You know, fuck it. I don't care if they're the shit one or the sun one. The point is they all worship the wrong God. Yeah, which is the dead God committed suicide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna skip ahead to the end here. The chapter called fifth level. Who are you, I asked? I didn't know it a phrase the question politely.

The old man certainly wasn't normal. I'm an avatar. Is that some sort of title? I thought it was your name. The Spanish never encountered the word avatar. It is the first time ever. Yeah, never watched that cartoon. Or this is where I learned the word avatar

from when I was 11, played avatar or played L.D.R. in third edition, Warhammer 40,000. Anyway, I learned it from, you know, best forums where you had a fucking edition, uh, Warhammer 40,000. Anyway, I learned it from, uh, you know, uh, uh, uh, forums where, you know, you had a fucking, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, forums where, you know, you had a fucking, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Yeah, I apologize because of all of his brilliance. He can't possibly be a mortal man. I apologize if that sounds silly.

It's just that the old man waved off the end of my sentence. I understand, yes, I am human. I'm a fifth level human, an avatar. Fifth level. He doesn't even get another feat yet. Jesus Christ, you can't even do two attacks if he's like a melee class. I'm not doing that.

This guy's barely got any XP and he thinks he's a fucking genius. What up? What bullshit? Bullshit loser. Yeah. You can't even count. Like I guess actually if you're a wizard in 3.5 you can cast fireball now. So that is that is when start things start to get fun. Fifth level is a wizard. So there you go. You're all too nerdy for me there, buddy. But you know, I've seen a vagina before. I fucked myself. Oh, that's good. That's good. It is very funny that we've turned around

from like D&D being a thing that like people shoved me into lockers when they noticed my D&D books in middle school to like, people getting laid, dropping D&D knowledge these days. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can do him a campaign, what? Yeah. Amazing. I've decided a campaign, what? Yeah, amazing.

I've decided to stick with the bullying thing now because now it feels like I'm bullying the mainstream culture. I'm even ahead of you. I'm bullying people for like in comic books. Yes. Like I see somebody like an Iron Man and I just shove them and a lot of times that guy is 300 pounds of solid muscle and let me tell you I get the shit kicked out. Yeah, you lose that 9 out of 10.

But the point is, as you stood up to the big corporations, a lot of huge dudes who are into comics and better at fighting than they actually, it's become a problem. Yeah, it sucks that they all teamed up with the MMA guys. Yeah, they're all fucking doing keto and lifting and reading Iron Man. And I'm sitting here like a lump just going like, fuck you. Just thinking of new ways to call him dorks.

Yeah. I bet you like it when people combine three colors in a variety of ways to make a pinoppa leave color in a print medium. Huh, you nerd. Yeah, got him. So he's a fifth level avatar. People exist at different levels of awareness. An avatar is one who lives at a fifth level avatar. People exist at different levels of awareness, and avatars, one who lives at the fifth level,

is awareness like intelligence, I asked? No, intelligence is a measure of how well you function within your level of awareness. Your intelligence will stay about the same over your life. Awareness is entirely indifferent from intelligence. Awareness involves recognizing your delusions for what they are. Most people's awareness will advance one or two levels in their lifetime. What does it mean to recognize your delusions for what they are. Most people's awareness will advance one or two levels in their lifetime. What does it mean to recognize your delusions? When you were a child, did your parents tell you

that Santa Claus brought presents home on Christmas Day? Yeah, I said, I believed in Santa until kindergarten when the other kids started talking. Then I realized Santa couldn't get to all those homes in one night. Your intelligence did not change from the moment you realized that Santa Claus was a harmless fantasy. Your math and verbal skills stayed the same,

but your awareness increased. You were suddenly aware that stories from credible sources, in this case, your parents could be completely made up. And from the moment of that realization, you could never see the world the same way because your reality had changed. I guess it did. And in school, did you learn that the Native Americans

and pilgrims go, oh boy, Scott, I don't want you to get diving in it. Yeah, but he does, he does to be fair. He's like, yeah, this was made up, you know, you learn that a bunch of your history is made up. Awareness is about unlearning. It's the recognition that you don't know as much as you thought you did.

He described what he called the five levels of awareness and said that all humans experience the first level of awareness at birth. That's when you become aware that you exist. In the second level of awareness, you understand that other people exist. You believe that most of what you were second level of awareness, you understand that other people exist. You believe that most of what you were told by authority figures, you accept the belief system

and wish you were raised. Also, Scott doesn't really get little kids here because it's a little bit messier than that because kids definitely believe you at some point. But also, little kids have a period where like, the only thing they wanna say is no and reject everything you tell them. Like, that's why touching a hot burner

is kind of inevitable. Every kid will have some version of that experience pretty much. It's not always a burner, but because you don't listen to what the adults tell you because that's part of anyway, whatever. Dude, this is a full grown man writing. It's a full grown man. I'm skipping the other levels. The fifth level of awareness is the, okay, the fourth level of awareness is skepticism. So, all right, I guess I should continue. The third level of awareness is that like, human beings are wrong sometimes,

but you can still believe in God. The fourth level is when you become an atheist on the internet. And you believe that the scientific method is the best measure of what's true. And you have a good working grasp of truth thanks to science and your senses. You are arrogant when it comes to dealing with people

and levels one and two and three. That also says a lot because like, it's certainly true that like little kids, babies and stuff are aware, unaware of things that we're aware of. Like the idea of like object permanence and stuff, right? This is very basic shit. But I don't, I'm not like arrogant about them. I think it's amazing actually. I got to watch.

The other day I got to have this amazing moment where like there's this little baby that is effectively a roommate of mine occasionally. And you know, like on like a, a, a, a, a floor mat for doing yoga, I have these ones that like you can fit a bunch of them together like puzzle pieces. So they have these little ends that you can put on them that are shaped like zippers, like little like foam zippers three or four feet long. And this baby that I hang out with, noticed that the shape of the zipper

was kind of similar to the silhouette of a train. And the baby started making chuchu sounds and I'd never seen the baby exhibit sort of a capability of abstract thought before. I was like watching this moment in development happen. I was like, you fucking moron! Yeah, instead of like, I was not filled with arrogance. Like, look at this dumb baby.

I was like, wow, there was like the sense of wonder of almost religious awe at like watching a brain like change over, like it's beautiful actually. I think that's why people like being parrots, you know? But no, everyone's just like, look at these shitty ass kids, they don't know fuck. Oh great, I have a fucking idiot. Is he serious? Yes, he thinks the zipper is a train.

Yeah, doesn't even know how to cook an omelet. Yeah, drink your bottle, baby. Anyway, so the fourth level of skepticism. The fifth level of awareness is the avatar. The avatar understands that the mind is an illusion generator, yeah. Yes, I love that he's straight up, just like fourth level is atheist. Because why?

Because that's one away from super genius. Yeah, that's one away. Yeah. Once atheist, you are only one level away from being so smart that you can talk to animals. And yeah, the Avatar recognizes science as just another belief system. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Anyway, this is all like second grade philosophy shit. That's, that's everything. Scott Adams believes about the universe, Matt Leib. How you feeling? I mean, honestly, I'm feeling kind of like amazed and embarrassed for him.

Like, like, because part of me is realized like halfway while you were describing the levels, I was like, oh, fuck, he was attempting an Elron Hubbard thing. Like, he thought for a second it might be possible that he could do a Hubbard-esque grift and start real- I think he was trying to make his own scientific... That's what he's doing.

And I was just singing myself like, fuck that, it's gotta be, it's gotta be really embarrassing to like begin the process of writing your own dionetics, but then realize you're too fucking stupid to do it. So instead you invent a guy, you make it fiction and you invent a guy who's the, you label the smartest guy in the world and then he says all the things that you thought of as your religion. Like that is, I mean, you know, it's, it's great writing. It is a compelling story.

Does it end with him eventually? Yeah, even it comes the avatar, the avatar disappears, whatever. This guy's the new avatar, yada, yada, yada. Doesn't end with a knowledge. Avatar convincing the delivery guy to suck his dick, because that's a kind of what I would use it for. This would be one of my favorite books. If like it was the review at the end, was that he was just trying to fuck just a livery boy and now to get to hit your fourth level now after her Socratic dialogue but to hit fifth got a

Suck my dick Yeah Honestly if it had gone that level I would have been like dude maybe this is the best novel This is like yeah, he's fucking Dostoyevsky up in here of a modern era, absolutely. I mean, why would he choose this way of doing this story? You might as well start it off with like a guy comes over to fix the cable or clean the pool. Like you're starting it off on a porno premise.

You're not gonna end it. That would be so, and the next, and then it's 30 pages of hardcore pornography. That would be great. He is like walking you through, like how when this, when the avatar busts in this delivery boy's mouth, he gets that first taste of salt that's the first experience, and it takes him back to being a child,

seeing the coast for the first time, the spray of the ocean in his face, to transported through time by the taste of the avatars come Matt you have anything to plug Oh Dude, you know if you like come you're gonna love quad yourself a gun Which is a sopranos and the wire rewatch podcast we go in through all of the sopranos and now we're at season three of the Wire so check it out

By the time you hear this we we may be starting season four, which is the best season. Yeah, and you know, if I can follow me on Instagram at MattLeabJokes. All right, I almost forgot. If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area or any of the surrounding areas

on Tuesday, October 17th at 8 p.m. specifically, my wife, Francesco, if you're an teenie, and I are gonna be headlining the San Francisco punchline comedy club. So yeah, please come out to that. It is a Tuesday at 8 p.m., October 17th, where it voiced my wife and I are gonna be co-headlining. There's gonna be some other great comedians coming out.

It's gonna be a lot of fun. You can get your tickets at punchlinecomedyclub.com and yeah, October 17th. Please, come out. It's gonna be so good. I swear to God. I mean at the very least you're gonna get to see my wife and I kiss like live-on-stage. It's a sex show. kiss, like live on stage.

It's a sex show. Anyways, come out to that. Follow Matt Leib on the gram. Follow me on the gram. Yeah, and the next time you see a person who believes a religion, tell him a fart joke. And a little fart joke and then a little joke. You will endure.

You'll endure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Behind the bastards is a production of CoolZone Media. From WarFromCoolZone Media, visit our website CoolZoneMedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. When they come to take what's yours.

You ready? Let's go! The only option we're going to hate this next part is to fight. René, we were. You wanted me? Where are you? Robin Hood, new series tonight at Tanny's Sternon Global, also available in Stack TV. Sometimes the pop culture we love just teens hits differently in retrospect.

Maybe it's a tabloid story we couldn't get enough of or an illicit student-teacher relationship on our favorite show. We're Suzy Bannaker-Harram and Jessica Bennett, posts of the new podcast in retrospect. We're each week we'll revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped us, and probably you, to try to understand what it taught us about the world and our place in it. You're the first person that I've talked to about this for years and years. Listen to In Retrospect on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows.

I'm Penelope Spheras. I'm the host of a new podcast about the life and death of Peter Ivers. Peter was the host of a TV show featuring prominent LA punk bands until he was murdered in 1983. 40 years later, we dive into that music scene and the mystery of his passing. We dive into that music scene and the mystery of his passing. Listen to Peter and the acid king on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone in our country has a voice. It's something that says not just where you come from, but who you are. Welcome to MPR's Black Stories, Black Truths, a collection of podcasts and a celebration of the host and journalism who've always spoken truth to power. Our voices are as varied, nuanced, and dynamic as the Black experience, and

stories should never be about us without us. Find NPR Black Stories Black Truths on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.