Chapo Trap House - 300 - EMERGENCY POD: THE MUELLER REPORT (3/24/19)

Episode Date: March 25, 2019

It's motherflippin' Mueller Time.

Hello, please leave a message for Chapo Trap House at the tone. Mr. Chapo, felicitations. I'm sure you'll recall our meeting at CPAC, where you absconded with an undeserved handkerchief. I shall assure you, Mr. Chapo, that since then I have scurried the DNA from my top in order to clone Mr. Chapo of my own that I should control. Do you understand, Mr. Chapo? I speak, of course, of a CPAC cheer. You shall be mine, Gorka! Oh, and I understand you'll celebrate before your 300th episode. Let me congratulate you, as King Xerxes congratulated Leonidas, Spartans, and the 300th, as they fell so shall you, Mr. Chapo! You shall meet your thermopole, the lady you may have along the cursed horn, but that I shall be mine, a crowned king of the East and West, Gorka the First, ruler of all! This is Chapo! All I wanna be is a joker, all I wanna be is a joker, we may come and play shows, all I wanna be is a joker. Oh Emergency podcast episode episode the miller

Now this just in folks the mother report long anticipated in Washington has finally been released Will it exonerate our commander-in-chief or will he find himself in hot water? I mean obviously we were reading this as we go on air here and Just the first thing that just you know my eyes were immediately drawn to that I think is going to obsess the news media I mean and probably change the course of American history. It just says Donald Trump's bussy is big ass And it's wiling out and I gotta just say that's just I I don't think that's substantiated That seems like speculation. Is that a high crime or misdemeanor? That's the question

Yeah, is it a crime to have? Can you it's wiling out? Can you indict the president a sitting president's pussy? Can you indict a pussy of the president? What does the Constitution say on this matter? I think it's not clear. It'll have to be interpreted by the justices I mean if it goes to the Supreme Court, I mean, I think like you know the case law and this is settled But you never know how these you know these justices will go activist judges about about bussy law No, actually, we're recording this on Friday afternoon So we haven't read it another review. So going to have to wait for that one But it is our yeah, we did something even more timely

Put this on the record so that everyone can remember it and we can go back and look at it as the week's unfold Now that we can say that the Mueller report is out mid-March I'd say that within two months Trump's approval rating will go north of 50% and stabilize there Indefinitely until the next you know shift or scandal or whatever. This is going to boost him Significantly when there's no proof of collusion anywhere in two months within two months as people absorb it It'll take a while for people to like metabolize by by two months. Yes by the end of two months I would take the under yeah, all right Oh, well, let's say fifth because I think we it's he's stabilized around 45. Let's say the the over-under is 50 50 by

Over-under 50 you take the under I'll take the over okay Yeah, but it has to this has to be you know an average of legitimate polls. No rest no rest mucin No, no, no, no, no, I absolutely agree We can we can even agree beforehand on which polls we're gonna May 22nd yeah over under on 50 over under what are the what are the stakes? Oh, that's a good one I'm not touching more fucking poop. Okay. Okay. No poop. No poop What's one of those ones we're gonna make another watch an awful show like Rest of the horse program and then you have to watch the Daily Show or something. That was one of them

I would watch a Four-month every single episode of the Daily Show. Oh, that's a good one every single episode single episode Hopefully the ones that are okay only when it's live if I can't make it live I've got something else then I'll just I'll just tape it and but watch it diligently otherwise Yeah, you so you'll absorb a month's worth of new of Daily Show and My notes and reports and then and then Matt should have to watch an animated program He should have to watch like an anime animated program some of them, but the horse program. No, you should watch like

Naruto the horse program is too good for you. I You don't deserve the horse program No, I don't I hardly consider that a punishment. Well, what's the punishment? I gotta I gotta think about it right now. I really don't like the horse program What if you make him watch the attack on titan? No, because he'd like that too That would that would change the way he thinks about Oh Uh, what if you have to watch every episode of the view?

Oh, man, that's Or there you go. No, that's it. I know that's an hour long, but I'll let you I'll let you watch just the first 30 minutes Triggers me viscerally just any time I hear of her see her people talk about her her opinions mattering Her honor needing to be fucking observed. Oh, we have to acknowledge her strength for a month I have to listen to her stupid asshole and evolve flap And and whoever loses the bet, you know, they're watching it. They have to they have to post about it every time Live tweet and then yeah, you don't have to do like a full live tweet But not a few you have to you have to give the crowd your satisfaction say, all right. Here's number five

I think that just it has to be it can only be a few but it has to be uh, it has to be while you're watching it Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then and of course give regular reports on this program Of course, I'll take I'll take that you take the view and I'll take and then we'll we'll have a show on the show We'll do check it. Oh, yeah. All right. Okay. One month. All right. It's a deal. There we go. It's a deal This is now uh, matt and virginal have both, um Prick their fingers they bled into each other. Um, this is now a sacred bond. We ate the lip biscuit. Um Well, this is our uh, we don't have anything for you on the uh, the muller report because uh, we're recording this on a friday It is our 300th episode. Can you believe it boys? Can you believe it?

What a long strange trip it's been Uh, so for this episode, uh, of course, we're here. I'm here, but you know matt and virginal here But we got chris on mic as well. We got chris. Hello. I'm here as well. We did a we did a uh, some little special For the 300th episode. We watched something that a number of you. I think are going to respond to with wtf Uh, we watched a little movie that that number might remind you of What's the what's the number 300 300? Oh, no, we didn't want we didn't watch we didn't watch standard again We watched we watched that earlier, but we would have that would have made sense We actually the 300 was around our I think our 100th episode. Yes. Okay, uh, but we thought so we watched 300 100 times

Well, the thing is I we would have waited but I thought we would have all been dead by now Except maybe felix. Well, given my Inventorant hypochondria. I'm absolutely stunned. I'm alive because basically as soon as the show got successful Uh, I started having paralyzing hypochondria because my brain was like, okay, things are going too good You're gonna die now. So I've been dealing with that for the last three years Well, I'll tell you who else has been dealing with a fear of death and self-doubt over, uh, a lengthy public career One mister glenn beck. Oh, yeah, the glenn dawg glenn boy. Beckmeister. Glennable ass glennly beck glennly beck So for this for this episode, I have to uh, the genesis for this was of course, uh, Dave anthony and josh olson

Who told me those scamps. Yeah that they had gone to see this like in in theaters when it was like a fathom event You know those things they show before movies sometimes where it's like you pay tickets to go watch a movie theater of a live event Yeah, or sometimes they do, uh anime screenings stuff like that Yeah, so, uh, he said it's more insane than you can possibly believe and you have to get a copy of Of this movie or like a like a dvd of the live performance. This is glenn beck's the christmas sweater This is very timely for the you know We hit the calendar mark on this christmas and march day. Yeah, um, this is a live performance Of glenn beck's the christmas sweater

Which is a it's a show he took on the road touring with it's based on a novel he wrote of the same name a novel that is Um, based very closely on his own childhood experiences. I remember Uh, when this came out this was like this was around the the height of beck's, you know influence, right? This was like 20 2007 or eight. I don't know no later than that. Oh, like so it's after obama. You got big after obama. Yeah, uh, and I You know, I had always been dimly aware of this thing and I always just assumed this was just a Crass cash in no, I mean, obviously everything he does is a crass cash in But I mean this is like the ultimate question with someone like glenn beck is like what extent he believes his own Yeah, grass. He is a self-aware huckster. He talks about how much he admired

Orson Welles. He named his production company the mercury theater, which is the name of the company Of radio players that he was a member of when they did war of the worlds I mean, so he knows he's plays up his hucksterism But then, you know, nichy said that if you play a part long enough, you just become the part Like that's what a lot of people say about hitler is the question of whether he was really anti-semitic Is sort of beside the point because he played the part so long that it eventually became part of his belief system But the other aspect even if even if beck is starting off as a kind of just a huckster knew where the money was Over the time he's embodied that role so much. I think it actually is just in his DNA now

But the other aspect of this is glenn has as a human being always been an unwell person That's true with a rather tragic personal life. No a traumatized person who self-medicated for years and then became Sorry, he was he was saved by the Mormon church I think it's interesting and maybe even fitting that we hit glenn beck on the 300th episode because To my knowledge, we've never done a longer segment. We've only talked about right as he was losing relics. Yeah, right Really right only in passing and he is like one of the ur figures for like the moment we are in Oh, absolutely. It's like he is such a close. He was john the Baptist of this whole thing Like if trump's christ, he's john the Baptist and rush lumba is moses

That's their trajectory. So I think we should talk a little bit about like What the career of glenn beck and where he's at now tells us about the world we live in today before we this will make What happens in the christmas sweater seem a lot more. Yeah, it'll make a lot more sense But we mean we are gonna let you know everything that happens in the christmas. Oh, you will know we have such sites to show you Um, but I mean like okay. So like yeah, he became he rose to prominence like after obama's election As he was like right off getting on tv like right before the msnbc or no no headline news cnn headline news Which originally was just the ticker headline news was originally the premise was what if the ticker was the whole screen? And then they started doing original conment to go to fill in the little quarter

So he started off as a little postage stamp in the quarter headline news And they moved him over to cnn and he had his own show and he went insane and then they moved him over to fox right and you know, he sort of like early in the obama administration uh became sort of like the Weepy unrestrained sort of Emotions of of a conservative movement and and people who feel who feel thwarted and like, you know with obama as president Feel like that they are no completely cut adrift

What he was doing is he's acting out the nervous breakdown of every white conservative who was trying to process having a black president Yeah, like that's what he was and but like it isn't to his emotive stuff. I mean, he was like the first guy I mean five like the right wing has like always existed on like dumb conspiracy theories like going back to like the john birch society But he was the first one to really not just be like literally crying while talking about this and his blackboards and shit like that I think like he he found a way to present it on television in a way that like was as crazy as it sounded rather than you know Sort of couched or coached in the way that like a sean hannity or bill o'reilly. Yeah I know he was going to he was gonna he was gonna show them the magic trick

He was gonna go behind the curtain and say this is the mindset. We're gonna dissect your mind with the Visualize and dramatize how you see the world in terms of the conspiracies and the connections and the paranoia these other Conservative television programs and radio hosts. They were you know outside of talk radio They were trying to emulate or parody what seemed like a serious news program. Remember hannity starts out as hannity and combs Yeah, oh, yeah, that's a bit slap that fucking Homunculus who is there just to get owned? And before they kind of just and you know O'Reilly

You know pretending to be some sort of a pursuer. I won the poke award Yeah, before they waited from harvard before we reach our current day where everyone just dropped that pretense and it's just you know Yeah, it's just it's just the mask is all you're right Like you had glenn beck who was actively trying to emulate Something weird that had not existed in a long time. He was the old-fashioned evangelical like medicine show style It's elmer gantry. You remember the microphone that he used that was it was like those those old-timey like a big bobber My father cofflin, uh, I really am annoyed that a smug prick like Keith Olberman made this observation because it's very accurate But loaned some roads from a face of the crowd. Yeah, uh, the billy wilder movie

No, that was a really a kazan. He was the first guy to be overtly conspiratorial Yeah, and the main in the mainstream It's part of going on began. Yeah, exactly exactly on glenn beck's chalkboard Yeah, and that's the thing like the visual presentation of him in front of a chalkboard where he's like circling arrows the sorrows foundation You know, it was one of the one of acorn Yeah, bring down acorn him and james o' keith go out. They fucking guess lit Uh, the uh democrats at the cutting their own throat Probably cost them the 2016 election by the way because you know what acorn did a lot of registered voters voters. Yeah

So like yeah, he really let the conspiracy stuff out of the cage and wasn't afraid to like I said with that chalkboard Oh, oh, I was thinking not only solid ski, but people like fucking uh, frances pivot frances fox pivot. Yes Pivots like these obscure academics are getting dredged out to be like the adam weiss hopped figures Yes, who create this modern leftist conspiracy where they ally with the muslims and there's like an overthrow society Arrows are going everywhere the clever pivots of and keep in mind You know imagine if you if if glendek were a totally unknown guy and he walked and you know, it's 2009 And he walks into uh, some foxman in his office and says hey buddy have I got a show for you? I'm going to be this uh, this this will we be weirdo

Uh, who you know, uh, you know acts as as matt says acts like a Father kauflin or a medicine showman Uh, and I also spent half the show with a blackboard where I I write out the equations Of all of these obscure leftist figures Like that what bill Ayers is tied to operation paper clippers. Yeah, that would make no sense That would nobody would be able to wrap their head around it. It's too. It's it's dare I say it postmodern But like that's the thing like him in front of the chalkboard writing the arrows and connecting the dots and things like

he's acting out and even Gramming for you like the fever dreams of a conservative minority in america that you know felt displaced by the election of obama Everyone like here's the thing is like he didn't It like past the point where like they cared about looking insane to anyone else You know like when you're drawing shit on a chalkboard and being like this is it people It's all here. That's where the epistemic closure comes in because you only absorb a conservative media and you only interact with Conservatives there's no one to tell you you look absurd There's no one to worry about looking bad too. It's totally self-referential

So you can be crazy so that so you're not you're not like you're not worried Because if somebody thinks you're bad, it's because they're part of the conspiracy You could almost say that the the glumbeck show was like really when the wagon train fully circled of fox news and it became a Completely closed loop. There was no interaction with the outside and they didn't need any interaction with the outside Here's the interesting thing though. He had a meteoric rise And then just almost as a quick descent collapse because like I mean he wasn't on fox for that long No, like I mean, I think he alienated everyone there or something or like he was he is a maniac He was a super he was monomaniacal and absolutely messianic because the show is not good enough for him

Like I like O'Reilly got like Hannity you give him a fucking an hour nine figured yearly contract to sit on your ass and just talk for an hour every four nights a week They'll take those they'll be like a game show host and they'll cruise on that for 30 years Yeah, but Beck wanted something more. He wanted to be a bigger figure. He wanted to be a political figure He wanted a cultural figure. He was like or so you wanted to be like or some walls Like Walt Disney. Yeah, all these guys together He wanted exactly like as as this goes on like as he like he Suffered from evermore grandiose visions about like he would always be saying like like like this is the moment when we change the culture

Based around like a film project. He was trying to get that fucking rally for the rally John Stewart and then made fun of where they had this revival in Washington in the at the fucking Mall and it was like it was like a it was like a mayo is a mayo version of the million man. Yeah, 912 movement That was another that was a different let's all get back to the paranoia. It was sheer terror That was another good one. September 12. It was the restoring honor rally the rally to restore honor and then the 912 Move that was another one of the incredibly a fascist concept. Yeah, yeah Storing an honor might as well be like to-do list number one on every fascist agenda Yeah, but fascist but within this gloss of like feel good

Sacker and nostalgia which is what which is what makes the Christmas sweater so interesting Is that we're going to talk about but yeah the 912 move was another one of these grandiose things where it's like It's just like as he envisioned it like sort of like a a non-partisan project of moral and spiritual renewal in America Where the concept of which is that we should remember how we all felt on September 12. Yeah, great Let's go back to that. They were people were shooting Sikhs Yeah, out of the side out of their cars as soon as they saw a turbine You remember how like just generally like afraid and like bewildered everyone felt like for Glenn Beck though That that's as good as he's ever felt as an American

Because because of this like yeah the saccharine nostalgic glow of a past that's never existed He could look at an American flag or think of a firefighter and cry. Yeah, because that's what he wants like from politics Is this kind of emotional see that's a thing? I want when we're talking because like there's a there's two reasons he collapsed so quickly one as we were saying he got Visions of grandeur. You want to be a political and cultural figure transcending a show? And so he was creating his own Thing and that's what he ended up leaving to do the blaze where he had total control like an Oprah channel It was going to be like a cable network that would rival Fox news or comedy

That was heck out way too far and it ended up being too much of a financial investment And so he ended up having to retrench so it was a tactical mistake So that was one problem But the other one is that Trump showed up and of course he was initially super anti-trump Not for any reasons of principle at all, but just because he was stealing his deal because yes Because the game recognize game the cultural logic the cultural expression Of fascism is a Janus face of performative sentimentality and performative cruelty That is the two ways that you express fascist culture

And and so like saccharine The stuff that glenbeck does that sacchi-saparitan very performative nostalgia-based A kitsch like a millen kundera wrote about kitsch in terms of like fascist and totalitarian societies and how it functions is like a A an enforcement mechanism an expression. So That's one side and he represented that side. The other side is performative cruelty like trump Yeah, you're you you you worship yourself and you express nothing but contempt because that's you know, the organizing principle of it

Is hierarchy and as i'm on the top i'm pissing on you You deserve it because i'm above you and trump tries to do the performative saccharine But that the thing is they both have elements of themselves because beck was also very cruel Uh, he had a whole thing where he got incredibly mad because there was a braille. There were braille bumps underneath like the The um the numbers for an office room He said one time i saw these little braille bumps and i got furious Why because the idea that anyone would get a blind person would that you would have consideration That anyone would like take the time like he is enraged by that. So he's his cruel

He's a hold on but he's as cruel as trump, but he expresses he leads with he front loads the sentimentality Trump has the saccharine stuff hug the flag literally hugs the flag Which even black would beck would have thought was too corny But he front loads the cruelty and in the super traumatized nasty Hobbesian reality of neoliberal hell 21st century america The dominant strain of american Reaction is cruelty and so they were liking beck, but he never really got over the hump He never really ignited even before trump showed up and then trump showed up and because he was hitting the

Cruelty vein and that's what they wanted to see. He just absorbed everything Yeah, glenbeck's thing was like he was almost like a conservative like america is already great. We're better than this kind of guy Uh, but speaking to his cruelty I mean like yeah all the weeping sentimentality, but he did come out of you know before he cleaned up He was a drunk and a drug addict and a huge part of the christmas sweater is informed by this kind of oh, yeah No, we said it felt like steve orl was gonna cock It was like just clap you on the shoulder and be like He's out there on them corners. He hasn't hit the bottom yet brother, but it's coming up fast adam

Yeah, it's like you're watching him talk and then you see bubbles shuffle behind him to get some coffee and a donut Yeah, it's like, you know, but when he was on drugs and and alcohol he was a like a morning shock shock Yeah, he was like a man cow, uh, you know the Tucker Carlson above the love sponge guy Which reminds me he was and and then he became he was a howard stern of the odds in terms of being king of almedia In terms of you had books movies stage shows tv radio He was the stern. He was the king of almedia of the odds But to speak to his uh, like to his cruelty there was a famous incident

You know before he dried out when he was still like a man cow But love sponge guy where they did a uh a prank call to like one of their producers or friends telling them that his wife and Oh, yeah, I remember hearing about that It was just like one of those like shock jock things where it's just like, um, hello. This is the hospital. Um, your wife and baby are dead Oh god, what you've watched against the fog had Psychopath So and you know, and of course, I think he's like admitted to like always it He's I think he's he said over and over again. I was a terrible person

I was a terrible person and it's this narrative of atonement and redemption Which is what the Christmas sweater as we're going to explain to you is all about strain American products So as Matt explained like he he he reached way too far with the blaze and then and then like as It got to the time about the time of show like we started doing the show Just as he was like really falling out because he was saying oh Trump's bad Trump's bad And like we're like fuck you and then like during that like I also got Increasingly unhinged in a number of ways my favorite incident of which was he had this whole thing going for a while This is after like a lot of his ambitions had cratered. Um, he had this thing going where like he suffered some kind of

Hysterical blindness. Yes migraine headaches that like no doctor could treat It was this bizarre sympathetic ailment that like no doctor could find any medical evidence of existing It was some but who else that happened to oh hitler really when he got he was in he was put in a hospital military hospital at the end of the war Because he had been gassed And he was blind But there is a theory and I think supported by some's medical evidence That he was never gassed that he suffered from like trauma traumatic hysterical blindness This is one of my favorite glenbeck stories is that he had this bizarre like you know

Ailment that was undiagnosable by any doctor and then he ended up going to this like quack like sort of experimental Chiropractor who put him in one of those big like what is it? They think they trained astronauts in that big rotating gyroscope or whatever and like put him in it and just spun him around and like And like put electrodes in his brain and glenbeck said it was the only thing that cured him Amazing. There's more american shit. And also john harvey kello getting yogurt up his ass Also, even before we started doing the show. I remember one of the I think uh, Brendan either I think you wrote an article about or he sent me glenbeck was also running this incredibly

Sort of pretentious hipster denim brand called like 1776 then I think it was called 1776 denim or something Some bullshit like that where he sold like 300 dollar denims online and then like boutique hatchets for $600 like and fancy lad and so boho Just it's like you're clearly trying to appeal to like like fucking like right-wing hipsters like gavin mcginnis And then you know 2016 He was firmly firmly anti trump. Absolutely. And then he wrote in that issue that He was against against trump keep in mind most of the talk radio guys were anti trump Most of uh, eric erickson for instance, uh, what's it charlie sykes was and i'm pretty sure limbaugh was like

No, he wasn't actually I well, I think he was early. He was early on trump. Yeah limbaugh saw the writing on the wall He was pro trump smart as one. I thought he was the one who I thought he was the beach master of that herd of swine I thought trump. Okay. Okay. Uh, uh, that's getting bugged out of this But uh, you know, certainly guys like, uh, hannity early on made the calculation that well, okay, trump is silly season It's actually going to be rubio. It's going to be cruise or someone like that Uh, after trump wins the nomination some of them peel off and this become, you know, really hardcore pro trump But others double down on their bets and especially think well Looks like trump's gonna lose so after the election

I can say hi i told you so and my influence will grow and glenn beck absolutely doubled down and like charlie sykes Did too? He actually left a show. He was uh, he was in that against trump national review issue And would you know say things in his typical style about like, you know On the verge of tears about like if he gets in the white house, this will be the end of the republic Just like Agenda 21 and all that shit there. Oh god agenda 21 Like he just spent the entire obama years just having these hysterical phantom

Conspiracies it's like dude. You cry wolf a little too much You said it's the end of the republic 50 times and he glabbeck seemed to believe like I suppose a lot of these guys believe that His audience would listen to him more than they would listen to their primal desire To get trump in the office. Yeah, and here's the interesting thing So like he doubled down and then trump won and for a brief period there in 2016 glenn beck had like this other like mini redemption tour where he was just like, hey I've contributed to the climate that created And then you remember him because he said I feel kind of like I might have helped

I went overboard basically is what he said against obama against obama and that helped contribute to the thing And he sure was sorry about it And then him and sam b had a we can all be together against trump Unity thing with him just nauseating not so now what two years later He's going around back is on tv saying that if trump loses in 2020 it will be the end of the republic Wow, I guess what the same thing he's always been saying but like now he's totally come around He's totally on board like the little coward. He is about an actual redemption. Yeah I gotta say though. He's he's out there. He's talking it up. He's reminding everybody. You know what?

We're back. I'm gonna start drawing all the connections between soros and muller and all that shit. You're all gonna love it But I really enjoy that. He's doing it as the new colonel sanders. He looks great, honestly He looks like a pimp. I mean one of the other. I'm sure he's taken over the company and he is moving it from 11 to 14 herbs It means you know herbs He's back and still doing the connections, right? Yeah, is that what you're saying? I haven't seen that but probably because There's no need for him There's millions of people making the connections effort that they're doing it themselves In fact, that's what they like the Q people are like, why am I gonna sit here and watch you do the fun stuff when it could be me?

Connecting the dots Show yes, it's interactive. It's I can win prizes. You can you can you can you can see this unsee you can unseal the indictments But I'm glad you brought up the same b thing because that's kind of another aspect of Beckham always something very interesting is Liberals always laughed at him. Yeah, nobody really took any of that seriously like they didn't take the tea party that seriously And uh, no just because they thought it was so one reason is because they thought this oh, this is so ridiculous This isn't gonna play with swing voters But on another side because they always kind of thought Beck was in on it You know Beck wasn't someone who ever passed up an interview even for a publication that was going to make fun of him

Remember the time crying Beck cover. Yeah, that seemed to be a big He allowed them to do that. This is big stupid hammy face go I have to say just to talk briefly about the uh, the genes in the the colonel sanders look My low key favorite thing about Beck is that he has one of the best modes of every six to eight months completely changing new fit Yeah, there's a thing we had all those scarfs. Yeah, he looks like Adam Durant circa 1996 I respect I like that about somebody. I appreciate somebody's got he's got he's got drift new drift every month He's always he's always my man be driven. I'm hoping mr. Peanut is the next corporate mascot

Just a monocle and spats It's sort of like a fascinating career as a loser In many ways you're like a loser who reached a bizarre level of prominence And then was like immediately undone by the things that allowed him to rise there It's sort of a classic tragic story if you cared at all about tragedy happening to Glenn Beck The things that he lifted passed him by. Yeah, imagine that a loser getting very successful in the recording absurd But basically like the story has now completed that he is a hundred percent come around on trump

And is you know, just a hundred percent in the bag for all of the stupid mega shit that he said was a Now if you're against that you're a threat to republic Which I think brings us to the christmas sweater This was a again a property released at the height of his powers like matt said when he was sort of king of all media For the early teens. Yeah as a guy who is you know had like all the different, you know, he was going for the e-gut Basically, he definitely he was everywhere. He was and I forgot to say this. He had the he had the clothing line He had the books. He had the tour. He had the movies the show He had the website

Uh, he he had an attire network And he also had I don't think it ever got the off the ground But he had in the early stages announced that he was going to do a planned community. Oh, yeah subdivision like celebration florida for beckheads And I don't think it ever went beyond planning, but he was going to do it. That's how much his that's how high his ambitions were Glendex like creating a state within a state glendex landing like you talk about the benedict option Forget like trying to compete or fight with culture And the government create your own like secede inform your own

Hermetic dogtooth statelet gotta remember that he even had like drawings of what the town would look like You had all these very very involved theories about like what makes for community It was all very much if you look at the nazi's long-term plans for eastern europe It's very similar. They wanted to reenact. No, seriously. They wanted to have like ss families Uh settle these regions and create little feudal hamlets where they were going to be the lords And then the surviving slobs would be their fucking feudal peasants. What? Yes 100 percent acting to remake feudalism Yes, that was the goal But like with fucking machine guns and a fucking panzer instead of a instead of a desert here

He might want to consider getting back into that. Yeah, that's not a bad long-term goal. Yeah, so this brings us to glendex Live performance of the christmas sweater. I got this on dvd. And this is actually a signed copy Number he did it in front of I swear to god. This is the signed copy number 1902 of 3000 this was seven dollars on ebay I honestly feel like there are probably more living Uh, right now living survivors of pearl harbor than of the audience of this show Like these people were near death. This was uh, this performance

It was from this was a recording of the christmas sweater performed at the charleston performing arts center in south carolina on december 17th 2008 Right after the election of barack obama. Yeah, so this is like the like most powerful moment for him of again of weepy saccharine Emoting and boy. Oh boy. Does he give that to you in the christmas sweater? Again, as i've explained this is based on a novel He wrote of the same name that is he claims is based on a true story from his childhood

Yeah, and this is his one-man show Well, how can I describe What glenbeck as a performer doing a one-man show where it's just him on stage for probably two hours If you knew any speech and debate kids in high school and ever saw their Performances it is very inspired by that the only thing that's broken up is that he occasionally brings out this big gospel singer This like this black lady to do some hymns carols and original songs to break up the yeah his monologue She comes on stage about four or five times throughout the show But what this reminded me the most of of his performance style

If you remember the episode of bedtime stories That's all about the two roommates in la who are like shithead wannabe actors At the end of that when you see the tim heiderker characters one-man show about roommates where he's doing all the act outs It's just like my roommate who was a porn star What you know like all these absurd act outs and like you know like pretending to crawl under a bed and shit It's exactly like that. No, and that was easily the scariest bedtime stories No, he is frantic in this. He is absolutely animated beyond the measure But it is evidence of his one of his key strengths is that he is I mean I wouldn't say that he is a good actor

But he sells a performance. Oh, he commits. He commits like fucking bedlam asylum So it be What that's good, that's going in joke gel So within the first 30 seconds of him coming on stage, she's crying. Yes. He's also, um, also another thing he's Standing in front of a stage or like the backdrop is like so There's some screens that are going to throughout the performance show you like Clip art and like shutter stock quality images of like a house or a christmas tree But like the actual it looks like screen savers. Yeah, you could see windows 97 and a little recycling bin in the corners

Um, but like the actual backdrop behind that is curiously like almost the same color as his face Like a pinkish beige kind of gray to Wet facial flesh. It's like a slight gradient over it. It's very uncanny when it's a close up on him and his face It looks like he took the photoshop dropper tool and just got the color of his face and hit hill on the background his pink smithfield ham of a face and um Um, also, I think it's worth noting that glenn beck is Rocking at this point in his career a style that I would call like the kush fit Yeah, he's rocking kush style. He was dressing for comfort

He was uh, he might as well have had the new glares brewery shirt on Sweating through it. Yes. Yes. Like it's you know, you want a 60 degree day classic. Yeah classic baggy khakis And you know, maybe crocs. Maybe not. Yeah, no crocs, but close Yeah, um, so he begins by saying like, you know, this is a story And tonight you're going to learn about things I believe These things I believe Um, and then like, okay, so he's like, this is a story about eddie And then there's sort of a montage where you hear a children's child's voice being like

I love playing dumb cats with you daddy. I'm eddie at 8 7 and it reminded me of those like ticktocks We're deeply damaged adults Carrots do like lip sync to the baby voice. Yeah So it's like that and we realized that so so glenn is um, essentially inhabiting the role Of eddie throughout this entire one-man show eddie is a 12 year old boy on christmas eve And uh, also versil you said the the effect of looking at the the presentation and the content Was that this this this show is like ecstasy for old people Oh, yeah, this is I I I I thought when they did the cutaways to the audience and the audience is all old people because

Uh, I believe this is a children's book. I was I was thinking that as I was going through this It's not as I was thinking about really? No, it's not a kid's book. What it's not. It's one of those tuesday with morty little books You give them this like stocking stuffers. Good god. That's this is more dire No, I thought I I I know this is a book that was ostensibly not was written for adults No, I thought this was this is like mdma for old people because it's just it's just chintzy cheap heartstring tugging nostalgia And it's just the basest simplest emotions. It's trying to arouse. Yeah, like we were talking about how

When he starts he goes into deep detail about how much he wants a bike for christmas And you can tell that they're appealing to these grandparents thinking you remember when you all you wanted was a bicycle for christmas Meanwhile, these kids grandkids they say to him. Would you like some tassels for the handles of your bike? And they go, yeah, no, I would like a cat girl fortnite skin No cap on that grandma It's like what about a bag of chocolate coins? Sorry, could I get a premium snapchat for janis griffin? I really appreciate that but to add to that mdma quality It is all delivered at the pitched high simple high-energy level of an improviser who knows he's losing the room

Yeah Frantic hand gestures just pinwheeling So it begins he says hi I'm eddy and this is my story and you're off on You know, again, what I think is a pretty good approximation of like the flood of memories you experience as dmt hits your brain right before it dies Yeah Um, if your brain burns to the last of that stock, this is what it feels like Is watching the show or like it's not not what it feels like watching it, but it's like it's it's it's what he's trying

Yeah, it's what he's trying to capture. Yeah in this performance is basically what it feels like to die Yeah, de-personalize it. You're de-personalizing and all you're having is just random Noises and colors and memories. I'm still I'm sorry. I'm still I can't get over this. This is not intended for children It's not a picture book because it's it might as well be a fucking picture book. No, it's one of those This is told at the at a child's level It's like everything Everything I never needed to know I learned in kindergarten or the or the gift that booked by that

Uh, or the secret for that man. So this is this is YA shit for fucking elderly conservatives I mean if you take it if you take the definition of YA seriously, that's most books sold Like people like adults just read shit for kids even if it's not pitched for kids or like that other one There's a mega successful Um, like christian novel called the shack that was made into a movie. Yes, that's a perfect sample Sam Worthington Yes, uh Octavia Spencer. Yes, absolutely. That's what I'm talking about all the books. I remember stocking Uh, the last lecture that's another one, uh by this like he was a dying Uh, uh, scientist and he he wrote this like last lecture about

The seven people you meet in heaven five people you meet in heaven yes, and tuesdays with moray both mitch elbow I don't actually know what tuesdays with moray is it's about a guy going and meeting his old philosophy professor at this nursing home As he's dying and getting all of his pearly wisdoms on his face. What's the wisdom? Is it actual philosophy? Or oh, it's just, you know, how to be a good person. Blah blah blah I'll tell you something about the cave. It's exactly like glenn back. It's just very it's a didactic allegory for like moral behavior so we learn eddie is 12 years old and um Is lives with his mother we find out his dad He said my dad got owned my dad was an artist like hitler

And he's now dead like hitler. No, yeah, he actually didn't say that but we find out his dad was an artist who died of He was a baker the art is it's a metaphor. Oh his art was his baking Oh, I just thought he said his dad was an artist. No, no an artist with bakery items. Oh, okay He was he was like he was like Rembrandt with those crawlers Um, uh, yeah, so his dad's dad died of some unspecified illness, you know, never to throw The old pig skin around again with little eddie. Um, so he lives with his mom Um, who sucks? She's terrible like he's she's terrible and he doesn't have any money. She works a bunch of jobs She's a loser. He really doesn't have a lot of lines in this. This does not pass the Bechdel test

No, no, no, absolutely. She only talks to him and again I want to stress that like, you know, he's talking about how, you know Oh like every day like, you know before christmas we played operation christmas present Which I learned from my grandfather who'd say now russia dear son Find the president's under the bed and then like there's this very freudian scene where he goes into his mother's bedroom and acts out Crawling under the bed sort of like sort of like re-entering the birth canal Yes, and then he discovers a box that he's never seen before. Did it contain her used sex toys? I was hoping for that, but no, it was just he's like, oh, it's a present for me

Here's a receipt and he just really wants that bike even though it's not like a bike shaped present I thought it was a receipt Oh, okay And he's he's doing act outs for every for all of it and basically his mom wants to go caroling and he doesn't want to do it And he has to wear a bread bags on his feet. Yeah, he's not being a good boy. He doesn't deserve any presents Yeah, eddie is being a selfish little jerk and you know his mom's trying as hard as she can To have let them have make him have a good christmas times have been lean since their dad died Yeah, exactly and she's you know, she has to work two jobs

at the racism factory and the dick sucking factory And she's sucking the dick at both ends And then uh, she takes him caroling to an old to an old folks home on christmas eve and he's being a little jerk about that He's just a little pisser So but you know, it doesn't matter because you know, you wake up christmas morning And there's going to be snow on the ground. Yeah, you're gonna have presents and you're just going to smell pancakes And then you're going to just feel the way we all do right before we purge society of Oh, it's like it's a gift. Oh, it's a machete. I'm the top of charl chop to charl trees

So for christmas, he gets his mom two gifts while one is a box of chocolates Uh, which has this uncomfortable illusion to their dad, uh, uh, to her dad husband Who was a baker and then the other was a pair of gloves and all I could think was is don't buy clothes for women That is they're never gonna like it. They even if they tell you that they like this do not get it Don't a gift certificate fine laundry may be but you have to be you have to be a hundred percent on the sizes So it's a virtual recommendation. Don't get your mom, uh, gloves or clothing. Try lingerie. That might work But only if you know her size Now what you could do is you could go into the lingerie, uh, store and you say to the clerk, you know, you're you're uh, you know

My mom is your size Would you try this on? Stick with the amazon gift cards. Yeah, you know, these are some stick with esteem cards. You gotta be a You got to be a level 100 boss before you're doing these virtual moves We don't we don't recommend this to you Virtual is a double double black diamond slope So what do you know at eddy wakes up in the morning and all he wants is that beautiful red bike with the chrome handlebars and you know, like every little boy's dream

I'm not sure. Why does he think he's getting a bicycle? Does he just he wanted it? Oh, okay But does he presume he deserves it because he's done nothing to indicate that he's no He's in a some self-centered little prick and he just because I wanted is enough of a fucking We all were at age 12. Come on. I was a beautiful boy. I'm sure I volunteered at the uh, uh, racism He ran into eddie's mom coming out for lunch break doing doing so. Um, and then you know eddie gets his mom gloves and a personal massager and Uh, and then it's finally time for his present. He opens the box. What is it? What's inside? What's his christmas dream his christmas fucking miracle? It's a moldy old

Home knit sweater piece of shit. I wouldn't wipe my ass with yeah, just not even fit to be a comb rag It's a corny ass christmas sweat awful that he realizes his poor mother You know her fingers are gnarled by the the arthritis has been you know, just There's no there's no detail about her fingers being gnarled But she's he's been knitting it in front of him for for months again very fredian. Yeah Yeah, very fredian. Yeah, and you know, what does he do with it? He immediately slinks to his room and shame Balls it up and like throws it in the corner. Yeah, doesn't care. This is the worst christmas ever I can't believe my stupid my stupid bitch mother knit me this piece of shit. It's time for me to start the cleansing

Subscribe to puny pie Um, so then his mom walks in and sees that he's like stomp. It's literally like grinding. Fuck no sweater Look at jolly Murphy just grinding his feet into it or something or through it in the corner And you know, she sees it and like her eyes well up and I think that this point glenn beck says like I never knew What what christmas meant until I saw it die in the eyes of my own mother Oh, Jesus So it's like, you know, he's witnessing his mother's sexuality for the first time Is very frightened and confused by that to imagine his parents as sexual beings, you know, yes

This is the sweater. I mean wanted to destroy her like through the sweater. That's all the sweater symbolized His loss of innocence here and his his entrance into adulthood and puberty Yeah, but like part of that is just being like, yo, I want to fuck my mom. I want to fuck my mom, dude No, that's that's psychology. That's part of having psychology is realizing that wait Is this it's just this is the template of every porno now, you know, well stepmother stepmother You'll ever notice if you ever notice they always say stepmother wants the beginning and that's mom the rest of the time Well, they have a close relationship

No, it's because they don't want to get in trouble because you could actually get pinched for uh, for actual obscenity if you do Uh, even if they're not really siblings or related, but if they say they are that could get you I'm glad you know about that Thank you for enlightening our listeners It's a legal gray areas I'm saying and so they say step they say stepmother It's like prevent them from getting in trouble. It's just it's just the uh security blanket so Eddie's mom heartbroken that her christmas gift was so poorly received the one that she'd knitted with her her own hands her tired

So, you know even better than getting a shitty christmas present is being trundled into a car and having to visit elderly relatives Which is what eddie's off to they get in the car with his mom Still upset to go to see he's being a little shit right now. Yeah, go to see his grandparents Here's a here's a here's a crucial element of the story while they're driving To grandma and grandfather's house mater at pater Me mom pep up He crosses like another sort of abandoned sort of shack or barn and he just sees like a it had a it had a tin roof That was a bit rusted

I was a little node place It was a pinto you make sure to tell you that it's a ford pinto that they're driving So Oh, man, this is a good one. So he sees a figure of some sorts in an abandoned barn Near his grandparents house thinks nothing of it. You know as you do As you do when you're a kid then they go to they see grandma and me ma Yeah, pep pep and me ma pep and mama. Yeah. Yeah, papa. Um, and you know, like his grandparents are fucking their idiots And you know, he's being a petulant brat and then like, you know, his grandparents are like italian for some reason

You're not talking with a new accoset no more That's not true But I was making this up in my head to make it more entertaining But uh, Glenn Beck does like so several old man voices. Yes. One of them is like a Walter Brennan old prospector thing We were saying that he was basically uh, uh, Tom waits from uh, Just be alive. Hello, mr. Poggin. We'll get to that. So, uh, he gets more shitty presents It's getting to be evening. He's been a brat all day still no bicycle And his mom says, you know, eddie

I've been working really long and hard Doing racism and sucking dick at the various factories I work at Um, like I can we just spend the night here with me mom pep pep I'm really tired. We can wake up in the morning have a big big pancake breakfast Like you love your griddle cake. So are you eddie? And then he's like, no, no, I want to go home I want to go home. This sucks mom. I want to go home And then, you know, he sort of berates his his poor working mother and then like, you know Stalks off, you know and goes to like, you know throw up into his Christmas sweater because of how agitated he is

And then like his mom, you know Gives in to him Just, you know, tired work to the bone driving home on a dark winter's night Alone with her bullshit son in the back awful just shitty little ungrateful piss head And then this is the point where it gets interesting because glenn beck is up there and he's like And I would just remember feeling tired and going to sleep

And then my mother did the same and then there's like Boom like there's Flashing Yeah booming soundtrack and then it gets like, you know a jg ballard story Oh, yeah, erotic geometry of car the erotic geometry of car crashes and he like, you know Sort of like takes a lock of his mother's hair out of like the windshield or whatever And then without like you could like blink and miss it

He's at his mom's funeral looking at and he makes a point of saying looking at his mother in the casket She's wearing a dress that he never saw her before and makeup that she never wore bright red lipstick and like sort of an alluring dress Again, see yeah having to kill his mother before fully realizing that she's a sexual being Yes, he's attracted to her and that he's yes indeed It's it's only when he annihilates the thing that he can accept his feelings. This is this is basically act one Is like an oh Henry story about how to kill your parents No, we're gonna get there, but uh, oh, yeah, he's like you're killing your mother ready

You're killing your mother. You're killing your mother. You're killing your mother And his punishment is he has to go live with his boring ass grandparents on I think he said a berry farm a berry farm They're berry farmers And of course I was imagining you're gonna be a berry farm I was imagining when he said his grandparents were berry farmers that they would just like scour the forest Just eating whatever things they find in a bush They're they're gentlemen hobos really So he goes to live with his grandparents and he's of course as he said he's angry at himself

He's angry at god, but he's really angry at himself. Yeah, you know, and this is where how dare they he goes out alone And he goes to the old barn The old ghostly barn where he encounters as matt said a character who is like a a prospector Yeah, it's a tom wates character Yeah, and if you know at this point it becomes a tom wates song and like glenn beck does this thing We're like to do the prospector character He keeps like gumming his mouth with his tongue putting his tongue in his cheek like the universal symbol for giving the head

Seriously, it's like he's talking through a dick in his mouth the whole time and he you know, he's like Wait, where is she now here Eddie? Oh, wait, I'm gonna do my tom wates christmas Okay, here we go a broken umbrella accordion strings bringing you back this hobos an old man's nose

a winter rose Christmas sweater In reindeer bro's I lost it at the end there, but that's that's my tom wates christmas song So he encounters a grizzled old prospector who begins to sort of impart life lessons to him About being like well now see she eddie here seems to me you're having an existential crisis See eddie believing in god is not like this spittoon here You gotta fix your gummers to say it before you can hear the ping

this is the part the very first part of this entire play that God is brought up. Yeah for you know, it's not like they were it was intimated mentions They were a religious family before he mentions very briefly in the beginning that when his dad was alive He would always like singing christmas carols But he would have to say singing about snowmen and reindeer is fine eddie But let's end by singing silent night Yeah, this is you know the season this reason for the season and then you know that's pretty pretty pretty subtle compared to the cut back to Eddie and and tom wates. He was like eddie. Why don't you why don't you reach in my pocket and grab that soapy fish in there?

So, I mean again, he has more sort of like vaguely Freudian trauma going on here between him and this old man And then it gets really weird because then like like the the more religious like openly religious it gets like the old man Starts telling him like he's like hey eddie. You want to know what the true name of god is? It's the two most powerful words in the world. I am And that's the name of god So they never they never actually loaded this gun beforehand or showed that the kid was like, you know Very devout and this is what caused him to question god And then they have this existential moment that really is like someone

Depersonalizing and experiencing ego death where he goes like I am happy. I am I am I am not Like he annihilates his consciousness for a second So he meets the old prospector who? Imparts some life wisdom. He's prospector. Radiant He took him out of school and played in the house and changed for him And totally made his life fucked up and weird um No, uh

So that like, you know eddie, uh, he the old prospector. Idiot tells eddie He's like, you know, you shouldn't ask yourself what you want to be eddie You should ask yourself who you want to be eddie and what planet you want to live on for eternity No, um, uh, so then like the act two is like eddie's still a sullen little jerk Who's you know, just angry at god in the world because both of his parents got fucking old And he has to live with this stupid boring grandparent Still no bike. Oh wait. No. Oh god. I forgot The other twist is that grandpa says we bought you the bike. It was in the barn

We were gonna give it to you later But you were so much of a little shit that your mom left even though she was too tired and you fucking killed her And then he goes on a big avonix after explaining perfectly how he killed his mother He then immediately goes into it wasn't your fault and how he needs to stop blaming himself But we were just like no it was a hundred percent his fault. He should feel bad I realize um just now that that was all I know that doesn't make sense But that's all just the grandfather acting out his own adult guilt at being partially responsible for the death of his daughter Uh, and also the fact that he's mad that he's saddled with this shitty kid now

Like he can't just be retired on a berry farm, but it's very to me it is Also, it's like, you know, hey, you stupid fucking kid You never play a trick on someone before it would be like, oh, I don't have that thing I was gonna get you. Ah psych. It's right here. But that's what this is the the religion of this is very Very like hyper Protestant. I mean, he's a Mormon when back as a Mormon and Mormons are the most Protestant Protestants They're the uru Kai to Protestantism's orc army and And as a result it has the refined mechanism for absolving you of anything you've ever done wrong instantly

So you never feel bad for a minute That's what american christianity is and that's why it's such a lubricant for capitalism because it just destroys all of your internal Conscious checks against against exploitive and bad behavior because they all if they make you happy and they make you rich Then they were god's will and everything's fine. And that's why that's what cap That's what Protestantism does and that's what uh Mormonism does more than anything because it was built here in america So there's the in the second act we get the oh Henry twist that he did have the bike He wanted but he was too much of a little bitch to get it and he killed his mom not only Did he kill his mom? He didn't get the bike until after she was dead

Now enjoy riding it now. Yeah, this will be fun. I sold my mom for this bike So then then in the neck too We lost our ship because we had been watching this fucking movie for an hour and we didn't really have a lot of time To record this episode today and we had no idea how long the movie was And then it just flashes end of act one and we're like, oh my god, this could be five acts This could have been a five hour play old people love sitting down and watching things for a long time So in act two, he's still a sullen, you know, 12 year old He's on riding around his bike on the bold country roads, you know that he's riding around on the constant reminder of his own

For the death of his parent. Yeah, he's riding around and then like I don't know he gets lost or some shit And he finds himself in a cornfield. He's running away. Oh, he's running away from me mom Right, right. Uh, he runs away. I'm gonna go join a gang. He runs away on the bike Which I'm gonna get sexed in runs away on the bike, which honestly What what'd you say? What what did he say? What did he say? I gotta know I said he said and he's gonna join a gang and Matt said I'm gonna get sexed in He's gonna roll the dice

God now he runs away. He runs away on the bike Which I think is bullshit because you know, isn't the bike symbolic of you killing your mom You should also that should be haram to you. Yeah, you should walk. Maybe he just still wanted the bike Yeah, no, that's the thing. He's a selfish little shit and he gets what he wants Even if it makes him quote unquote feel bad for a minute Uh, so okay. He gets lost and then finds himself in a scary old cornfield Yeah, like he falls off the bike and the tire is fucked up and it's dark and he's in like this decaying cornfield There's no skin. There was no scarecrow. So he's in a decaying cornfield and then all of a sudden

It's like it's cold. It's dark and then all of a sudden I need minis I need them so bad Which way And then it's no sooner does he ask where's the toilet factory my mom's working there? She sees in the distance He sees like a a storm clouds forming and he sees like, you know ball lightning And it's like a like a twister spinning up and there's wind whipping around him and he's like, oh, no Just like my mom and dad no sooner does he ask which way to twist in towers then who should appear but

Prospector 88. Hey Tom weights. Hey old chopper. Yeah chopper here. He shows up He takes him to the chuck wagon and gives him some vitals in the middle of the cornfield The winds blowing around them and he's like, well, uh, what do I do old mister? But what I do old man, and then he's just like he what does he say? He says he's like you're worthy of the journey Eddie You're worthy of the journey and the destination. Yeah, it's not the storm. It's weathering the storm Makes you who you are the storm is coming Watch wait for the next drop

Oh Where we go one we go all You're talking about fortnight. Oh I was I was talking about the storm I was talking about Q He was like Eddie now she if you got a she got a shotgun drop that because I don't Eddie Eddie we're getting pressed right now. We're getting pushed Eddie. Where are you? Eddie? You're taking fall damage. That's bad Hey, press out press it eat a bill. Oh

God Anyway, long story short the the old man in the cornfield slash the prospector who lives in the old barn who is tom wates and He's god. Wow. Wow He's got and he turns out he was morgan freeman all along. Yeah, so he's god Also, I want to note this uh, and I forgot exactly where it shows up in this narrative But multiple times glenn beck goes into this fugue state. Yeah, where he replayed where where there is this uh, This uh, like sound effect of uh, what is the sound effect that accompanies that? It's like there's like there's like a definitely like there's like a change

He's a company with a full orchestra on there There's like a ominous string music And then it sounds like almost like I feel like a camera clicking something like that And then he replays these tragic moments in his past like looking at his a father dying in the hospital bed and then the night of His his being in the backseat of the car and like plucking his mom's hair out of the wreckage of the vehicle. Yeah brutal and uh Like I said, it's a fugue state and all I could think was is eddie eddie

You're having a bad trip eddie eddie. You got it. You got it. You got to you got to think up Okay, you got to think positive thoughts and you got to go up because this is a roller coaster right now Okay, you'll you'll go down a little bit But you don't want to go too down because then you can't get back up. You see what I'm saying Can we get eddie some orange slices, please? Remember always take what you can handle and always know your dealer and then As soon as like eddie realizes that like, you know He's worthy of love and he's worthy of redemption

The storm passes and there's flowers and then at that point originally you were like, dude We just been playing smash for the last hour. You've just been staring at the screen. I'm touching any buttons. Where you been, dude? So So, yeah, and then he realizes that you know, he's worthy of redemption and that he's made he's atonement Like Felix's favorite movie. Yes. Yes. And wouldn't you know it? It's good enough for god. It's good enough for everyone else And not only is he forgiven turns out it never even happened. Yes And here's the real twist at the end of it. Not only does eddie come out of the storm as victory

He wakes up to a big chicken dinner. He wakes up they say He smells He smells pancakes and then loam hole. What his mom bursts in the room and says eddie wake up It's christmas morning. Yep. His mother not dead the entire Last two thirds of the f since he went upstairs and cried into the christmas sweater has all been a dream sequence All the dream jr coming out of the shower. I did not kill his mother I I have an alternate interpretation that this is basically the end of ai and he's like

Yeah, this is a six thousand years in the future and this is basically a simulation made from his memories Oh, yeah that Shit, that's dark. But the thing is in the dream state god Literally showed him. Yeah that he actually is getting a bike for christmas Yeah, and he gets downstairs and his grandpa is like ready He looks like looks like you know something i don't and then he's just like oh grandpa I I experienced ego death on an ayahuasca death trip and god showed me that there's actually i'm getting a playstation for christmas I'll be i saw myself die. But before that i was playing crash bandicoot

And everything made sense You know every all the all the fear of death was painful of life as a finite thing that that keeps us trapped in our own Consciousness, I realized that like everything is the same consciousness and then we're all experiencing a dream of each other Now where's that fucking bicycle you old bitch and all manner of things shall be well So it was all a dream It was all a dream Eddie realizes that his shitty christmas sweater is actually i mean let's be honest He also this is just a blatant ripoff of the other two most famous christmas stories ever

the classic and his christmas carol And wonderful life. Yeah, we'll be doing glumbeck christmas sweater for our christmas episode. Yes Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It's not a dream in the christmas carol. Go show him a vision of a different world It's the same It might as well be a dream. It might as well be a dream It's functionally the same as a literary device. It might as well be a dream same It's not a dream and it's a wonderful life either But it functions. Yeah, so that's not like either. No, if they both function

No, this is more like the episode of family matters where carl falls asleep and he imagines that uh urkel and lisa hooked up And then he wakes up. It's like, oh, it's all a dream No, but like the point of this dream is just a word for god showing him something which is exactly what fucking christmas carol and Yes, there's one god and a christmas carol. Are you fucking kidding the ghosts of christmas past president future? Who do you think they work for what do you think those are characters from the bible? But they're off christmas. What do you mean who they work for? They work for the head ghost. They work for capital. They have to sell their wages No, they only have to sell us their labor

Christmas Christmas is a christian holiday and if they are expressions of christmas That means that they are part of the godhead of christianity the father the son Actually, uh, actually actually there were uh winter harvest festivals, uh in the pagan era the father and the son and the holy ghost of christmas president They're the three ghosts or the QED my friend and there's a literal angel and it's a wonderful life Prospector god in the dream. It's all the same thing. I will not be reading replies to any of this. Yes Yes, I am aware that I confused Passover and uh Passover satyr and Hanukkah. God your parents must be proud. Whoo. I'm not even Jewish. What the fuck are you talking about?

Your dad is culturally Jewish. No, he's not. My dad grew up celebrating fucking christmas. Okay, so those are talking about it Culturally Jewish. Yeah, you learned that on gab He did Talking about the haplogriff Oh, well, okay. Uh, it was okay. It was all dream. That's the out of the play All dream and but like there's like a sort of an epilogue where glenn comes out and First of all glenn has gotten progressively wetter as the show goes on. Yes. He's he is the christmas sweater boy Did you get that pun? Say it again. Say the point again

He is the christmas sweater Sweater based on how moist the shirt is at the end of the performance So he comes back out. He's been he's been like, you know rub down One of those like towels that they give divers after they go out of the pool Uh, he rubbed down. He has a new flannel on He's back on stage and now he's like he's crying more than ever before Because glenn, you know drops the mask. He's like, you know, this is me glenn back talking now not eddie But I am eddie

And he tells you that like his grandfather's name was eddie and like his middle name is like glenn edward lee beck or something Sounds like a serial killer. Yeah. Yeah, uh, and that, you know He's named after his grandfather and that like he really did have this dream And that he like and then oh he also reveals that his mother died when he was 13 And then uh, we looked into this and she died in a boating accident. She died in a boaking accident Yeah, so his parents were divorced and he lived with the mom in washington and one night, uh, the mom Uh, and uh, uh male companion robert wagner went out for walking and out on puget sound and bowed And they never came back and the coast guard found the body and said well, it doesn't look like there was foul play

both bodies are just both of the bodies and uh, They you know, they said it was drowning the thing about this is beck said Uh, at least I read this on salon that beck has said in the past that his mom committed suicide But that doesn't appear to be substantiated by any like actual evidence He's trying to make his childhood more tragic Well, anyway, so after that, uh, he moves in with his dad in utah. Hence the Mormon ship I I think it's sad now, you know the rest of the story I think it's sad that um, like this this christmas sweater narrative is like, you know, history of redemption

And it's all about like it was a dream your mom's still alive But like this is really about him coping with the loss of his mother and the young age What's interesting to me is that in glenbeck's real life his father has always been alive In the play the father is just like uh, kill him off in the first page. Yeah Yeah, well, he wants to isolate his relationship with the mother and I haven't been competing with the father on Again, Freudian very very Freudian So and then yeah, he comes out at the end and he's like even more weepy And then he just talks about like and this is where it really gets into like the AA shit

Really, he just talks about like I never thought I was worthy of redemption But like it's there. It's there for you to just like take out just grab take god's hand And he'll always give you redemption, you know and pull you up and it's just this like It just like we were talking when we were watching it like it's just you know Recovery is a good thing for people who need it. But like I am it's annoying when like, you know People who have fucked up just like lecture you about what you need to do in your life. Absolutely It's like, why am I taking your place? You should be listening to me

Yes, I haven't figured out I can I can have a drink and stop. Yeah, I got it all squared away, buddy Uh, but also, yeah, he then he just recapitulates the dream that he had as a child that the book is based on And it's like you're just describing a dream you had. I don't find that interesting from a friend And it's also one of the most literal dreams. Yeah, it's not like the old prospector came up to him and said Got a light. Yeah, got a light. Yeah got a light for like, you know, and then it was in black and white. Nobody talked backwards Yeah, uh, yeah, there was a storm and uh, court field for some reason and uh, god was there And he told me it was it was all going to be okay Uh, and then he taught me how to french kiss

And when I woke up my pillow was soggy So, yeah, that brings us that that's the end of the christmas sweater And again as I was watching it, I thought You know, we we talked about this in the beginning of the app like covering the arc of his career but I think like glenbeck really represents the the marriage of like two strains of Uh, sort of acceptable masculinity that was beginning to percolate in the 90s and sort of came to a head after 9 11 in american society On the one hand is the sort of like, yeah, as we said the kind of shock jock Angry white man figure who's falling down. Yeah, like the or like the anti-pc like i'm gonna say what I feel

Dennis leary, baby. Yeah, exactly like the kind of like yeah angry, uh white parola. Yeah The angry white guy thing every shock jock Yeah, we're like went back was and then at the same time like meeting together like at the you know peak of this pyramid With like the other movement that like it's okay for men to Share their feelings exactly and cry iron john like in men. Yeah, it's like it's actually like the promise promise scream Yeah, like the promise keepers that like yeah, you can just like think about your mother and you know Sort of regressed the childhood and like it's like actually the strongest thing you can do as a man

Yeah, he's like standing in a room full of strangers and weepily tell them a fucking christmas story that you made up That's true. And I just want to say Neither one of those versions of masculinity are acceptable absolutely Absolutely need to go away and just be like just put back. Yeah back in the evil pandora's box Yeah, which they uh, that ain't it chief. Yeah, so and glenn beck is the uh, perfect embodiment of it Yeah, he is he is the crucible. Oh, uh, one very funny point. I was looking at my notes here in the cornfield He's like talking to god and it's like the John Turturro monologue from Miller's crossing where he's just like Look at your heart Eddie

Look at your heart. I can't die out here in the cornfield like a dumb animal Yeah, I bumped my mom. Do I deserve to die for that? I saw an angle. I played it I got the bite. Tom look at your heart So yeah, glenn beck's the christmas sweater. Yeah, it was the hell of a film Thanks again to Dave Anthony and Josh Olson. Good looking out guys putting putting us on to that amazing piece of cultural minutia Yep, I think we learned a lot from it. How about this though? Do you guys have any closing thoughts on our 300th episode? Oh, man, it's been now Three years. We just started doing the shows. We just hit yep our three year anniversary. Yeah

300 episodes of chopper trap house soon. We'll be dead. Yeah. I say we don't make it to 400 I think we will come on. Oh, no, we absolutely hundreds of stretch. Come on I honestly think that it's gonna last for a while choppo forever is what I feel I really do feel like that Jen no, I mean I genuinely I would like to say it's by the way Everyone on the subreds gonna have a brain hemorrhage window here. You say they're not gonna be in a hundred more episodes. Yeah. Oh, oh, well But I'm not your doctor No, I I do want to say it is genuinely amazing that three years later. We're still doing this Yeah, including and I have to say this is one of the most fun episodes we've done in a long time

So it's good to know that it's still it's still a great time and we're still putting out You know, I gotta say we've since we've started doing two shows a week. We have never missed an episode. Yep We've kept it up. We're the mailman still fun and funny for me to do and I just am it's continued to be very heartened and impressed by how many people listen to the show And enjoy it. So I just figure like as long as I enjoy doing it, which I think it's pretty clear I absolutely still do it will still be fun to listen to and we are absolute I mean despite, you know, Virgil's doom saying we are absolutely going to be there through the 2020 election

Oh, there's no I mean we came we were birthed in the vial more into it Of more than my so for 2020 we are going to be there every step of the way And it's going to be it's going to be just the next year. It's the only way I see the show persisting is if we we Overcome a calamity if we we face adversity to struggle through it. That's the only thing that will convince me I do that every time we have to get lunch with you Virgil. Yeah, no, we've overcome a lot of adversity. It's called you No, yeah, you know, you're the adversity that keeps us together. Oh, I every day we sharpen our Our camaraderie against the fucking weathstone of your inconsiderateness and toilet issues That's not a problem. That's

That's not everyone uses the toilet So on behalf of why do you have a bag? Oh, I've always on time Don't listen to Virgil nothing. Nothing Virgil says his canon. Yeah, I say his canon. Yeah, absolutely Uh, we'll be here definitely through 400 episodes. Yeah well through the 2020 election and beyond Uh, but no again, thank you all for listening. Yep. And on behalf of myself Matt Virgil also Felix amber chris and brendan. Yep. Happy 300 episodes Uh, and happy and just thank you to you guys for making it all pop. Thank you, dude. Merry christmas. Merry christmas

Merry christmas, but to all a good night Oh Oh