Chapo Trap House - 514 - Cocaine Nights feat. Adam McKay (4/13/21)

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

Adam McKay stops by the pod to hear Felix’s pitch for a political rom-com, talk presidential animals, and discuss his new podcast Death at the Wing. Death at the Wing uses a series of deaths among NBA players in the 80’s as a lens to discuss the Reagan revolution, the war on drugs, and America’s shifting social and political landscape during that era. We get into all those issues with Adam, plus raccoons, tapirs, and samurai swords. Check out Death at the Wing here: https://www.threeuncannyfour.com/show/death-at-the-wing/

I have an idea for the worst romantic comedy that would ever be made that would make a billion dollars What do you got me my samurai sword? It's called it's called push pole and it's about a Democratic and Republican strategist Fall in love during a presidential campaign, but then they find out like Russia is involved with the Republican one and they like team up to stop it and the vice president on the Republican ticket is like a John McCain stand-in and He like they arrest the Republican candidate and then there's like a weird scene at the end where they're at It's Bradley Cooper and Alexandra Dadario, by the way

Dadario is the Republican Cooper's a Democrat and they're like they pass some like weird shitty bipartisan bill That's like kids from the inner city can like go to Dalton And they're all at the wedding and John McCain is dancing with them and they're like hey This is really great. There's still an execution at the end because both sides agree the dot penalty should still exist Yes, yes, no there is a there is an execution in real time Of the lethal injection gone wrong. It's actually like footage It's actual footage of a real execution you cut a hole in the edit of the movie And it's like okay, it's like yeah, I'm envisioning as the plungers on the poison go down

That like a Bradley Cooper and Alexandra Dadario They high-five freeze-frame Kenny log and song rolls and then you do bloopers over the end credits This is it no mistake or as the plunger goes down on the injection The blinds on their loft apartment in Soho come up Yeah, and then the Kenny log and song plays but covered by someone more recent. Yeah, someone cheaper There's so like Bradley Cooper has a dog He's a single dad in this obviously and his daughter is like a internet like SJW and And like the Cooper and Dadario are arguing and they're and he's like well at least I believe in science and she's like oh

Is is economics no longer a science or shit? And then the daughter goes like this is so hetero normative and they both say shut up at the same time Oh, that's a great trailer moment. Maybe we yeah, just shoot that moment Put out the trailer and then when people go to watch it It's just you on like cell phone video in a chair gone. There's no movie Sorry And why I need a samurai sword It's just it's a video of me with like a wooden practice samurai sword and it's like this is what I would do real thing

It's like me stopping muggings Whatever happened to Curtis Lee well, is he still alive? Oh, yeah, he's around. Yeah. Yeah, he was like a Trump guy How is he not a congressman? I mean, he just doesn't have to drive. Yeah Yeah, he's like I did see I saw like There was some there's like an old Ron Paul video I used to watch where Ron Paul is like on who is Morton Downey, Jr. right hell yeah, yeah, yeah and Like he's like anti-warren drugs and it's it's kind of like an interesting video because it's when like 95% of people were like if you smoke pot you should be executed

They should end your family bloodline and that's just I'm a moderate and yeah, no And he's just like Ron Paul is just getting screamed at for being like anti-warren drugs And one of the guardian angels is in the crowd and yells at him Oh, and the comments are cool because like, you know this stupid guardian angel outfit with all the symbols the red beret They're like look, they're not even hiding it. They're in the Freemasons It's when conspiracy theories were like adorable Yeah Freemate yeah, I think I'm gonna join the Freemasons after I make this movie get the samurai sword join the Freemasons and that's it

Iris out Iris out like a mother fuck We didn't even begin this conversation did we we went right to samurai sword to push pull Which pull by the way is rated NC 17 There's a full full penetration sexians in it. That's full big component How to revolutionize Hollywood in the 21st century like our rate our rated movies need to start having full penetration in them with real actors And they're real genitals and it's just standard. There's an intimacy coordinator on set. You just bang it out It's part of the business. You need a 20-minute full penetration scene

Any big Hollywood like you're not being responsible if you don't have that in your movie Like you don't you don't get the business of movies if you don't have that. Yeah, I'm glad I'm glad you understand it Like ruins people's immersion if it's just like they kiss and you cut away the next like no like what did they do? I do want to bring back the rated X rating like I do think that is the coolest of all the ratings like wasn't midnight Cowboy midnight cowboy was an X. Yeah, the only actually that's picture I gotta get a poster of that the fact that there is an actual poster with an X on it Well, they probably said not rated. I'm guessing not rated. That was like when I would not yet rated was cool When I was a kid because I always like I assumed it was like, oh, they're making a really fucked up scene

I Want not able to be rated. I want that to be like said about a movie. I've done no humans could determine a rating for this Yeah, but yes, I'm in Sam mission samurai sword. Well, I suppose we should Officially start the show. This is now the get Felix a samurai sword podcast and project but it's shop. Oh, and of course joining us today it is Adam McKay who's back again and And Adam, you know after conquering Hollywood Guess that's not good enough for him is now moving into the podcast game And we are going to talk a little bit about his new your new podcast called death at the wing

Which I was surprised to learn isn't actually not a true crime series about a series of murders that the popular women's only young professional working space But is indeed actually about basketball and the culture of America and its politics in the 1980s But Adam before we get into that, it's a little bit of breaking news. I was wondering if you had a comment on comes courtesy of the New York Times Major one of Biden's German shepherds will be sent away for training after biting incidents Adam Is it time to terminate major's command with extreme prejudice or we've been coddling this dog too long God damn, that's huge. I kind of wish you guys had told me that was going on because we could have rescheduled I got a process like 40 things right now

I think like, you know, look America's become a bit unmoored of late And I think we need like clear right and wrong and laws and consequences I think a very tastefully done Euthanization of major like if it was done and keep in mind don't take this out of context done in a responsible way With proper warnings to show that you can't behave that way that there are rules even for the presidential dog And maybe it's pay-per-view. Maybe there's a you know, maybe it's streamed whatever But I think that's the only way to handle this. Otherwise, I feel like Biden's gonna just come off Like a socialist a weak-need socialist like he needs to take a strong line here

I like that. I like that. They have like there's like a dog Rosemary Kennedy So fucked up a dog Billy Carter It says here a major the Biden's younger dog will undergo some additional training to help him adjust to life in the White House said Michelle Oh, wait spokesman for Jill Biden The off-site private training will take place in the Washington area and is expected to last a few weeks now I just want to make it clear here that a common side effect of this dog training is that major Will possibly return a different size shape and color, but just don't be surprised. It major is fine He's gonna be a good boy

We're gonna start freeze framing pictures of major to see slight changes in the spots like the black against gray Wait, wait, so I don't get it. So major was the one who's save a bull Who's the one who's no longer in the White House champ champ? I think both gone now because they're both going ham I think what's gonna happen is I think that the two weeks are gonna Elapse major is not coming back and then eventually somebody in the White House press corps is gonna ask at a press conference What happened to major and they're gonna say oh, what's major what? We never had a dog named major and then everyone will just agree and you'll actually be racist if you say that major ever existed

Yeah, there will be articles in the New York Times that are like wire journalists like gaslighting us Like this is abusive They they're gonna bring it back and it will be it'll be like my mom's dog like one of those Anyone if it wanted to I like he went a little he went a little right wing with his dogs like he had to do this I have a shepherd mix. I love shepherds, but there's a statement behind it Like how many hours do you think we're spent or maybe it's minutes naming the dog champ? Like how long was that just cut was the dog already named before he came in or was it a dog?

They got for the present. I have no idea how this dog That's I know he always had those dogs and it's like oh he did that's all signaling kind of like unintentional signaling by biden because like Biden is from another era like that type of guy the type of guy who like You know, I you know, I like bullshitting with the boys, but like when I talked to my 50 year old son I'm like, I love you my sweet sugar angel. You're my most handsome guy in the world. I always knew it and you You know, you have two huge dirty dogs that you name like yeah rover and major But then the next generation of democrats like the guys after job. I didn't like They have some weird protracted relationship with their son because like the son went to tish and they wanted him to go to

Tops or some stupid bullshit and like yeah, their dog is named Thelonious Joe Biden just like found his fucking dogs. Yeah, they just like showed up at his front door one day He's like, all right fine Yeah, like that's a generational thing But I do I do like it is sort of charming to me that He has such shitty dog So poorly behaved like it's awesome It is we had a rescue uh our last rescue who died like a year and a half ago was named pumpkin

My daughter's named him and he was a shepherd mix And right out of the gate. He bit three or four people and that was it. He was done like By the way, he nipped him. He did the front teeth kind of nip like tear the clothes a little bit It wasn't actual attacks But like at that point I even had to tell my kids like we can't do this anymore and they cried so hard That we did the trainer who saved his life like who got him in line a nut He was always a lunatic sweetheart to us, but uh, yeah, I kind of with you on that I like I like people that have screwed up dogs

I I I feel immediately at home if I come over to someone's house and there's dog crap on the floor of their living Yeah, yeah, I respect people who are really good at training their dogs And like it does show like that's probably what you should do and if the dog isn't freaking out It does show like a level of comfort and like love But when you just like have no idea what the fuck you're doing and you're like, yeah Let's just like get another so he has a friend and now you just have like two Dogs and freak out all the time It is like

Ah, well, that's like it shows like a level of simplicity in a person that it's real I think what you're saying is it's one little drip of reality in a completely curated Environment. Yeah. Yeah, and I'll take it. I'll take it. I'm hungry enough for it. I welcome it. Yeah, absolutely Let's just give him a rocket launcher. It'll calm him down a little bit. Let's strap it to his neck Yeah, like there were there were no That is sort of the fucked up thing about trump. They just he'd like hates animals Yeah, and it's like baron probably wanted like a fucked up. He probably wanted like a monitor lizard There's just none in there

Obama had the portuguese water dogs like that's what I had growing up and that is like That's such signaling because it's like, I know how I grew up I grew up in an annoying neighborhood. I was an annoying kid and that's like, yeah an upper middle class dog but I don't know. Yeah, it's cool to have like an actual Horrified fucked up animal in there. I want someone to come into the white house get like, you know Five different breed combo mutt kind of a little bit ugly one of those dogs that's always panting And just chain it up in the front lawn

Be that family that just doesn't give a shit and it digs holes and then there's worn dirt around The pole that it's chained to and crap everywhere. It's just it's just tied to an engine block on the uh in the rose garden I look, you know what the next step is like this is how you know, you have a completely normal president if they have like A golden retriever or a lab that's about 50 pounds overweight and is like so unhealthy that its fur is oily And yeah smells fucking terrible And the president claims that it's like mixed with pit bull and very strong And like ends up accidentally killing it by trying to get it high I want one president to have a dog where all the hair on the back end is like scratched off

Like that look I love that look Yeah, it's like that is beautiful to me when someone has a dog that just serves no like it's just like It's like a guy with dementia It's just so fucked up because that like you purely love that dog because that dog is such a fucking Pain in the ass to hat you have to go to the doctor so much. It's like living with A 98 year old grandparent. Yeah, you but like it means you really love him You bought a sick a sick creature basically. Yeah, I want a seriously ill creature in my life Yeah, that's like pretty much all dogs though like our first dog when I was a kid

Last three years it was in that state all the hair scratched off it half blind And you're kind of like you're so into it at that point. We still loved it like crazy I think that dog lived to be like some crazy age like 16, which is like a lot for a dog Yeah, that was my my dog growing up. It was like, yeah, porgy's water dog and like the last like four years of her life She had no eyesight and would just like walk into chairs and anytime she saw like Really any animal she would just freak out and try to kill it She was she had like severe social anxiety She was just so fucked up by the end of her life

But it was like no, this is the greatest most beautiful dog in the world Do you think there was ever a discussion? No, wait, I'm always curious Did Obama get those dogs before the White House or after? No, I got them for the White House That was a classic PR deal, you know, Kelvin Coolidge had Raccoons in the White House. Really? That's fucking cool Wait, wait, not just as like a pest like they were just in the old as they were Pets, you had two come on two raccoons Rebecca and Reuben were their names Wait a minute. Awesome. I didn't know they were named Rebecca and Reuben. Were they really?

Yeah, this is like gray gardens. Basically, did he have a old No, Coolidge had the most pets of any present. He had like six eight dogs Different types like a bunch of collies and German like the fucking Queen of England and then he also had a goose He had a small tiger He had a dog. Was he fucking Scarface? Jesus. Yes He was like he was like a Russian. Holy shit. Yeah He had a gift where you could talk to mustelids. Yeah, and then other countries would gift us gift him Pets and then like animals and he would keep them too like a fucking wallaby

pygmy hippo We got uh years ago eskibar. Yeah years ago. It was david ol russell's birthday This is like 15 years ago and he was shooting movie. He was doing i-heart huckabees and On occasion russell's been known to enjoy marijuana and I heard he was enjoying it on that set on occasion Uh, and so we said let's gift him for his birthday two dogs And we got a friend who had a couple scroungy mutts And we had someone come by set with a leash and like bullshit papers

And say oh no, no wait. We didn't do this to him. We did it to will ferrell. That's what we did We gave uh, we gave david ol russell a hummer We gave we we actually rented a hummer and had someone go deliver the papers and keys to him on set And for like I was told for like five minutes. He believed it But no we did it to ferrell ferrell's harder to get we I think there was like 50 seconds of genuine confusion, but My favorite thing is the idea of giving people animals as pets and I really want to get up the nerve to just start I might gift your show an animal. It might be coming. I would just get us like a really smelly serval cat

I would love that dude I would love the miserable thing. It just won't stop whining and peening and pissing all over everything I want to uh like to have a lawsuit. I have to have against the city That no one is on my side for Like it's just like you universally hated like I have an animal that should never be kept in an apartment Like I have like a taper I think everyone's just like fuck you. I get screamed at every time I leave my place I was just saying the other day to my wife because there's an article about the cherry blossoms in japan

uh blossoming 12 like earlier than they have in like 1200 years And it was both the most beautiful picture yet creepiest article So I was predicting next strange events that are going to happen with climate change And my prediction was a taper appears in san Antonio. That's my prediction I think I think this is an extremely positive augury for the future in my Yeah, it's called the taper of good luck when that paper appears that is the sign that uh that felix will be getting his samurai sword Yes It was the uh the the first snowy owl

Uh spotted since the 19th century in central park. Uh, that's a thing now So the the owls are the owls are coming back. Yeah, I want a taper to bite dajante murry in san Antonio I want and then it would be a then the story will all watch as no one really cares about the story That's always a heavy part of this. But yeah, derrick white or dajante murry for the spurs are attacked by a taper And uh, so I'm that's that's my next strain. There was one that was about an orca whale or it was a way Maybe it wasn't an orca whale, but there was a whale I think it was an orca whale in like a harbor in scotland And it was just yeah. Oh, well, whatever everyone just moved on. Uh, you're listening to uh animal chat with uh

Matt Willis Phillips film director adam mckay you guys you guys are abusing me because I will go any direction I will talk about anything. Uh, so yes, you lead and I will follow Well, you you brought up a nba players So that's the uh, uh, the perfect segue to uh, the podcast uh death at the wing again Not about murders at the uh female co-working space, but no in fact, uh adam So like basically like that the show is about basketball and the nba being kind of like A skeleton key like opening the door or sort of a rosetta stone for like translating the culture and politics of the america in the 1980s

Like how did basketball like how was that at your sort of gateway into this idea? Well, I mean, it's obviously my personal kind of lens on it But as a as someone who grew up on the dividing line of the 70s and 80s, I got to experience both sides of that fence And I got to experience the radical change and I happened to be an insane NBA fan. So for years, I've just had this question like Why is it all these guys died in the 80s into the 90s and like I've never read any big Peace about it. I've I've heard a lot of stuff about them individually, but it's never been looked at as kind of a thing that happened So pretty quickly when we dove into it, we realized it was a little bit like what happened with Hollywood where Hollywood hit

And there was a new level of fame in like the 60s So you had these people dying from pills and alcohol and 50s into the 60s and then it became cocaine So we realized it was kind of new kind of fame tremendous money But then we noticed that it was also on the back end how strange it must have been you have these African-American guys suddenly making millions of dollars and becoming incredibly famous while their communities Are directly under attack And then that's when we started kicking around this idea that this explosion the birth of the NBA

Harmonized in an interesting way with the rise of the right wing and the Reagan Revolution And then when we got to the point of like Drazen Petrovic and it was the fall of the Berlin Wall And then it went into cutting mental health care with Ricky Berry. We're like, oh wait a minute. This is an interesting You know sort of Adam Curtis Causality, it's not like direct But it's really interesting to talk about both narratives next to each other Well, yeah, I mean you I mean like, yeah, this spate of high-profile deaths of Athletes and you know, probably the most famous one being Len bias and I guess like my most important and pressing question

about that episode is You can die from doing cocaine And like how much cocaine are we talking here? You definitely can and it's there was another guy who died at the same time in football There was a player for the Bengals, I believe who also died from cocaine You know what it is athletes are uniquely vulnerable to it because NBA players, especially Have just these incredibly powerful hearts. So you'll hear about guys like Pete Merovich or Hank Gathers is another death from that period who because their hearts are so robust

It exposes flaws. So I think that's why you saw it a little bit with the NBA and There's an argument about Reggie Lewis, whether it was just a heart defect or was it cocaine. So that's another one Um, but yeah, if you have a long story short if your heart is at all sketchy, you can definitely die from coke Yeah Bigger guys like yeah, pretty much universally in all sports like they tend to die at younger ages there was a One of the first champions in sort of the modern era of the UFC Evan Tanner It wasn't coke or like drugs necessarily

But yeah, like he got lost in the desert and he did do a lot of drugs He did have problems with sobriety and like his heart just fucking gave out. Wow. Like it's yeah Remember that that's a bad thing. He got lost in the desert Yeah, it's it was a wild story and it like it kind of reminded me a lot of this Where I mean he didn't necessarily like have the money or the fame of someone like Len bias Or the Len bias was going to have but He was someone who sort of like flamed out from success who already like had his own demons But yeah, no guys who are it's like every inch you go past like six one

Typically shave like 10 years off a guy's life. Jesus. It's one of those things. I'm six five. That sucks I Really am That's well, it's the same with dogs. If you never move you'll be fine. That's what I'm doing because I'm six three And I plan to live forever by never moving I'm shaving. I'm shaving skin off the bottom of my feet Every year I'm like six one flat and by I think by the time I'm 45 I'll be down to five three at a good height for you. I've always thought that always thought that's a good height for you

What's going to be interesting for Felix once he gets his four million dollar samurai sword What's that going to do to him because that's going to be a similar thing where it's explosion of wealth and fame Your profile is going to triple I'd love a behind the music style decline about Felix. I want I want to see Felix just unwind at all I can I've already imagined being interviewed for that segment being like I I knew he was going the Mishima route as soon as we got him the sword. I feel guilty about it to this day Yeah, I want to do I want to do it Mishima did but like in Chicago No, you're trying to inspire the masses to uh to to rally around emperor JB Pritzker

Yeah, yeah, we have to restore the Illinois empire like just something that's never existed What was the place where the Mormons parked was that Cairo, Illinois where they they posted up for a little while Bring back the greatness of Cairo. Um, yeah, it was crazy like looking at these guys too There's a guy some of them like we're doing a ton of cocaine drinking a ton of beer And like there was like Chris Washburn at one point after he stopped playing was drinking like a A case and a half a beer a day But Roy Tarpley was a player who would do tremendous amounts of cocaine and then come back and play and still be incredible

Still put up like 20 and 20 Still be like borderline all the NBA then he would get busted again go out come back 20 and 20 and That's the thing like, you know, if if I'm up to 1 a.m. I can't make a free throw And uh, I mean, you know your your your series, you know, he shows the shows the dark side of cocaine and athletics But I mean perhaps, you know, both sides need to be illustrated and you can do a follow-up series about the 1980s Mets and uh, how good and successful cocaine made all of them It was uh, and uh, and just speed straight up speed, right? Didn't they have the big bowl of speed before they would go on the field?

Uh, yeah, the Mets, uh, there's a lot of happy endings with that crowd except many Dijkstra Which I would debate is still a happy ending, but that's that's a controversial opinion. I have but um, yeah, the Mets, uh Daryl Strahler, I guess Dwight Gooden isn't doing so great, but uh, is he all right? Is he clean again? I can't remember Gooden Strahler. He's doing okay, right? Yeah, it worked pretty well for him. Josh. What's his name? Josh Gordon the receiver Has I mean once again, god bless him the guy's struggling hard, but I think he's bounced out of the league I'm not exaggerating five times and still is so talented that he comes back every time

Is that his name? Josh Gordon the receiver used to be for the Browns Went to the Patriots went to the Seahawks keeps getting Chance after chance because he's so incredible. Uh, I'll take my answer off air Adam But no, I mean like who's talking about it. I mean like and thinking about the the Len bias episode I mean you quote. I think uh, Bradley Balco saying that like, you know, Len bias was like the Archduke Ferdinand of America's war on drugs but like, you know But outside of that like I mean just so you get this sense like how much like was like cocaine and it's like it's like industrial scale import into America

Kind of like the phantom thread of like the 1980s and like in everything Yeah, I mean I've lived in Miami in the late 70s. So I have like relatives down in Miami and No one's gonna say it out loud, but like clearly everyone down there was profiting from all that drug money just Rolling into Miami and then you're absolutely right the kind of irrational exuberance this kind of teeth gnashing greed that hit us in the 80s Was all being driven by that club culture. I mean I I was shocked to hear that wit stillman the filmmaker actually is a republican because you watch his movies and they play like brilliant satire

Of that right wing kind of disco club culture Um, but I guess they were just incredibly well observed, but it was it was I mean I was alive during it We were broke as shit. So we were like beer And pot and then like a friend of mine would get a bottle of jack daniel So it wasn't till I was in college that I had a friend Who had a friend from a rich family that could get cocaine because he was really expensive back then so we were mostly beer and shots and pot, but uh

But yeah, it was definitely everywhere and it was definitely part of that wall street kind of mythology And of course it flowed right through the nba. I mean the nba was just doing what other rich people were doing They were getting fancy cars. They were doing coke. They were getting nice clothes and that's what every Successful rich person was doing except of course they happen to be people of color So, you know the right wing and and in fairness even the democrat the right wing and the democrats both pounced on this Um, I think that's another thing that's lost about the regan revolution is it didn't just hit the republican party It hit both parties full-on smack in the middle of the face and uh And you see it in the len bias thing with tippo neil and the democrats and jill biden being a part of that omnibus bill

That were on drugs omnibus bill. So every president for the past two decades democrat and republic and alike has declared war on drugs And each of them has lost that war and lost it miserably We don't oppose the president's plan All we want to do is strengthen it We don't doubt his resolve All we want to do is stiffen it The trouble is that the president's proposals are not big enough to deal with the problem

It really was a huge thing because it intersected the crazy wealth But it allowed people to scapegoat and blame because you had minorities I mean, yeah, you bring up the tippo neil and like jill biden example as like, you know, like the democrats to sort of They're like, oh like, you know, the country's going in this direction. We got to follow suit You know, we got to remain relevant and like they come out with this like yeah Was it like this big in the anti drug abuse act of 1986? Which was yeah like established the established things like this like huge disparity in sensing between crack and powder cocaine And it was like this for example of like

It like it is like the most like right wing authoritarian like like surveillance control discipline punishment All that and then like they sent it to the republicans and what do they do? They're like, oh, it's not right wing enough So it's just like it's a permanent illustration of like the classic method by which like The democrats ensure that policy will only go to the right wing in this country exactly like and someone kind of criticized us because we portray the republicans as Just flat out evil and we portray the democrats as kind of bumbling and lacking vision And they're like, why aren't the democrats evil in that case too? And I was like, you know what that's a fair point

I can't really argue with that. I mean It's every bit is craven on the side of the democrats too to do that and Maybe some cases we because they always play it like they're the washington generals of political parties They always play it like they're almost going to win and they just fail And we've seen that move over and over and over again either it's that move or it's the total capitulation and Uh, maybe it is just time to start, you know Reframing it after we've been burned by that move like 75 times um

But that's one of the first big ones where you start to see the democrats really follow The right wing talking points where the right wing talking points are becoming so accepted And popular that it doesn't even occur to the democrats to counter them I mean, I would argue that just like not fighting it is kind like even if you just take it like that level of intent That they're too afraid to fight it or they're they're incompetent like that is kind of evil Because like even if it's just that if you get into that position where you are Supposed to be the opposition party and you just completely roll over well that it like that's just sort of yeah evil through cowardice Or evil through not giving a shit

Well, there was a level of naivete though. Don't you think I mean maybe I'm wrong on this but it seemed like The right wing mastered the talking points the focus groups kind of rewrote the mythology after decades of trial and error And it did seem like the democrats were pretty oblivious to it like they were just like what do you mean? It's policy is policy and they got their butts kicked by now though that excuse does not hold Yeah, that's for sure. Well, like have you ever read the uh that book, uh, I think it's called the ambition power It's like about the downfall of the gym, right? No. No. No. What's it called the ambition of power the ambition and the power I'm probably fucking that title up, uh, but it's yeah, it's about gym, right? and it's an interesting book because of

I mean the democrats were just like completely complacent like sort of a mirror of this time where after obama or during obama It was like, oh, well, we're just gonna hold on to the executive branch forever And then that clearly didn't happen and I think there was sort of a similar Mindset with democrats where it's just like well, they're never gonna take the house from us. So like who gives you shit? I mean, it's also strange like it because the democrats were you know, even in the 80s the republicans were using race baiting They were appealing to you know accesses and income and blah blah blah So they were they were pretty clearly the bad guys even in the 80s and I think the democrats just Assumed they would always be the good guys

While they were getting economically captured slowly and slowly to the point where The whole party just became larry summers saying don't rattle the markets You know, it just all kind of funneled into that and that's basically where the party's stuck Right now and it was and it was easy to do that because the republicans kept getting worse Which meant that you could Also get worse, but still be the good guys because you're getting worse at a slower pace Yeah, yeah, they've been it's relativity. I mean, it's it's it actually is relativity done as a

Information warfare technique. It's it's because there's no there's only two parties There's no third force that can provide a contrast. So you get you get to Define the terms at every point. You don't have to worry about anybody saying hey like what where are you relative to where you were? Even a few years ago because there's no there's no power that can articulate that I used to we used to do a bit at parties back in the 90s this writer from snl with would Go up to people at crowded parties and start saying you got to be careful

There's this weird guy around here who's trying to get people I think it's a cult He's trying and right at that moment I would walk up and I would start to talk to the people About you know all the garbage in their life or they tired of feeling uncertain And my friend would kind of be like acting like I'm a lunatic And then I would eventually leave and then my friend would try and recruit them And sometimes we would go to the east village, which is a really fun place to talk religion with people especially in the 90s And people get so fucking mad at us, but we would just do it

We endlessly amused by it where my friend would play the same person or this other writer Dennis McNicholas would do it and be like, I don't know what it is with that guy Listen, anyway, some friends and I are gonna meet tomorrow. We're gonna get some coffee You have some muffins. Maybe you want to join and they would slowly realize he was in on it, but um, that's it I mean, that's the game. It's it's 40 years and it's worked just beautifully I mean, I guess I got another element about like the the dawn of like the the real like war on drugs Like the major escalation of the war on drugs and like how big a role crack played in it And this like this idea of like crack is like there is just like a racialized version of cocaine

It's like the exact same drug and it points to this idea that like, you know, the war on drugs and the people who created it And escalated it like yeah, sure It's about winning elections And you also make the point that it's about kind of like a Sop to all of the voters who are being lives are being devastated by the industrialization the smashing of unions and like the You know cutting of the threadbare american social safety net But it's also like really like in its actual implementation about like an explicitly like racial form of social control and discipline Absolutely, I think I mean if anything that might be the real headline and we try and end the episode with it

You could argue on some level. There's like genocidal qualities to the war on drugs I mean the amount if you look at the numbers of people that have died not to mention being in prison being stripped of the Right to vote fracturing families. I mean this is I mean, this is one of the things I was talking recently about with a friend is just that like We don't know how to talk about some of these subjects or our popular culture doesn't have any Room or isn't designed to talk about some of these subjects with the The sheer scope of how horrible they are. I was talking about like income inequality in the u.s Like you'll see articles about it, but like

It's a thousand times worse like you you can just make sounds about how bad it is And it's the same thing with the war on drugs like we talk about it as some policy choice and it affected certain segments of our population But the raw human toll Um, I I we sort of get to it at the end of the episode, but your point is very well taken It's a thousand times worse than we even think about it when it's written on the page I mean, yeah, I remember when I was a kid and like the the sort of like the the anti drug You know education and propaganda that you know, we were subjected to like both in terms of like tv commercials And you know part of the school curriculum like crack was like

The most terrifying evil thing imaginable. It was like if you touch it once you'll be like hopelessly addicted And you'll be like killing your parents or whatever. There's all this stuff about you know, crap babies It was like, you know sort of minting this like new generation of like mutant super criminals or whatever And you know what little and behold what we find like all of that was bullshit Like all of that like like crack babies like aren't a thing like yes Like infants are born with like a mild addiction to a drug But like it certainly is as opposed to like what smoking or drinking does to like have over heavily drinking and smoking like what that would do during like to a pregnancy as compared to crack cocaine

Is or even just ridiculous fumes from gasoline like what the The devastation of just gasoline and pollution the amount of people that kills every year So I grew up on that dividing line. So I grew up in the 70s Where we were worshiping chi chong Pot leaves like drugs were cool like drugs were mainstream like, you know, bill walton For ucla went to john wooden and said look i'm gonna smoke pot You can either bust me on it or just accept it and wooden was like all right smoke your pot like That was the 70s and then the 80s. There was like this head jerking

turn that was bizarre And you know, obviously we don't it's healthy not to be doing cocaine and a bunch of this stuff But the sort of anger that it came in with this Just immediately like within six to eight months. It was just this like Like hard firm hand had come into our culture. Whereas Four years earlier. We were laughing at chi chong It was a really strange sudden turn and I will say that it totally hooked me because I was a little kid Uh in in that uh like hysterical crack cocaine

moment and I did not think drugs were cool at all in fact I had a little mini recorder, you know with a little mini cassette And I made a tape of anti-drug skits and raps Oh my god, oh my god Five years in the show and we're like everything down the lost christman tapes. This is If there are lots of what I was like 10 years old Talk to your parents. There was one there was one rap song that I remember recording

But the rest of them was literally just me like doing a sketch where it's like, uh, hi, I'd like to buy some crack Sure. Here's the crack, uh police It was just me shooting he was like little radio sketches of me murdering drug dealers There's an alternative timeline where you're like you're like a christian rapper. Yeah, totally That would have been awesome. I actually still remember one line from the rap And it's about me being uh Uh, it's about I'm being peer pressured by people to get me to do drugs And they say they said I was weak. They said I should drink tea

And I said, sorry dudes. I like my wits about me bars bars bars So wait drop that bomb drop that bomb So you were carrying around the recorder kind of like the first time the Beatles got high And they were just recording everything. So you were just like I've tapped into something larger and more powerful than me I better carry this recorder around. I these drugs are killing people. I need to do something I need to help the culture I remember being afraid of Led Zeppelin and Ozzy Osmore. Their music is way too scary. Their music is way too scary

Yeah, I was like in fifth grade and I had friends playing Ozzy Osmore and you forget Ozzy Osbourne came out and like That like Blizzard of Oz stuff was like 1979 1980 it was like way ahead of the curve And my friends were listening to it and I remember having the thought like is it possible? This actually is devil music That was that was kind of my moment like you were the recorder although near not nearly as complex or disturbing or Cool, it's the word you're looking for I mean this funny is like I feel like like most of the anti drug education I received just like taught me about drugs

That I otherwise wouldn't have known about like when they're like, you know, like there's things out there They're called psychedelics like mushrooms lsd acid is what it's called And if you take it you will you know, you'll begin to see things And you'll begin to like see things like of the cartoons you watch on tv, but they're real and happening to you I was just like Okay, interesting. I'm just gonna just take a little note there I know so there's stories because you of course weren't gonna listen to nancy regan You were gonna that just nancy regan was the dream person

To say don't do something to make me want to do it in one of the episodes I think it's the lin bias one a richard dumas who was a forward for the sons who had substance abuse issues? He actually said Nancy regan saying don't do it made us want to do it more And I I think that was our experience too was when we heard all this You know, this is your brain on drugs and it just made it like a joke because the ads were so square unless you were 9 10 years old you were gonna listen to carlos castanada or uh, you know Uh, jim morris and more than you were gonna listen to nancy regan. Well, I mean it makes it you could kind of imagine

It's part of the the broader uh Marketing push since while the top while nancy's out there saying just say no her husband's administration is Uh, moving more weight than any cartel on earth It's like you got hey guys Don't do drugs with quotation marks. We got to fund these contras somehow The episode came out and a friend of mine who grew up in south centrals like Man, you should have called me. I would have put you in touch with people who were getting drugs from the government

And that's one friend, you know, right away. Someone just tells me like, oh, yeah They had a whole system where you get a flag on your house and that meant no, this is anecdotal This is being told to me by a friend So I'm not saying this definitely happened But it was just funny that immediately the episode just came out on wednesday immediately a friend was like, why didn't you call me? That was going on in south centrals. Like, oh, yeah, you're right. So I mean, is that what what's the status on that? Is it now? Is it like a hundred percent fact that the government was moving?

Cracked cocaine and cocaine in the inner cities in the u.s. Adam according to the cia's twitter account. They've looked into the issue and found no evidence for this so So that's that. Yeah. All right. So it didn't happen. All right. Thank you. I need to leave it on that. It's false No way not this time. Yeah, I think it's pretty well established that the bare bare minimum that even the cia is admitted is that they're uh, they're associates in in the uh, war on the contras were in fact moving cocaine often with uh, cia personnel doing the moving

Uh, and cia airplanes and stuff like that. Uh, but I I I would say pretty confidently that they were aware of it I mean the cia the intelligence community has moved drugs since it was founded It's like the best way to get it's it's a it's an instant source of liquid Cash for any project you might want to carry off. It's true. Yeah, and I knew that I knew that they were overseeing and using the drug trade I just always wondered about the Direct contact with the drug trade. It actually doesn't now that I say it out loud doesn't sound like something they would do They would have middlemen. They would have associates doing it the idea of an actual cia agent

Going to like Crenshaw and like yeah, no, they wouldn't need to they have people They have cut out some contractors at every point to do that kind of stuff They just need to make sure that they're getting their beaks wet. Was it halterman? Who is the nixon? A guy who said on his deathbed just outright said yeah, we created the war on drugs So we could put hippies and black people in prison. Yeah, it was I think it was earlickman But yeah, it was one of those two guys in his book. Yeah. Yeah, you just said yeah, we Yeah, you just look at our political enemies like it's like they're the people who do dope So yeah, it's a no-brainer for us. So when people trying to argue about it. I'm like, oh, no, they I think you're right

I think it was earlickman. I was like, no, they admitted it like I love things like fog of war the movie fog of war Where it just McNamara looks at the camera and just says it was a disaster the vietnam war was a bad idea like We're talking about that documentary might have had more of an impact than just about anything I've ever seen before because there was an argument at that time kicking around That the vietnam war did have some advantages that it did do some good stuff And then that documentary came out and it was just over you never heard that ever again That documentary had a tremendous effect on me as a child because I um Before that documentary I wanted to be a green beret who comes back and is a liberal senator

And when I saw it in like 2004 I was like, oh like war is bad. Okay. I used to think you should still keep that dream That's a good one. That's like imagine what you could do in the senate with that samurai sword. Oh, that's true Yeah, it would be like yeah, it would be the reverse of the uh, who is the confederate guy? Charles Sumner With the king. Oh, yeah Do you know there's a speech from jeb bush and i'm not kidding where he went on the floor of the state legislature in florida And held a samurai sword and did a speech about it and talked about oh, yeah, I've seen that. Yeah Yeah, unboxing video bush family edition

I think it was called like that's sort of chang or something. Oh, okay. No, yeah. Yes. So that's a joke in the bush family Yeah, unleash sort of a ching haishak. It was ching haishak sword. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah So like george hw bush when he was making fun of like birchers and more hard right people in the party They would uh, they were saying like, oh, I know we shouldn't open up china We should defeat china by unleashing chang. Well, that was that was that was the thing that bircher said They said we should be using taiwan as like a staging ground for re evasion of china Yeah, and but hw poppy when he was playing tennis against people and he was losing he'd be like Oh, don't make me unleash chang like it was like, oh, wouldn't that be ridiculous if we did that?

Like isn't that so fucking stupid? But his dumb ass son Was like, oh, yeah unleash chang the cool thing my dad talked about. Is that the jeb bush speech in florida? Is that what it was? Yeah. Oh man I gotta get a transcript of that. Yeah, because it was maybe it was even you guys I heard this from someone was talking about how jeb bush is much stranger Then he's ever given credit for like he's actually a really weird dude who's said a lot of strange things through the years Even though he was supposedly the good son. I'll never forget him petting that moose

Yeah, I'm saying good little moose He's like he's as he would expect like someone who's Was born to those parents to be like just like a completely blunted human affect I always say that you can tell the line When you see a family where all the kids are in like their 30s 40s and 50s And they still call the parents daddy and mommy like that's it. That's all you need to know I'm one of the other things I was thinking about listening to the show and like the villain bias episode and

You brought up like a little earlier like talking about this dramatic shift And like our american culture from the 70s to the 80s like going from like for hey like Cheech and Chong is like, you know, everyone's favorite comedians like Smoking a doobie man like that's fun and cool and the way that which the way that which the word malaise became like such a prominent thing in like our americ like sort of political lexicon and the idea that like Reagan ended the malaise of the 70s like what What do you think people are really like mean when they talk about the malaise of the 70s?

Because I think it's just like the findings of the church committee is what they're talking about and like getting past all that And by getting past all that I mean erasing all of it and pretending like it never happened and but like but also like just like the broader culture of kind of like a A a a freedom and kind of like a opening up of american society that was like the door to that was just slam shut I think that because if you look at what happened A lot of it is exactly how a democracy is supposed to function You had a free press bust a corrupt president You had people across party lines make sure that president would no no longer hold power

You ended an insane war although we kind of just lost that war is really the reason we left But still we ended it poverty was that I believe at that time the early 70s an all-time low For the whole nation unions were strong And I think it was the peak of self-governance for people I think it was like the high point for america where citizens were actually somewhat responsible for governing and carter talked to them like that and he said like Look, we're in a rough spot right now. We've got the oil crisis crisis. We've got stagflation He never actually said the word malaise in that famous speech, but

I think everyone just freaked out. It was almost like too much like You forget that we just haven't had democracies for that long And there was this moment where it was just all too much. It was all too real And you know, we just learned that MK ultra was real We you know the vietnam war stagflation all this stuff the president talked to us like actual grown-ups And I remember being a little kid and hearing that china had called america paper tiger and asking my parents what that meant And there was a general feeling that america was really down and out So, yeah, whether it was just too much whether it was the you know

democracy taken to probably its highest point in america or Whether it was never going to go in that direction. I'm not exactly sure but That reagan voice when it hit because I was in sixth grade seventh grade. I had no Interpretation of it. I didn't care right wing left wing. I just remember everyone was very calmed by him and very excited and it was the greatest casting choice in in history and even my parents who were democrats were Didn't really hate him that much I thought it was a little ridiculous that he was a movie star

Like I can't believe they elected this guy, but there was a general calm that he brought I mean, obviously i'm generalizing like crazy because there were tons of people that were pulling their air out And saying what the hell are we doing? But you know, uh, one of the the interviews we do in that episode One of our guests. I think it's uh, is it jane mayor as someone says that uh, it was remarkable How little outcry there was over the reagan agenda that it was shocking you think he was undoing the great society the new deal You know, he cut taxes down. I believe it was 26. It was like Radical radical things and there really wasn't that much of an outcry and and that's what I remember Anecdotally from that time. I mean to get back to the democrats for a second. I think another funny thing in the the one

bias episode is like tip o'neils rolling all this is like the boston guy and I mean, I I don't know like how directly this is implied, but I certainly have the thought that like in A real animating force behind a lot of this like truly cruel and draconian drug prosecution Was just the fact that like cocaine robbed the Celtics of like another championship You know what I don't think that's that crazy I mean, I'm not saying it's the driving force because it there's certainly a lot of incentives to do it But I mean the Celtics were the whitest team in the nba. I mean, they were the team

Where red hour back had tried to put a diverse team on the court in the 60s into the 70s He did he was one of the most progressive Uh, you know coaches team presidents of the time with having a black team on the court and they couldn't sell tickets in boston They were winning all those championships And they were still the fourth sport like people as a kid. I lived in Worcester, Massachusetts All I never heard about the Celtics. It was always the Bruins and the red socks. That was it And so he then made the switch and he was like, all right, I gotta get white guys and he just started and it got crazy I mean, it got to the point where like, you know, he's going for white superstars, but then it's even like the 11th 12th man

It's like rick carlyle Greg kite. I mean every gerry seasting like there's just murderers row of c-basketball players That if they were out there the Celtics or the jazz the utah jazz, we're gonna grab them. You knew those two teams Um, and the Celtics were the world champions too. They just won an 86 Uh, so I I don't think that's a preposterous statement. I mean it did ripple all around the country and sports Sports are like at the center of everything. It's like sports sex and sleep and food, you know So I do think it had an impact. There you go folks. Once again, it has been established Over and over again the Boston sports fandom is basically the dark heart beating at the center of all American evil

I'm from Worcester. So I I can't I grew up in Worcester and I can't comment on that although I did move to Philadelphia Which may have had an even crazier fan base than Boston. We love we love we love our garbage city, Philadelphia Love Philadelphia. Oh my god That's where you get a dog with it's all the hair on its back and scratched off. That's where First time I was in Philadelphia. There was a In just in front of a building. There was a completely painted black vending machine. Oh my god. I remember that That was great

I to this day. I wonder yeah, what was up with that? It was just yeah, like what do you what do you get from it? Did you guys look I now want to know what was we tried to like I don't think it was plugged in I think you get sucked into it. Yeah, put a dollar in yeah, like that's sort of a steep There's a Stephen King story based on that vending machine I don't know what what year this was but about like six years ago. There were hand grenade vending machines around the country It's possible. You may have seen one. Do you remember that? Well, I think about that just about does it for today's episode Uh, once again, I want to thank uh, Adam McKay and the new podcast is death at the wing

Thank you guys for having me on always A pleasure a joy to come by. All right. Cheers. Cheers guys until next time. Bye Oh