BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 1 - The Most Uncool Cool Thing

Episode Date: February 25, 2019

Welcome to the show! Phil Wang and Pierre Novellie talk about the Most Cool Uncool Thing and the Least Cool Cool Thing, Lunar New Year permission slips, Trigger Warnings and much much more! Featuring: kids grenades, fan letter, fruit shoot, jazz, halloween costumes, MetalRat... get in touch! Email us at [e-mail] or tweet us @thebudpod and don't forget to rate us on iTunes and like and subscribe! Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, they said it was dead, but it's not dead, it's back and it's better than ever. Hey, it's Budpod. Welcome to the first episode of Budpod with me and Phil Wang. Hi, thank you for listening to this first episode of Budpod. If you're listening because you are a fan of my favorite podcast, which was Pierre's podcast, you might be surprised slash horribly annoyed to hear my voice also on this podcast. I think you are very popular with all seven listeners of my favorite podcast. And I think they're going to welcome you into this. We're going to be a thruple now, you, me, and the listener.

Polyamory. A thruple. A podcast. Polyaudioamory listener. Polyamory. A thruple. A podcast. Polyaudioamory? Polyaudiramory. Polyaudiramory. I'm just thinking of ears full of fluids. Oh, sex ears.

Yeah. Or those like come-to-bed eyes. He had come-to-bed eyes and sex ears. It's too early. It's very early. It's very early. It's very early in the episode, very early in the series. But we're visceral boys. Yeah.

Yeah, it's good. It's also too early in the day. And it's nice, Bud Pod. My fantasy as well with this new title, Bud Pod, is that first of all, it will illustrate to people that it's a pod by a couple of buds. But also, as my friend Joe, who designed the logo, the wonderful logo, his first question was, is it about weed? Oh. But he is, like, very well acquainted with stoner culture and, like, 90s kind of zine. Like, he's a cool hip guy.

Okay. So I don't think he was asking it sincerely. Drugs aren't cool, Pierre. Well, exactly. They certainly are. Except most of them. Almost all drugs are quite cool, except

probably the worst two. Yes. Anything that leaves you scratching is not cool. I think that's the only uncool thing in drugs is scratching. Like with anything, if you're really cool, you're not supposed to be affected by anything, are you?

Right, yeah. Can you imagine if smokers had scratched their face a lot? Smoking would be done the next day. Yeah, if they go like, why? If you seemed physically itchy. Because we associate that with being dirty and diseased. Like you don't wash or you have a horrible illness. Yeah.

Whereas lung cancer is like, oh, well. You can't even see it. He made his choice. But itchy is like, oh, well. You can't even see it. He made his choice. Yeah. But it's itchy. He's like, what's wrong with you? Stop smoking.

Smoking made you really flatulent. Yeah. If you were sort of like a cool... Or even sneezing a lot. If smoking made you sneeze a lot,

people would stop. Yes. People are like, ugh. Because sneezing is undignified. Yeah. Whereas a cough... Cancer is dignified. That's a are, ugh. Because sneezing is undignified. Yeah. Whereas a cough. Cancer is dignified.

That's a fucked up thing. That is true. Getting cancer is kind of dignified. But the coughing thing is... Even if you give it to yourself. But then they just go like, well, by his own hand, you know? Yeah.

He was master of his destiny. Yeah. And with coughing, coughing has a whole resonance with that whole, like, Victorian poet thing. Like, like, oh,

in between coughing fits, I recited my poem. And, you know, they cough blood into a handkerchief and all that. Oh, yeah. Tuberculosis is a very creative

disease. Whereas sneezing, like, you have to make a fucked up face. Yeah. You have to go, yes! Yeah.

And you have a snort coming out of your face and you have to get a little hang of, you make a, and you have a snort coming out of your face, and you have to get a little hang of it. You make a fart noise when you blow your nose. So it's as bad as farting. And it makes your voice sound stupid. Excuse me. I'm a smoker.

Yeah. Then you sound like a flatulent cartoon. Whereas coughing, you can be the guy like, please tell me that you'll save the farm. Yeah, if anything, it's good for your pacing. We all worry about our children. Will they get enough grades at school to avoid being taken away by the grade monster? Will they get into a good university so that the grade monster doesn't take them away? These are normal things to fear.

But something that we don't talk about enough is, are my children good enough with grenades? It's a modern world. People are expected to be able to use grenades to clear rooms of enemies, attack large public gatherings of an ethnic group or religion that you hate, things like that. And of course, the only way to stop bad people with grenades is to give everyone grenades, which is why we all have grenades now. But are our children good enough with grenades? Well, now you don't have to worry about when you introduce your 12 or 13-year-old

to a complicated adult grenade. A kid's grenade is a dainty, accessible learner's grenade with which your children can achieve a level of proficiency that you would be proud to see in a 19 or 20 year old. And you don't have to worry about that grade monster anymore. Kid's grenades. Give your kids an explosive future because grenades explode.

They're bombs. Pierre and I, in every episode, are going to do a segment called... We realize there are things in the world that are the coolest uncool thing and the most uncool cool thing. Yeah. So, like, the most uncool cool thing, I think, is alcohol. Ooh, okay. Because alcohol is, like, a cool thing, but it, is alcohol. Ooh, okay. Because alcohol is like a cool thing, but it's actually really uncool.

Of all the cool things, alcohol is right there at the bottom. Yeah, because I guess, for one, it's obvious. That's true. Two, it ruins your body. Yes. and alcoholism is the most unattractive addiction. But people really sort of romanticize alcoholics. They do, but they always romanticize alcoholics. I always think there's a reason why in movies

or in detective shows or TV shows, if they ever have a sort of romantic alcoholic, you only ever see them in the bar, like in their element. Whereas like if it was like a guy being like, I just can't stop drinking whiskey till I solve this case. And there was just that guy having loads of diarrhea every morning because he's an alcoholic and going like, ugh, and failing at cooking eggs or whatever. Just like, ugh. Just like, they're really disgusting. Yeah, if movies could depict having a really dry mouth in the morning, it would not be cool.

Or that thing where your armpits smell of the booze you were drinking. Yeah, if we had full... Or that hot feeling in your head when your head is hot. Your whole head. No, you don't have a, when your head is hot. Your whole head. No, you don't have a fever. Your head is hot. The skull is hot.

That's... Hot head is that thing of like... Remember the old Warner Brothers cartoons where they'd fade in a different image and it would be like... It would sort of show you what the character was feeling. Hot head is like a big red light bulb. Yeah.

Where your head is like... And you're right. It's like you feel like the Crimson Skull from Captain America. You really do. With a face on top. You feel like a gammon on your head. Yeah, hot, hot ham. Hot glazed ham.

Yeah. So that's my most uncool cool thing. That's... But it's also like uncool cool thing is alcohol. But it's also like a lot of alcohol is shit. So that's the other thing that is romanticized about alcoholics is that the fancier booze that they're an alcoholic with. So like good whiskey or single malt. I think a lot of this is the age that we're getting to

because alcohol is now this pretty assumed aspect of our lives when whereas in 10 years ago is they still had a free song to it as difficult to get yeah you have to prove you're allowed to have it and now it is um a crutch to avoid yeah um so i think a big factor of it is age and how things change with age and what is cool changes with age yeah and the colorally I can never remember the corollary no corollary yeah I think it's corollary corollary the corollary of this is my most cool uncool thing is parents oh so of all the uncool things Yeah Parents is a classic one Okay I feel like at our age now

And even like TV and Especially online Social media Yeah Parents Have become cool Yes

Posting about your parents Talking about your parents This is That's true And everyone tweeting Going like Oh Like screenshots of

Texts from my dad Yeah And crying crying crying emojis. Crying, laughing emojis. And people go, aww. Cry face, cry face, cry face. Angry face. The TV shows that have parents on. Comedy shows that have people

casting their real parents into shows. Like the fucking Aziz Ansari horseshit. Oh, fucking hell. Well, I mean, the number of... Okay, here's the thing you're exactly right about this because everyone is like oh you know you know you know dar o'brien you know yeah do you like him you know yeah uh yeah i guess it's like how would you like to see him go to peru

with his mom you know what why what i mean i said i mean i wouldn't not watch it. Would you, Philip, go on a big travel show with one of your parents? Or would you be able to sell that? Because I don't think I could. I love my parents very much, and I'm quite good friends with my parents. Right. But I don't think it's like riff o'clock when we hang out. It isn't. We're not there going like, hey, hey not there going like finger clicking at each other.

My parents and I are neither so similar that we are on the same wavelength nor so different that we butt heads. We're just in the middle like most people. Just hello. And my dad's very quiet. I'm not a big chatter.

So I don't know what the show is going to be. I would love to watch a travelogue of you and Papa Wang going around sites of genuine historical interest with a sort of almost silent dignity. It would just be my dad knocking on the walls, being impressed at the structural robustness. Oh, very good. Oh, yeah.

Wow. Or really enjoying, like, both of our fathers have worked as engineers that's something we have in common and I think both of our fathers

if we went to like Cambodia would be less keen on some kind of I don't know mad party scene and more keen on

going to a temple and going oh they really managed to route the stream the stream routed through the center of the temple that's very impressive.

To seal it. My dad almost prefers the opposite. You know dark tourists? What? Dark tourism is people who go on holiday to current war zones or old massacre grounds or areas run by drug gangs. It goes like... We're really into like kind of goth tourism.

That's kind of it. Tourism for goths. My dad is like that for civil engineering. So we'll go to like a rundown country and he'll get so much pleasure from looking at shit roads. He's like, oh, look at these, wow, these potholes. Terrible.

He's just having such a good time. I love the, yeah, the formality of that disapproval as well Like tongue clicking and being like I wonder what the local Authority funding System is like I bet it's inefficient In Malaysia tutting is very informal Everyone tuts all the time

But like tutting It's something abstract like a road is funny to me. Like it's misbehaved, yeah. But tutting is for yourself, isn't it? I go, we go... For me it's to give me time to think about what I want to say.

I... So you give yourself your own personal little countdown clock to be like, this is how many seconds I have left to think of something valuable to contribute with. Yeah, sorry I tore your wedding dress in two. I needed to wipe my ass. Oh, no, that was just the truth. Oh, no, no, it's just the truth.

Oh, now I see you just told the truth really slowly. I see, that's the problem. But parents, you're right about parents being cool now. Yeah, people post about their parents all the time. But also people post about their parents, but also the people who we know who are parents are becoming cool because people also post about their zany goddamn children. Funnily enough, I think that is still less cool than posting my parents.

Yes. No, that's true. It is cooler to be like, hey, my dad is 72, and he said, I don't know why no one will let insert incredibly woke thing here happen. And I'm 72, and I was in a war. And they can't say the war because they're lying. I think it's also about implying that you're so at ease with yourself and so confident that you don't mind people knowing about your parents. Yes. And you're really open and with Twitter and Instagram and just social media in general, the more you just let everyone poke around in your guts with a magnifying glass. See, every aspect of my life is great.

See? Not just myself, but my immediate family. Even my interactions with my parents, which for some people are fraught and traumatic. Not for me. They're tweetable. Not just that, they're retweetable. That's going to be a new family therapy thing in five years.

Would you say the way you communicate with your father is um retweetable no it's not even tweetable how many likes would you say it would get on instagram if we assume you have say 10 000 followers that kind of thing yeah and people are going to judge based on that and get really sad if they go, I wouldn't even send a screenshot of a funny thing he said about a shelf that he put up in my apartment. Something like that. That has become very cool. What about you? What's your most cool, least cool? Your most uncool.

I've got to get this right. Your coolest uncool thing and your most uncool cool thing. I'm a big fan of doing things that are deliberately sort of obtuse and hard to say. Because it's funny to me just to have that kind of speed bump to communication. So the least cool cool thing. So of all the cool things that we all agree are cool, this is one of the least cool. Yeah. Still cool,

but jazz. Yeah, I'm a jazz fan and I have to, I guess I have to. I like jazz. I have jazz albums. Yeah.

I have jazz max. I don't have jazz max. I smoke jazz cigarettes. I love jazz. I eat jazz apples. That's just a type of apple, right? I hope so. A jazz apple. Or some kind of pornographic apple. Is that when they. That's just a type of apple, right? I hope so.

A jazz apple. Or some kind of pornographic apple. Is that when they turn an apple into a bong? Is that a jazz apple? No, I think a jazz apple is just a type of apple, isn't it? You can make a flute. A little flute out of an apple, maybe. A fruit flute?

A fruit flute. Have a little toot on my fruit flute. See? That's like scat. That's like jazz. That's pretty cool. Have a little toot on my fruit flute. Yeah, that's like scat. That's like jazz. That's pretty cool. Have a little toot on my fruit flute. Yeah, so jazz is cool, but it's uncool

because it's to do with old people and suits, but it's also the basis for like all popular music or like a vast amount of popular music. Also, you have to try really hard at it. And trying hard at things is generally uncool. The result of trying hard at things is cool. Do you think you have to try hard? I feel like people have an idea that you have to try hard at classical music,

which is just uncool, uncool. I suppose. But then, like, what's the movie? Keep Drumming or I'll Punch You in the Face? Whiplash. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think in Europe that was the title. In France, that was the translation.

That was the Filipino tagalog version of the title. Okay, right. So in movies like Keep Drumming or I'll Punch You in the Face, that's why I think people now are realizing that jazz is really difficult. Sitting and having to toot a metal horn with your mouth, and if you don't make your mouth make the right shape, it sounds like a dying cow.

Tooting is embarrassing. Bad tooting. So you've got to spend years learning an instrument. It's hard to hide your effort when your cheeks are literally red and like, I'm not really trying and you look like you're constantly

doing a really hard shit it was easy for me like no one's buying that yeah what you can do with a guitar you can close your you can go to

pretend to be asleep and play the guitar you can smoke you can literally be like I'm at work and on my break at the same time. That's how easy playing the guitar is for me. Whereas, yeah, if you're doing the Louis Armstrong cheeks, you can't just be like, take it, Louis.

As you say, look close to a hemorrhage of some crucial body part. Louis Armstrong, the greatest trumpet player of all time, still looks like he's really trying every time he plays a trumpet. Everyone has to admit that he's really trying his hardest at playing the trumpet. You can see it in his cheeks, you can see it in his eyes, you can see it in his body. Yeah. Yeah, he's really trying. He's doing really well, but it's because he's trying really hard. Yeah, like bagpipes as well.

It's just blowing. You can doing really well, but it's because he's trying really hard. Yeah, like bagpipes as well. It's just blowing. You can't hide effort if you're blowing. Yeah, blowing is of all the types that you can look at. Except for whistling, which is the most relaxed thing you can do. Ooh. So there's a real, what do you call it, arc here. A spectrum? Yes.

One end of the blowing spectrum is whistling, which, as you say, is so ostentatiously relaxed it's done by guilty people to pretend to be innocent in cartoons. And on the other end of the blowing spectrum is Louis Armstrong with a vein popping out of his forehead, leaning in, like leaning forwards into the trumpet to really fucking. And what's in the middle? I guess the middle is like an exasperated. Because then you're like, oh, this guy's busy, but he's getting on with it. Yeah. He is trying to signal that whatever he's about to do is so much more difficult than it needs to be that it's a pain for him. But he's still going to do it.

Yeah, that's sort of neither. That's correct. So he's frustrated, but he's relaxed enough to go through with the job anyway. He just feels like he needs to send up a little flare that he's pissed off. Well, there it is, the blowing spectrum. You didn't expect to come in here and devise a blowing spectrum. Well, you know, the Bud Pod blow spectrum. The blow spectrum.

We can now use that. I'm going to write it down. And that's now our internal way of saying, well, how tense were you? That's good. What's the units for Blow Spectrum? Louies. Oh, yeah, 10 Louies. Yeah, what's our maximum, 10 or 100?

100 is hard to perceive, I think. You might as well go 10. Yeah, it's kind of pointless to be like, I was at 87 Louis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not to 10 Louis in 60 seconds. So what was it like when you were sleeping

with your girlfriend and her parents came in the room, I was at 10 Louis, man. I was operating at a 10 out of 10 Louie's. I was this close to full Louie. Anyway. Okay, so jazz is your most uncool thing. Because it's still cool. Yeah, sure.

It's to do with cigarettes and New Orleans and covert heroin addiction and drinking and Vegas. They were on coke the whole time. Louis Armstrong was on coke the whole time. A couple was on Coke the whole time. A couple of years ago, they unearthed his Desert Island Discs. Did you hear it? No, what?

Yeah, they unearthed Louis Armstrong's Desert Island Discs. In my head, in such different eras. I know. No, it's been going for ages, I'm sure. To me, that's like finding out that Hitler did one. That's how different the eras feel like. But he's so... Not morally. Louis Armstrong is so...

I don't know if he was cooked up then, but he's so arrogant, and rightfully so, that all his Desire and Discs are his own songs. Every single one is his own record. And he said, I just like great music. It just so happens that I've written the best music. That's amazing. It's the most baller move

that is that is that is also one of the least cool cool things because that's like it's extremely baller

I think that's the most I think that's the coolest uncool thing it's right maybe that's our middle point yeah just arrogance our middle point is Louis Armstrong

picking eight of his own records because that's cool but it's also extremely Alan Partridge Middle point. Yeah, just arrogance. Our middle point is Louis Armstrong picking eight of his own records. Because that's cool, but it's also extremely Alan Partridge. It's an extremely Alan Partridge thing to be doing. From Louis Armstrong, that. Drill a hole in a banana. Toot that fruit. Toot that fruit flute.

Drill a hole in a banana. Add some more holes. Otherwise it's one noise and it's a didgeridoo. And that's cultural appropriation. You're not allowed a didgeridoo Made from bananas or otherwise So that's So that's my least cool cool thing Is jazz

And my coolest uncool thing Yeah So of all the uncool things, the thing that is the coolest Is, I would say for me A really, really good Halloween costume. Uh-huh. And I've been a purveyor of these sometimes. Right.

High effort. I'm in favor of them, in fact. I fully endorse them. But I acknowledge that because effort is so rarely cool. Yeah. Unfortunately. Effort to coolness. The effort to coolness relationship

is an inverted bell curve, isn't it? So if it's right at the bottom of effort, that's quite cool. You don't give a shit. Yes. And then the more effort you put in, you fall down this bell. Yeah. Until he's really trying. But then you can come back up if you do, if you're putting in so much effort that

your product is really great, like a really good Halloween costume, suddenly you're cool again. It's like, wow, you really put work into that. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah. I would say it's almost an inverted, not even a curve, it could almost be an inverted, like, you know,

at 90-degree angles. Oh, right. So the second you put more than no effort in, you suck. Until you're absolutely incredible, then you're incredibly cool again it's such a steep line yeah because it's like so okay let's say with halloween costumes uh oh i'm really cool because i turned up at the halloween costume like jim from the office with like uh there's a halloween episode where jim from the office wears a white shirt and he puts like two black circles on the white shirt and he's like i'm paper because it's a paper company and he thinks that that black circles on the white shirt and he's like I'm paper because it's a paper company

and he thinks that that sort of office Halloween thing is lame and you go oh haha that's funny and also like

you're participating but you're not participating oh congratulations yeah yeah yeah and then there's like the middle ground is you went through the effort of buying

a costume on Amazon yeah and it's like flappy and made of bad material and it's like velcros at the back you know yeah it looks like flappy and made of bad material and it's like Velcro is at the back, you know? Yeah.

It looks crap and it's made of like bad material. It doesn't really fit you. It's either too big or too small. I just put in the least effort. And you've paid money for someone else to kind of do it for you.

That kind of sucks. It's like the first page of Amazon results. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For Fred Flintstone. Exactly. Smithy. You've ordered a costume

from fucking Smithy. Exactly right. And also everyone knows you paid like 50 pounds for it. Yeah, and it's still not good. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then on the other end of it is like, oh, no, but see, here's a thing, cosplay. But they make those themselves, don't they?

Yes, but then that's like how else are you going to get the most high quality? But also those are like the cosplay we think of. My mind straight away goes to hot girls in cosplay. And hot girls are always cool. See, my mind went. That's true. The real winner of Halloween is attractive women. Or on the rare occasion when you see someone with an actual six pack trying to do a 300 Spartans thing.

Yeah, you kind of go fair enough. But even then you kind of go, come on, man. I think the rest of us look mad. Yeah, exactly. When you think of cosplayers, you think of the sexy ladies. I think of a man who's very difficult to socialize with, who has built a Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine suit from a combination of plywood and sort of molded foam.

But usually they're good because this is all they have. Oh, no, the costume's good. Oh, okay. But it's the whole context of it. Friend of the podcast and at some point he will be a guest, Ed Knight.

Young, cool, voice of be a guest Ed Knight young cool voice of a generation Ed Knight worked at Comic Con once when he was young oh and his

description of how much everyone who came to the store he was at smelled has stuck with me so that's kind of wrecked it in my head is that now I have to

imagine the smell of Comic Con what was it B.O. and yeah just the smell of comic-con. What was it? Yeah just the smell of people who... Mountain Dew. Yum and Doritos. But but but if someone shows up at a Halloween party and I'm talking house party and their costume is pretty sick everyone's like wow but also... See if it's a house party like a small like

London flat house party and I'd go why you this is it's a house party, like a small London flat house party, and I'd go, this is just a dumb house party. But it's like... There's 10 people here. Okay, no, let's say like a 30 to 40 people house party. Okay. Like it's crowded.

Okay. And it is Halloween as well. Okay, okay. Everyone's in costumes, but the people... There's too many people at the sort of 20th percentile of effort. The smiffy.

The smiffy threshold. I don't think I've ever really put effort into a Halloween costume, you know? I'm the equivalent of a cat girl. I'm the male equivalent of a... I just put on some devil horns and a red tie. And I go, I'm evil. I'm the male equivalent of this. I just put on some devil horns and like a red tie. And I go, I'm evil.

I'm the idea of evil. I'm the human concept, the moral concept of evil. When we were growing up, that was always like someone who like borrowed their dad's bow tie or something. Or like a clip-on bow tie from Mark Spencer. And was like, I'm James Bond, you know. Like a white shirt and a bow tie and a black jacket. Famously terrifying.

James Bond! I kill for the state! I have no oversight committee! I act with total impunity on foreign soil! It's very scary. I don't use protection! If you work in international law or sexual health, James Bond is the devil of your religion.

He's the scariest. He's the scariest thing you've ever had to deal with. Dive in to the beautiful music world of some teenage boy. Yes, the newest release, Stubble on My Heart, the newest album from just some teenage boy with a heart-wrenching ballad, a fancy supply teacher.

Oh, supply teacher, you're not my usual teacher. To hard-rocking anthems like Can't Stop Wanking. Can't stop wanking, can't stop wanking, get everything hard. Can't stop wanking, can't stop wanking, first is when it's off but then it gets hard. To the beautiful Shout Out to My Mom. Shout out to my mom, you drive me places. Shout out to my mom, you gave birth to faces, including mine.

Though I'm embarrassed about you, I still need your money and time. Shout out to my mom mom i need you for now stubble on my heart the beautiful new album from some teenage boy available in the shops Hey, Phil. Yep, yeah? You are famously from a culture that celebrates a Lunar New Year. We're loony. The original loony tunes, Chinese people. You're loons for Lunar New Year. Yeah. Yeah.

Other AKA Chinese New Year. I actually don't... Is it Lunar? Well, there's so many names for it. There's Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year, Spring Festival. Oh, yeah. I've always said Chinese New Year. Because I know that the Vietnamese do it,

and I only know that because of the Tet Offensive, and I only know that because of documentaries about the Vietnam War. I love that documentary, the one that lasts five years. It takes as much time to watch the documentary as it did to fight the Vietnam War. You watched the Vietnam War in real time. In real time, yeah. It's incredibly detailed. It's a POV documentary.

You just, I was sent to Vietnam to fight. And then I was Richard Nixon for four years. Well, yeah, yeah. So you celebrate Lunar New Year. Now, can I please do it as well? Because I have to ask you if I'm allowed to enjoy Lunar New Year. Now, can I please do it as well? Because I have to ask you if I'm allowed to enjoy Lunar New Year. Oh, yeah. This is in reference to...

The tweet. Yeah. The tweet I sent you. I don't know if any of you all saw this tweet. Yeah. What did it say? It said something about... I've got it.

I've actually saved it. It's so horrible. It was from a British Chinese gal. She's a writer. So she's similar background to yourself, ethnically, I guess. Yeah, she looks it. She's looking over her shoulder coquettishly,

as we all do in my culture. That's how you say hi if you're British Chinese. And her tweet goes, well, it's all lowercase. So, okay, the irony is like the sort of like snarky Twitter. It's like, I'm about to be clever. And it's also like, I'm typing this in between chores. I don't have time to capitalize, but this is so important that I should probably tell you about it.

I'm not going to capitalize or even punctuate. So just the ideas here. I'll leave it for you here. You pick it up. It should probably tell you about it. I'm not going to capitalize. Or even punctuate. So just the ideas here. I'll leave it for you here. You pick it up. It's up to you. Okay. And it goes, it goes,

Friendly Reminder, which is never a good start. That's never going to ingratiate me. Yeah. If you tweet us also with Reminder. Also, Friendly Reminder. I'm pre-programmed to hate it.

Also, Friendly, also, you go, it's not friendly, is it? You haven't capitalized you go it's not friendly is it you haven't capitalized F it's not friendly

but also you don't mean this that's like if you want to be aggressive you're like hey buddy yeah mate mate

mate mate that's his equivalent isn't it yeah mate she's doing that in like a pub oi mate friendly reminder

friend hey friend she goes friendly reminder that you you don't get to celebrate Lunar New Year unless you're literally from a country that does or if you're invited by someone who is from a country that does. Yeah. But if she's British Chinese, then she's not from a country that does, right? Because she's from Britain.

Well, exactly. Yeah, you're right yeah so so who's she who's she asking her parents have invited her maybe every year her parents have to invite her to her own into their own home like she's a vampire her own her own parents are like well you are child, but you were born and raised here in the land of foreign imperial devils. So naturally, we don't trust you. Convince us that you deserve to celebrate the year of the pig. Is it the year of pig now? It is the year of the pig, yeah.

Pig year. Happy pig year. Happy pig year. Thank you. But this idea of like, you don't get to. First of all, as if it's like, I don't know if Nigel Farage or Katie Hopkins or any of these other nasty types are like, God, I want to celebrate a lunar new year. Well, they will now.

That's the thing. She's sort of daring everyone into celebrating Chinese New Year now. That's a good point. Now, Nigel Farage is going to tweet a selfie of him setting off fireworks. Setting off fireworks. On the feet of a lion dance. What do you say? Gong Xi Fa Cai. Gong Xi Fa Cai.

Yeah, yeah, that's it. Just Nigel Farage shouting that with the traditional Dragon Street thing behind him. He's a brilliant lion dancer. He's just jumping around. He spent so long training. And then behind him is Katie Hopkins, and she's doing the little drums. Yeah, she has one of those masks of the chubby Chinese guy with the rosy cheeks. And it's absolutely perfect.

Beautiful. It's incredible. Really, really great. The Chinese embassy are like, please come and perform for us. This is incredible. Here's Morgan eating dumplings going, mmm. Real dumplings with real Chinese meat in them. For me.

It's just fucking mad. It's the bloody Americans' fault. They've started this culture of what is fundamentally segregation in disguises harmony. Yes. Like saying you don't get to, I mean, can you imagine if it was the other way around and like a white person in Malaysia said, just by the way, if you don't come from a European country, you don't get to celebrate Christmas. That said, I don't invite you to celebrate Chinese New Year this year.

I just don't feel like it. I haven't earned it. Too bad. I haven't demonstrated enough of a kind of community. Yeah. Affiliation or sense. How would I go about earning it in time for Chinese New Year next year? Just make a very large donation to the conservatives,

Chinese friends of the conservatives. The Chinese are the most consistently, the Chinese respirators are the most consistently conservative group of people in the Western world. Oh, yeah, they're always conservative. Chinese people are always conservatives. And I was wondering why. And then they hit me. Oh, yeah.

Makes sense that the surviving descendants of survivors of the Cultural Revolution are probably quite untrusting of the left. The descendants of people who literally fled a sort of mad communist civil war. Yeah, that does make sense. That does make sense. Like meeting a really capitalist Russian. Imagine you flee from there and there's literally a party

that says, we will look after your right to keep your stuff. Oh, great. Yeah, yeah. Thank God. That's kind of all we're about. I've only just got my stuff. So I'm very pleased to hear.

We will make sure you keep your stuff. Yeah, that makes sense. This is our stuff. That's your stuff. That's kind of all that we are about. It's very different to what we just come from. And also, if she's going to follow her own logic, like we said, if she's not from...

If she's from the UK, then she can't do it without permission, like we said. But also... Also, what does it mean, a country that celebrates Lunar New Year? Because it's a cultural thing, isn't it? If it happens here, then the UK... You know, there's a big parade in Chinatown,

so the UK celebrates Chinese New Year. It doesn't mean that a white person from Sunderland can go. Also, I know so many. Can give permission to someone in Canada to celebrate. Like, where does it stop? Where does this pyramid scheme of permission end? Also, I know some incredibly fancy and incredibly English and incredibly white people from Hong Kong. Well, they tend to be, yeah.

Hello, my name's Tristan, and I was actually born and raised in Hong Kong. I went to school there. I spent a lot of summers in Singapore. And so he's from a place that doesn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you didn't say what race you have to be. Yeah, so he has more right than she does. Yeah.

He's like, no, I just absolutely love the dragon dancing and the drumming, and it's just amazing. It's so much better than New Year in London. Yeah. He's there going no, I just absolutely love the dragon dancing and the drumming, and it's just amazing. It's so much better than New Year in London. He's there going like, don't, you know, it's my culture. It's not your prom dress, okay? Yeah, so okay, so that's, I'm going to have to wait until next year. What's next year? I can't celebrate the Year of the Pig because you haven't given me permission.

What's next year? I don't know. Let me have a look. Phil, you're rapidly losing your cultural status as a community spokesman for the Chinese community. We're not community. We're just selfish next to each other.

So I looked it up. It's the year of the rat. Okay, pig then rat. So it's a big year for mafia informers. It's the year of the rat, see? And also, so every time the animal comes around, it's a different, it's associated, it's matched with a different element.

Really? So, yeah, so every animal is also unique. Just so this pig that we're on is the Earth Pig. Right. Earth Pig. Earth Pig. And next year's the Metal Rat. Whoa!

Metal Rat! It's just really into like... You're the Metal Rat. Earth Pig sounds like a translation of the German word for a mole. Yeah, we had to shut the golf course because of the earth pigs. The earth pigs were digging it up. Yeah, the soil hogs. The soil hogs were digging it up.

Anyway, so we had to cancel golf, but luckily Metal Rat did. They've agreed to perform. Yeah, Metal Rat have agreed to perform a fundraiser. They're from Munch, and they're really... They're so hard, super hard rock. Metal Rat. Metal Rat. New for Metal Rat, coming out this October.

It's the album Death's Cheese. That's right, it's not Death Cheese, the album Death's Cheese. That's right. It's not Death's Cheese. It's Death's Cheese. Possessive. Don't forget the S or it won't show up on Google. Just in time for Halloween. Metal rat back on tour.

60 and still rocking. They may have lost their penises to that weird disease they caught on tour in that one country that you're not supposed to go on tour to. But they did because they're metal rat. But they're still rocking hard. Featuring such incredible hits as uh scream face that's my death cheese and of course their cover of sweet child of mine metal rat only sold in hmvs that have already been closed break in and find your copy of the album today. On a similar, in a similar vein of this overprotectionism,

I was, I was thinking about, because you see trigger warnings a lot now and this is such a hack thing to bring up at this point, trigger warnings. That's the worst crime that sort of right wing pundits have committed

is that it makes us shy to talk about it because of how boring they've made it. Exactly. But their argument is always like, don't mollycoddle people, which I guess I can kind of see the idea of, but it's not a bad thing to protect people from despair. Horror. Horror. But for me, it's a practical thing. protect people from despair. Horror.

Horror. But for me, it's a practical thing. I just don't see how it works. Because if a trigger warning comes up before something is played, with the intention of avoiding an unwanted reminding of a traumatic experience, haven't you just done that with a trigger warning? So say... Yeah.

Say I... By the way, Phil, in the next five minutes, I'm going to call you a cunt. Right. Oh, good. You've kind of done that. You've kind of done that to me now. Exactly, that's the thing.

I mean, at worst, trigger warnings are just spoilers, right? It's like if you watch a video on Facebook and it's like a sort watch a video on Facebook, and it's like a sort of click-baity kind of video, and it's like CCTV footage of a bank robber. Yeah. And it says this bank robber thinks he can get away with the money, but he's in for a surprise, and you click, oh.

Cry face, cry face, laughing cry face. And then what's going to happen? And then trigger warning might be triggering for anyone who finds nail gun shots to their head. Triggering. Oh, well, I guess I know what happens to... Old penny bags. Yeah, that's going to surprise kind of red. Yeah. It's like I...

It's like... Nail guns to the head. It's also like... But it's also the same thing we've always had like content warnings at the beginning of films which always give away the best scenes in a film yes scenes of a sexual nature well exactly

like you go to see Blue is the Warmest Colour and you think oh I wonder if these mismatched lesbians will make it work and the first thing you see is a warning graphic sex scenes okay I guess they make it work it'd be odd if they didn't make it work and then the last five minutes was just one of them having sex with someone else really great a completely new couple and they were watching from a balcony going to see that can't be us that'd be funny

actually to do a, that'd be very funny. That'd be a really good intro. Or if you did a completely PG film but with a rating of like 18 and loads of trigger warnings and it was just like the last three minutes

were absolutely horrific and had nothing to do with the plot. I guess the only time where it makes sense, like as you say, otherwise they have just reminded you anyway.

It's a spoiler. The only time where it makes sense is if it's like the being told that it's coming up is a reminder, but that's still better than the vivid eight-minute Russian roulette scene being sat through. So that's... Right, I suppose. But it's annoying because, as you say, trying to analyze this with any nuance is impossible in a world where people are like,

in my day, we just let children watch snuff porn and it was all fine. You know, whatever stupid shit people are claiming. In the war, in the Blitz, Hitler came with a trigger warning. All that kind of crap that they talk. But there's always been restrictions. You put an 18 rating on a film. So we're happy with it at a certain level. But there is a point where like...

It's also called like, Lady Gets Fucked With Spiders. So you have an idea. It's not going to be an easy watch. That again is the Filipino release title. Also Spider-Man Homecoming. Now that Brexit's on its way, every citizen will be expected to do their part

in the wooing and seducing of Old Mother Britannia herself, with her wrinkled red, white, and blue body. And, of course, the corpse of Winston Churchill, which will now be installed on the fifth column in Trafalgar Square and given an artificial phallus for people to display their loyalty to. New citizens signing up to be members of the Great British Company will be obliged to climb the column with a ladder of patriotism and give enthusiastic public fellatio to

the fake phallus attached to the corpse of Winston Churchill. Only then, following a brief Morris dance, will they be allowed full citizenship of this fine nation of ours and given permission to work in the bullet factory for as long as they could wish. So we've reached the fan mail point of the episode.

Yep. Which is naturally has its difficulties being the first episode. Yeah. And there's been no chance for anyone to send us any fan mail. Yeah. So I've just brought in a letter from my home that I got the other day. Through the post? Through the post, yeah.

First class or second class? It was one of those that's printed on the envelope. Franked. It's just like the envelope came... Franked mail. Is that what it's called? I think so. Okay.

It's a long story about post, it's very boring. But apologies to the Postal Museum. But I'll just read this one out then, as fan mail, as close as we have this week. So it's from, from Westminster City Council.

Right. It starts, Dear Mr. Wang, hello, Dear Mr. Wang, thank you for your letter. We're always happy to listen to the concerns of constituents and are always open to new ideas on how to improve the quality and harmony of everyday life within the borough.

Unfortunately, however, on this occasion, we are not able to take any further your petition to pedestrianise the London Underground. Or as you have described it, yank out them trains and make everyone walk the fucker. Our reasons for rejecting this petition are many and we think obvious. Firstly, in our humble opinion, and most pertinently, a pedestrian option for travelling through London already exists. It is called the street. The Underground was in fact built as an alternative to this. As it stands, there is absolutely nothing stopping you

from walking to your destination already. And though every city unfortunately has its unavoidable dangers, your account of dog and bee coalition packs and singing clicking gangs like Out of Westlife, we think you mean West Side Story, are not hazards any other members of the public have reported. Secondly, although the speed of trains can make it feel otherwise, the distances spanned by the tube network really are quite long. It would

be highly dangerous and terribly irresponsible to allow pedestrians to walk freely across those stretches of tunnel on foot with no easy access to water or medical attention. And no, the pipes that run alongside the trains cannot be repurposed to supply free Pepsi, even if warm is okay. Furthermore, your claim that this conversion of the underground network could be ready for the summer so that Papa can chat up some mole babes is at best overly optimistic, at worst deluded, and in this counsellor's personal opinion, terribly sexist. Removing the tracks alone would take years and millions of pounds, despite your assertions to

the contrary. Sorry. Removing the tracks alone would take years and millions of pounds, despite your assertions to the contrary, leaving the tracks both in place and still electrified would in fact be incredibly unsafe, not a perfect way to get slow cunts moving. In conclusion, the council will not be pursuing the plans outlined in your letter for the reasons expressed above and many more. Even if your petition for pedestrianizing London Underground made any sense, you have collected nowhere near the required number of signatures to progress it any further. You have only collected your own signature, then your name typed out in different fonts.

After that, you have simply included photographs of people we are simply meant to believe are agreeing members of the community. This was thrown into doubt when one of our volunteers recognized 11 of the included photos as the Moldovan national football team. We hereby consider this matter resolved, but should

you wish to take it further, don't. And that's from the Westminster City Council. So thank you, Westminster City Council, for the wonderful plan letter. I can't believe they listened to us. It's the end! Thank you for listening to this podcast. Really appreciate it. I understand you had a lot to do. Yeah, thank you very much for listening to

BudPod. And please get on iTunes and leave us a review and rate us out of five stars. And if you don't use iTunes, then please give us five stars in your heart. Yeah, and do like the Uber style of five stars where you give us five stars because the podcast was complete. It happened. Yeah, it happened. And no one got that badly hurt. You should give us five stars because we didn't get you lost.

We didn't audibly fart. Don't give us like a restaurant rating where there's a lot more that we have had that we needed to do right. Yeah. Just give us the five stars.

Also, you're getting this for free. So imagine if Ubers were free and you still got to rate them. Yeah, that'd be pretty. That'd be a dick move. So don't be a dick. Yeah. Give us five stars.

And if you really mean the five stars, like really, you're like, wow, I can't believe. Tell your friends. Tell people about the podcast. Share it on social media. But again, mustn't stress you don't have to mean it in order to put it down as five stars. Exactly. We really don't. We don't care about sincerity.

We care about results. sincerity. We care about results. And please get in touch at thebudpod on Twitter and thebudpod at gmail.com. Exactly so. The bud pod. The bud pod.

And what's good is if you're listening to this and you're any kind of performer, that email address that can function as a sort of warm-up. Thebudpod at gmail.com. Thebudpod at gmail.com. Thebudpodatgmail.com. It's actually how we warm up for this podcast. It's actually how we came up with the name BudPod.

Yeah, we started with the warm-up. Very strange. And we thought that sounds pretty good. Yeah. And, you know, like those guys over at ZipZap, ZipZap Boeing Investment Incorporated. Ugh. Yeah, gross.

It's so gross. Anyway, thank you very much for listening. And this has been a generic outro. This can't happen every time. No, we can't do this every time. So thank you for listening to our generic outro, which is going to be the same no matter what's been happening in Phil's life or my life. Thank you for listening to our generic outro,

which is going to be the same no matter what's been going on in my life or Phil's life. And hopefully it'll age badly in some way that's very funny. Phil, have you been enjoying recent events? I think February of 2019 has gone pretty well. Okay, bye! Bye!