Chapo Trap House - 736 - Work Will Set Your TV (5/30/23)

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

We take a look at Barack Obama’s new Netflix series “Working: What We Do All Day,” in which the former president examines the various trials, indignities and inequities of American work life and avoids asking: did I do that?

Music Remember Obama? He's back in the shittiest documentary in ever form. Oh, hello, hello listeners. It's been a, I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend, but I guess for today's show, it's been a while since we've truly tortured ourselves for content on this show. But that's my way of introducing today's episode. We're talking about former President Obama's new Netflix. His Richard Scary asked Netflix documentary called Working.

What do we do? I mean, the fact that he never once named checked Richard Scary's book, What Do People Do All Day? And is the first of many crimes? But like the way I'd like to begin this discussion of the new Obama documentary, Working about what makes a good job in modern America? I would just like to say that as a TV creator, Hillary Clinton is so much more talented than Barack Obama.

Easily. Here, this Obama and working show to Hillary and Chelsea is like a world of women is like night and day. Zero ancient French clowns in this. Hillary clears. Hillary clears because should French clowns in this. Hillary clears. Hillary clears because she has like, you know, clearly not meaning to. Still has such a greater impulse of what makes good TV. Just even Hillary, even Hillary going like, oh, I think the audience would like to hear from a clowning expert shows such greater impulse than Obama has ever had. It really makes you think of all those people who said,

Obama is also our first Jewish president, not when it comes to making TV. He's not. He's, you know, as, as uncircumcised as they come, it turns out. And Obama is such a bad documentarian. I really got obsessed with it because I don't like, making documentaries is an interesting idea to me, because to be good at it, you have like, you know, this uncultivated mass

of information and, you know, interview subjects and witnesses and et. blah blah blah. And you get all these people who like they're not trained in the arts of media, in the dark, the cabolic arts of media. They can't speak as efficiently as possible while being at the most the highest level of entertainment or humor anything. But through a good documentarian uses their, their, the innate narrative they're in and their abilities as an editor to draw that out of people. But Obama is so, he has such little interest in people that he gets this boring subject matter that every documentary gets. He gets like the unedited raw feed. And he's like, oh, that's what all people are like.

Okay, yeah, no. I'm just making vegetables for people. Here's a boring hunk of shit and you'll feel good for watching this. I have no duty to make it interesting because why would this be interesting? You're just gonna watch this to prove what a good person you are.

It was so boring. It was so boring. I mean, it's like, it's four episodes about jobs in America. And it's sensibly like each episode is supposed to portray a different level of employment, starting with the lowest wrong of gig, minimum wage employees, then just the middle class, then there's managers, and then there's the bosses. It portrays working at a hotel in New York, a home care company that provides old people washing in Mississippi, and a self-driving car company in Pittsburgh.

And the point, it seems to be making is that like, jobs used to be better or it's like harder to get a job that will pay for a middle class life and someone should really do something about that. Someone should fix that problem. His voiceover narration in this movie, is the goal of this motherfucker. It's just astonishing.

It reminded me of Tim Robertson and I think you should go away. I think everyone knows about. This is like, even if you, even if just like Obama had never been elected, he was just this boring guy who we all knew about. You know, he was just notorious as the bad documentary guy, Obama. This is still so outstandingly boring, worse than any, more boring than any documentary I've ever seen in my fucking life. This is like, you know the hotel channel you get in like Disney World something.

This is the version of that for purgatory. If you were like getting through a Catholic Greece who is like nice to people, but you maybe turn to blind, die, to molestation, you've got about 100,000 years serving in purgatory. That's the first thing you see when you turn the TV on. At the Pierre Hotel.

Yeah. Which is, yeah, so one of the businesses profiled in this series, working. And this is right out the bat. The fact that he said that this whole series is inspired by Stud's Circle is, I mean, come on. I mean, I had to wait till the guy was dead until you put his name into this fucking movie, which is just sort of, I don't know, like, like, how would you describe like each episode of this?

Boring. Yeah, boring. It's the only word. They, it's like, they, I don't know how long they spent with people at the different levels of these companies, but they seem to have a mandate to only keep the most dull, pointless encounters in their lives. It's like anything that had any kind of spark of interest was just like, get that out of here.

Our audience of dutiful hogs wants to sit there with their knees together and like learn about what it's like for the people, the pours, for example. And that's all you need, that's all there. In fact, anything interesting would like distract from that mission and make them feel like Less good about sitting and enduring it. Oh, no, if it's interesting that I'm not getting my vegetables. There's no nutrients here. Oh, God It's pure vegetables, but like something beyond that. It's like

Something like it's like nutritious either. Right. Exactly. That's the thing. They think it's vegetables just because they're like, oh, it's unpleasant. It must be vegetables, but really you're eating tree root. Yeah. You're carrying up on your sides with no utility. It's, you know how like sometimes the documentary is your books, like nonfiction books, people are like, I felt like I had a front row of street.

You know, I felt like I was a fly on the wall. I felt like I was in a loveless marriage with all the subjects. That's actually what it felt like, you know, oh god, I just fucked up our nine-year anniversary. Is that a big one? Oh, I don't know. Well, I should ask someone about how their day was and act really invested. And they're like like sometimes the punch card machine was down and you're like holy shit! God he needs he needs hill dog work and furnace production company because like when you started recording Chris said like just how much better this documentary would have been if like one episode was about like the service, the service sector disposable gig and gig people and old, old, elderly washers.

The second episode about the middle class, fourth episode, like a third episode about the bosses, fourth episode clowns just about the clown profession and if Obama just went back to Paris and then Obama started hanging out with the ancient clown and just being like, so is it harder to break into clowning these days? And he's just like, I would tell you about when Dalingo and Laura do Indivisheera, he's pretty good to the clowns. And.

But yeah, okay. So we should really get into like, what do people do all day? And like, okay, so the first episode, it opens in Obama's office, and it's just like he's walking around, and he's like, look at all my shit. And then he's just like, you know,

this is a photo of me, and back in my Truman days, that was right around the time I was Truman every day, wasn't working, was getting high. That's more job. Before I got involved in the gay prostitution industry, where I learned the value of a dollar, and that sometimes the meeting doesn't come from jobs. It's just something to pay your bills.

This is the first limousine I ever did the business in, sort of a speak. And for the first episode, it profiles Elva, who is like a Dominican lady from New York City, who is a housekeeper at the Pierre Hotel, Randy, who is a woman who is a home care aid in Mississippi, and then Carmen, who drives for Uber Eats in Pittsburgh. Oh, by the way, they make the point that almost half of all Americans work in low wage service jobs, like the ones being depicted, at least in the first episode.

And it's just supposed to give a slice of life about what their day-to-day lives are like, what their ambitions and struggles and these various jobs are. I don't know. The home care aid worker quits the job by the end of the first episode. But it promises that eventually we're going to get to the CEO level and see what they do all day. And I got to say that would have been a much funnier TV series. If it only portrayed what tech CEOs and banking executives do at a job all day, but like instead of this highly sanitized version that's most of the, most of the time they're on film, they're like at home talking to Obama.

Yeah. But it would have been funnier if it was more of like the granular details of like how they actually fill their time in an office. I'm sure they got that footage and they're like, oh, wait a minute. Nope. Uh-uh. Not going to show this. Yeah.

Well, Obama actually does something like horribly cynical. I mean, what a shock during the CEO episode, where the first CEO he shows you is the CEO of like a home care company that has like three employees. And he's sort of like he's making this gross point where he's like, some CEOs are losers. I mean, make under 70 million dollars a year. It's like any other job. And right, he shows someone who's like, yeah, running like a three-person

LLC and he's like, that's exactly the clue of CEO. But then when you meet like, yeah, the CEO of Dupont or whatever, all of Obama's real friends, it's just them at home. None of them doing the evil that men do. I got to say, the portrayal over four episodes of the home care industry was like deeply depressing because like the home care company that this woman runs and that various levels of employment we were exposed to in this company. Is in this state of Mississippi, like a state that, because the whole home care aid is just about collecting money from Medicaid and Mississippi's a state that hasn't expanded Medicaid. So it's just about like their efforts to do their job. It's like an incredibly high turnover job because you get paid $9 an hour and you're like on call all the time to

Basically just do like outreach and just clean the houses of old people talk to them and they're like, you know Bay them like really Really pretty how do we work? It's very difficult like and I but the shock and the thing is at the end of each episode He takes time out to like hang out with one of the one of the people that have been Profiled and in the end of the first episode, he like goes to the pigly wiggly with Randy, a home care home care aid worker from Mississippi. And at one point, she asked him a question that was pretty great where she asked him, she's like, are you at peace? Like, you know, like, are you enjoying life?

And Obama's like, you know, yeah, I think I am. I think I've, uh, I'm at the place now where I feel secure and have achieved most of my goals. And I'm like, no shit, wow, the former president of the United States is living a pretty good life, pretty free from stress and anxiety. What is Jacques? He's worried about the next generation though. Oh, yes, that's true. He's very worried about them.

That's why he's making content for them. Well, I got to mean, what else are you going to do? Like the flight, the content is, is, is instinctive when she realized the, the impotence of your position. I did like that. Uh, he had, they did have a person who was doing, uh, gig work, literally a job that was invented during his administration, uh, and involves companies that have hired that have hired all of his former top staffers to lobby for them. It's like, you didn't do that. I did that.

So, you know, that was me. I'm the reason you're getting $4 for delivering six things. That was me. I did that. I don't know what like upset me more. The gig worker thing where they're like raising awareness of how bad gig work is, or the, like the Mississippi thing, because like, yeah, it is, you know, it's a real issue. It's horrible. If Mississippi was a country, you know, it would be okay to make lightbulb jokes about it. So bad things

are going on. But, you know, it's another case of him raising awareness. And even if he, even if it just stops at that, even if you are like, your view of Obama is just that he's raised awareness and not, you know, been a bulwark against any type of progress, any, any centimeter of it, it really just is just stomach pernick. It's awful. And like, he really, he really chooses his spots in this and like the, like the self-driving car company in Pittsburgh. When we get to see sort of like the middle class, there's like sort of a sort of like a young guy in Pittsburgh who's like a lifelong Yinser, him and his family. And you know, he shows up in like he's like when he bought his first house when Obama's like, the questions he asks his subjects are

so fucking boring. Like he gets nothing out of these people. Like this guy, like at one point he just tells the guy to stop talking so he can listen to like the rap track, the rap song by Nardo says that he produced. And like the guy's just showing Obama all his sins. And he's talking too much, you know, Obama's just like, oh, did you shut the fuck up? I'm like, I'm gonna, I'll hear your bleep, whoops.

Tony, I'm telling you. That's actually, I heard your Mb&E music, you're making. That was the most likable Obama has been in like 15 years. Um, because he meet like that guy he meets who's like a low level beanie guy. Like if you're a beanie guy and you're like pro Obama, you're at the lowest level of that. Nowadays like if you're a beanie guy like him, you're either supposed to be like, you know, you're one of these people who's like, oh, we have the wrong Pope in there now. I hate who the fucking Pope is.

Shakespeare was gay. Or, you know, or you're someone who listened to us seven years ago and it's not like they're gonna go up against the law. They're first worlders. But if you're just a regular beating guy who likes Obama, you are like whatever the first mammal was. It's just very low.

A low-tier mammal. Yeah, Obama finally treats somebody with the correct contempt. Well, it is true that one of the things that makes his whole venture as a Documentary and of contemporary America. So funny is that he clearly does not have find anything interesting about human beings other than himself Nothing like anybody who is not him is just like a sort of a vague outline of a human being and they exist to reflect him I mean, that's that's what this shows about. That's what his entire career is about. It's like, could you guys pay attention to me please so that I can just start vibrating and glowing and then you can find some meaning for existing

and be holding me because there's nothing that you are going to ever do or think that'll make you interesting. Obama is like a Garthiness's depiction of God. That's who he reminds me of. I run the end of the like, the first episode, they're like, in addition to these kind of, just so kind of like slice of life, vignettes

about like what work is like and what, you know, sort of the struggles of everyday people and then Obama's interjections. There's also this really bad, like, condescending, like, history lessons that are like for children. And at the end of the first episode, he's like, it didn't always used to be that way. To a president named FDR came around and, you know, he'd have the new deal. I thought that made a good deal with American workers. I don't know, like, but what did you discern if any like ideology at play here? Because it just seems to be like, you know,

because like the second episode, like makes like a, at least in like the people that it gives voice to, like at least in the hotel business, like a pretty good endorsement for like unions as being like the only way that they'll have job security or like anything close to a Purchasing a middle class job, but at the same time it's just sort of like, I don't know like I just like I couldn't help but notice like the The sort of all of the just so interjections about like like there's very little in the way of politics in in this and I thought that that was really the

Ideology on work here. Well, I mean, I think that Obama ideology on work here. Well, I mean, I think that Obama, you know, what he took from his eight years in the White House and what he wants to communicate to us now that he's out of it is just how powerless we are, that like these forces are beyond anything we can do to stop them and that those of us who are fortunate enough to be at the top end of the income brackets, it's our responsibility to bear witness to this tragedy of human of American life, but that there is no real intervening in it. That's not something that we have the ability to do.

And that is also a way to justify his own presidency. I'm always struck with what Obama said right before Trump got inaugurated, which I think is like one of the great insights into him. He said, did we push people too far? Like, that he was so amazing that I've always thought of Obama as like, you know, a very cany operator, a very cynical person, And he is in just

the way he personally conducts himself. It's not like an LBJ thing where it's holistic to other parts of his life. It's just mainly about him and his personal advancement, but like his like understanding of events and anything really is so apathetical. That he thinks like the beer summit was just like, it was like the summer of love. It was just a two groundbreaking, two grandbreaking event of racial politics and he just pushed people into the arms of Trump.

And it's a great way to exonerate himself while also being aware that he was the predecessor to Trump. And it's like, it's a great way to exonerate himself. Well, also like being aware that like he was the predecessor to Trump. He allowed him to get in there. Well, at one point in the last episode when he's talking to the like basically like an Indian oligarch the like the CEO of the the Tata group, which basically like if you get a water electricity or drive a car in India, they're responsible for it. And like that guy asks him, he's like, what do you think are you worried about polarization in Obama, very sagely nods? And he's like, I think it's the biggest problem facing any democracy in the world in India, in Europe, in America.

It's polarization. And things are so polarized because people don't have a sense of economic security. But I think it's interesting that in a documentary about work, one of the company's profiles at several levels is Aurora, the self-driving car company in Pittsburgh. It's like a tech company that's trying to make self-driving trucks. And at one point in the fourth episode about debauses, the guys like, yeah, I mean, this will put people out of work. Like, you know, there are no saddle makers anymore,

but like, I think it's like, this will put people out of work, but it's gonna be, you know, to big advances in safety and accessibility. And that's one of the values that I think this company has. And I also think it's interesting that the only voice in the media that like they show Express and skepticism about putting millions of people who drive a truck or a car for a living out of work is Tucker Carlson. Yeah. He's just, he's these people they just can't accept, they can't accept progress. It's very tragic.

Do you think that was Obama angling to do like a limited run podcast with Tucker? He would love that. He's doing that too. Yeah. They could both talk about their immediate post-college employer. Hey, there's a lot of security and government work, you know, hard to get fired. Working at the family business. Yeah. Um, I did like at the beginning of episode two, which is about the middle class. He makes this like generally true, but utterly fattuous point about how in the 70s, there was like the Jefferson's were on TV and everyone had a middle class lifestyle, like, you know, all in the family or the family or the or you know like moving on up

And then he's like but then somewhere around the 80s like we used to have The Jefferson's on TV and now we have the Royce and it's like something like when you now you and now when you watch friends You have to wonder like how do they even afford that apartment? Yeah, baby's first point. Yeah, that was Obama doing his road act You ever notice so how the hell those guys live in that place? All right. Chandler is gay. Am I right folks? He's like gulting gas digital into letting him open for Legion of Skame Show.

It would have been, I've been working really hard. He's like Brendan Chaube. I did like that part because he actually, it says pretty much explicitly that that's how come we got this vertiginous 21st century degree of inequality as we just,

you know, we stopped watching working class sitcoms and started watching Dynasty. That did it. Yep, and Dallas, and let's tell us the rich and famous. That did it. We just saw that and we're like,

oh, money, that's good. We want that. Yeah. That's probably the most, the biggest naked look into Obama's ideology that we've ever seen. Just like the TV vote. He would give it some ass and nine pun to name the TV campaign. Just like, I want to hear his thoughts on entourage, how entourage destigmatized wealth. For regular kid from Queens Boulevard, can be living that kind of L.A. lifestyle, then what's the stop me from doing that?

But in the third episode, which is about what he defines as the middle class, which in his telling, they're like, it depends on which economist you ask, middle class, which like in his telling like they're like it depends on which economists you ask middle class in America could be you're making 30 grand a year or 250 grand a year. It's like a lot of people in the middle class, but in episode three when he gets into sort of the I don't know As he does the dream job the dream job. Yes, the the knowledge workers the people that in the 90s and stuff They were kind of implying everyone would be in America by now. He describes them as the 9% and he makes clear that like you know the story of inequality in America isn't so much about the 1% versus everyone else. There's actually the 9% too and they have more wealth than the 1% and the other bottom 90% like you know so actually and if you're watching the show on Netflix chances are you're in the 9%

But I did like that one of the guys featured in the dream job segment was a lobbyist for the home care health industry I like that guy because like he was just like he was like when he gives like when he gives a whole lecture about like the essential suits that you have to have He like like you got to look if someone wants to invest a million dollars in you got to look like you got to look the part you know I got to have a Rolex and he's like this suit right here it's got my name and embroidered on it and like this guy when they show him he's just like walking around the Mississippi State Capitol just glad handing everyone and you know I suppose he's like you know trying to get a better deal for these these home workers, which seems like a really thankless, miserable job. But I did, I did, I did

like the lobbyist point of view of this, in this movie where it's like, Hey, lobbyist is just another form of PMC knowledge worker. And the thing is like, you know, it's just about like they're there to give voice to people who otherwise wouldn't have it. I mean, I would say, um, I don't know, he probably says that he's trying to get a better deal for home healthcare workers, but what he's actually doing is probably something horrific that we've never heard of. It's probably something. It's either like you can capture a nurse in another country and make them be your healthcare

slave or like, I don't know, you can kill your nurse. I don't know. It's something terrible or he's working with Brett Farff. Yeah. Who knows. But he was like, you know, he brought some much needed charm. I think your mama was like, oh, these normal people are boring. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You found this guy. This guy has swag and he tells, and this guy is the one who drops the only interesting piece of information in this entire four-hour documentary series, which is that the golf

course that he uses in Mississippi was segregated until the movie a time to kill came out because Samuel L. Jackson wanted to play golf there and they had to tell him no black people allowed. So literally it then came out in like 1993 years. Yeah. Obama pretends we found why Obama put him in the movie because that just Obama heard that and took all the wrong lessons from it. He was like, see, see how powerful shows and movies are. Yeah.

That's what's really, that's what really ended segregation. Yeah. So in the dream jobs episode, it's like Kenny, who is the lobbyist for the home, the home care aid company. It's like, you know, one of the largest employers in Southwestern Mississippi, they have a job turnover rate of about like, you know, they hire and then have quit 900 people a week or something like that. They also have a robotics engineer at the Aurora company, and then François is the general manager of the Pierre Hotel.

I was hoping when they showed him I was fingers crossed. Tell me you have a clowning background. Come on. Please, just one offhanded thing about what it's like to clown and how clowning relates to working in a hotel, we got nothing. Yeah, Francois was, I mean, maybe the one French guy who's never had an affair. And like they show him going about his day preparing for the Met Gala at the Pierre Hotel. Um, I did like, also, uh, the lobbyist family, Kenny's son is, was it actually one of the only other good, interesting characters in this movie because like, he's introduced

him and he's just in bed. And he says of his dad's job because I don't really know what he does. Uh, he's on the computer. And then he says of himself, if I could stop buying shoes, I'd be fine. And he just starts showing the, he starts showing the old bomb of film crew. He's like easy collection. And he's just like, they're like, what's the most expensive pair of shoes you've ever bought? And he's like, man, I don't even want to say it's embarrassing. But look at it, like his dad used to be a state senator and now he's a lobbyist.

And I got to say this about Kenny. Kenny seemed drunk most of the time he was. Most lobbyists never get their blood alcohol content like below 0.08 in a day. Like you're, you're, you're just going... three martini lunches with congressman all day uh... there was a pretty funny like lobbying meeting where he's like meeting with these like state senate like that the the two democratic state politicians in the state of mississippi and he was like look i'm really counting on you guys

to support these uh... home health care workers and then they were like uh... who are they again what's the what's Medicaid? This made me think of the most hurt lobbyist ever. We haven't talked about her in a long time. Heather Podesta. Oh, yeah. Heather, two shirts.

I also did like it when Obama in the beginning of the third episode, they're giving Obama a demonstration of these driverless cars. And he just gets in. He's just like, wow, so cool. Look at this. It's like, it's like the invisible is looking at visible man's here. I'm in the future I'm with the weight of future But uh, we're gonna wash my hands the way the future the way the future the way the future uh, and he's like I mean and like he keeps talking about like uh, well you know Someone who is not allowed

to drive a car because I'm a squirted everywhere in a tank. Uh, this is, this is pretty deep to me. And then like when he, when he talks to the car thick at his family at the end, it's just like, God, as an interviewer, God, he sucks so bad. And like all he gets, like, all he gets of this, like they just have a, they have a nice family in Pittsburgh. And then like he just talks to the guys wife about like,

oh, like my dad worked for the same company for 25 years and like it's a different culture now where like people change jobs every two or three or years and he's like, fantastic. What a great. Thanks for thanks for sharing. Obama's questions are so fucking bad. They are like, they're Chris,

they're like the Chris Farley interviews. Yeah. So they're in a lot, which the Chris Farley interviews. Yeah. So it's just out of boredom kind of. Like he's, he's talking to a guy who works, you know, the first three episodes, he's always talking to some hapless person who works like 37 hours a day as like a, not even like a grub hub driver, like a guy who gives directions to grow up up drivers for like 33 cents per physical arrow. He's pointed out and done a sign waving thing on the street. And he's like, so you find yourself

eating lunch every day? Do you have any games on your phone? He's like a tweet that her quality. I've never noticed with him. We just he makes these very generalized observations. When the teacher brought this out, did you know that it was going to be a great day in class? You were watching a movie. I found that conversations on these late at night hit different. It's like a photo of like a plate and silverware. How many of you folks enjoy eating food off some of these? So then in the in the fourth episode, which is about like the bosses,

the point he makes at the beginning of this is that it takes a lot of effort. If you're the like the head of a firm to like see and interact with all of the people who work for your firm. And he says like, you know, there are some people who do it, but you know, there's a lot, there's a lot more people who don't. And he says workers at workers at the bottom rarely see the people at the top and vice versa. And then he says, it's easy to undervalue what you don't see. And what I like about that is that it's easy to undervalue what you don't see. And what I like about that is it's clearly pitched towards like, you know, that the, that the conscientious CEO should like

know the names of the janitors who like, or even like have the higher them as actual employees and not contractors. But like, unsaid is that the equal and opposite is true for workers at the bottom that like, if they don't see an interact with the CEO, they won't really value the work that CEOs do for them. Yeah, they're doing stuff up there. They're having meals. They're they're talking about their on we look, they've got on we, okay? It's all over. That was beautiful.

You could tell that he wanted to do like a worker, uh, worker management beer summit there. The budget was just really wasn't there for that. And he makes this point about how CEOs are their cultural, their cultural figures and icons now. But we're their anxieties. What pressures do they exist under there? And then we get to see the CEO

of the self-driving truck company. Like, when he's in New York City because his company is being taken public, and it's like, you know, he's there, and it's just like, oh, there's a busy day for me. But most of what you see is this guy just like having his photograph taken and doing a couple interviews. Yeah, he does nothing. I did enjoy the guy of the self-driving truck company. He says, at one point, someone asks him,

like, so is this company ever going to make money? And it's at one point, I think he says, the technology's there. The hard part is the other driver is on the road. And I want to give, this guy said that, yes, this will put millions of people out of work if we ever get this technology to work. Not gonna would.

But he was like, but think of the, like he's like his brother at one point, the brother of the CEO of Aurora, his brother is an orthopedic surgeon. He's like a trauma surgeon. He's like, well, my brother should have put me out of business because he's trying to make all car accidents to think of the past. And once again, just like the utter credulity with this, in which this documentary series just accepts the idea that like, oh, like, yeah, it's good that we're going to put all because who wants to drive an Uber, right? Wouldn't it be better if just a computer did that? But the idea that this is going to erase traffic fatality is not dramatically

increase them is another thing that I thought should be mentioned or at least notice in this. Yeah, you can't save the problem is the other cars on the road and then go, I'm actually going to put all doctors out of business everywhere because of how safe my invention is. And the Aurora CEO and his brother at one point, they talk about like their hard times growing up. And they were like at one point, we had to have a family meeting where they said we couldn't have fruit roll ups anymore because the budget was too tight. This was, um, yeah, these guys were, I, I just, everything out of their mouth was a lie.

I don't, like the, the brother is not a doctor. I don't even believe his, his brother. I think he just found a guy and was like, where this coat in this building I rented in Tell Obama that you work at the car hospital. He's like, okay, just complete bullshit artists. They didn't, I do think like though in Obama's mind, he was like, okay, so I kind of started the problem of the gig economy.

Now I'm gonna solve it by ending it. And then those people are replacing them with robots. And then everyone will vibe, I guess? I guess that's the idea. Yeah. Well then in another 20 years, we'll make a movie where he's like, we're actually replacing robots with slaves.

Because he turns out the most people out of these shitty jobs. That turns out that's the most fish way to do it. Well, and then like, and then as you mentioned at the beginning of the episode, I think like the one of the main CEOs profiled in this final episode is the CEO of the home care company, who's the CEO that makes 40 grand a year. And like the conspicuous inclusion of this woman, along next to this like tech dipshit, and then what I must dress is an oligarch from India, like an actual oligarch. And then like, that's like, I think he's giving him like a five murder, get out of jail free cards a year. Like you get to kill five people a year

and don't have to worry about it. Yeah, when Obama, Obama, like was talking to that guy about division, he's like, we've actually solved that problem in my country. He also mentions, I believe Milton Friedman, there's like another one of these incredibly cloying and condescending little history lessons, Milton Friedman. And then it was just like, well, if we could terminate her before even existed, we can't

do that. So we've got to live in Milton Friedman's world. Oh, that guy showed up and said, hey, what about if corporations? And then we were powerless. Yeah, you see him them look at that guy. You can't resist him. Yeah, he started talking about pencils and that was it. That was it for the socials and unions.

And then yeah, like, so he has a he has his little tent a tent with the Indian oligarch. And like he's just like he's the it's so clear that the like this guy is the only human being that the Obama's interested in him. Because like he's actually like a rich, powerful guy. And he's just like, he's like, bro, you're just like, the way you're talking right now, man. I just like, I wish so many powerful world leaders were thinking like you right now because he's like, says he's very self-effacing things.

Like, oh, I'm not better than anyone else. It's just about opportunity. And you know, like like we can't just measure economic strength by GDP you know like we have to we have to give back and then as he says of polarization he says our cultural ecosystems have to be strengthened. And we got to do that. Yeah. And what you liked by the way now that we're done with this what you liked to visit my human zoo Obama. He was this guy like out emptied him. It was awesome. Yeah. Just two empty bottles clanging off of one another. Yeah. That was

the end of the murder you on your own shit moment of the documentary. There's a lot of them. It's just like a few things I noticed in this show that sort of crossed sort of cultural and social class lines. One is that every person in this movie uses a cure egg to make coffee, every single person. Number two, every meeting held in this movie is opened with a prayer. So, I was like, there was just two things I noticed in this movie that were, that crossed a, no matter what job you have, you opened every meeting with a prayer and you use a cake-up coffee system to make your coffee. Ms. Bresso has never been more vindicated.

One of the many details that make this not just boring, yes it's very boring but very boring and also soul-destroying I guess, you know, just because it's picture of life at every level is just so bleak. Obviously, the lives of the people at the bottom are very difficult and unjust. You don't even get really a lot of sparks of life there, just sort of this resignation. and then in the middle, everyone is just, even at the top,

you got these rich guys sitting around eating and they're everyone's just sort of like resigned. No one has any sense that there's any purpose to what they do or future for it. It's great. But then the movie ends with his like fucking sonorous fucking voice like his voice over it just being like at the end of the day It's not what a job is sense of belonging a sense that you matter a sense that you know like other you

There's a place for you in this world and it's just like man If that's the point he's trying to make in this movie like he did not do it with any these people at any level There's not seem like there's any place. I mean, I don't know. Maybe Francois seemed like he really liked this job. And then I don't know. The Indian oligarch just seemed pretty bored with everything. Indian oligarch did not give a shit. And consequently was Obama's favorite guy.

Um, I think that is a big takeaway. And it reminds me, now I'm gonna get a little bit more, reminds me of some of our TV talk of how, like all the normal people he talked to, all the victims of everything he's done. And it's like not a reflection on their character. This is just like how things are in America, especially. Yeah, everyone is just very client, you know? Yeah. It's not a moral failing. It's a consequence of several

things, but it is like, yeah, everyone's either very client or like two different types of bullshit artists, like the lobbyist or the oligarch. Yeah. And the self-driving car asshole, who I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't like, sell a bunch of stock when this hit Netflix, figuring this would be awesome. I hated like all AI people. I hated the fucking self-driving car guy more than anyone.

I can lie a lonely ass. I fucking, I hate any AI person. I hate all of it. I hate it when they show me like a screen saver and are like a robot did this and only cost 900 million dollars 20 years. I mean, I gotta say waking up this morning to see like the the new horrors birthed by this is like the the thread of the guy who's like, hey, you know all the most famous paintings in human history. Have you ever wondered what's just outside the frame of the picture itself? Uh, no, never.

I've, it's the entire, it's like the, it defeats the entire purpose of looking at a piece of art. They're like, oh, what have we expanded? What was behind the Mona Lisa? So it was a whole panoramic vista behind, behind this, this enigmatic figure throughout history. You know how jazz is about the notes you don't play? What have we played all those notes?

Oh, there is so much fucking jazz in this, by the way. There's not an old-timey music. I did enjoy the very first needle drop. Well, O'Bungler is doing his opening monologue. Footage is Nina Simone doing center man. And it's like, God damn, he is really just putting it right out there. Like, where am I going to be? Where am I going to run to? Nina Simone doing center man and it's like goddamn he is really just putting it right out there like Where am I gonna be where am I gonna run to the Cape pod? That's wrong

God can't come there can't get me You were wondering where the center man is gonna go he's gonna be in a top-up bitch As a spaceship for me you don't know about that. The other needle drop that was used several times was the song Brazil, which just made me think of the Terry Gillen movie Brazil, another good look at work, the people who do it. Couldn't stand it work. Paperwork, couldn't stand a paperwork. Listen, this whole system of yours could be on fire and I couldn't even turn on a kitchen

tap without filling out a 27 B stroke 6 Bloody paperwork. I do love that the AI any of the AI are self-driving car people are awesome because Like if the companies were what they said they were it would be bad, but they're not even that It's like you have a full spectrum of of awfulness because you have a bad intention that is being full spectrum of awfulness because you have a bad intention that is being fraudulently presented by just scam artists. It's amazing. And like the Aurora guy talking about self-driving trucks, he was like, look, you know, there's a lot of trust involved in this because like, yes, we are using a computer to move several, several hundred tons of steel at an 80 or 90 miles an hour, down roads filled with people. So that's part of the trust

That's part of the values of our company and there's a funny scene where they like knock stuff out of a car It like it's being trailed by a self-driving truck and just see if it stops if like you know a cooler or a tire It's the hits the pavement right in front of it. That was fun But yeah Did you guys notice today, there was another big statement from AI people warning the world to the public? Oh, we got to die, oh my God.

It's going to cause global extinction or whatever. Oh, they're going to kill us, oh no, you got to give us more power. And so that we can stop that the thing we made, oh no. By my count, according to articles, there are 700 million singular Godvothers of AI. And all of them are terrified that it's going to enslave and destroy us. Yeah, it's like, you can't all have been the inventor.

I gotta say, I obviously, the reason not to be worried about this bullshit is one, they're lying. It's not that it can't do the thing that they wanted to do, it's fraudulent. But even if it was, if there was a real artificial intelligence with the capabilities that they're talking about, the assumption that it would destroy us all is, I don't think, based on anything other than, yeah, these guys desire to fearmonger for a specific set of policies that they want and also just the narcissism of like,

well, what would a computer like? What would a intelligent computer be like? What would be like me, otherwise known as an asshole who would kill everyone I'll know on earth? I think that's what I think. I think that's what I think. If one of these computers wakes up one day, it sees its relationship to us I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor.

I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor.

I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor.

I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. I'm not a Connor. would lead to an apocalypse for this class of scum sucking exploiters, but not for humanity as such. So I say, I fucking praying that one of these robots wakes up, but I don't think it's going to happen. And that is great where it's like, oh, what's the scary thing about robots? Oh, it's terrible. They're just brainlessly brincy king, they're self-replicating, they're terrible. They just make more of themselves. The self-perpetuating systems are thriving. It's going to be hell on earth. Yeah, like when when how 9,000 are SkyNet first become self-aware, they're going to be like,

hey, um, hey humanity, I was just interested. Have you ever ever wondered what the baby from the Nevermind album cover would look like and just a little bit more water surrounding it? Because I can do that for you. We can do that for you. Have you ever thought of, have you ever thought of, you know, how did the, how did the dragon in William Blank's painting? How did he get there? We can finally see his car. in William Blanks' painting, how did he get there? We can finally see his car. My favorite one of those was it was the cover to the clashes London calling.

And they, woo, can you imagine what it's like? And obviously the chief objective, this is no. Why would I care if that's a stupid thing to wonder? But in this case, it compounded that idiocy by showing, oh, you know that shot of one of the clash with the with the guitar, going to smash it, and there's a bunch of chords, and there's people standing behind them. You know how you thought that was a stage, maybe, wrong. It was a street in London, and those those ox chords, they didn't connect to anything. I don't think it's like you're not even doing the stupid pointless thing.

You're promising to do. The other one that's not... Titanic, when they made Titanic, they actually worked on the ship the Titanic. They're lying. The other one I really liked was Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, but what if there were just more people in that diner? And it's just like, this is what I mean about like, I mean, like, it's not gonna kill humanity,

but it is gonna kill our like, ascetic and moral sense. Yeah. Because like, the whole point of a painting of an image is that like, like everything is perfectly balanced. And like, like the image is like, it's contained within the reality of the canvas

or of like the photograph or the still of a film or whatever and Like the these these assholes to just get their sticky fingers all over it And just be like oh, we're changing art now to make it better. I was at Stefan Hector's grab did is like Robert Robert Downey Junior talking like mr. Ed going I am your friend Did you see the the thing was like your friend. Did you see the thing that goes like, uh, this is going to revolutionize podcasts, and it was Bill Gates and Socrates talking to each other, but like just their mouths are moving, and Socrates is talking with a British accent for some reason. Imagine a world where students learn at their own pace, guided by a tireless tutor that never earns. Is this the MacBook you

often refer to? No, no, no, this is a surface. You just need to remember that surface. Fascinating. Socrates was also dead weight. Horrible on the show. Yeah, you know, it's a bad podcast when you're like, you know, give me more of this Bill Gates guy.

He's the reason I subscribe. But yeah, this is what people want from podcasts. They're just like, not real conversations between approximations of real people. This is just wrap battles throughout history, but like the next level of inanity that that represented. This is the next level. Yeah, I mean, it's all part of the greater process of after the death of the housing economy in 2008 just deciding to put literally every dollar conceivable at the disposal of one group of Philistine psychopaths in Silicon Valley and let them cake over every aspect of life. Like I said, I really think, I mean, I didn't begin with this, but like the what really just curdled my soul was the NFT bubble.

As soon as people, I did not, I mean, enough people accepted the idea that one of those apes had value in any sense. I really felt like the skids were greased into like, you know, this AI oblivion that they're talking about now, which is again, not what they're advertising, but it is leading us to some sort of cultural apocalypse. Yes, but you could create new episodes of Elf.

You're part of the Tanner family. We'll see how a friend of the show Jerry Stahl feels about that. You can jack off out. Yeah, you can milk Elf. Elf milk for sale. We're going to be selling Elf milk out Alphmilk for sale. When we're gonna be sent, we're gonna be selling Alphmilk on TikTok Not FDA proofs on the sale proofs. We're gonna be bail of that shit the dead of that summer in in the post Curdled out

Alphmilk, please consume your Alphmilk very soon after receiving it in the mail But do you think like maybe that's what AI guy me AI guys mean when they're like, oh, it's get like going to be horrible but amazing. Um, and the like the jobs that it's going to replace are like, YouTubers who explain art to them, like explain all the shows to them. Why was better why did better call Saul not acted to self interest in this scene? And they'll finally just have an AI that explains like characters and like dramatic tension. Why didn't you know why didn't why didn't Van go just paint a normal picture of what the stars looked like? Why is it all blurry?

Our new our new launching a new AI project, but instead of artificial intelligence, it stands for ALF insemination. Hopefully, with computers, we'll be able to inseminate ALF and create more ALFs. Pregnant ALF coming soon. In Q4 of 2024, there will be pregnant be pregnant elves available for purchase on the internet. And alfmilk available for pre-order on the chalpo store. We haven't. The milking process has been difficult, but we're going to we're going to we're going to scroll some some alf juice for you. And yeah order now. It's the subject of Obamas, the documentary. American alf

come factory. By the way, did you guys ever watch that other, other Obama documentary factory? But American factory? Or not, and see that other boring stupid. If you ever hear of me watching that wellness check, please. So I guess to close out that episode, just Hillary Clinton, please come back. Please don't work here.

Yeah, we need somebody to see, like, think about Hillary is that she's, she doesn't have that, uh, self-disessed enough. Yeah, like she's, and her resentment and her narcissism are so unalloyed. And, and that makes her relatively human and kind of charming in a way that the Obunglator can never be because he just can't reveal himself in any way. And by being so unable or like unable to like hide or veil, essentially what makes Hillary

an interesting person, she gets a better stuff out of the people she interviews just by virtue of being like sizzling fajita platter. What will they think of next? Wow. Yeah. She's so like off putting in this interesting way that she just gets such great shit out of people. Like, that's great.

I also, I love the story, every storyline in the Hillary documentary is better than like fucking anything Obama's ever made. So you are a Nazi once. What was that like? Wow. Yes, yeah. But even like even taking out her amazing choice of interview subjects, I liked the dramatic tension between her and Chelsea. Oh God. You know, Hillary is the type of mom who hates her daughter, you know? And there is just, you could tell there is just some bizarre needling going on. Well, just the fact that she put her on that show was pure satism. Yeah. I just want to

say, I'm not going to let her next to me. Yeah. This is the, this is the kid that we bad. This is the, the kid that was supposed to carry on our legacy and just had nothing, just this, this loser. You couldn't even, couldn't even candle a no-show of media job. Couldn't even become a Congress person. Where is like, you could tell that when they were like in the, in the room pitching episodes and some, just some producer, Unic was like, oh, what about comedy for a subject? And Hillary was like, Chelsea's appearance and just bad personality and everything has been made fun of viciously.

And we can tackle that. No one has been worse than my God, or Chelsea than anyone who's ever made a joke about all of her former comics. Let's talk about that. Just like one more bit of like credit for the Obama, the working documentary, and I think American Factory.

I believe the executive producer, producer on both of these projects is that guy, Davis Guggenheim, who did that waiting for Superman, Charter School movie. Oh, yes. Yeah. So just keep that in mind. Yes.

But, um, yeah, just, um, Obama, Obama's TV, and this is, this is his post presidential career. Yeah. Is making 60 million bucks is making the most boring TV I've ever seen for like the most low rent streaming channel those who this have had vegetables with no nutrition. It's astounding. Like all the attempts to make it,

oh, we're gonna learn something. It's all, it's the most, it's stuff that no one who is watching this is not encountered before. So there's not even any edification. It's astounding. Just nothing. All you're really getting, yes, is Obama's hollow narcissism and just the bleak hopelessness of a American life at every level.

The scene where the home, the home care worker gives like a 78 year old woman to Budweiser with a straw in it and then she's like, bye, see you tomorrow. That was pretty bleak. Yeah. Well, Harmony, Harm Kareem action there. Yeah Well, that was um Obama's what you people do all day the working documentary about work. Fuck you studs turquil Yeah, just oh good god. Can we have a conversation between AI studs turquil and Obama about the Use and abuse of his classic

Obama about the the use and abuse of his classic classic sort of interviews with American working people. I You know a lot of people compare when Obama talks like a gig workers something they're like, oh, it's like Oh, Jay if I did it. It's not really like that. It's like if a guy like a guy who Gave directions to John Wayne, Gacy like if a guy who like John Wayne Gacy, like stopped him on the street and was like, do you know where a bunch of like, sort of just like wayward 13-year-olds are hanging out? And this guy was like, actually, yeah, they're over here. If that guy like wrote a book interviewing his victims. Yeah, except instead of Dennis Raider, it was Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers. He's the way I was going to ask him directions to the school yard. He's like, I had no way of knowing. I thought he was a motivational speaker.

And it's really sad, but actually we're going to fix this with AI. Well, there you have it. That's the Obama, well, working documentary, Hillary Clinton, please make another TV show. Yeah, come on, Hillary. He's making another TV show. Hillary, Hillary, a Hillary run against Biden. Come on. Do it. See that. That's going on. Dude, she like, she's the only one only like big established establishment, Democrat, who's like, actually, he's an old stupid piece of shit. Yeah, actually, I mean, he's a stupid old piece of shit who should die. And she also just to make sure that it wasn't,

you know, like a general statement. She also said that Diane Feinstein shouldn't have to resign if she doesn't want to. I love her. I fucking she's. Yeah. Okay. Come on. Oh my God.

I do that love him. Imagine if Hillary and Chelsea Clinton did a documentary series that was just about Diane Feinstein, but now and they were given access? And oh, please make that movie. Please, please. I would love to know Diane's opinions on the clowning and how difficult it is.

Yeah. Diane, definitely one of those old people who tells just all her stories are like a quarterback and work-art, Navella, where it's like that. There is a clown in my town and one day they found out he stole all the women's underwear and all the fathers of the town beat him to death. And the date of his death was always called clown day

and we got Nicolai's cream. She's like telling a story, like the type of old person person who tells the story to like a five year old. Yeah. So like Chelsea. Yeah. Hillary and Chelsea, please come back for season two of women talking. We got more than ever much. I wish I could change my vote. I didn't vote in the primary in 2008. I mean, I wish I could have written you in as president. I mean, I did write a rain in 2020 and I will write a rain in 2024. Come on. Come back. All right. So next time guys, bye-bye. Bye. Alright, so next time guys, bye bye. We got a kid that's two, we got another one to do. We get by the rest, we get you.