Chapo Trap House - 858 - That’s Not Entirely Accurate feat. Jon Bois (8/12/24)

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

We’re joined by video doc king Jon Bois to discuss some of his recent projects with Secret Base, specifically REFORM!, a history of Ross Perot and the Reform party. Jon shares his fascination and research into this bizarre eddy of American electoral politics, the various cranks and characters that populated it, and how the Reform Party prefigured a swath of our current political landscape. We also touch on James Rebhorn’s character in Independence Day, slipping on banana peels, and the best and worst of Olympic sports. Part 1 of the REFORM! Series is on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqqaW1LrMTY Subscribe to Secret Base on Patreon for all of their premium content: https://www.patreon.com/SecretBase Rick Perlstein's POW/MIA piece Amber recommended: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/enduring-cult-vietnam-missing-action/

All I wanna do is live trouble All I wanna do is live trouble Greetings friends, it's Monday August 12th and we've got some chapeau coming at you. It's me, Amber and Felix today, but we are joined by a good friend who it's been way too long since he's been way too long since he's been on the show. Joining us now on the show is the commander in chief of Secret Base, the king of data visualization and possibly the only person in America who's seen the movie Independence Day more times than I have. Welcome back to the show, John Boyes, everybody.

Well, everybody, so great to be here. Second time, long time. I feel like I must be the Marcus Camby of Chapo guests in the sense that I was here briefly in 1994. And then you look back at like 2013 and I'm 41 and there was he here the whole time? What the fuck? Now you're speaking my language, John. But we're going to spend the day, we're going to talk to you about some of the things you got going on on a secret base. But mainly, I'd like, we're here to talk about the history of the Reform Party and just sort of a major forgotten American political figure.

And like, you know, if you're listening to to this show you probably don't remember this guy but he was a guy that like emerged into my political consciousness when I like right around the time I started to become aware of politics and I'm of course talking about the founder the god of the reform party Mr. Ross Perot so John in your series on the history of the Reform Party, like we are now entering into yet another presidential election and the two-party duopoly, or really, you know, one-party system, continues unabated. So like, what was it about Ross Perot and the Reform Party and the sort of like semi-crankish

but semi-noble effort to engender some kind of third or even second American political party. What was it that attracted you to this story of the Reform Party and Ross Perot in particular? Well, I mean, for similar reasons to y'all, I'm sure I have been basically pining for any other option, like anywhere else, anywhere else to put my vote that I possibly can because I mean, we're in, you know, entering decade number three of this sort of like put up or shut up attitude from the Democratic Party. And I was like, fuck, like, I know it's such a clown move to even float the idea of a third

party. So like, going into this, I know this is kind of a joke, but I just wanted to go back and revisit the last time it even looked for a second, like it was going to work, even though we kind of knew it wasn't. I just remember, I mean, like you, like we're probably about the same age. I loved Ross Perot before I had any politics at all, back when I was like nine, 10 years old and I saw his debates with Bush and Clinton and he was a funny dude, you know?

And that's absent any politics. I was like, oh no, that's my guy. I hope he wins. Why? I don't know, cause he's funny. So I, you know, over the years, as I grew up, I realized I read some things here and there. He was kind of a wingnut and a crank and all those things.

But I just kind of wanted to find out how much of a wing nut and a crank and all those things But I just kind of wanted to find out how much of a wing nut and a crank and by extension What his party was actually like and why they they blew up and the answer was such a fun one that I made it a three-part documentary series I remember very vividly my elementary school like running a mock election and He took the first grade vote Murdered in fourth, but a close everybody said single one of them. Yeah, I voted for him Everybody said like if you if the voting rules in 1992 were that you could only vote if you were between like six and 11 He would have swept all 50 states. It would have been an electoral landslide.

Oh, yeah. Hinkle Creek Elementary was in the tank for Ross. And, you know, like you it's in the documentary, but like the first presidential debate between him, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, it's sort of, it spoke to his unique political genius, but also his unique political vulnerability, because he was a guy that wanted to be president, but hated running for president because it's stupid and boring.

And as such did zero debate prep, did zero preparation for any of the three debates. And then the first one especially, he dog walked Clinton and Bush he Crushed that first a bit because he was just yeah He was just kind of funny and he like all the preparation of the other two candidates He just he played them off splendidly whose fault is that not the Democrats not Republicans somewhere out there There's an extraterrestrial is doing this to us. I guess everybody says they take responsibility. Somebody somewhere has to take responsibility for this.

Now just for the record, I don't have any spin doctors. I don't have any speech writers. Probably shows. I make those charts you see on television even. That shows. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a valuable life lesson in that in that preparing less is a lot better a lot of times than preparing more. It was just it was amazing. He just rolled out of bed. It like it really looked like he just rolled out of bed and said some stuff and kind of came up with his zingers on the fly. And it was I mean, it was easy. It was fishing a barrel for him because he was the only one

up there that was like, not a complete stiff, not beholden to a major party interest. At the time, the Reform Party didn't even exist yet, so he was completely independent. So he was playing with house money. Like, he didn't give a shit. Like, to begin at the beginning, the story of the Reform Party begins with a man named Jack Gargan, with a man named Jack Gargan who was hacked off in a sense, livid and even more livid at the hypocritical rascals running our government. Who was Jack Gargan and what was he so damn hacked off about? I remember when I showed the first cut to my wife

and she was like, why'd you have to use that photo of Jack Gargan? I'm sure there were other photos of him that were better. And I was like, no, no, there are not. That's just, that's just what he looked like. He was this very conventional, the guy you imagine, if you imagine like a Florida retiree in the year 1990, um, who is just sort of like, has those very, you know, the kind of

politics you read on like little like tchotchkes at like the Cracker Barrel or Stuckies or something where it's just like, you know, Democrat, no sir, Republican, no ma'am, totally ticked off, winner, winner, chicken dinner, like that kind of shit. And that's the kind of like thing that animated his politics in his life. And I came to really love the guy and respect the guy a lot. I don't politically he was sort of like a quasi libertarian, mostly one or two issue guy neither of which I don't care about either of those issues, but he cared like he was a real true believer, which is more than can be said for a lot of people now.

So I love that about him. Well, in the course of running for a seat on the Tampa City Council, he did something quite extraordinary, which is spend 40 cents on his campaign in exchange for 1600 votes. And you ran the numbers on that. And at the same efficiency level, Joe Biden would have gotten 728 billion votes in the 2020 election, which means that every American of voting age would have voted for him 3000 times. Yeah. I mean, last election, I only voted for Biden like 400 times. So I can only imagine how much harder that is. Yes. But like, he wanted to throw the, his, it it made into sort of an an an acronym throw the

hypocritical rascals out which doesn't really make for the most doesn't exactly roll off the tongue as an acronym. But what like how did he get like how did him and Ross Perot link up and like how would you describe like, you know, it was the issue of the deficit and campaign financing was really like what what this idea for reform party jelled around, right? Yeah, it was mostly those two things. And they kind of built this entire movement off of off of that campaign finance, finance reform and eliminating the federal deficit, which the second one I especially don't care about at all. Maybe I should. The fact remains that I just don't and never will because I don't understand it.

But yeah, that was basically what linked them up. Jack Gargan saw Ross Perot as his sort of like, he's my horse. He's the guy we're going to use to take down the establishment who, you know, at that point met George HW. I think the impression that I got is that a lot of sort of quasi libertarian people who otherwise might have thrown their hat in the ring for Bush were mad at him for all the POW stuff and all the conspiracy theories about how he, you know, let them, let, you know, entire battalions languish in some

like Southeast Asian prison or something like that. Shit that just like wasn't true, but it was enough to scare people off that and want a different way forward. And I think that was part of what informed Gargan's desire to recruit Perot. The Pau Mia stuff is an interesting digression in this story here. Because there are some fairly nefarious figures associated with this movement that come along in the story. But I guess I was actually just talking to Catherine the other night about the whole Pao Mia mythology. And like it's

never explained like we never got any guys back and it was never explained like what exactly the government of Vietnam would be using them as leverage for in like in a circumstance in which they had already won the war? Why did we need to send Rambo back? I mean, I kind of cut myself off there because I was like, man, if I keep diving into this, I get the impression it's going to be a whole other documentary about something else. But I don't know exactly how that phenomenon took root. All I remember is people around town, people like around town flying those Pau Mia flags like in their front lawns and stuff and just thinking like, oh damn, that

sucks that they're still there. Oh well, I'm not going to be in the army though because of that. But yeah, for whatever reason, it captured their imagination. I remember like one of my most vivid roller coaster memories, which I love roller coasters, but I remember getting on the cyclone, Coney Island, and right when you get to the top, and it's the oldest running wooden roller coaster in America. Yeah, it's a century old.

Yeah, which is not a good sign already, but you get to the top and the first thing you see before the first drop is an Irish flag, an Italian flag, an American flag, and a POWMIA flag, and you're like, I've made a terrible mistake. Do you guys remember Colonel Bo Gritz from the 90s? Yes, he's a figure in this story. Yeah, yeah.

I was very excited to see him. He, I mean, he was very involved in POWMIA stuff. Also a gold salesman, a direct mail gold salesman, which was a great job. Direct mail gold salesman was one of the best jobs to have in the 90s. You, if you were like an Oliver North or Beau Gritts type guy, you would just hack your Korean war veterans and be like, um, they're getting your, your money, they're going to fucking burn your money in the Hanukkah bush. And it worked. Uh, that was, that replaced normal finance jobs, but he, Bo Gritz like went to, uh, Laos in the nineties and was like, we're

going to find these guys, which again, at that point they would be like 50, 60 year old, like air force cadets and like to Will's point, what would Vietnam possibly be getting out of them? Like how the a seven sky hawk worked. We need to get all these planes that you've retired 20 years ago. Man, it's kind of like, I don't know. Yeah, they probably had schematics for like a Spitfire or something like that. I guess we did those they were after. But yeah, Bo Gritz was he kind of gets my respect because he actually did go through with it and like go there, which it's a very low

bar for these types that nonetheless he cleared. Most people just like stay at home and just make the entire fucking thing up and get like a lot of mileage out of it because nobody asked him any questions. So like salute to Bo Gritz for actually going to the place he said he went to. To your point, it was very easy to not just lie about going to Vietnam, but lie about having been in the military at all at that point because it was like the worst thing that could happen to you was people on like news groups would find out about it. People on like alt.stolenvalor.unix.whatever would yell at you, but that was like 14 people. You could just go out there and be like, I'm a special forces guy. I killed 8,000 people and I'm going to Vietnam and I'm going to apprehend Colonel Toome and

we're going to get these guys back. Man, it's going to suck if it turns out this whole time there was like one guy who was like, no, I'm here, please. God damn it. Save me. No, but he went he went native. He's a dedicated communist. He just became Viet Cong.

There is a really good article actually about this. It's pretty short that covers the entire thing. And it's from like 2013 in the nation. And it's by Rick Pearlstein. It's the enduring cult of Vietnam missing in action. And it's just it's it's like a dumb, dumb thing that Richard Nixon, like the administration did to raise support for like an aggressive foreign policy or whatever. And then it just got really out of hand.

And now people still have those flags up. It's a good article. We should link it in the description. And now people still have those flags up. It's a good article. We should link it in the description. Well, it's just like it's all these sort of threads of the politics of the 90s that like you that are sort of unraveled in this story. And to return to Jack Gargan, it's 1991 and the people are mad as hell and they aren't gonna take it anymore. They want to dismantle the two party system. And the other thing I really like about Jack Gargan is that like he took out a like was it like a newspaper ad or just like a statement of principles about all the things he was incensed, mad, livid and hacked off about or ultimately just sad about. And

I there was a little like there's a little thing in the ad itself that was like, if this if the quality of this ad degrades due to people copying and share it, write it, write a new copy yourself and start copying it and just say like some sort of a like underground network of yeah, exactly. I've just sharing the principles of what we become the reform party. So where where does where does Ross Perot fit into this? Like where does Ross Perot fit into this? Like where does Ross Perot come from and like how did how did sort of the American imagination coalesce around this guy as the sort of political outsider and voice in the wilderness?

Ross Perot kind of got going as well. He started in in the world of business and he found it very nice and neat and like easy to kind of do whatever he wanted and accomplish whatever he wanted. Because like he, despite all the contrary evidence, like he was a really smart guy in a certain way and like a really motivated and dedicated guy. Um, there was a story I didn't fit into the project, but it's a very Ross Perot story. Like he talks about, he grew up in Texarkana, Texas, right? And he was, uh, he got his firstarkana, Texas, right? And he was, he got

his first job as like a newspaper delivery boy when he was like 10 or something. And he got it because he said, as he said, this is like part of the big myth he made about himself, that he took the only job that no one else would do at the paper, which is deliver to a rural poor black community that was like a few miles outside of town. And Ross did it. And he told what he said was a heartwarming story, which is like, you know, I delivered to those people out there and they use those newspapers to insulate and insulate their windows.

It didn't cold, get you cold at night and all that kind of shit. And like, that's like a really sad story. Uh, because these people are like so poor, they can't like insulate their homes from the, from the elements. But he thought it was great. Like, and he thought of himself as the, that was a story in which he was a hero, not a story in which like people were really bad off and like needed like a fair shake.

Um, and I think that explains a lot about who he was. Like he was everything revolved around him in his, in his imagination. And also in the world of business, I mean, he was CEO of his own company. So like everything had always revolved around him and, you know, to jump like a step ahead. I think the problem he had with politics is like, Oh shit, I'm not the center of the universe anymore. Other people have other things that they also like that don't include me.

This sucks. I'm out. To that end with a peros business career, he was a very, very early into like data systems and computer systems specifically for like governments. Like a lot of what Perot systems and EDS did was help like computerized records for things like state Medicaid and Medicare. And you know, today, like running a political campaign is exponentially more expensive than it would have been in 1988 or 1992 or even 96.

But getting into the business he did as early as he did, and he also, he did have some interest in weapon systems that we have to mention. But I think it gave him kind of what you're talking about, like a thing of like, well, I could do it Why can't you I I you know? I was able to to get into computers during the Korean fucking war Make the equivalent of 30 billion dollars. Why can't you do it?

And I think he was earnest in that but it's like yeah It's a very blinkered view of the world, as you mentioned. I think he's Lorne Michaels. Like he doesn't get that he was just in the right place at the right time. And he's not a genius. Well, I mean, like at the time of his presidential campaign, he was like, I think the the third wealthiest man in America. And like, you know, in him, like, we, you know, we see a preview of this, like, you know, the the fixation on billionaires being like the only people outside the system who are able to challenge the sort of political parties. Now, to Felix's point about his earnest but somewhat blinkered worldview, it is it is my pleasure now to share with you, John, a few selections from one of my favorite books of all time, which is Ross Perot's book, My Life and the Principles for Success. Now, a couple of points I'd like to make about this book. The book is, as it sounds, split into two parts, my life and my principles for success.

And the principles for his success part of the book is several chapters of just bullet points about leadership and decision-making Which are I have a lot of gems in them This is a book that I've you know sort of thrown through at various difficult times in my life to sort of Reaffirm what are my values? What do I believe in? Where am I going? And I just like to read though From this is the very, very first chapter. This is the opening of chapter one, my early childhood. This is the first selection.

This is the first paragraph of Ross Perot's book. I was born on June 27th, 1930 in Texarkana, Texas. The temperature that day was 117 degrees. Dr. Kittrell, my mother's doctor, had gout and no fans were allowed in the hospital room. My mother never forgot that experience. His huge toe. As I was having labor pains for 20 hours, he kept bitching about his toe. I love the idea that no fans were allowed in the hospital. That was new technology when he was born. This is all so... Even like he said in the structure is so Ross Perot. It's so like very literal.

I didn't hear a single comma in there. Just a short like eight word sentence after eight word sentence like between that and the bullet points you're describing. Like he's such a literalist that like the table of contents probably begins with like chapter one, the front cover, chapter two, the inside jacket. It just goes on like that. I can already see it. Well, John, unlike most political memoirs that are ghost written, like what you can say about this book, there is no doubt whatsoever that Ross Perot wrote every word in this book. Going on to his early life, he says here, my mother Lula May Ray was an extremely intelligent woman. Her ancestors came from Tennessee and covered wagons and settled in Atlanta, Texas. Her dad's father fought in the Civil War and was captured during the war. He was kept in a prison on the

Great Lakes and had to eat rats to survive. He died shortly after my mother's father, Henry Ray, was born. There's a big omission in there. A real big omission. He just fought in the Civil War. It's like freelance for anyone. Don't ask what side. Perot strikes me as one of those like Terrence Howard type guys where like if they let him, the book would begin with him remembering himself in the womb.

Where he's like, I remember being born, I remember being in the womb, I remember being conceived, I remember all of that. Here's another great part from chapter one. He says here, One of the most interesting experiences of my childhood was seeing a movie about Thomas Edison's life. After that movie, I came home and tried to invent things for two years. I can't really describe how excited I was about trying to invent something new. I had to feed and water the horses every day. So most of my inventions had to do with automatic feeding and watering. Of course, I didn't have the money to implement any of them.

You may find it amusing to know that all those ideas have been implemented in my stable today. You may find it amusing. This is the part where you laugh. Laugh here. Those lucky horses, they get to use a three-year-old Ross Perot's bird-brained idea for like an oat delivery system. Dude, that's bad news. Whenever a kid tells you, I invented something, because I'm trying to think. I think there were a couple of times I claimed to have invented something when I was like seven or eight. My dad was like, all right, let's see what you got. It turned out I just nailed a board to another board.

Look at this. The most complex kid inventions are like, it's a backpack filled with soda. You'll never run out. Just another anecdote from the childhood of Ross Perot. He says here, he writes here, grandmother Ray had very strong convictions about morality and behavior. How great thou art, sung by George Beverly Shea, was her favorite hymn. She felt very strongly that people should not smoke, and she often said, If God had intended us to smoke, He would have put chimneys on our head.

In her later years, The Lawrence Welk Show was one of her favorite television programs. For much of the second half of the 50s, Bet and I knew we could always find grandmother at home on Saturday night watching Lawrence Welk. But one Saturday night, we stopped by the television was turned off. We said, grandmother, you're not watching Lawrence Welk. She said, I don't watch it anymore. We said, but grandmother, this is your favorite program. She said, I do not watch that program anymore. And we said, why? She said, I just heard that he is playing champagne music

and you know how I feel about drinking. Years later, I had the privilege of meeting Lawrence Welkin, told him that story and he loved it. Do you think that Perot ever like, he rescued someone from the, he rescued like an actual guy who was there until like 1985 and he told him this story and he was like can you take me back? Can I go back to Laos? In Laos where like if you have a three-word story you spend three words

talking about it instead of like that you could have told that story in like four seconds but he wrote it in like 900 words. It's not a story. It's barely an anecdote. It's a series of events. I sort of got on literally every page of this book, there was something funny. I have to share one more. Some of his thoughts on the pets that he had as a kid. He said, we were surrounded with pets when we were small children. We had collies and German shepherds. Our collie was named Lassie and our German shepherds were all named Shep. Later I had a Chinese chow named Chang. I would spend hours sitting on the back porch steps petting these dogs and talking to them. It never occurred to me that they couldn't understand what I said. I wonder which of those dogs was the one that saved him from the Black Panther assassination attempt because one of those dogs surely did, right?

Yeah. Sorry, I just thought I have to keep going. One more story from the Great Depression here. It says we live six blocks from the railroad tracks during the depression. The freight trains were filled with hobos, wandering from town to town looking for work. Every day they would come by our house looking for food. My sweet mother would always give them something.

These people were poor and desperate, but there was absolutely no fear they would ever break into our house. We left the doors unlocked. When they knocked on the door and asked for food, there was no concern that they might break in and steal things my mother shared our food with them one day A hobo said lady. Don't you have a lot of people stopping by here? My mother said yes, we do He said do you know why she said not really? Then he took out her out to our curb and showed her a mark on the curb and said lady your remark This says you will feed people that's why you get so many visitors. After the man left,

I turned to my mother and said, do you want me to wash that mark off the curb? She replied with words I will remember for the rest of my life. No son, leave it there. These are good people. They are just like us, but they're down on their luck. We should help them. So I think I thought it gets a nice story. Like Ross's family was sort of the opposite of Don Draper's. Yeah, he was interesting. He had an interesting worldview of just like class and particularly like the lower class.

He loved poor people and he loved that there were poor people. He's like, hey, isn't that great how little money these people have? They're so nice. It's the little amount of money they have that makes them so nice. Yeah, he had a very medieval view of like poor people. They were basically like serfs. They existed. They could never be taken out of their circumstances and they pretty much existed for like Ross Perot to display his benevolence. Just going back to your benevolence. I just going back to your, uh, your characterization of Perot is like an incredibly literal person. It's very apparent that he sees an autobiography as a recounting of literally everything that ever happened that you can remember.

Oh yeah. Every single, like it's, although like in typical, like early nineties autobiography fashion, I'm just going to venture a guess that it's like like in typical like early 90s autobiography fashion, I'm just going to venture a guess that it's like a weirdly short book. I haven't seen it. It's incredibly short. It's incredibly short. And I just want to give one example from the like the Principles for Success chapter, which

like if you ever read the novel, The Dog of the South by Charles Fortis, Charles Portis, which is a perennial Chapo book of the month. In fact, a perennial Chappo book of the month. In fact, like it's a Chappo book of every year. But in that book, one of the characters, Dr. Rayo Simes, is enthralled by this book called On Sorry, With Wings as Eagles by John Selmer Dix, who he claims puts William Shakespeare in the shithouse. And he wrangles the protagonist of the book to read it and in Bible lessons and all it is is sales techniques to to con marks. So this is this is this is where

also this is chapter three on leadership. Consider the principles of the boy scouts. Practice them and your chances of becoming successful a successful business leader will improve dramatically. A scout is honest, trustworthy, loyal, friendly, courteous, kind, thrifty, cheerful, brave, reverent, and helps other people at all times. A scout promises to keep himself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. The Boy Scout motto is be prepared. This is the next bullet point. Consider the leadership principles of Attila the Hun who was born at the beginning of the 5th century. The founder of the Boy Scouts. So, sorry, thank you for everyone for indulging that digression into the biography and the principles of success of Ross Perot. But John, back to his presidential campaign.

Like, in watching the first part of this reform series, I think the thing that was so fascinating to me about it is that like he like almost instantly have like a great amount of success for a third party candidate and a huge amount of interest in him running for president without him ever really running for president. And it was basically just people. It was him going on Larry King was the first time he entertained the idea. Like, where did this like momentum come from, even though he, by all accounts, didn't want to run for president? I think for a lot of people, he was just the protest candidate. I think there's a lot to be said for where people were at in 1992. I mean, I can't really say I was really there firsthand because I was 10 and I don't really know, like, you know, being 10, I lack a certain perspective there.

But the way it feels in retrospect was that, I don't know, people might've, electorally, as voters, people might've felt kinda antsy. Like, okay, it's the so-called end of history. We just won Desert Storm. What do we do now? We want some kind of new source of strife

or something to be mad at, which, which I think explains, uh, people all of a sudden getting pissed off about the, the federal deficit. Um, which is something that like, now it must be impossible to imagine. Like if you weren't there, that like everybody talked about that shit, like all the time, like on AM talk radio, which like growing up in like Georgia, that's like all you would hear every building you went into. That's all you heard was people like just whining and complaining about like the debt and like the federal deficit and shit. And for some reason, for reasons that I honestly still don't know and would be happy

to hear y'all's opinions that captured a lot of of people and that helped Ross Perot ride the wave. I think you're right. I think after communism was defeated, they were like, well, Vietnam's over. We're out of the gas crisis era. The counterculture has kind of settled down and investing in dot com and they're doing fine. And yeah, we're still unhappy though. And we're full of beans and we're more politically idiosyncratic than we've ever been. Like everything, the old models kind of fell apart. And like we talked about this where like

there are all these polls now that show that everyone is moderate, like politically moderate. And it's like, no, it's that that's not the right word. The word is idiosyncratic, where they just take a bunch of things that it's just very look, I know two things. We have to deal with the deficit in fluoride. And also we should really invest in public works and socialize healthcare is a good idea. It's just like picking stuff they hear off the radio waves because there's no like institution that anybody is really upset with and we don't have a common enemy. They're just full of beans. I think there's something

like, actually there's something. Oh no sorry John go ahead. Oh no I was just going to bring up a tweet Felix tweeted tweeted, like, I can't remember Felix how long you tweeted this ago. It must've been like five years or something. But it was about, you were tweeting about like Colby Covington and like some dumb ass thing he said about the cops or something. And like, you made the point that the vast majority

of people don't even know what they actually believe until they start talking, until they start opening their mouths. And like, that was just an incredibly true observation, I thought that it stuck with me. And I think it's, I mean, it's definitely true now. And I think it was definitely true then. I mean, people like they're, they might have a position or two that they can like clack together, but they don't necessarily jive with one another. They're just like the two last things that they heard people say. Yeah. So something I found interesting when watching the documentary is there's two or three mentions

by both reform party candidates and like more normal political figures about like the looming specter of terrorism in the nineties. And I don't think this was like especially present or anything. Terrorism was certainly more a part of American life and consciousness in the 90s than it was in, say, the 1960s or 80s. There was the first World Trade Center bombing and then later on the 90s the USS Cole bombing and the embassy attack in Kenya. But it does it more than anything, it just seems like a desperate search for something to replace the Cold War.

And yes, you know, a a fulcrum by which you can, you can push forward all defense contracts and really like national interests and goals. It's just not as sexy as communism. Like we really missed communism. Like that was an enemy that made us stronger. That was our cool, sexy spy. That was our cat woman, really. We were horny for it, but also we hated it and had to believe it.

And like the war on like terror, like that's like abstract and boring. Oh, oh, we're dealing with the deficit. Nobody can. That's not hot. Amber, I've always loved comrade count woman, Amber. I've never hated her. But to your point about how like concerns about the deficit and like, you know, in the documentary when you see like Ross Perot talking, like, why are you running for

president? And he said, because I think there's a lot of young people out there today that are waking up to the fact that we're leaving them with a trillion dollar debt. And they're angry about it. They have reason to be angry about it. First of all, I've never known any young person that has gotten mad about running up their parents credit card. Because you know, I don't think that was chief of the forefront of the minds of young people in this country. But Amber, to your point, I think like you're right. History is over. The Soviet Union has collapsed. And I think like this obsession with balancing the budget and like bringing down our national deficit was like a displaced

way of talking about why the fuck are we still spending trillions of dollars on the Pentagon when there's no enemy left for us to counter here? Can we bring some of that money back home? Can we have health care, please? Yeah, it's either balance the quote unquote budget or invent new enemies to justify the spending. Yeah, I mean, we I think a lot of us had the right idea, which is take that energy and dump it into sports, which is like what actually

happened. The NFL blossomed in popularity. The NBA did, Major League Baseball did. I mean, you want to find the enemy, like find a new enemy, find the fucking San Diego Chargers. They suck. Like they're worthy of your hatred. It's like Christopher Lash said in defensive games and Sports, he's like, we need like low stakes battles that don't affect you in any material way, or we just like lose our minds and start hitting each other. That's why I watch sports. That's what we just had. We just had the Olympics.

Like what better source of competition for the whole world? And by the way, Jon, now that we have you on, I feel like this is a very John Boyd secret base question to ask. But what is the correct metric for weighing who truly is the best country in the world based on metal count? Because look, the top 10 countries in this Olympics is like, if you're going by gold medals, USA and China are tied at 40, but you know, if you go to the tiebreaker, the United States has many, many more silver and bronze medals.

But basically the top 10 countries are a reflection of the top 10 economies in the world. But weighted for population size and GDP, a country like Uzbekistan is actually the best country in the world at sports. That Filipino, like five foot one guy that like just beat the shit out of gymnastics, like second person for the Philippines. Like, like that really weights him heavily against like, that is a huge point for the Philippines. So happy for that guy.

Yep. Swagapino is rising. I'm fine with just using like, uh, counting stats. I mean, I know that like the big debate is like gold medals versus total medals I think we got to go with like gold medals because counting like third place finishes is like a very college football forum member like defense Texas A&M got fucking screwed again Like just like complaining about rankings and conferences and shit.

It's just it's all it's all about. As I like to say, go for the gold. That's a statement that I made up. It's a phrase that I'm going to return to. To return to Ross Perot, though, so he gets a lot of attention. But then there's like the fascinating thing about the 1992 presidential election that I remember is that Ross Brok comes on the scene and like really shakes things up and people are like, oh, like, is he going to be a spoiler?

Like he really seems to have something here. And then he drops out and then comes back. Could you describe the circumstances about him dropping out and returning and why that might have actually been a boon to his campaign? Well, it saved him from himself for sure, I think. I mean, right before he dropped out, he had this disastrous speech he gave to the NAACP where he kept referring to everyone as you people. And then like people got offended and he just like didn't hear him and he just kept on calling them you people, which is just the most raw thing you could ever hope to hear.

He would have had more, even worse disasters than that if he were allowed to keep campaigning, but he took himself out of it and like, he gave all kinds of reasons in the immediate wake of it, but the real reason and the most fun reason was that he was given a super hot tip that the HW Bush campaign was threatening to disrupt his daughter's wedding with protest and basically forge photos to make it look like she was gay and all this stuff that scared the shit out of him. And he just, yeah, it spooked him. And we can get into the rest of that if you want to get into like what actually happened there. But I love the idea

of George HW Bush ruining his daughter's wedding. Like he just him and like three other like staff from Kenny bunkport show up there and are like, this is one bad bride. We very like it's very like Alexis Carrington, like, like, like you just just swing in and a giant white hat, just fucking Joan Collins being like this champagne is flat. It's so caddy. He should. Bush shows up in like a wig and he's like, I slept with the groom. Collins being like this champagne is flat. It's so catty. He should bush shows up in like a wig and he's like, I slept with the groom.

My name is is Avery Buxom and I'm the sluttiest girl in town. Doctored photos and birds of Ross Perot's daughter is standing next to a U-Haul. But, you know, but I got it. I got it as a Subaru owner, as a Subaru owner with with rescue pitbulls. I 100 percent got that joke and it was good. I'm also a Subaru owner. We all know what that means. But no, no. But John, to go back, the source of the source of this

this idea that the that he was that spooked him was that the HW Bush campaign was going to like pull out the dirty tricks handbook. But the source of it was POW, MIA guy Scott Barnes, who told him that he told Perot that Bush had hired him to wiretap him. And as you as you as you unveil in the documentary, everything Scott Barnes said was a complete lie. This guy was a longtime fabulist who had sort of had a come to Jesus moment that brought him around. Yeah, Scott Barnes, I think that counts as New York Knicks player reference number two technically.

So yes, Scotty Barnes, man. He was just like, he was just this fucking guy. He was another POW MIA guy who latched on with Perot. I don't know what kind of like meetings they had in the 80s, but they had this really tight knit group where there was just this echo chamber where they kept spouting conspiracy theories and buying all each other's conspiracy theories. So like they started believing every, everything that everyone else in the group said.

So Scotty Barnes, who for some reason had a position of authority in Ross Perot's campaign, um, he basically said fed Ross Perot data, like this said like, Oh yeah, they're planning to blackmail you or whatever. The HW campaign is after you. And what he also did is he found a couple of like, you know, state senators or something who he also kind of got to believe is bullshit and said like, you know, state senators or something who he also kind of got to believe his bullshit and said like, oh yeah, this is what I saw. So all Ross did to confirm the story was he called those like, uh, hack senators

that Barnes already had around his finger and was like, is this true? And they're like, yes, it's true, sir. Um, and, uh, that's all he needed. Like he didn't need, he didn't think about calling any of the authorities or hiring his own investigator. He just believed Scott Barnes. And then a few years later, Scott Barnes becomes a born again Christian. And he said, yeah, I made it all up. I made every single bit of it completely up. It's fiction. It's fiction. We made it up.

And another another sort of forgotten piece of the 92 campaign that I enjoyed and was that pro he had sort of like, like, sort of similar to Donald Trump, he had the right idea about earned media. And his attitude was like, why would I pay money for TV ads when they invite me on TV to talk for free all the time and part of that was that? He put after the after the debates he purchased a half an hour slot on ABC where he did like unbroken for a half an hour. He presented to the American people Basically a secret base episode he sat at a desk He sat at a desk and just presented like a half an hour of graphs and data and it got higher ratings than Quantum Leap, which as a young TV watcher would have horrified me

to know that Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell were getting lapped by Ross Perot talking about pie charts about taxation. But like, how in some ways were like, did the parole campaign and the reform party sort of prophesy a lot of like, trends that would become to the fore later in politics and political campaigns? Well, there was a lot of like, when Trump made his initial assent in 2015, 2016,

there was like a lot of, I thought, kind of tortured writing that was like, here's how we got Trump. This is like the proto Trump, the MAGA movement was the reform party. And like, there were definitely similarities. I think it's, it's a little bit of a stretch for like those people who came to those conclusions to say that exactly, but there were like a whole lot of commonalities.

One is that like, I mean, if you look at the late era, like the late stage reform party that Pat Buchanan took over, um, the one thing that like, I think Trump improved upon was Pat Buchanan knew how to rile up, um, a little like mob of, of, of little piggies or whatever that would come to every rally he had, but he had no actual like electoral power. But Pat Buchanan was always trying to anchor his sort of revanchism and all this like, you know, punitive shit to the Bible. And he was starting to anchor it to some kind of force of like moral good.

Whereas Trump was like, hell with that. Like, fuck that. We know like that he knew how to play the game that evangelicals want to play, which is at least the evangelical right is that they know it's fake. They know that they don't actually believe in Jesus or the Bible or any of this shit. But they like to put on the appearance of doing so. They don't want you to actually live by the Bible. That's you know, that's

like a rubes game to them. So like Trump knew that it was an act and he went accordingly and I think that was the big difference between the two movements. One thing that I really liked, and this is later in the documentary, but you, what are my like least favorite things that happened after Trump won was people going, oh, well actually there was this fucking guy called Pat Buchanan who ran on all of Trump's ideas and did all of Trump's stuff. And you very definitely point out that Pat Buchanan was a complete electoral fucking bomb.

And more than that, what I think is important to touch on is Buchanan's program of paleoconservatism. It was very European style. Like it just, it had no purchase in America for that reason. Pat Buchanan was probably meant to like lead a party in the Netherlands or France called like the justice and soccer party. But he just, he was so outmoded for American politics and you're exactly right in that like Trump, Trump gets the point of all the pantomime and, and theatrics without like actually believing all the lame shit that Buchanan does about like Christendom and all this shit. Yeah, it's not like. I love how little anyone liked him.

Like he did not fit in any, Felix is totally right. It's like why all of that Europhile stuff that went with Trump, like that just Euro fascism or whatever, like the Richard Spencer thing, it just didn't stick because it's too weird. And we have our own brand of like ultra disgusting right wing politics. It just doesn't look the same because theirs, theirs has a social welfare. It actually has national socialism. Yeah, yeah, you can't, like you can't,

their whole thing is like, oh, all these like Polish people are coming and taking our national healthcare. And in America, what does that equate to? All these, oh, all these fucking Pollocks are taking our Oscar health slots. And you also like, you can't do like European, you can't do like old European far right style anti-Semitism in America because like I always think of that Bill Mitchell

tweet, Bill Mitchell, the big Trump guy from 2016. When he was arguing with like Gripers back then and he went, I'm 54 years old. And you know what? A Jew has never stopped me from reaching my full potential. That was his rejoiner to anti-Semitism. And it's such a funny thing to say. He's right. He's right. Yeah, he's right.

We could never stop him. We tried. He's unstoppable. But like that is like most middle Americans either think that or like they would have the same responses. The Japanese, the Imperial Japanese, if you showed them protocols, which is like, well, these guys, they get up early to fool Christians. That nose is like that because it fits on the grindstone. Yeah. Yeah. It just has no purchase in American culture in the same way

that it would in like, yeah, France or fucking Belgium. And, John, I think I think you make a really good point about the phenomenon of Pat Buchanan in American politics, because, like, yeah, you quite adequately show that, like, in terms of popularity, he rates slightly below tertiary syphilis anytime anyone talk or like finds out what he believes in But what what accounts for his like the idea that the reform party or Ross Perot would be like he's our guy He's gonna be our candidate and the answer is because he's on political TV all the fucking time He's on crossfire. He's on the McLaughlin group. He's on Face the Nation.

It's just Pat is in every fucking green room of like from CNN to MSNBC and everything in between. Somehow this dickhead is always on fucking television. All right. Well, look, there's no one violating the constitutional rights. I think of this crowd that was it Cruz something or other, Michael, that wrote me so horny. They're allowed to say what they want but what we have here is a product yeah it's this continued I mean people do it still we overestimate the

power of TV because there's obviously different types there's the kind of TV where you can buy a half-hour TGIF block and then there's like the boring-ass TV that he went on like six times a day and it's like yeah it doesn't matter how often you like I mean it's true, yeah, it doesn't matter how often you like, I mean, it's true even now, like, I've made a couple appearances, I've been on, you know, NFL countdown, I've been on NFL network for a couple of things. And like, no one notices I get no nobody tweets at me, nobody, whatever, like, it's like, I just like went over to somebody's house and had a conversation with him, like completely invisible.

No one gives a shit. And like, if that's true now, then I can only imagine how much more true it was then when you're talking about like, yeah, like the fucking McLaughlin group or something that 99% of people have never seen. Like it is almost a tradition in this point in American politics to like, yeah, overrate TV stars themselves. And I, it makes me think of like Tucker and there was all this hay made about like Tucker as like a potential future competent Trump and this like unprecedented figure in American politics, but the moment that

he was not on TV, he's just completely disappeared. And part of that is the completely baffling choice to do his show on X, the everything side. But I think more than anything, people think that like, especially like older people in political circles, they think that the people on TV are the stars when it's really that like, no TV itself is the star. The people who are on it are completely incidental and it could be fucking anyone. It doesn't matter who they are. And Pap,

you can and was only on TV as much as he was, as you point out, because he was, he was friends with everyone who ran these networks and was on them. He was as much as he liked to rail against elites. He was very much a member of the club. And he was he was almost like the bizarro like Alan Alan combs of the right or something. He was like the little pet Republican that like the bourgeois like Democrats like kept around. He's like, oh, yeah, I look at him. Yeah, like a little guy. He says the Holocaust never happened. Oh, he's not. Democrats. Democrats loved him because he would like, especially during the ascendance

of the neo cons, because he was like, you know, a Republican who was against, you know, the forever wars and all these things that became like Republican dogma. And he was seen as more intellectual or more interesting than the average Republican you could have on. He was in that like McLaughlin group. He was certainly more entertaining. He was so fucking weird. And like people don't get that like, well, yeah, he's good TV. But a lot of people are good TV specifically because they're unlikable. Like I feel like normal racists would see him and be like, hmm, bit much.

Yeah, he would get on there and he'd be like, we're giving dental dams to Latino girls. That's another thing. He had the most off, one of the most off putting voices I've ever heard like almost The only one I would put below him is like Bobby Petrino had a worse voice But like in the realm of politics like no worse voice I've ever heard well I mean like the Buchanan and then like we should talk about probably the most Successful figure in the reform party history former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura

successful figure in the Reform Party history, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura. But, like, a major part of this story about, like, the birth and then collapse of the Reform Party is that it follows a template of, like, all American politics and American history, like from the founding fathers who initially didn't want parties and were, you know, like, terrified or they were always wary against our republic descending into quote unquote, factionalism, which it did almost immediately. And then on top of that, there's also, you know, it's the watchword of today's politics, but it's also this idea that like, we're going to be a normal party, and there will be no purchase to be found here for weirdos of any kind.

How did that work out, John? It worked out great. It worked out great, man. Uh, yeah, I mean, one of my favorite parts of the whole thing to research, and I knew like, it was kind of one of the motivations for me actually doing it is cause like, man, give me all these fucking weirdos. I want to see what kind of cranks like found their way into this party. And like, there was no, I mean, it's kind of like we were talking about earlier

There was no like defining principle that for a lot of people there was no through line Besides just like an interest in had there being a third party Outside of that like a lot of them shared like no commonalities My favorite little weirdo crank guy was man his oh Gregory Hollister. I think was his name he was a guy who was like a Think they called him pre millennial Dispensationalist guys like he was one of those guys that was sure that the the times of revelation were upon us and gonna happen before the year 2000

And that tribulation was was here, but he was also like, yeah, we really need to take care of the national debt guys. It's like, it's like he thought of like the federal deficit is like a campsite or something. Like we got to leave. How are we going to get raptured without being in the black? Yeah. Am I getting into heaven? I don't know. Let me check my credit score. Another weirdo I enjoyed was Richard Lamb, as a guy who at one point said of old people, they need to hurry up and die in

the context of like, why are we why are we spending all this money on artificial hearts and surgeries and medicine for the elderly? The budget just can't take it. And he did not understand who votes in this country. Running on like, my campaign is Logan's Run is a really bad strategy for an increasingly aging like voting population. Yeah, I guess which makes him makes him very very very reform in that like he is stubbornly and steadfastly like

Dedicated to the most unwise unsavvy move he could possibly make like he's also kind of I think he speaks to how weird Colorado is like in general because his politics were like Simultaneously, he was like borderline like fucking like no nothing nativists, like anti-immigration guy. But at the same time, he was like a huge like ecological preservation guy, which is like the two things you don't see go together unless it's like specifically Colorado or one of those weird states up there. I've just never seen it.

One of the hiking states. Yes. But to return to return to Jesse Ventura, who he runs for governor of Minnesota on the reform party ticket and he wins. What did that signal to the reform party and like what were the knock-on effects of that in terms of like what you think like getting a governor of a major American state would be like a huge boon and they and like a point you make in the thing in the documentary series is like the matching federal funds for the party is very important. But like, why like how how how did the reform party just run into a brick wall despite electing, you know,

a guy I still admire to this day, the body governor of Minnesota. Yeah. I mean, from the jump, like it was amazing. Like he's not, he's not somebody who's, uh, right about everything, but oftentimes like his signature is like not just being right, but being the only one who is. Like he was the only guy I ever, I ever read about who, uh, you know, like very strongly opposed the first goal for, which is something that had like this crazy approval rating. But yeah, he, uh, he represented what could have been like a really interesting future. I mean, given the tenuous nature of third party reality in this country, the reform

party probably would have petered out in like a less interesting way is my best guess. You know, maybe not, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Jesse Ventura, if he were actually allowed to take the reins as he should have been able to, could have used the momentum to actually build something. If nothing else, maybe he wouldn't. They wouldn't have been able to run for like presidential office and win. Maybe they could have been able to push around one or both of the parties

in order to win their voter endorsement. There were a lot of like avenues. But of course, none of that was ever to be because I think Ross Perot didn't like him for a few reasons. One was that like he was really big and Ross Perot was really little and big guys and little guys, you know, they don't always get around to the laundry. Yeah, I didn't consider that. But yeah, well, he has charisma too. Like, like, nobody really likes

Ross Perot. They're sort of like tickled by him. And I mean, Jesse Ventura to his credit, when the reform party made Pat Buchanan their presidential nominee, he said, I'm out. I can't I can't fuck with this. It's not me. I'm gone. Yeah, yeah. So they settled for Pat Buchanan over the fucking Jesse Ventura What was way too normal? Yeah, yeah, it's like, you know, I keep going back to sports bullshit like naturally But I just think of like the equivalent of you know

When your team is chasing this like free agent and you think you have them locked down And then you get stuck with like this guy who's just this replacement level bum And you're like fuck He's like five years older and he sucks and he has no upside and he's as expensive the as the other guy was Like fuck this. I don't know I mean the most amazing thing about that campaign and like how badly pap you can't and a shit is That he had so much money like he had so much money in matching funds and it was basically a Brewster's million scenario in which he had to spend it all in like not that much time.

And like he just, he could have like afforded to, he would have been better off if he just like bought every vote for 20 bucks. Like I'll give you 20 bucks if you vote for me. And he would have done better. And that's illegal for some stupid reason. Yeah, it's dumb. You should be able to. You should be able to. Why not? John, before we get you out of here with that,

I mean, I do want to give our listeners sort of more of the full panoramic view of everything Secret Base offers, because, you know, you've referenced a lot of sports. There's a lot of incredible sports, sports information and sports content on Secret Base. But the one episode that I really wanted to talk about, because it was like, I feel like it was made for me personally, is your 50 minute examination of the film Independence Day

from the perspective of James Redhorn's character the National Security Advisor. Take my word for it. There's no Area 51. There's no recovered spaceship. Excuse me, Mr. President. That's not entirely accurate. Could you just give us a little taste of like, what is it about Independence Day and what is it about the James Redhorn character in particular, because this is a movie that I watch every year. This is like my, this is my summer, summer sort of tradition is I forgot to throw on

Independence Day sometime around the 4th of July. But like, the way you have the way you analyze this movie, and you go through each character and like really each line of dialogue to prove that he is the most hated and annoying character in film history, or it just holds a special place in film history. What inspired this? I mean, like, what about Independence Day speaks to you? Well, I mean, it was obviously when it came out, if you were of a certain age, I would have I think I was 13, I was 12 or 13 when it came out. of a certain age. I would have I think I was 12 or 13 when I came out. And yeah, it was if you were around that age, it definitely stuck with you. You were a little too young to care how dumb it was. I probably watched it, you know, like 20 times when I bought it on VHS and like you, I watch it

most most July 4th. It's just like one of the most outright fun, like low-stakes summer blockbusters. It doesn't have any dry spots at all. Fun wall to wall. And of course James Rebhorn, one of my favorite, maybe my favorite character actor of all time. Just a fucking legend. And yeah, I just, he had been sticking to my craw, that character for like, you know, 30 years almost, and then I came across a few years ago, I came across this nugget that like Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the, you know, the people who made Independence say, uh, fucking hated this guy named Joe Niemzicki, who was like an

agent at MGM, I think. And, uh, they basically, they, they made a spike character just like like just to sort of burn him in effigy and I thought that was like really interesting and They sure did do it because that guy fucking sucks That's not Entirely accurate, you know, it's a great great James Rapphorn role in the David Fincher movie The Game with Michael Douglas. Yes. Ever see that one?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That one's amazing. But, but John, I think what you captured really, really well about Independence Day and why I love the movie is that the movie play, the movie is about a, a, a gloat, the global extermination of human civilization, but it basically plays like a comedy. And you point out that like of the 20 main characters in this movie, and it basically plays like a comedy. And you point out that like over 20 main characters in this movie, and it's very generous with the casting and characters. And every little character in this movie gets like an arc.

They get their, they get their plot beats, but we'll see what they got is comic relief. And like I said, for a movie about the global extermination of human civilization, Independence Day is about having fun and being funny. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, in actually get the full, get every facet of the man who is Albert Nimzicki and like why the show, why the movie has so many comic relief characters and kind of, you kind of flesh it out a little bit. I, I went through the trouble of purchasing and reading like three of the canonical Independence Day novels that came out, um,

including one that was like totally unauthorized and I didn't realize it was unauthorized until I finished reading it. And, uh, well, what was the name of the book that you recommended earlier in this episode? Oh, the dog of the South. The dog of the South. I have not read it. And there's like a non-zero chance that like, I will go to my grave, not having read it. And I will have read like three fucking independent state books.

That's so fucking cool. Well, I guess to wrap things up here, this is I have to return to the Olympics again because it's on my mind. John, did you watch the Olympics this year? Yeah, I sure did. Okay. What of the Olympic sports? What would be the Olympic sports that you would remove from the Olympics? And do you have any ideas for additional Olympic sports? Because every year they, they try they add one or two new things, you know, some some things go away. But what are this year's crop of Olympic sports you think are terrible need to get taken out? And what are some ideas? And I'll open this up to Felix and Amber as well. Any ideas for new Olympic sports that could potentially capture the imagination of the world? I think first and foremost, you got to eliminate track and field. No one likes it. You got to eliminate swimming. Be Olympic sport. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gone.

Basketball gone. It's like all those sports are gone. They already got rid of baseball. Thank God. Equestrian has to go. Everything but breakdancing. That's got to be the entire Olympics. Yeah, the Olympics now just become electric boogaloo.

That would be fit. That would actually be really fitting because the original Olympics from like the 1904 St. Louis Olympics were insane for like a hundred different reasons. But one of them is like around then, like Olympic events included things like fucking like painting, like painting was a fucking Olympic event and they would award medals. And I think sometimes they would award like multiple golds. If you, if you did, if everybody did a good job, they would just give out like four golds to people.

So like participation trophy. People in the 1900s were weak. Snowflake generation. No, my chief on the chopping block for me is John, you already know that the equestrian events, metal welfare for aristocrats, give the horses the medals. Get this bullshit out of here. Number two, did you happen to see Olympic handball? Yes, I did. It looked really fucking sick, actually. This is a gym class sport.

Well, that's so is basketball. I'm okay with anything that isn't subjectively judged. As someone who can dance for a really long time, I see rhythmic gymnastics and I think it's very cool. I think those people are athletes. However, if an athlete, I don't know, makes a sandwich, it doesn't make making a sandwich a sport. I want solid numbers. The person with the most point wins. I don't want to disagree with some Russian judge who has a grudge

because I don't know. They don't like the Philippines or whatever. I want to say they're not allowed to compete in the Olympics. Well, my problem with Olympic handball is that like it's a sport that's like, okay, it's like soccer, but you don't use your feet. And it's like basketball, except you don't dribble or take shots. It's just you just run with a ball in your hand and throw it into a goal.

Seems fake to me. Get it out of here. But for Felix, here's my here's my suggestion for a new Olympic sport. And that would be dog fighting in planes. Yeah, no, I'm not like not the new fifth gen. No country wants to get a competitive advantage should they go to war by testing out in the Olympics how the limits of the newest fighter jets. I'm talking like old school planes, like red Baron stuff. Go back to that. No, no, no, no. I think like second or third generation back when, like

we were using these crack head weapons, like there was an unguided air to air nuclear rocket that you were meant to shoot at other planes. Well, I don't think that should be part of the air competition, but no, it needs to be. It needs to be. I want them to wear those leather hats and the goggles and the scarves. Like that. And like, you know, like, it should be like paintball, but you're doing it in aerial combat. God, I would do anything to play like, I mean, I would go first gen.

I would do anything to play paintball and sop with camels. That would be so fucking awesome. Oh my God. Yeah. That's pretty, yeah. That's a, I mean, that does leave it open for everyone. Not everyone. There are some broke, that does leave it open for everyone. Not everyone. There are some broke countries that don't have newer jets. So I think that would be nice.

But there should be like at least a fourth gen that can be several categories, you know, like weight classes, boxing or something. But my my actual idea for the Olympics was that, you know, I saw a lot of the complaints about break dancing and I agree, why are we only judging one pillar of hip hop? Get graffiti and MCing in there. Get it in there, get battle rap. Where's MCing, where's graffiti?

I think the Olympics should just be the five pillars of hip hop. I think the only judge should be Michael Rapaport. Yeah, boy. Israel's about style is sick, yo. Yo, Israel just mopped it up with the kegs. That's what the Olympics should be. Everyone agrees.

It's like, why are we only doing one thing? You know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't celebrate one pillar of Islam, would you? Nope. Why are we celebrating one pillar of hip hop? Couldn't have said it better myself. And I think we should leave it there for today's episode. I want to thank our guest, John Boyes. Everybody check out Secret Base on Patreon, YouTube, and wherever any wherever fine data visualization documentaries are shown and enjoyed. John, thank you so much for your time.

Hang on. If you have zero sports inclination, I promise you it will still be fun. Just watch the banana one. Just watch the history of people slipping on bananas. It's amazing and I don't know, very informative. I came out of it feeling smarter. Thank you all so much for the love. I appreciate that. I am, I famously only enjoy combat sports, but I, Secret Base is still tremendous,

as Donald Trump would say. It truly is tremendous. We'll leave links in the description for everything, both for the reform party documentary and more traditional stick and ball documentaries. Thank you so much, John. Thanks, John. Yeah, of course, man. Of course.

This was fun. I appreciate y'all. And I guess I will also give another plug for choppo trap house dot store. Now with the new movie merchandise hat and T sorry, movie mindset merchandise hat, baseball hat and T shirt movie mindset now available at shoppo trap house dot store. Thanks everybody until next time. Bye bye. Bye.