Chapo Trap House - 800 - Puzzle Palace (1/22/23)

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

We start off today’s episode with a farewell to the DeSantis campaign as the Never Back Down PAC backs down, and dedicates its last days to puzzling through Iowa to the Moon Palace Retreat. We discuss Biden’s general lack of a coherent position going into this long, long general campaign, and how it’s leaving his would-be defenders in the lurch. BUT, for the main thrust of this ep, we celebrate one man: The Beekeeper. Because when the hive is threatened, when the Queen is producing faulty Offspring, then there’s one man you must call. To Bee or Not To Bee? To bee, bitch. Let’s keep some bees. Tickets to Talking Simpsons at SF Sketchfest on 1/24 here: https://sfsketchfest2024.sched.com/event/1VUtV/talking-simpsons

I Greetings friends, it's Chopo back once again on this Monday, January 22nd. It's me, Amber, and Chris today, and I would just like to kick off today's episode. I have one thing to say, and that's this Listen you can't accept it fucking Godly bees and bee keeping I'm gonna come I'll have a bit of that right up the apples and bears It's the fucking beekeeper. Oh I'm back again. Yes Yes, I would eventually like to talk about the beekeeper

The bees there's there's a lot going on in the world, but chief among them. We got to protect the hive. Protecting the hive is more important today than it's ever been, especially in an election year. It's really what this election comes down to. Who's going to protect the hive? What happens when the hive has a queen that's producing deficient offspring? Yes. That's when you call in a beekeeper love. I'll sort it right out. I'll sort it right out. So I've thought about that, but look,

there is an election going on. We've got the New Hampshire primary coming up tomorrow. Iowa caucus over, but I want to begin today's show by acknowledging the end of Rhonda Sanctimonious, help me Rhonda, meatball end of Ron DeSantis, help me, Ronda, meatball, Ron, Rob DeSantis, whatever you want to call him, the DeSantis campaign is no more. And I guess I would like to sort of pause at this sort of melancholy and bittersweet moment because this truly does mark the end of all fun in this presidential election. The end of anything funny fun in this presidential election. The end of anything funny happening

in this presidential election. Right now, the only conceivable thing that would reengage me in this presidential election is if either Trump or Biden dropped dead. That would be... And then things would go from zero to 100. Yes. But we've covered Rob's campaign, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention the NBC News O-Bit on the DeSantis campaign has some incredible gems in it. And the headline here is, a total failure to launch. Ron DeSantis was doomed from the start. Muddled messages, hiring too many staffers, and even a puzzle. How it all went wrong for the DeSantis was doomed from the start. Muddled messages, hiring too many staffers, and even a puzzle.

How it all went wrong for the DeSantis presidential bid. The puzzle is a weird addition, because I was just sort of like, you know what, I'm glad they got something to unwind with. Yeah, it's a perfect surrealist cap to this whole thing. Before we start off on this, I am actually, I'm coming to you guys from the People's Republic of Vermont, right next to New Hampshire, where the, you know, the psych of a primary radiates through. And I have to tell you I actually

had a dream last night about Ron DeSantis' campaign collapsing in which I was trying to infiltrate the rapidly deteriorating Ron DeSantis headquarters, asking them if I can take any of their recording equipment for my own. It was like, but I'm truly used to close the Hacienda. Office equipment, computers, musical equipment, take it all, use it wisely. Let's 1,000 Mancunians bloom. Good night. God bless. Exactly. I thought you were going to say you were having sort of like an administrative anxiety thing where you're like, you guys have to get your shit together and you're trying to like coordinate

their work. You were just going to produce your brain. I think it would surprise nobody that that's what a lot of my dreams are like is like sending emails and organizing like Sorting wires and stuff, but this one happened to be you know Sifting through the sinking ship of the the the DeSantis headquarters is the you know The boxes were being moved up and the chairs were being put on top of desks looking for you know Microphones and zoom H6's get that get that copper wiring. What else is it? He's not using it Let us not forget dreams are messages from the deep. And I mean, like, and Ron, he will

sleep per chance to dream, or the cousin, death. But okay, so here is like this incredible NBC, because I feel like this is such a perfect capstone to like the doomed Ron DeSantis presidential campaign. And it really is funny, thinking back to like eight, nine months ago when like everyone in the mainstream media was like, it's time to start taking Ron DeSantis seriously. Why Ron DeSantis is no joke. Why Ron DeSantis could be the end of Donald Trump. And it was just like, I mean, I guess like, I bought into it for a second,

because I was just like, I guess I bought into the idea that like, oh, this is Donald Trump, but he's serious. But I guess I was just disabused at that immediately as soon as I realized- When you won that Florida election by such a huge margin, it was like, okay, there's something here. Yeah, like winning Broward County.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. See, I feel like Florida's winning Florida is a point against you. Maybe we're learning that. Yeah, but I mean, like it just, what should have been evident from the beginning is that like this was the worst decision of his life to run for president now and not wait till four years from from in the future when it would have been an open field. But Trump has got this thing sewed up. But it didn't help that Rhonda Santantis' campaign was a complete factory of chuckleheads

and bozos and puzzle. And it's literally a puzzle palace. So listen to this. This is on the eve of the Iowa caucus in which DeSantis and his campaign basically put all of their chips. They went all in on Iowa and its evangelical vote and like the rural parts of it. They put everything into Iowa. And now this is a report from NBC and like the days leading up to the actual Iowa caucus. Quote, but in the week before the all important caucuses,

Scott Wagner, the recently installed head of the Super PAC was doing something that AIDS found puzzling. He was literally doing a puzzle. in the headquarters of Never Back Down in West Des Moines, Iowa. Wagner was, according to some of his staff, spending a significant amount of time in the precious final few days constructing a peaceful 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of the landscape. Did you guys find out? Did you guys look it up? Because I immediately looked it up. Okay. What is the landscape? Did you guys find out? Did you guys look it up? Because I immediately looked it up. Okay,

What would the actual design was? Springwalk, I can put it in the chat if you like, but it's called Moon Cabin Retreat. There's a lot going on with the like, you see the northern lights and there's kind of, there's a dog on the end of the dock. And I'm, I'm just going to do, but I looked for it. I'm like, well, now I want to, I want to buy this. But then it's sold out. I mean, yeah, this instantly has to become one of the most iconic puzzles of all time.

Right? Yeah. And I like it because it's, it's, it's just like, he, he didn't win a single county in Iowa. He finished like 20% He finished 30 points behind Trump and the image of like peaceful cabin and moonlight is I imagine what they show you in like a Swedish euthanasia pod right before they gas you or whatever Yeah, I was going to say the painter of light. And I wouldn't be surprised if that is a Thomas Cuncaid painting.

But so it goes on. It says, in a photo taken on January 9th, shared by NBC News by Never Back Down team member, others in the room were hunched over their laptops. And the photo that accompanies this, we should really make this the image of the show description. The photo... Yeah, just the moon cabin itself. I might do that. Okay. Well, the photo itself is great because, like, yeah, indeed, you see two staffers on their laptops, you know, probably grinding away, you know, trying to get them on campus.

Yeah, we've all done those, yeah. And then this guy's got Wagner. The thousand-piece puzzle has basically taken up about three tables worth of space in the headquarters of their Iowa campaign. And but it gets better because it goes on. It says, staffers are putting their dedication and devotion to electing Governor DeSantis, and they come in here. And then the

CEO, the chairman of the organization is sitting there working on a puzzle for hours. So they never backed down staffer who was there. Another never backed down staffer also said Wagner worked on it for hours in the week before Iowa. Here's my favorite part. In a comment to NBC News, Wagner noted that the office puzzle was there when we arrived and became a sense of pride for the entire team. Everyone shipped in for a few minutes to get it done. Okay, so when he said- The office puzzle was there before we arrived. It will be there after we leave. The office

puzzle is forever. You've always been the caretaker here, Mr. DeSantis. I feel like it got wrapped up with their sense of, I feel like it was more of a Fitz Corraldo style, like kind of obsessive thing. No, I think like, you know, like, cause every 40 years, like a lot of office space gets rented out in Iowa, these campaigns move in, and you know, things that used to be shoe stores,

get, you know, handed over to the, you know, Nikki Haley campaign or whatever but in Iowa you gotta have a puzzle you got a puzzle in the office the puth the puzzles always been there and of course before man existed the mooncap the perfect puzzle waiting for the perfect puzzle practitioner of course the idea that like this asshole was doing a puzzle that was already there and knowing full well that Rhonda Santis was cooked. And that's the other thing, like the Never Back Down staffer is getting like upset that

he wasn't like giving it his all or whatever. Come on, everybody there knew it was toast. It was done. Also, Never Back Down is literally like what you say before the firing squad executes you. Yes. What you say before the firing squad executes you. It's, it's, it's a, it's a, you say before you back down. Yeah. It's a defeated person's like, yeah, I'm never going to back down.

I'm definitely losing, but I'm going to take this lose it. Like I'm going to finish the race. You really do have to think about what the headline is going to be when you concede the election, when you name your pack, it's like entering, entering the Iowa caucuses. We've just registered, won't concede election pack. 15 months later, won't concede election pack concede election. But you know, like just the puzzle detail gave me that old time feeling. It gave me that old time feeling. And of course, it immediately conjured, you know, like you've always been the caretaker here at Michigan-Santa. It immediately, Brendan and I just started texting to each other, just doing, sorry,

he's going to share with Brendan here. He says, DeSantis berating some volunteer going, did you ever once think about my responsibilities to finish this puzzle? Give me the puzzle, Wendy. Give me the puzzle. Did you know, Mr. DeSantis, that your son is attempting to bring an outside party into this situation? Did you know that?

A former UN ambassador, a woman. A woman? And then finally, the last image I have of the DeSantis, DeSantis puzzle, Overlook Hotel meltdown, was of course, the elevators to the DeSantis office opening and putting, spilling out. Just the sea of putting. There we go. overlook hotel meltdown was of course, the elevator is to the descent this office opening and pudding spilling out, just the sea of pudding. There we go.

I do have to say, just did a, you know, I tend to think highly of people in the whole, if you give them half the chance, they're pretty good, but like the fact that they just completely overestimated like being able to win on a culture war, and it's like people were just like, yeah, that's not a lot of there there. And I think even the right now assumes

that people are more bigoted than they are materially interested. And like, this is never gonna give like a speech like Trump's like barn burner at the trade unions consortium or whatever. He's just gonna talk about bathrooms and shit. Yeah. And it's like the Trump takes up so much like has the charisma to push so much of that wacky culture war stuff so far. I think, you know, the one of the main themes

of the DeSantis campaign was that the the remaining margin of culture warship that they were picking up was exclusively nerd shit. Yeah. Exclusively for like the deeply online people who make it their business to research the furthest edges of the culture war. As of course, of anything else that you would just type of stuff that you have to go to like bigot school to learn. Yeah, you don't just like pick up. Yes, exactly. That you don't just like pick up from the miasma as as. Yeah. It's because I mean honestly, now it's time for the roast. This is not to say like the the

effects of it aren't serious. But the thing is like the way Trump engages with the culture war is so successful because he doesn't take any of it seriously. He like he is literally, he, it was literally all funny to him. And like, and that's why he can contradict himself and go back and be like, Caitlin, Caitlin, I talked to Caitlin Jenner, she's beautiful. By the way, she could use any bathroom she wants. Caitlin, anywhere you go with Mar-a-Lago is fine with me. No. Yeah. And it's, it's, the, the, where it's most successful is the stuff that like just resonates at the gut level that you don't have to like think about too much or do too many like equations

about. And of course, I mean, I tweeted about this yesterday, but I like this was all exemplified by my like, I think everybody has their own personal favorite moment of disaster of the DeSantis campaign. But mine, of course course was the the bizarre, groeper-fied Nazi video that is his like shadow campaign of like the actual like groepers put out on his behalf. That was just like, yeah, his his his like Waffen SS put put together like the most internet-ified thing is possible and that I mean again like there most internetified thing is possible. And that, I mean, again, like there are so many moments you can point out, but that one's the one for me of being like, oh, this is the nerd shit. This is not the stuff that's ever going

to resonate with a Twitter space and it crashed and it was just Elon Musk and that David Sack ball sack guy just talking over him for what seemed like 20 minutes. And then of course, Trump had an amazing, like the fact that the Trump campaign could put out a technically competent technological parody video on all social platforms within a like that was a level of competent real time social media response that I've almost never seen from the Trump campaign, that their parody video where like Satan and Hitler were in the Twitter space or whatever. Yeah. And then of course just roasted just completely and thoroughly roasted.

This is one former Never Back Down advisor told NBC News when they decided to do the Twitter Spaces launch. Maybe at that point, I knew they were stupid. And there are some other great details from this. It says here, the campaign's top brass, including then campaign manager, Jannera Peck, top advisor Ryan Tyson and Christina Pugshaw, who was the architect of the Santas communication strategy. Okay, so she used to blame, good to know. Hell of a conference call with those tapped to be

the social media knife fighters on the Santas' BF. She was going like, the idea that your staff is trying to get just like a wop, isn't it? It says here goes here. The group of roughly a dozen influencers was informally dubbed the Fight Club by the campaign. They were willing to combat members of the media and dissent this political foes. But from the very early weeks of the campaign, many were flummoxed by leadership's direction or lack thereof. The conference call was a shit show, just an absolute shit show.

Should a former Fight Club member who was on the call, or first of all, it was a shit show because you're talking about it. You're talking about the Fight Club. You're breaking the first two rules. Of shit show. People were pressed on the message and especially after the failed rollout. They had no answers now This next thing I have to share because of teachers really like a guy who we've been talking about on choppa since 2016 During a particularly bizarre portion of the meeting bill Mitchell a DeSantis supporter with a large social media following Asked the top DeSantis campaign staff if they could call Musk Because he was concerned that the site was limiting the visibility of his posts, a practice

commonly referred to as shadow banning. Yep, so they had their top knife fighter, Bill Mitchell, was on the flight club conference call just trying to get the campaign to complain to Elon Musk that his posts aren't getting the engagement that they once did. And you know, like I got to say, like it's been, it's been painful for me to see Bill Mitchell give his all to the DeSantis campaign and have them really shit all over him, you know, because they don't deserve to have a true warrior warrior. Yes. Yeah. Like a poster. Yeah. Did you see he was doing like this is the kind of this is how Bernie could still win stuff from like late March yesterday.

He's like, okay, so the campaign is not dissolved. It is merely suspended. Now, if Trump is actually put in Trump isn't tight and if Trump is going to get sent to prison in the next six months, that will activate the Ron protocol that will activate a meatball protocol. And then and then Bill Mitchell was just saying, I'm assuming Ron DeSantis is going to be Trump's VP And that's why I will be supporting Donald Trump

I mean, I don't know if he said he would support Donald Trump because Bill has gone very hard against Donald But I mean Ron Ron just endorsed Ron Donald. So yeah, I mean like where they got nowhere to go It's it's Trump or not on Donald Ron Donald Ron Donald. Yeah, it's I Mean getting back to how depressing it is, I mean, the other thing I've been thinking about is now that the primaries are effectively over is how you are... The add-on way you can tell that the primaries are truly over is how much it has shifted into hysterical, pre-blaming the quote-unquote left for Biden's presumed failure online. Like that discourse really ratcheted up,

literally the moment that Iowa happened. And it was like, all right, this is over. It's like, all right, now we're already getting into what was, what should be like fourth quarter discussion about the election, you know? Yeah. No, I mean, I've noticed like,

I mean, obviously because like, as I said, last episode, everything's so on rails and we already know who the nominees are gonna be it's gonna be Trump and Biden again so we've seen like I think like earlier than usual in an election cycle like the you know obsessive hectoring of people and sort of like Attempts to scold and discipline people back into voting for Biden and just be like, well, you know Trump You know, it's the last election we ever have. And to this, like, and I've noticed a lot of it lately. And I guess like to speak on that for a second,

I would just like to say, for someone like me to say that I'm not going to vote for Biden in 2020, I didn't vote for, I mean, no, I'm sorry, in 2024, I didn't vote for him in 2020. And I wasn't planning to do it again this time before he started murdering thousands of people. So I'm very unlikely that I'm gonna be moved again now. But when I say this, people interpret it like it's a threat. Like I'm threatening the Democratic Party like oh like you better get in line and vote and do what I want you to do or else

you know like I'm not going to vote for you still. And you know like I understand like that's a hollow threat because I wasn't going to vote for them in the first place. So when I say I didn't vote for Biden in 2020 and I don't plan to do it again in 2024, it's not a threat because I wasn't going to vote for them in the first place. So when I say I didn't vote for Biden in 2020 and I don't plan to do it again in 2024, it's not a threat. This isn't strategic. I'm bragging. I am bragging that I made the correct choice in 2020 and will continue to make the morally correct, the morally, politically, strategically correct choice in 2024. I don't think it'll affect the election one way or the other. I'm just you know, just saying where I'm at. We get to make these choices on easy mode because we live in New York and California,

where our personal contribution to the project is basically non-existent. It is an aside to the Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'm to to people who I don't know that if you I've been sympathetic to people who live in swing States or closed states to to have different at least different Calculices of how you might might make your decision to vote for Biden or not But for us for here in California in New York seems easy at this point You know, I'll say I'll say like I did I said in 2020. I'm not the fucking voting police You know, I mean look, I'm not the fucking voting police. You know what I mean? I'm not your parents. You can make that choice for yourself.

I'm just simply saying, if I didn't vote for Joe Biden in 2020, if you think I'm gonna even come close to pulling the lever for that asshole now, you're out of your mind. But again, you don't want my vote and my vote doesn't matter in the first place. All the people, it's just the anger people feel at like, I don't know, supposedly the rest of left.

It's supposed to be the premise of voting is that you're not supposed to bully someone into voting for this or that person. You should be making your case and hoping you bring them over. Yeah. And if you don't win, if you don't get my vote, sorry, loser. Yeah. I mean, I guess that's the reason I brought this up in general is that you can tell, and it's like palpable that it is coming on so quickly because of the acute panic that the people in't have to do anything to ramp up like a primary defense to defend Brandon. We haven't used Brandon in a while to defend Brandon against a primary attack. And in a critical period where he's making a lot of decisions that are really

pissing a lot of people off and rightly so. So it's like they're moving into this general election without even doing their warm-ups. And without any sense, like, look, as Josh Ender points out all the time, the Biden webpage does not even have an issues page right now. There is no platform for the Democratic Party. There's no top-down coordination, which makes all the people online go insane because they each feel like they're their own freelancing election coordinator with no direction from management, you know? And so everybody who cares about this stuff feels like they have to go out and be their own little like door knocking boss on their neighbor's tweets.

Yeah. I mean, I thought an example of this last week. It was like, it was some post that someone made that got like defaced by one of those community notes that wasn't really pointing out anything like factually inaccurate. It was just complaining about the sentiment expressed in the post, which was like, I think it was a trans woman in Florida who was saying that like since oh, yes Be since binds become president like x wires e things have happened to like you know Deface or a bridge my rights in the state of Florida And he didn't do anything to stop that and of course like everyone was screaming at this person because oh

It's the federal government. This was all done by Rhonda Santis and the state We're like the point that that person was making though was that like now is the time to organize like you know at a local level I mean, I think they were like of course acknowledging that Biden didn't you know Legislate against trans people in the state of Florida But like the point is if the president can't help you then what the fuck is like what do I owe them? What is the incentive? Yeah, I mean the point is usually so just so that it doesn't get worse, but you know, it's an election year I think people have the right to expect a positive case. Yeah, and I also don't know how many.

I mean, again, I do think the infrastructure bill is great, but they're not even taking credit for it. It does make you wonder, like I have wondered before in print, like, I don't know. Trump was pretty good for their fundraising, like not to be conspiratorial. Maybe the top brass, at least, just don't really care if he wins. The online army certainly cares. The Fight Club. You brought up the infrastructure bill, and I think that there are things that it would be possible. Again, I'm trying to play devil's advocate about if they could

even make a positive case here. But the fact that there is no ability to make any kind of positive case whatsoever, or seemingly any attempt to, is a demonstration of incompetency all of its own. Like that is also bad, and something that people should be ashamed and nervous about. Not taking credit for it, as it's saying,

or the business in damage. Like if, I mean, Trump wrote his names on the fucking relief checks. Like even Obama, like the infrastructure he, investments he made, you would see like a fucking sign where like on a road in a shitty place, they're like, this is by the, well, I forget what the bill is called.

And you know what, he didn't even call it the Biden infrastructure bill. Those pussies called it the bipartisan, it's the bisexual, it's it the bipartisan infrastructure bill. So even every opportunity they have to say they're creating jobs or like making sure maybe trains don't fly off the tracks every six months. Well, they've been not so successful with that recently.

No, they haven't. But theoretically they're laying more track and they're doing this stuff. And I do think the investor is good. Obviously Bernie wouldn't have done it better. But they're not even taking credit. They're not even track and they're doing this stuff. And I do think the investor is good. Obviously Bernie would have done it better, but they're not even taking credit. They're not even doing a victory lap. They're not even, I don't see signs anywhere.

Maybe Biden just is so old-timey, he thinks it's like unseemly, like a 19th century credit, how they didn't campaign in the 19th century or something, like handing out turkeys or something. Yeah, yeah. Oh no, we possibly couldn't take credit for those infrastructure checks.

To be fair, I think the last time I was in Wisconsin, I saw a bunch of signs touting that like, you know, this road was improved by the Build Back Better bill. And I guess it's just like, you can point to like, look, spending any amount of money in America. Okay. Sure. I'll take it. And then like, I guess, like, you can point to his Labor Department as like another like positive, a positive thing that you could point to about why you might consider voting for Joe Biden. But like, all this is being done in the context of like, the anti infrastructure bill, he's currently pursuing Palestine. Yeah. And I just think it's like, I when we were talking to Ryan Grimm, I talked about

how like, the consent manufacturing factory is just so fucked up right now. The consent manufacturing machine is broken. The consent manufacturing machine does not go burr. It didn't work in fucking like the invasion of Iraq. Like we kind of gave up on the fact that anything, what can you name, like WikiLeaks, like fucking Occupy? Like it doesn't matter what the national sentiment is.

It doesn't matter. There national sentiment is. It doesn't matter. There's no semblance of like, oh, the popular will of the people should at least influence like what power does. They just don't even care about like, why would we manufacture consent? We'll just do it anyway without your consent. I think that's correct, Amber. But like what I'm discerning right now in terms of how I view Western and Israeli propaganda to manage the public perception of this war, I think the public perception of it, they do regard that to be a big problem, whether it's domestically electorally for Biden or in their ability to continue prosecuting it in the way they

want to. So we get today reports that Israel is offering what they're calling up to a two-month ceasefire in exchange for returning all the hostages because like I mean and then and then I just want to mention quickly the headline in The New York Times today in this article by David Leonhardt the headline is the decline of deaths in Gaza. The daily death toll in Gaza has fallen in half over the past month, reflecting a change in war strategy. And then at the very end of this article where it just says the bottom line,

the New York Times and not an opinion column writes, even with the caveats, the change in Israel's war strategy has been significant and somewhat overlooked. Israel has responded to international pressure in ways that suggest its harshest critics are wrong to accuse it of wanting to maximize civilian deaths. Yet the war is is not over Israel continues to inflict enormous damage on Gaza and Hamas continues to attack Israel and call for its destruction The war's next phase will almost certainly include further tragedy and my point about that is like Obviously like look like as many Wars going to have more tragedy have you don't say yeah It like to be for yeah exactly like no be sure, there's more tragedy to come, but just less tragedy than you've

seen on the news already. The rate of tragedy falls over time. Yeah. But what I mean about this... Yes. ḍᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗᵗ Yeah, yeah, I feel like I feel like these like these products like what I've noticed over the last week or so is I feel like We're coming work Like I feel like they're recycling a lot of this stuff that we were talking about two months ago Because I mean like how many times is like the rapes the rape stuff been recycled and then last week there was this big article about Girl boss Israeli female soldiers that were like killing women and children isn't just for men anymore

And like they you know, they're talking about these tank commandos, but then like, it keeps coming back to this like arguments about is Israel a settler colonial state? It keeps it back to these buzzwords and sort of like these meta arguments. But then now we're getting back to the idea that like the death toll is inflated in some way. But with this article, what they're saying is that like, well, if you look at the data, it shows people are dying less than they used to even though Israel has systematically destroyed any ability to collect data on whether people are alive or dead anymore

So we're just going to assume that the death rate is falling. Well, what I my point is like Yeah Yeah, well, I mean like they've I mean like they have systematically like seized or destroyed most of like the, you know, civil civil service and like records of, you know, deeds birth certificates, college degrees, etc. And as well as, you know, destroying cemeteries as well. So it's going to be very hard to know. And I think intentionally so how just how many people say what you will about Nazi Germany they could at least keep a spreadsheet Thank You IBM But my point is that like the the New York Times article is like I don't think the New York Times would be feel the need to write an article that absurd if they weren't seeking to kind of Tamp down how abominable I think the average liberal Democratic voter finds what's going on right now.

And they have to be sure that like... And the thing is like it's not so much that they're like morally opposed to killing thousands of Palestinians, but it is for Biden as a politician, it is a it is a big problem for him that he keeps having to say things like we're doing everything necessary to make sure Israel complies with international law and minimizes the death of civilians. And then Israel just basically just does what it wants and tells them to go fuck themselves. That's why the New York Times has to write these ridiculous articles pretending that Israel is acquiescing to Biden's sort of like, you know, just over the weekend. This makes us uncomfortable. Yeah.

over the week. This makes us uncomfortable. Yeah. I think they are. No, I think I think they do know, but I think they I think they regard like having the entire world opinion and inflamed against them is evidence for them of how right they are. Because I think they love thinking of how like how benighted they are and how everyone's against them. Everyone hates them because they're so pretty and create so many wonderful apps, like Waze. Well, isn't that perhaps the effect of generations of internal and external propaganda that is reliant on the idea that the world's hatred of Israel is so severe and so constant that is why we must act in the way that we do even if that was perhaps overstated in the past for the point of propaganda that but then like when that actually comes to pass because of objective actions, you know, it's a cry. What situation there's no place to go. Yeah, yeah. Everyone's been saying we're a genocidal ethno

state for years now and you know yeah. And so if there is a genuine change in outside sentiment, which there appears to be like I mean along the lines of what you guys were just talking about. My mom, who is my usual gauge of the general temperature of the standard MSNBC-style liberal, this is the most critical I've ever heard her talk about Israel. When you've lost the suburban MSNBC moms, something has changed. If something has changed in the greater world, there is no response to it because now the greater world is just conforming what you've been messaging about yourself all the... I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chris, for whatever it's worth, I can say that that bears out as well among my own mother and other MSNBC watching parents that I am other that are close to me in my life. And I guess the lesson I want to say about this is like back to like

the complete lack of a positive message for like this Biden reelection campaign that we all know that like Democratic partisans must be feeling pretty fucking sweaty about right now. They're not they can't be feeling great about this. But they know that they're not going to change policy or change the nominee or anything. So they're, they're not gonna change policy or change the nominee or anything, so they're stuck with it. So as part of these scolding and cajoling front,

I would like to mention just like, the ever more intense invocations of Donald Trump and the Republican, and Mago Republican Party is like Adolf Hitler, and like the idea that like, if Trump wins this election, and gets to be president for another term, even a non-consecutive term, that essentially he will end democracy in America, and this will be the last election we've ever had,

to which I say, thank God I'm sick of this shit. I'm tired. I want... No, no, I... Yeah, I would... Yeah, that's exactly... I was thinking about this yesterday. You don't want to be relibit litigating the SPD KPD split 10 months before the election. Yeah, September October behavior. I'm sorry So I look like well

I certainly do not relish the thought of you know any Republican administration getting their fucking Sausage fingers on this country for another four years or one year or even day But the thing is like I don't believe you when you say this, because you can't say Trump and the Republican Party or like Hitler and the Fourth Reich and then be running an election against them. Why aren't you fucking arresting them? Why? Why aren't you assassinating their leaders?

What are you like? What are you doing here? I don't know. Like how do you expect me to take this threat seriously when you very clearly don't and you have the power to do something about it. I'm just some asshole with a podcast. And your response to it is to yell at strangers online rather than petition the party that you yourself declare yourself to be a hardcore dedicated partisan of to change its policies, reach out to people, you know, that you would yell up and try to change

from the position of power rather than I don't know Yeah, you'll yell eat strangers next to you Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all of this. I mean, I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that.

I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that.

I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I mean, all of this, all of this is just basically prologue to me, to me saying the real points of today's episode.

We need a beekeeper. Yeah. We need a beekeeper for tough times. We need a beekeeper. Folks, America needs a beekeeper. What we are saying is that we are looking at two as will has been saying on rails in Transagent parties of the equitable levels of corruption that cannot be affected from inside their own Party mechanics cannot be affected from inside their own membership cannot be affected from really within society

Or the political culture at all. We need an outside force, an outside actor. That actor, Jason Statham. Amazing movie, amazing movie. I was telling them this earlier, but at the end, my boyfriend started clapping. The entire packed theater joined in like it was the fucking Cannes Film Festival. So yeah, like, this is sort of like sort of a hybrid episode, because we did see we didn't see the beekeeper this weekend. A little birdie told me we might want to get on this because like on on the on the on a surface level, how so I described the plot of the beekeeper as simply as I can describe it. Basically, Jason Statham plays a Jack Reacher like character who takes it upon himself to pistol whip Pat Pepsis and the telemarketers crew because they're doing scams because because they are working for Hunter Biden who in this movie is the

Child of Hillary Clinton slash Donald Trump. It was a very yeah, and like and I was I Would describe this movie this is this is like the perfect movie to come out in January Yeah, January is the real treasure show when studios released all their best movies. And I saw this with Noah Cohen. And I think he described this movie correctly when he said, this is a two star banger. This is a movie that is not good by any stretch in the imagination, but it is thoroughly entertaining

and it is a great movie theater experience. So fun. A classic five star two star. I saw this. I think the movie theater, the January movie theater experience is good. I saw this at the exact like their movie theaters, different movie theaters for different situations. I saw this at a local chain, not a multiplex that used to be one big ass theater that they cut up into like four small ones. This appeared to be projected onto a a wall painted white like not a screen. We're in here in Vermont and here's all sitting on tree stumps. Yeah, it was four

p.m. It was me and Molly and when to go. Yeah, when to go and a couple who appeared to be in their late fifties or early 60s, all four of us were doing the De Niro and Cape Fear laugh the entire time. You could barely see the screen on the screen. Great exchange. You guys freeze. And like a lot of the people might, you might be asking, why the beekeeper? Well, like, look, obviously there is a, there is a muddled, but like there is a political valence to the plot, but that does not mean that this movie has a political point of view. Which makes it like all the, I mean like, because it has the veneer of what could be like a right-wing action movie. Because you know, David Ayer directed this and like his career has been marked of, marked by one of one long prolonged act of fallatio

towards law enforcement in the military, especially if they're corrupt and evil. But here's why this is a perfect Shapa movie, because this movie was written by the impresario, the auteur, Kurt Wimmer, director of Equilibrium. I don't think this movie is as good, that does not speak the same quality as Equilibrium, but it also features actor Josh Hutcherson featured in the Morgan Freeman 60-second time travel movie that we just did with Brian. And also, just like Reversal of Fortune, it features the great Jeremy Irons playing a former CIA director. And I love, I love in movies when Jeremy Irons tries to do an American accent and he's like a former CIA director. But like,

when he like, he's like, yeah, that's the same thing with you he does a hybrid they like cut it they like call it out at some point being like do I talk talking to Jeremy Statham somebody saying yeah the British Isles in your voice he's like oh how did you How'd you know, Carl? You got you got Chuck Norris on the right and then Steven Seagal sort of occupies this weird Yeah Like Steven Seagal's movies early on were very left wing. But now he like lives in, I don't know, in some former Soviet satellite state and basically only makes movies for Vladimir Putin, which, you know, I guess, and some, if you look at it from a certain angle, could be looking at his left wing. But basically, like,

as much as I like, say, this movie should have been a Steven like a current era Steven Segal movie Yes Something that everybody can give mine Well, it's funny because yeah, because there are like certain movies movies that don't have any direct political signifiers in them at all. You know, it doesn't talk about like the president or the president's son, but are nonetheless political. And this has like every single thing is directly like the president's son is doing corruption crimes, but has almost no political takeaway. It's kind of beautiful in that way. Yes. Yes. Well, that's Hillary.

And this is like the president is like if Trump and Hillary got in the Brundlefly machine and you just like and had her. Biden is a son. Yes. And combined all the things that people find unseemly about both of them into one individual where to the point where it's unclear what the critique is supposed to be. And that's what makes it perfect. Because there is... Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Well, the,iting incident for this movie, which stars Jason Statham as a beekeeper. What do you mean, beekeeper? Well, he's a beekeeper in the very literal sense in that he keeps bees and cultivates honey, but he is also a beekeeper in the more esoteric sense in that he is a member of an ultra secret government,

a government program called Beekeepers, which essentially empowers a jack, it's sort of like the Pope, you know, like the Dalai Lama, a jack-reacher figure is empowered by the American state to act totally autonomously of the chain of command, to essentially execute, kidnap, just do anything possible to protect the hive.

Question, do they all keep bees or is he, did he just throw? I think he took it really seriously. Well, that's just like a thing that you do, like a meditational thing. Also, maybe subtle old people slash environmental message. We're all so worried about the bees. Yeah. Well, I was gonna say, the inciting incident for this movie is as it opens,

Jathan Statham is just, he's a tough looking but kindly, you know, beekeeper who's renting a barn on the large Massachusetts property of kindly old woman played by Felicia Rashad. Forgot. Also good old people thing only real only real fucking political statement Bill Cosby innocent. So yeah, he's he's sort of like he's a nice old lady and he tells her at several points in the movie. You're the only one that's ever taken care of me love.

This is a spotty spotty little honey for you, love. I've been a freaky for my whole life. No one's ever taken care of me. So he's got, he's living with this guy. This is the John Wick, the John Wick dog of this movie is Felicia Rashad. Because like, as very like within the first two minutes of the movie, like he's out in the barn making honey, he's pressing honey into jars. And then she's at home and gets a pop-up ad on

her laptop, which is just like, oh, like, you know, malware detected, like, please call this number. She gets phished. And she calls basically the headquarters of telemarketers. What we do is we call up people in Chizormad of money. Like Sam Lipman-Stern is there, Pat Pepsis. And they just clear out her bank. They get her to like install a program and give her, give her like routing numbers or whatever. And they just empty out her checking accounts. And I'm like, oh man, like I hope Jason Stason

got this money back for her. Nope, she kills herself dead in the next scene. Just immediately. And it's a weird, like the setting, can we talk about the setting of like the call center? It's like a weird kind of club style atmosphere call center where all the guys are like hype beast Matthew Leskos and like cheering and like dude there's like it kind of has the energy of the telemarketers in telemarkers in the

documentary. It's one of these like high pressure sales environment where they're always putting up your total on the big screen. Yeah. Oh, yeah. In the scene with the first call center guy he takes out, like they come to his barn and he's got some hitters with him. They blow up his B boxes.

I don't know what they're called. The B boxes. They're hives. They're literally called hives. Yeah, they shoot it up and they think they're going to fuck this guy up. And then like, there's a scene where Statham goes in the barn and then just starts a band saw and I'm like Oh, I wonder what's gonna happen with that

Know they're his bees though like if they're on a farm I think at some point he's like he tells him he's like I'm the fucking beekeeper Maybe right you've been you've been kept you've been you visited by it tells every person encounters in the movie that he is The beekeeper. That's true. That's his main line. You're right. I missed that part. I was too trans-fixed by the good bad guys. Yeah. And then from there, he just, he attempts to follow the money up, which leads him to a giant tech company that just like runs hundreds of these like telemarketing sort of boiler rooms that just like steal money from retirees Who don't have like living relatives or anyone to care about them?

And they just empty out their bank accounts and use it to fund the presidential campaign of hillary clinton slash donald trump But hunter biden like his not his boss so much but like his his handler Like the person installed in the company to keep an eye on him, is played by Jeremy Irons, who plays a former CIA director who at one point like gets a bunch of like mercenary X Navy seals and green berets. And he's just like, and this is my impression of Jeremy Irons doing an American accent. You boys are all Navy SEALs, all great berets. Compared to a beekeeper, that means you're pussies. You're not like a part of the he's doing the thing that

like so. Okay. So now because basically all male Hollywood actors are British or Australian guys, they've gotten pretty good at doing American accents, but he's doing that like older, older British guys do. And it's like when the Monty Python guys ever had to pretend to be Americans, they would just insert superfluous Rs in their words. So it's like, Arm AmeriKarner, I am ordering a hamburger. Extra vowels and diphthongs. Everything kind of goes, yeah. Yeah. And like, Jeremy Irons' character is the one that is tasked with repeatedly explaining what beekeepers are to all the other characters in the movie, and he's just like,

I'm sorry, son, a beekeeper has marked you for death, which means you have approximately five minutes to live. If you've heard of a beekeeper, you're already dead. So did he used to fuck the president? Did anybody else pick up on that? Am I just assuming that? Am I picking up on sexual tension that isn't there? But I feel like he used to fuck the president.

Yes, no, yeah, definitely. Okay, I'm just making sure. No, no, you did not. I'm like, thank you all for a reason. Yeah, because he was like, oh, you're still fucked about me. And she was just, sometimes. So yeah, like maybe in the IR cut,

it's shown that uh Josh Hutchinson is actually Jeremy Irons' son. I just I just wanted to make sure because I'm like that's an insane detail that didn't need to be there at all. I will say though I mean a few criticisms I have of this movie uh chief among them is that the worst thing that happens to Jeremy Irons in this movie is that state them breaks his finger and just sits him down He's like, oh That's it what and you know and also at the end of the movie Swallow alert the beekeeper on kills the son of the president because in beekeeper myth in the beekeeper mythos son of the president because in beekeeper myth, in the beekeeper mythos, sometimes when bees, when their queen produces defective male offspring, a queen slayer has to arise and the bees have

to kill the queen. So when they start explaining this, I was like, oh, the beekeeper is going to assassinate the president. This is going to be awesome. It's not called the fail son slayer. But yeah, he does not, he does not kill the president at the end of this movie, which I was somewhat disappointed in. Might have been a little too political. They probably wrote it that way originally, and then they're like, mule it back, make it a commercial project. You can't kill the president. Yeah, doesn't matter which one it is. Don't do it. People in this age, people might get ideas.

Yeah. people in the in this day and age people might get ideas. Yeah, but right the president any any relative of the president and it's open season. It's a B season, but why does it happen at a party? The party. The end was so weird. The most nonsensical thing. I mean, do you guys want to just like skip around and like hit things from because there's so many funny details. This party seen in the end where it's like okay, the president and her son are going to be at a party where it's like strippers doing house of yes style carnival like sexy carnival stuff with like, you know, like club guys and shiny suits, but also like heads of

state are there. It was like a soul a but like there was a guy that I don't know if you clock this guy, but he looked like Jocelyn Wildenstein And then you know they get to the fucking bad guy. Well, we'll get to that later Well, no Chris I think the exact same thought because like towards the end of the movie Jeremy Irons gets the brilliant idea to be like, okay, how am I gonna save this dipshit fail son's life? He's been marked for death by a beekeeper here to for every Every wave after wave of like mafia guys and Navy seals He sent them all home and body bags. So he's like, aha, okay

Let's go to your mother is like Martha's vineyard retreat and because she's the president the sort of cordon of security Provided by the Secret Service will prevent the beekeeper from his bee Queensland duties from keeping the bees But yeah, but so like you know, when the president travels somewhere, like obviously like there's a lot of media, you know, like there's a secret service. But like this party scene is so odd because like the Sun and Jeremy Irons also conspired to have basically a hit squad of like cartel fucking gun guys just show up at a party with the secret service and they're all heavily armed and there's this insane South African guy carrying an Uzi being like, where's the big keeper mate? I'm going to kill this kaksakur.

Yeah, by the way, that guy is British. He looks like Matt Gates and then he's like actually British. He like spent like six years. Yeah. And I don't like his face. He has a horrible Matt Gates face. It upsets me, but he I think he's cool. I think he's good for a sleazy mercenary. He spent six years. He was in South Africa until he was six. And then they just forever hire him. I don't know because I looked up and like who is this guy? He needs to be the ugly scary guy at everything. Yeah. No, he's a Nathan J Robinson of South Africans. It's ridiculous. Yeah, he's got like every possible South African effect. Yeah, he's awesome. He's so gross. I do. I also like just like details in especially in this party scene towards the end and like the last 20

minutes of this movie, every shot of the hunter Biden character, the Josh Hutchinson guy, he is consuming a different substance and often within the same sequence of scenes, it'll be like shot one. He's drinking a whiskey, cuts to his mom, cuts back to him. He's snorting a line, cuts back back to his mom, cuts back to him. He's ripping up a DMT vape pen. Yeah. He has multiple types of vape, if I remember correctly. It's a really nice touch of, you know, with breaking continuity to just shove different substances in this person.

Oh, we forgot that the fucking FBI lady. Once again, old people shit. Jaycee Stathie, he takes care of Felicia Rashad, but her completely ungrateful daughter has been ignoring her this whole time. Again, it's old people movie. To be able to see, yeah, her daughter has been an FBI agent. So she hasn't been, you know, explaining to her about that you shouldn't pick up your phone

when it's someone the number you don't recognize or respond to emails saying that you've been hacked. Or kill yourself the first time you see a fucking thing. Yeah, yeah. She also like got messages from the yes. They were saying. Oh, dear. The bank says there's been an error against my favor. Well, I better put this revolver in my mouth. Yeah, you can wake up. I can hit with an overdraft charge. You're like, well, I guess that's it for me. I'm going to the bridge and taking a dive off

But but okay There's another part that I remember for the movie is when Jason Statham is talking to the FB the now, you know, the FBI agent whose mother just committed suicide because the telemarketers We're asking you to donate now for officers killed in the line of duty. She wanted that sticker for her car so bad, but then she ended up dead for it. But Statham in like, and what I think is this movie

is only actual point of view or articulated, an articulated point of view, the only thing that exists in this movie is when Statham explains that those who steal from the elderly are in fact worse than those who steal from children Because like children the elderly are also stupid and helpless But there's even but but there's actually but there's no adults to look out for them Where as kids are dumb babies, but they have adults in their life to be like hey don't eat that I Know be like, Hey, don't eat that. I know.

The baby is 80 years of opportunities to get candy. You still candy from a 70 year old that They're on their last, their last round of candies. Yes. I mean, we've talked about a lot over the course of the show about how much of like current politics is, you know, basically agreeing to the third Reich, if it'll make your, your nephew or granddaughter email you. I think that if there is a political fantasy here, it's that the fantasy of having a super son or daughter who super sees your lazy son and daughter and will not only call you back but will in fact kill for you. And he'll not only give you a jar of fresh honey. you a jar of fresh honey. Yes.

See, this actually makes a lot of sense because again, when I sat down in the theater, the only two other people there were like, in their mid 60s, I was like, oh, are they going to like this? And then as we were all walking out there, I was like, that was great. And I was like, now I'm like, yeah, I see where they got to get from this. It's old coded. Yes. But it's channeling the undirected but vague sense of populist anger that we have. We just want Jack Richard to hurt somebody. We want him to hurt somebody. We don't really know why. Not the president.

You know, the president, they're doing their best, but the president's kid, yeah, obviously Jack Richard can crush his head like a fucking melon. Yeah. That ungrateful little shit, again. Like it's just another ungrateful little shit. And the president, you don't like them,

but you don't want to upset the avocado too much. But you want that little brat punished. It's all elder fantasy. the avocart too much, but you want that little brat punished. It's all elder fantasy. Funny. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. His dad learned to text just to communicate with him and he leaves his dad on red I have a few a few other mild critiques of this movie number one. I was really expecting him to

kill people in ways that Incorporated bees in some way. I was hoping that he would like you know bury someone in the sand cover their head with honey And have bees like Make a hive out of their skull. I mean, at one point, at one point, he, he, he smashes a glass, a jar of honey over the current beekeeper who's some like rave chick who has a gap, a mini gun on the back of a pickup truck in Massachusetts. I thought about her. Yeah. I wish we saw more of her. This is my biggest critique with this

movie is a structural one, which is okay. So the beekeeper starts his revenge path and like kills a boot, a bunch of goons. And then you see the first Jeremy Irons scene where he's like, there's a beekeeper at after you 100 hundred by. And like if you're listening to this episode, exaggeration, how many times the phrase bees and be keeper is said it's probably and so you would think like 60 times the rational structure of something like this was like okay, you start with goons, then maybe you move to mob guys and try to take him out then Delta Force, then your africaners and then the final final final fight should be another beekeeper. The only thing that can defeat a beekeeper should be another beekeeper. No, it's like and it should have been that trick. She was fun. She was she had all crazy eyes. She looked like she was in the the Wraith episode of Samurai Jack. She was like it's like 15 minutes into the

into the movie. They're like, okay, there's a beekeeper. What do you do? Call another beekeeper. They go in, okay, there's a beekeeper. What do you do? Call another beekeeper They go in he dispatches her in two minutes on the next day instantly No, it's supposed to be a pussy. She's supposed to be the top. They're really undermining their Flaw of the movie When Statham retired as beekeeper, there was a big drop-off in beekeeper quality And like there's just like there's so many things like that that are just never followed up in this movie, which I really appreciated and I have to credit

the filmmakers, cause like in most other movies, there would be like, okay, do you remember the fact that Minnie Driver was in this movie for about two seconds? Yeah, for like a second. And she's like the third bill lead on the credits. She is in two scenes in this movie and her character never comes back or plays any role in the plot whatsoever.

Just a tiny second, very, very big actress. Also I had a weird, is that many drivers? Did she get like a masseter reduction? I had to think like three times is that many drivers. She looks weird, right? Yeah. I barely read the answer. I mean, she's still many to me.

She's still many to me. I mean, I've just she's still many to me. She's still fine. She's still crossed my blank to me. I know the heart of every 90s indie kid. Yeah, I like know it can't be a mini driver because she would get more screen time. But no, it's her. No, like she had she had no scenes. She had scenes talking on the phone with Jeremy Irons and that's it. You know, no. that's it. You know, my biggest critique of this movie was towards the end, one of the best scenes in the movie, like just absolutely perfect action movie writing when the Africana mercenary has like Jason, he has the beekeeper on his knees and he has a gun to his head and he's like, I'm gonna fucking kill you. We were like, you're a black or something like that. I know.

No, and then like that, the Africana mercenary is like, you're so hard beekeeper man. But it's like they say to be or not to be. And then Statham goes, I'll take to be. And you know what? Like I just there was so many, there was so many opportunities there, but he said like, how about plan B? Or, you know, like, I'll be right back. I don't know.

Just going, well, I'll be. And then he unleashes the B's. Letter B. Yeah. But yeah, like, so, you know, a solid entertaining movie, not enough bees from from my like to really kick it into like a masterpiece, I would need I would need more bees in this movie. But you know what? I'm hoping like, look, there is definitely the door open for a sequel. And it could be called to be to be to be to They blew their water on that. Yeah. Well, I mean, 2B would be good, but I'm thinking like we need an update of the

beekeeper and like now that he's a retired beekeeper that's still doing beekeeping activities, keeping the hive safe and whatnot. I think he needs to take it to the next level. The next movie should be called The Zookeeper with Jason Snandham. And essentially like now he is tasked with arresting like malifactors of great wealth, like people who steal from the elderly or do telemarketing. He's just waiting for one more on fundraising. They're real even to do this. But instead of just killing them,

he basically incarcerates them in his human zoo and he becomes the zookeeper. And it's just like you wake up and you're in like a shipping container with like a cot and it's like, you're part of the fucking zoo now. You should have stopped stealing from the other day. So that's my pitch for Be Keeper 2, Zoo Keeper. Yeah.

You know our number Hollywood. Yeah. I would just say, you know, I was thinking a lot about Lady Ballers when we were watching this and how like God awful the overt attempts to create conservative political comedy is. And I think that, you know, if you're an aspiring like media writer, TV overt attempts to create conservative political comedy is. And I think that, you know, if you're an aspiring like media writer, TV or film writer, I think this is a good thing to write because I would say if you want to write something with political, like a quote unquote political movie or political valence, the two things that you should challenge

yourself to do is write something with either zero political signifiers that nonetheless has a political message or where it's literally about murdering Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but has no political content in it whatsoever. It has all the political signifiers are in this movie with no political statement. It's really fun. I think that that is, I think you will end up with something good, at least entertaining from that because it's like, you know, it's all callback. You know, we love we love to see our guys that we see in the news and we love to fantasize about what if Jason Statham like you could strangle them with a telephone cable or something.

There's a really great sequence with Jason Statham punching a guy in the neck with a phone like an office phone like a terminal. Yeah. My personal thing that I'd like to see Jason Statham in a movie in a fantasy not reality due to let's say, I don't know, some of the people we've been talking about is there's a scene where he he comes around the back of a guy holding a shotgun grabs the barrel and pulls the shotgun into this dude's mouth and then smashes all his teeth with the shotgun in his mouth. Yeah. There's a lot of him just disarming guys with guns, taking the guns apart in front of them and then beating the guys with the parts of the gun. Yeah.

I mean, I know I said it already, but like all the scenes where he just fucks up telemarketing boiler rooms. All I think of is just poor Pat pepsis like nodding out at his desk and then the fucking Jason, the transporter, smashes his head through a computer screen. That's Jason's favorite transporter. Smash his head through a computer screen. We love that. We love Sam, but I just couldn't help but think about the unmitigated violence that would have been unleashed at like, you know, the Jersey Civic Trust Group or whatever they're working for. Yeah, yeah.

I'm sure they'd get a kick out of this. We were just talking about like the sort of like the interesting exercise of creating a movie with every political signifier But no political point of view and I just wanted to contrast that with This is just something I read. I just saw this right before we started reporting sort of recording today And this isn't the Hollywood reporter about Ava DuVernay's new movie cast which is based on a book of the same title Which is like I don't know much about the book It's by Isabelle Wilkerson, and I think it like, attempts to transpose the Indian caste system

onto American racism or whatever. I vaguely remember when this came out, and it being like a deal, people were talking about it. It was a bit much touted. It's an Oprah book. It's literally an Oprah's Choice book. And so like, it's also just, it seems to be, I can't, I kind of want to read it now,

because it does seem to be like slavery, the Holocaust, I'm calling you fed at the bus stop. They're kind of all the same thing. It has a very has a very avid duvernay did like Iowa's good had kind of like I see everything that's connected now. I want to read the heroes. Yeah. Yeah. I want to read the book. I want to watch the movie. We should have somebody were referred to it as like Cloud Atlas for racism or the 1519 project. Well, I mean, I wasn't aware that really where this movie, but I certainly want to see it now after reading this in the Hollywood report. And I'm just going to share this like as contrast to the beekeeper, origin returns to Martin at the end of it and returns to Martin, meaning Trayvon

Martin at the end and adjust the position suggested by one of Duverne's close friends, Guillermo del Toro. He was one of our biggest champions and he came in and edited with us for a couple of days, says Averik. It was his idea to flash Trayvon Martin within the concentration camp scene. He was like, there's some kind of connection. When they put the clips going up against each other, the impact was stunning. In the Holocaust sequence, a Jewish woman desperately tries to run after her son as they are ripped away from each other. Nazi officials wrestle with her to the ground and put a gun to her head. Echoed decades later by Zimmerman, wrestling Martin to the ground. Even the composition of the footage was coincidentally similar.

I just love the idea of Guillermo del Toro being like, I love my monsters. I love monsters so much. George Zimmerman. Yes. What if George Zimmerman was a monster? What if he wears Freckles? I mean, it's probably like what greater monster is there? But I mean, you guys laugh, but like those are all bad things. That's not a connection. I don't know what it is. I just think there's some connection here. But I saw this right before we started recording today,

and Amber, to your point, about the beekeeper having no message, despite all the things that seem like there's going to be a message. Whereas this is nothing but message. Yeah. Just message. Message. And I'm fascinated. I really do want to see this movie now because it's so... Yeah. I mean, a really heavy-handed political allegory can be very entertaining. Yeah. Especially when it's so ham-fisted that it thinks all of the bad things are the same thing

because you had some sort of like, you know, smoke- smoke sweet ones. I've found the unifying theory of the world movement Just as I Everything has to be every message. It's something like to the effect of it. I'm probably butchering it I think people should focus more on what I say and less on how I say it And I'm like, yeah, that was that was in a New Yorker profile. Yeah You make movies. I don't know. Was this not the longest, sorry, was this not the longest Hollywood reporter article you have ever read in your life? I mean, I only saw the clip about Guillermo del Toro being like, we need some Trayvon in this

Holocaust scene. Your editor, can you can you dial up the Trayvon slider just a bit? She said that in hire actors for the for the low cast really all I think it is. They're the low cast people. And my first thought was like, did you pay them? I'm sure they did. I'm sure they paid all the actors. I'm sure they paid all the actors.

That's the thing. She says they were actors. I'm sure they paid all the actors. That's the fiction, they were actors. I don't know. I just, I look forward to reading the book and seeing how everything is all connected. Well, let's wrap it up there for the day, gang. We'll be back on Thursday, but that was just the end of Ronda and the beginning of the beekeeping era. We must keep the bees. I have two quick announcements first because as we were talking at the beginning,

that I produce even in my dreams, I have to mention that it is in fact episode 800 of Chappatrap House. I always love to crack off another hundo. Thanks for listening. The 800s will be the beekeeping. Yes. Yes. This is our beekeeping era. Yes. We will be that outside force, re-balancing the hive. To hit a milestone, but I think like the next really big milestone, which we should do like maybe even a live event, a special, some sort of of 24 hour marathon, the thousandth episode. That is when we will produce our, we'll do our, the chapeau cruise, uh, where we all, uh, engage in like, cancelable behavior with the fans and that guy on, on YouTube has to do a like,

what we're wrong with the chapeau cruise video. I think it would be great. I think it'd be like, see you. Yeah, read the, read the Terry Southern novel, The Magic Christian to find out what the chapeau I think it would be great. I think it'd be like see you. Yeah, read the Terry Southern novel, The Magic Christian, to find out what the Chappah crews will be like. And then as I mentioned last week, I am going to be appearing at the San Francisco sketch fest this Wednesday with the Talking Simpsons podcast. Shout out Henry and Bob.

Yeah, shout out Henry and Bob. We love them. And we'll be doing Marge vs. the Monorail. I'm going to be reciting even though it's very tangentially related. I will be reciting Trouble from Music Man in its entirety And details for that. I think it's at 7 30 at the Gateway Theatre. I think it is but details of that will be into the description Hopefully see you there. All right. Okay. Well, we'll be back on Thursday. Cheers everybody. Bye. Bye. Later. Bye Bye I'm gonna go back to the show will be in the description. Hopefully see you there. Alright. Okay. Well, we'll be back on Thursday. Cheers, everybody. Bye bye. Later. Bye. Won't be turned around And I'll keep this world from dragging me down Gonna stand my ground And I won't back down

I won't back down Hey baby There ain't no easy way I won't back down