Chapo Trap House - 800 - Puzzle Palace (1/22/24)

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

EDIT: Original file of this episode contained some muted audio clips. File is now fixed, redownload to correct. 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

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 set. And that's this. Listen, you can't sound the fucking... And if you've got any bees, it need keeping. I'm going to have a bit of that.

Right. Up the apples and bears as the fucking beekeeper. Oh, I'm back again. Yes. Yes. I would eventually like to talk about the beekeeper. the bees. There's a lot going on in the world,

but, and 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? But what happens when the hive has a queen that's producing deficient offspring? Yes.

That's when you're calling a beekeeper love. I'll sew it right out. So I have a thought about that, but look, there is an election going to, 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 Ron, Rob DeSantis, whatever you want to call him. The DeSantis campaign is no more. And I guess I would like 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 happening in this presidential. Right now, the only conceivable thing that would like re-engage me in this president presidential election is if either Trump or Biden dropped dead. That would be... And then things would go from zero to one hundred. Yes. Yeah.

But, you know, we've covered, we've covered Rob's campaign. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention. The NBC News obit on the DeSantis campaign has some incredible gems in it. And the headline here is, a total failure to launch. Ryan 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 bed. 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 of 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 failed state, failed state, New Hampshire, where the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, of the, of, of a primary radiates through. And I have to tell you, I actually had a dream last night, uh, about Ron DeSantis's, um, campaign collapsing in which I was trying to infiltrate the rapidly deteriorating, uh, Ron DeSantis headquarters, asking them if I can take any of their recording equipment for my own. It was like for that, Tony Wilson, close to Hacienda.

Office equipment, computers, musical equipment, take it all. Use it wisely. Let a thousand Mancunians bloom. Good night. God bless. Exactly. And my head, I thought it was kind of a, I thought it was, 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 to word. hate their work. You were just going to produce her brain. Yeah, 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 DeSantis headquarters as the boxes were being moved up and the chairs were being put on top of desks looking for you know, microphones and Zoom H-6s. 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, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, he is, like, this incredible NBC in it. Because, like, I feel like this is, this is such a, a perfect capstone to, like, the, 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 Ronda Santis is no joke. Why Ronda Santis 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, hmm, I guess I bought into the idea that like, this is Donald Trump, but he's serious. But I guess I was disabused at that immediately as soon as I mean, when he won that Florida election by such a huge margin, it was like, okay. Yeah, like winning Broward County.

Yeah, yeah. See, I feel like winning Florida is a point against you. Maybe we're learning that. Yeah, but I mean like it's 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 until 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 Ronda Santis campaign was a complete a complete factory of chuckleheads and bozos and and puzzle and it's literally a puzzle palace. So listen to this. It's okay.

This is like somewhere, 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 like they, they put everything into Iowa. And now this is a report from NBC in like the days leading up to the actual Iowa caucus. 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 Backdown 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 1,000-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? What the actual design was? Springbok, 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 going to, but I looked for it.

I'm like, well, now I want to, I want to buy this. But then, yeah, this instantly has to become one of the most, 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 just like, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, 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 in moonlight is I imagine what they show you in like a Swedish euthanasia pod right before they gas you or whatever. Yeah, it's a little bit of the imagery of it because there's a canoe, it's not quite the Ryan gives its gold to the sea sort of like German romance. But it's kind of like the corny American version of that. Like it definitely feels, it definitely feels American. It definitely feels like Thomas Kincaid trying to do the Uba Mensch. The painter of light.

And I wouldn't be surprised if that is a Thomas Kincaid painting. But so it goes on. It says in a photo taken on January 9th shared by it with NBC News by Never Backdown team member. Others in the room were hunched over their laptops. And the photo that accompanies us, we should really make this the image of the show. Or the moon cabin retreat. 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 go in the calls. Yeah, we've all done those. Yeah. And then this guy, Scott Wagner, the thousand beats 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 said he never backed down staffer who was there. Another never back 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 and 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 Fitzcaroldo style, like, kind of obsessive thing. No, I think like, you know, like, because every four 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 got to have a puzzle. You got to have a puzzle in the office. The puzzle's always been there. And of course... Before man existed, the moon cabin retreat waited for him.

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 instead, you know, knowing full well that Ronda 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. Never back down is literally like what you say before the firing squad executes you.

Yes. It's a, what 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. 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 the Iowa caucuses. We've just registered won't, seat election pat 15 months later

won't concede election Pat concede's election but uh you know like I just the puzzle detail gave me that 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 of Mr. DeSantis is immediately Brendan and I just started texting texting to each other just doing go sorry he's got to share with Brendan here he says Descentes berating some

volunteer going did you ever once think about my responsibilities to finish this puzzle? Give me the puzzle, Wendy. Give me a 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 puzzle overlook hotel meltdown was, of course, the elevators to the DeSantis office opening and pudding spilling out. Just the sea of pudding. There we are you. I do have to say, just at a, you know,

I tend to think highly of people in the whole, if you give them half a 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, Descentes is never going to give, like, a, you know, a speech like Trump's like barn burner at the, at the trade unions, trade unions consortium or whatever. He's just going to 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 remaining margin of culture war shit that they were picking up was exclusively nerd shit. Exclusively for like the, the, the deep

online people who make it their business to research the furthest edges of the culture war as of course to the exclusion of anything else that you would this type of stuff that you have to go to like bigot school to learn yeah you don't just like get up grad student at least yes exactly that you don't just like pick up from the miasma yeah and chan moves on from it he just he's just like okay now I'm going to do some jokes like he doesn't say not a little funny the roast Not to say like 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 serious Yeah He like he is literally all funny to him And like and that's why he can contradict himself And go back and be like Caitlin I talk to Caitlin Jenner She's beautiful by the way She can use any bathroom she wants

Anywhere you go with Marlock Oh is fine with me Most people don't care about Even right wingers don't care about it that much anyway It's more just sort of a fly in the ointment Yeah, and it's, 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. Yeah. And, of course, I mean, I tweeted about this yesterday, but, 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, was the, uh, the bizarre, groyper-fied Nazi video that his, his, like, shadow campaign of, like, the actual, like, groipers put out on his, behalf. That was just like... The absolute most reliable and capable people you can possibly imagine. Yeah. His his, his like Waffen SS put together like the 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, this is the nerd shit. This is not the stuff that's ever going to resonate with a mainstream. It's deep, deep internet. It's like buried in, it's blue waffle SS. It's there's nothing. You have to be such so buried in online for so long. Chris, for me, it was when he announced his campaign with a Twitter space and immediately 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 were like Satan and Hitler were in the Twitter space or whatever.

And then, of course, just roasted, just completely and thoroughly roasted. This is, 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, Janera Peck, top advisor Ryan Tyson and Christina Puschaugh, who was the architect of Desantis Communications Strategy. Okay, so she's to blame. Good to know. Hell the conference call with those tapped to be the social media knife fighters on DeSantis's behalf.

She wasn't like, the idea that your staff is trying to get. They literally bought a knife to a gunfight. Just like a whop, 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. She had a former fight club member who was on the call. Well, first of all, it was a shit show because you're talking about it.

You're talking about it. Yes. You're breaking the first two rules. of shit show. It said 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 Chappas 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. He's getting ratioed and damn it he's not going to stand for him.

And you know, like I gotta say like 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 like they don't deserve, to have a true warrior. No.

Like a true poster. Yeah, you know. 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. Campaign is not dissolved. It is merely suspended. Now, if Trump is actually put in. Trump is indicted. 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 dissent. This 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 just endorsed Ronald. So, I mean, like, where they got nowhere to go. It's Trump or no. Ron Donald. Yeah. Ronald. 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 like how you are, the, 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 going to be. It's going to 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, because 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, for someone like me to say, to. say that I'm not going to vote for Biden in 2020. I didn't vote for, I mean, 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 very unlikely that I'm going to 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, 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. This isn't strategic. I'm bragging. I am bragging that I made the correct choice in 2020 and we'll continue to make 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 saying where I'm not. 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. You know? It is an aside to the discussion. We also live in the most, like, Republican Democrat states. Yeah. Like, they're the most right-wing Democrats because they're so fucking big and wealthy. Like, it doesn't, we are the target, like, Biden states. And, like, Democrats in Republican states are usually to the left of California and New York Democrats.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm sympathetic to people who, I don't know, that if I'm sympathetic to people who live in swing states or close states to, to have different, at least different calculuses of how you might make your decision to vote for Biden or not. But for us, for here in California and New York, seems easy at this point. You know, and like I'll say, I'll say like I did it. I said in 2020, I'm not the fucking voting police. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not your parents. Like, 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 going to even close to pulling the lever for that asshole now,

you're out of your mind. But again, like, you don't want my vote. And my vote doesn't matter in the first place. All the people who, it's just the anger people feel like, I don't know, some supposedly restive left. It's supposed to be the premise of voting is that you're not supposed to, 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 the position to do the hectoring, the liberal hectoring are feeling this early on. They're sitting on their hands from what I can tell. like the Democratic Party appears to have not been particular like I haven't seen any fucking signs anywhere

and it doesn't even matter if you think there's no like contest or anything they seem to have been like you know they got to Iowa and they're like oh shit it's I'm having a little deja vu where they just assumed their candidate was gonna win yeah they didn't have to do anything to ramp up

like a primary defense to like you know defend Brandon Brandon in a while to defend Brandon against a primary attack, so they just 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 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 is saying, like, since Biden's become president, like, X, Y, or Z things have happened to, like, you know, deface or abridge 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 Ronda Santos. And the state, and 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 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, you know? Yeah, and I also, I 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. And it does make you wonder, like I have wondered before and burned. Like, I don't know. Trump. was pretty good for their fundraising, like not to be conspiratorial. Maybe they just don't, like, maybe the top brass at least,

just don't really care if he wins. The online army certainly cares. But, like, 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, like, 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 insane. Irutbizant in damage. Like, if, I mean, Trump wrote his names on the fucking relief

checks. Like, even Obama, like, the infrastructure 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 I forget what the bill's called. And you know what? He didn't even call it the Biden

infrastructure bill. Those pussy called it the bipartisan infrastructure. It's the bisexual lighting 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 investment 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 is so old-time, he thinks it's like unseemly, like a 19th century president, how they didn't campaign in the 19th century or something. It's like handing out turkeys or something.

Yeah. To be fair, when last time I was in, I simply 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, a positive thing that you can 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-infestructure bill. He's currently pursuing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I just think it's like, 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. But I just want to Consent manufacturing machine does not go burr. It didn't work in fucking like invasion of Iraq. Like we gave kind of gave up on the fact that anything we go. What can you name?

Like, WikiLeaks like fucking Occupy. Like it doesn't matter what the 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 like in terms of like, you know, how I, how I view like sort of Western and Israeli propaganda to like sort of manage the public perception of it, they do regard that to be a big problem, whether it's like 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 hot. 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 the 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 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 people pointed out about this war is going to have more tragedy? You don't say. Yeah. Yeah, like to be for, yeah, exactly. Like, go, to 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. I honestly don't. Also, fuck it. They're probably running out of fucking people. But I honestly, like, think if there's, I agree with you totally about, like, they're like, ooh, this is not good PR. At least the American state. I think Israel still thinks everyone kind of likes him.

And I can't help it if everyone, if I'm so pretty and popular and everyone's jealous at me. I think if they are figuring out that they're having a bad PR thing, it's, very slowly. It's the first time they've suspected it because they've been going on like a lot of their propaganda has just been look how great Israel is. Look how evil

Hamas. They haven't been like this is complicated. They haven't been like they haven't even really felt the need to defend it as much as you would think. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I feel like these like what I've noticed over the last week or so is I feel like we're coming. I feel 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 has, like, the rapes, the rape stuff been recycled? And then last week, there was this big article about, um, uh, girl boss, Israeli female soldiers. And they were like, killing women and children isn't just for men anymore. And like, 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 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. I love, by the way, the idea of Israel of all places big. Look, I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just saying the numbers weren't that high. Yeah. Well, I mean, like they've, I mean, like, they have systematically, like, seized or destroyed most of, like, the civil service and records of, you know, deeds, birth certificates, college degrees,

et cetera, 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 are doing doing. Say what you will about Nazi Germany. They could at least keep a spreadsheet. Thank you, IBM. But my point is that, like, 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, you know, 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're a little bit on the back foot. 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 week, just more comfortable. Yeah.

Yeah. I just don't think Israel has any, like, sense of, like, I don't think they know that people are mad at them. Like, on some level, they have the biggest blinders on. I think they do know, but I think they regard, like, having the entire world opinion 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. And everyone hates them because they're so pretty and create so many wonderful apps, like ways. Well, isn't that perhaps like, you know, the effect of generations of internal and external propaganda that is reliant on the idea that, you know,

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. It's a fight for survival every day. Remember when they were talking about like how many like anti-Israel states they had? And I think they named Jordan, which has like a one third level child like poverty rate. It's like, oh no, not Jordan.

But then like when that actually comes to pass because of objective actions, you know, it's a cry woe situation. There's no place to go. 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, you know, my mom, who is my usual gauge of like the general temperature of the standard MSNBC style liberal, this is the most critical I've ever heard her talk about Israel. And when you've lost the suburban MSNBC moms, you have something has changed. And so if something has changed in the greater world, like, there is no response. to it because now the greater world is just conforming what you've been messaging about yourself all the, you know, I don't know.

Yeah, it's very much like, I knew it. I knew it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Chris, I mean, like, for whatever it's worth, I can, I can say that that bears out as well among my, among my own mother and other MSNBC watching parents that I am, uh, that are close to me in my life. And I guess the last thing I'm going 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 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 stuck with it. So as part of the scolding and cajoling front, I would like to mention just like

the ever more intense invocations of Donald Trump and the 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, then essentially he will end. democracy in America and this will be the last

election we ever had. To which I say thank God. I'm sick of the shit. It's earlier and earlier every season. It's like fucking Christmas. That's exactly. I was thinking about this yesterday. You don't want to be relit litigating the SPD, KPD split 10 months before the election.

That is September October behavior. I'm sorry. So I really 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 aren't you assassinating their leaders? What are you like what are you doing here? I don't know. 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 a position of power rather than, I don't know, yeah, yell at strangers next to you. I mean, I know that we don't actually, it's important to remember always. I think that we don't actually have like parties with members that pay dues in this kind of. But at the same time, I think like there's kind of a, I think the Democrats, again, it sounds conspiratorial.

Maybe they think would be cool to win or whatever. But at the same time, maybe they just have this backup plan where they're like, you know, it's just way easier to just be an NGO. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Bull tank, Tulane, Tulane, Tel Aviz. We're in a swan. I mean, all of this, all of this is just basically prologged to me, to me saying the real point of today's episode.

We need a beekeeper. Yeah. We need a beekeeper for tough times. You 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, intransigent parties of equitable levels of corruption that cannot be affected from inside their own party mechanics, cannot be affected from inside their own membership, cannot be. be affected for 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 can film festival. So, yeah, like, so 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 the on on a surface level how shall I describe 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're working for Hunter Biden who in this movie is

the child of Hillary Clinton slash Donald Trump. It is a very And like, I was, I would describe this movie. This is like the perfect movie to come out in January. January is the real treasure show of when studios released all their best movies. And I saw this with Noah Colwyn. 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, that is not good by any stretch of 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, they're movie theaters, different movie theaters for different situations. I saw this at a local chain, not a multiplex, uh, 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 get it. You're in Vermont.

And, uh, you're all sitting on tree stumps. Yeah, it was 4 p.m. it was me and Molly and the Wendigo. Yeah, a Wendigo and a couple who appeared to be in their late 50s 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 shit or the image on the shitty screen. Great experience. And like a lot of the people might be asking why the beekeeper? Well like look obviously there is a there is a muddled but like there is a political

availance 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 and the military especially if they're corrupt and evil but here's why this is a perfect shopper movie because this movie was written by the impresario theuteur Kurt Wimmer director of of equilibrium.

Yes. I don't think this movie is as good does not speak the same quality as equilibrium, but it also features actor Josh Hutcherson

featured in the Morgan Freeman 62nd 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 in movies when Jeremy Irons tries to do an American accent. And he's like,

a former CI director, but like, when he was trying. Yeah, why? 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. Do you take a hint of the British Isles in your voice? He's like, Oh, how do you? Yeah, some British Isles is hiding in your voice. Meanwhile, he's like, he's like a Dickensian chimney sweep. Also, another, another political thing about it, there's a lot of action stars you associate with the right wing,

maybe a few you associate with the left, you know, whatever. Chris, what's his name? You got Chuck Norris on the right and then Steve Zagal sort of occupies this weird. Statham is unaligned. Statham is unaligned. Like Stephen Sagal'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 in some, if you look at it from a certain angle,

it could be looked at his left wing. But basically like this, as much as I like Statham, This movie should have been a Stephen, like a current era Stephen Sagan movie. I don't know. I like the fact that he's unaligned and that like, you know, the powers kind of, like they really rode the fence, I think, in an elegant and not pussy way by making it not exactly right wing and not exactly left wing, but pro old people. Yes. Something that everybody can get behind.

It's funny because, yeah, because there are like certain movies that that don't have any direct political signifiers in them at all. You know, it doesn't talk about this present son. Yeah. none the less 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. But also the president has a completely self-finance campaign that she got through dirty dealing. So it's like if Trump was Hunter's mom. Yeah. And this is like the president is like if Trump

and Hillary got in the brundle fly machine and you just like and had Hunter Biden 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, that's what makes it perfect. I think the critique, if there is any, is that we're not nice to old people. Yes, yes. Like, I mean, if you watch daytime TV, there are two commercials all the time. One, a medication that costs a billion dollars for all these autoimmune diseases that people have now because they're miserable. Two, identity stuff for old people.

because old people always getting their shit stole all the time. Also, Statham getting on in years kind of had the Seagull thing where they don't show him. Did you watch down to the stunt doubles thing? There's like 85 stunt doubles. Like if he drank a cup of coffee, someone was hired to do that. That man is getting on in years. Well, the inciting 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 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 pretend. the hive. Question. Do they all keep bees? Or is he, did he just... I think he took it really serious. Was that just like a thing that you do, like a meditational thing? Also, maybe subtle old people slash environmental message. We're also worried about the bees. Yeah. Well, I was going to say, the inciting incident for this movie is as it opens, Jathan Statham is just, he's a, he's a, he's a tough looking, but kindly,

you know, beekeeper who's renting, renting a barn on the large, Massachusetts property of kindly old woman played by Felicia Rashott. Forgot. Also good old people thing. Only real, only real fucking political statement, Bill Cosby innocent. So yeah, he's sort of like, he's, and she'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. Just a sporty, a spotty little honey for you, love. I've been a big keeper my whole life. No one's ever taken care of me.

So he's living with this guy. The John Wick, the John Wick dog of this movie is Felicia Rashad. Because like, within the first two minutes of the movie, like he's out in the bar and 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 fished. And she calls basically the headquarters of telemarketers. What we do is we call up people and chisholm out of money. Like Sam Lipman Stern is there, Pat Pepsis.

And they just clear out her banking. They get her to like install a program and give her, give the routing numbers or whatever. And they just empty out her checking accounts. And I'm like, oh, man, like I hope Jason Stasem get this money back for her. Nope, she kills herself dead in the next scene. Just immediately. It's a weird, like the set.

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 these Matthew Lesko's. And, like, they're all, like, cheering and, like, there's, like, it kind of has the energy of the, of the, of the telemarketers in telemarkers in the documentary. It's like high pressure sales environment where they're always putting up your total on the big screen. Yeah. Boiler room, but with like vibe lighting. Yeah, it's kind of lit like a bottle service, the bottle service section of a club. I do want to shout out the first guy who plays the head of the initial call center, David Witts. very good a sleaze bag performance

by this first guy. He's later upstaged by Josh Hutchinson, but you'll have a good sleaze bag. Oh, yeah. In the scene with the first call-centered guy he takes out, like they come to his barn and he's got some hitters with him. They blow up his, his, his, his, his boxes. I don't know what they're called.

There's the B-boxes. They're literally called him. 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 saw. And I'm like, ooh, I wonder what's, going to happen with that. How do they even know they're his bees, though? Like, they're on a farm?

I think at some point he's like, he tells him, he's like, I'm the fucking beekeeper. Oh, maybe right. He basically tells it. It tells every person he encounters in the movie that he is the beekeeper. That's true. That's his main line. You're right. I miss that part.

I was too transfixed by the good bad guys. Yeah. So it's like, and then from there, he just, he attempts to follow the money. up, which leads him to a giant tech company that's 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 handler, like the person

installed in the company to keep an eye on him, is played by Jay. Jeremy Irons, who plays a former CIA director, who at one point, like, gets a bunch of, like, mercenary ex-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 Shields or green berets. Compared to a beekeeper, that means your pussies. You're nothing compared to the... He's doing the thing that, like... 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 the thing 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 ours in their words. So it's like, arm Americarner, I'm

ordering hamburger. Extra vowels and diphthongs. Everything kind of goes, yeah. Yeah. He keeps, and like, Jeremy Irons' character is the one that is tasked with repeatedly explaining what beekeeper Rizari to all the other characters in the movie

and he's just like, I'm sorry, son. A beekeeper has mocked 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, 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. I know. You did not. For a reason. Yeah. Because he was like,

oh, you're still fuck about me. And she was just sometimes. So yeah, like maybe in the Iyer cut, it's shown that Josh Hutchinson is actually Jeremy Irons' son.

That's why he takes that special care. 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, I have a few criticisms I have

at this movie. Chief among them is that the worst thing that happens to Jeremy Irons in this movie is that Statham breaks his finger and just sits him down. He's like, ow! That's it? That's it? What? And, you know,

and also at the end of the movie, spoiler alert, the beekeeper kills the 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 started 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 sunslayer. But, yeah, 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, reel it back, make it a commercial for identity protection. You can't kill the president. Yeah, doesn't matter which one it is, don't do it. People in this day of age, people might get ideas. Yeah. any relative of the president?

Hey, it's open season. It's B season. But why does it happen at a party? The party seems 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 of this? Yeah. The party scene 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? Yeah. It was like a shirt to Soleil, but like there was a guy that, I don't know if you clocked 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 going to save this dipshit Phelson's life?

He's been marked for death by a beekeeper. Here to four every, wave after wave of like mafia guys, and Navy SEALs. He sent them all home in body bags. So he's like, aha. Okay, let's go to your mother's 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-slaying 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, there's a secret service. But like,

this party scene is so odd because like the son and Jeremy Iron. also conspired to have basically a hit squad of like cartel fucking gun 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 beekeeper mate? I'm going to kill this cuck sucker.

Yeah. And it's just like, I don't think the secret service would... 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 horrible Matt Gates face.

It upsets me. 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. I'm like, who is this guy?

He needs to be the ugly, scary guy at everything. 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, especially in this party scene towards the end in 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 to his mom, cuts back to him. He's ripping up a DMT,

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. Uh, J.C. Stathy, he takes care of Felicia Rashad, but her, 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. You shouldn't pick up your phone when it's someone the number you don't recognize or respond to email saying that you've been hacked. Or kill yourself the first time you see her fucking bank. Yeah, yeah. She's also like got messages from the business. Yes, it's a fraud alert. They're saying fraud alert. They have to give it back. 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 wait go. I get hit with an overdraft charge. You're like, well, I guess that's it for me. me. I'm going to the bridge and taking a dive off. But, okay, there's another part that I remember for the movie is when Jason Statham is talking to the FBI, the now, you know, the FBI agent whose mother just committed suicide because the

telemarketers called her up. It's all that said, we're asking you to donate now for officers killed in the line of duty. She wanted that sticker for her car is so bad, but, you know, that's then she ended up dead for it. but Statham in like

And what I think is this movie's only actual like Point of view or like articulated An articulated point of view The only thing that exists in this movie is And 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 there's actually

But there's no adults to look out for them Whereas kids are dumb babies But they have adults in their life to be like Hey don't do that I agree I agree with that point. I think that they should have to take a test every three months if they want to keep driving. Like, I do think it's a huge, it's a huge sin to rip them off.

You still candy from a baby? That baby's going to get more candy later. The baby is 80 years of opportunities to get candy. You still candy from a 70-year-old. They're on their last round of candies. Yes, it's so awful. And I think the people watching, I think, again, I think it's targeted with the elderly. I think they would be like, yes, we are stupid.

we don't know what's going on, please take care of us. 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 supersedes your lazy son and daughter and will not only call you back, but will in fact kill for you.

Kill many people. And you get all the petulant, you know, like the revenge suicide of be like, I'll show them and you get to die and make them feel guilty. And you get to be avenged. You get to go out on your own terms, but also have some spite towards your ungrateful children. See, this is actually making a lot of sense because, again, when I sat down in the theory, 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, they was like, that was great.

And I was like, now, now I'm like, yeah, I see where they got to get from this. it's old-coded. Yes. You know, but like, it's channeling the, the undirected, but vague sense of sort of populist anger that we have. We just,

we just want Jack Richard 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,

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 apple. cart too much, but you want, you want that little brat punished. It's all elder fantasy. Yeah. And I mean, like, the Republicans have been trying to like hump the Hunter Biden story into some kind of lasting or deep significance, the entire Biden presidency. And I mean, I get it because it's so tawdry and tantalizing and funny. And you hope that there's something there. But I, and I think that, you know, they are always trying to, to attack it from the most lewd angles, the drugs, the prostitute. But I think that, you know, but I think that. You know, you know, I think if they really wanted to do it, it's like, look at how ungrateful this kid is.

His father gave him everything and he just threw it away. Doesn't that piss you off? His dad learned to text just to communicate with him and he leaves his dad on red. Yes. I have 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 smashes a glass, a jar of honey over the current beekeeper who's some like rave chick who has a gatling mini gun on the back

of a pickup truck in Massachusetts. I forgot about her. Yeah, she was fun. I wish 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 bunch of goons. And then you see the first Jeremy Iron scene

where he's like, there's a beekeeper after you, 100, 100 Biden. And like, if you're listening to this episode, this is not an exaggeration, how many times the phrase bees and beekeeper is said. It's probably no less than 60 times. The rational structure of something like this was like, okay, you start with goons,

then maybe you move to mob guys to try to take him out, then Delta Force, then you're Afrikaners. And then the final fight You do a bower war. The final fight should be another beekeeper. The only thing that could defeat a beekeeper should be another beekeeper.

Absolutely. And it should have been that chick. She was fun. She had all crazy eyes. She looked like she was in the The Rave episode, a samurai jack. She was like a fun throwback. It's like 15 minutes into the movie.

They're like, okay, there's a beekeeper. What do you do? Call another beekeeper. They go in. He dispatches her in two minutes. He kills her instantly. instantly. Everyone else is supposed to be a pussy. They're supposed to be the top. They're really undermining their

but you're so right. 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 it and I have to credit the filmmakers. Because 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? And she's like the third. Bill Bled 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, I had a weird, is that many driver? Did she get like a mass at her reduction? I had to think, like, three times

is that many drivers. She looks weird, right? Yeah. I mean, I barely read, as her. I mean, she's still many to me. She's still many to me. She's still funny to me. She's still fine.

She still gross point blank to me. She's not like, I know it can't be a driver because she would be a minnie kid. Yeah, I were like, no, it can't be a minnie driver because she would get more screen time. But no, it's her. No, like, she had no scenes. She had scenes talking on the phone

with Jeremy Irons and that's it. And wearing a really cool one, like just straight up like off the shoulder, elegant dress that looked like a perfume commercial for like a second. My biggest critique of this movie was towards the end of one of the best scenes in the movie, like just absolutely perfect action movie writing.

when the Afrikaner 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 you're like you're a black or something like that I know no and then like the Afrikaner mercenary is like you're a sort of hard

beekeeper men but it's like they say to be or not to be and then Stathan goes I'll take to be and you know what like I just there there's so many there's so many opportunities there recently said like how about plan B or you know like there's something there they could have spent a little more time

I don't know yeah just going well all B and then he unleashes the B's letter letter B yeah but yeah so so you know a solid entertaining movie not enough Bs from for my like to really kick it into like a masterpiece I would need I would need more Bs 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 2B. 2B, yes. 2B, too. 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 say taking the next level, the next movie should be called the zookeeper with Jason Stanton. And essentially, like now he is tasked with arresting like malefactors of great

wealth, like people who steal from the elderly or, you know, do telemarketing. He just makes one man more on fundraising. The real evil doers. Yeah, 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, part of the fucking zoo now, Mike.

You should stop stealing from the elderly. So that's my pitch for beekeeper to zookeeper. Yeah. You know our number, Hollywood. Yeah, I would just say, you know, I was, 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 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, yeah, all the political signifiers are in this movie. Yes. With no political statement. Yes, exactly. 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 strangled 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. 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 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've said it already, but like all the scenes where he just fucks up telemarketing boiler rooms,

all I can think of is just poor Pat Pepsis like nodding out at his desk. And then the fucking Jason safe, the transformer comes in and it just smashes his head through a computer screen. We love Pat. We love Sam. But I just couldn't help but think of the,

the unmitigated violence that would have been unleashed that like, New Jersey Civic Trust Group or whatever they're working for. I'm sure they'd get a kick out of this. We were just talking about 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 recording today and this is in 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 Isabel 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's an Oprah book. It's literally an Oprah's choice book. And so 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,

someone 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, I-waska and had kind of a like, I see everything that's connected now. I want to read the books. Yeah. I want to read the book. I want to watch the movie.

I think I saw somebody refer to it as like Cloud Atlas for Racism or the 1619 Project. Well, I mean, I wasn't aware of this movie, but I certainly want to see it now after reading this in the Hollywood Report. And I'm just going to show this like as contrast to the beekeeper. Origin returns to Martin

at the end of its, returns to Martin meaning Trayvon Martin. At the end, at the end, in a juxtaposition suggested by one of DuVernay'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 Averick. 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. George Zimmerman. Yeah. Yes. What if George Zimmerman was a mothman? What if he was Frankenstein? What is probably like what greater monster is there?

But I mean, you guys laugh, but like, are all bad things. And if that's not a connection, I don't know what it is. I was just like, I think there's, I think there's some connection here. But like, I was, just like, I was,

I saw this right before we started recording today and like Amber, to your point about like, the beekeeper having no message despite like all the things that seem like there's going to be a message. Whereas this is like nothing but message. Yeah. Just message. And I'm fascinated.

I really do want to see this movie now because it sounds, 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, smokesweed once. I've found the unifying theory of the world movement. Just as like everything has to be every mess. Ediv-Rena said something like to the effect of, and 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 in a New Yorker profile. Yeah. You make movies. And 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 dial up the Trayvon slider just a bit? She said I didn't hire actors for the for the low cast for the like dollar I think it is. They're the low cast people and my first thought was like, did she 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 said they weren't actors. I don't know. I just I look forward to reading the book and seeing and seeing how everything is all connected. Well, uh, let's like. Let's wrap it up there for the day, gang. We'll be back on Thursday,

but that was just the end of the end of Rhonda 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 Chapo Trap House.

Always loved to crack off another hundo. Thanks for listening. The 800s will be the beekeeper. song. Yes. Yes. This is our beekeeping era. Yes. We will be that outside force rebalancing the hive. To hit a milestone, but I think like the next really big milestone, which we should do like a like maybe even a gala.

Live event, a special, some sort of 24 hour marathon, the thousandth episode. That is when we will produce our, we'll do our, the Chapo Cruz, where we all engage in like cancelable behavior with the fans and that guy on YouTube has to do a like, what we're wrong with the Chapo Cruz video. I think it would be great.

I think it'd be like, see it. Yeah, read the Terry Southern novel, The Magic Christian, to find out what the Chapo Cruz 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 versus 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 Theater, I think it is. But details to that will be into the description.

Hopefully see you there. All right. Okay. Well, we'll be back on Thursday. Cheers, everybody. Bye. Later. Bye.