Factually! with Adam Conover - Rise of the Diarrhea Parasite with Trixie Mattel and Dylan Adler

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Move over World Cup halftime show, the biggest shitshow this week is still the cyclospora outbreak. Unless, of course, you’re counting the Trump administration literally trying to pump the military full of testosterone. This week, Adam’s joined by podcaster and crossdresser Trixie Mattel and comedian Dylan Adler. --SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Welcome to Factuary. I'm Adam Conover. It's this week's Crisp 45 where I'm breaking down the news with two smart and funny people with me. Needs no introduction. A podcaster, famous cross-dresser, Trixie Mattel is here. Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you.

A hotel owner. You just told us right before we were rolling. You own a hotel. I do. I own the Trixie Motel in Palm Springs, California. A motel, excuse me. Yes. Disney's been saying they're the happiest place on Earth.

I think it's us, but I don't know. Incredible. And we have a very funny comedian Dylan Adler is here. Yes, I can vouch for the motel. My lesbian cousins just went and they loved it. And sometimes I go over to Dylan's house and just sleep over. He doesn't know. And that's kind of my Dylan Motel experience.

Yeah. Second happiest place on her. Yeah. Okay, let's start by talking about the World Cup half-time show. I know you guys were worried that we were going to be talking about soccer. We're talking about the halftime show. This was Dylan's pitch. Can we play a little bit of it?

Did you pitch this, Dylan? I did. This was Dylan said. I want to talk about the World Cup halftime show. That's amazing. What about this pop free? Because this was one of the most insane things I've seen on television, I feel like. To me, like I was with my family and I just happened to catch this.

And I'm like, wait, this is the thing about this show, I love short bits of different people. I loved that it was kind of a huge mashup of huge stars. Right, they didn't pick like it's Beyonce or it's who. doing a retrospective, it's like you're getting 45 seconds of Madonna. You're getting like literally two shots of the Muppets. Oh, for sure. Yeah. It was very zip, zap, zap, zop.

It's like, it's like, oh, yeah. But I also, this made me realize, do I not care if something's pre-taped? Because I live. This is my favorite part. I don't care too, though. Yeah, I don't care that it's pre-taped. I don't care that she clearly walks out later, like, yeah. Different day, different, same hair, whatever.

Oh, yeah. You know, the funniest part of this intro is, is those are two very famous Brazilian soccer stars. Those are, I believe, Ronaldo and Ronaldine. They're the two straight people in the full shot. They're just smiling, just like they're so happy to be there. They don't really

Oh. They don't really know what's going on. I know. Also, like Madonna's never been around this many straight people too. I know. I just, I love it. It's a Verizon commercial. Yeah. It gives Super Bowl commercial. He's giving Super Bowl commercial.

It really does. And then so Madonna walks out onto the field and just goes music and like sings the last line that's the only thing she sings live is the very last line and then they pan away from her and something completely different starts it's also music over disco inferno which I love me too I liked that little mashup

Seven Nation Army but we don't get White striped we don't get seven nation arm That's the fucking craziest thing is Jack White composes like one of the most universal pieces of music of the last 20 years. Just this, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. It is the world-wide.

Yeah. It is. It's like up there with Beethoven's ninth. Yeah. And it is worldwide. It has played at soccer games all over the world. And the fact that they didn't just have Jack White do this. How pissed is he in Nashville?

I love this song. Yeah. I remember it came out when I was in high school. And I remember watching the music video. I remember the music video goes on like forever. it's like an ultra zoom of like that triangle forever. Oh yeah. It's a great piece.

But the Muppets are cool. The Muppets are cool. My favorite part though is Gustavo Doudemel. Doudemel. The very famous, one of the most famous classical music conductors in the world is their conducting animal and BTS. Oh, and BTS. Okay. I read this online.

They had two sold out shows in Paris the two nights before. The biggest audience has ever recorded, I believe. And they jumped on a plane and came and did this the next day. And they sang, Dynamite, and this is translated. They translated Dynamite for the first time ever, I think, for this performance. For football. And the lyrics were, hear the lyrics,

King Kong kick the ball, running on like a rolling stone, ding dong, call me on my phone, ice tea, and a game of football. See, the thing is the lyrics already didn't make sense. Okay. And now to make it about football, and now it doesn't rhyme. but I still love it. It's like a, it's like a black-eyed pee lyric now. You know, it's kind of like all over in a good way.

It's like, it's this generation's boom, boom, pal. Yes, totally. Yeah. I mean, I love it. And honestly, shout out to dynamite because how many times I've ever heard this song, how many years, it eats every time. It eats every time. It's actually my favorite song.

It's a testament to the songwriting and it's not even about the lyrics. My World Cup party was like, is this butter? And I was like, it's the other one. It's the other one. You're like, oh, it's the Saja boys. I mean, BTS is good. Like, they really are a very, very high pinnacle of pop culture technology. Oh, my God.

Incredible singers. Like, when I worked at the late late show and we would have the musical artists come in, when the K-pop groups came in, they rehearsed from like morning to afternoon. And like, it was just a different production when the K-pop group came in, the musical act. Do you guys give a shit that nobody is. singing live because in the again the Super Bowl it would be like I feel like they'd be like they have to sing live they want to show off they want to really do it for real you don't you don't agree I mean far be it from a drag queen to police whose lips are actually syncing to anything fair

I'm policing the lip sync I think the lip sync was great yeah yeah I thought they lived it was a really iconic those numbers really well yeah we're gay and so we're kind of I'm I'm such a pop girl apologist there could be no singing I'm like that mic was on she tore Me too. I actually thought B.T. didn't lip sing because I'm like, yeah, because I'm like, he isn't singing a single note right there. He's just talking.

Oh, Ted Lassow. Oh, yeah. That's not BTA. Oh, shit. I'm always mixing those. Now, Miss Justin 8. Miss Justin 8. Ted Lazo introduces Justin Bieber.

It's such a crazy mashup. Sexy. Yeah. He is so fine here. I'm sorry, everybody. Love everybody. He's looking great in his sports polo. He's playing the acoustic guitar.

Like, you know what I've thought from this performance from Justin? Yeah. He survived so much. It does give. Honestly, at Thanksgiving, he's a survivor. He was born to survive. I don't know.

Life. Peeing in a mop bucket? And I was going to say, remember that? Oh, he did? Remember when he peed in a mop bucket? I was going to say pee ditty, but also peeing in a mop bucket.

You thought I was saying that he would survive be ditty? Yeah. My God. He's really so sexy. such a great singer. And he's singing his like down tempo like introspective like we're worried about him kind of from the new album which I did like

this is the like Mick G. and Dijan produced Bieber you know I'm talking about this is like the the soulful yeah it's a good version of him. I like it it gives dynamics because obviously we're going to speed up to colplay and shit so it was a nice change of pace from the uptempo stuff. You know what's funny about this is I read that people who are at the World Cup

were like, this was a horrible experience to watch in the stadium. Because look, he's doing it for the camera. Like, he's not even, is this even amplified? Like, they were like, we don't have no idea what's going on. We can't hear Ted Lassow. Yeah. I saw some of the comments that were like,

oh, I liked that he chose like something that made people. I mean, sure. Like, I get it, but do we want him to go sing baby? Like, what do we want? Sure. I mean, that is the crowd pleaser. But also, I mean,

I think it worked for just middle, lower energy, and then we're going to build up to... I mean, a big difference is, like, this is watched by people all over the world? Is he famous enough? Is Bieber famous enough? I think, I think... Oh, yeah. Someone's white mom. Like, is crying. You know what?

My Japanese mom was like, I love him. So he struck a chord somewhere. Yeah. But people have to be watching this in, like, you know, Ghana being like, I don't know who this is. Who is this man? They know, sorry. Okay.

Remember sorry? Yeah, fair. Like that was such a global hit. They were like, oh, yeah, he's grown up so much. Shakira. Shakira. Oh, yes. Drag.

Yeah. I mean, really carnival style. I love the outfit. I mean, this is the first part of the show that feels to me like the World World Cup's Super Bowl halftime show. Like, this is what I would picture if you were going to ask me, what is the World Cup going to do? She really is infallible.

She really always delisible. I know. He's awesome. Like, can I tell you two of her songs? I don't think so, but I like it every time. And I think that's a real thing. It's like, I don't know the music, but I like it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She's, I love Shee Wolf. Yeah, she would just sing that. Can we jump ahead a little bit to, uh, let's see, let's find Chris Martin in the, uh, in the children's choir. The way Chris Martin for me was completely hidden. I saw him like the area. Yeah, right. Yeah. You only heard his voice in the last kid's song, but he was in this song, he like makes appearance, but these kids are so cute.

They're, I know. I believe our kids from New Jersey, which is very fitting. Aw. And then Miss. The Muppets are back. The kids I didn't like. Miss Biggie's hanging out. You didn't like the kids? No, get them out of here.

It's too earnest. It's too earnest. I don't like it. And they're like being instructed. You can tell the stage moms are like, because they're like, I don't know. I don't like kids. I'm such a sucker for a we are the world

moment. I'm like multicultural. You know, it's a little on the nose for me. So were you guys tracking the World Cup? Were you watching the event? I was hiding from it, girl. No, no. Okay.

I would go to my favorite, I've got high tops, low spilis. I'd be like, I'm going to have my happy hour experience. Can't find anywhere to sit. Eating nachos standing up while everyone screams. And you know, when you don't watch the sports, when everyone in the bar screams at once, it scares the life out of you. Oh, yeah, no, it's very jar. In our 2026, if everyone at gay bar screaming.

Oh, yeah. So here's what I'm curious about. Did this halftime show make the World Cup like pop for you? Did it, did it surface? Did it come up, you know? Like, did it, did it enter your awareness. It did for me. Yeah.

It did for me. And you know what? It did give me the gooseys because I'm just like a little sucker for like, we are all one love. Different cultures. It's so 90s. I'm so 90s. MLK like kids.

Yeah. I don't know. It's very Michael Jackson or it's very, what's the thing with all the celebrities singing together? We are the world. We are the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you ever seen the version of that with those Muppets

or the puppets that look like them really scary? Oh, yeah. Oh, shit. Okay. Well, I'm glad you guys enjoyed. I'm glad that it was a nice way to round out the World Cup. And also Argentina lost, which everybody in the world is happy about. Yeah.

Except from people from Argentina. I have family friends who are from Argentina. And they're so sad that because it turned into a festival of the world hating on Argentina as a country. Yeah. And Argentinians are like, hey, we're not, that's a little mean, you know, a little mean to us. I felt the same way when the world turned on wazians. No, J.K. cut that.

Oh my God. I can't believe you would compare the wazian struggle. So Argentina's struggle. Well, it's actually kind of, because the knock on Argentina is that it's a very white South American country. That is the thing that people say about it is that it's got a fair amount of racism and the fans exhibited some racism. That's the knock that everyone was saying against. Interesting. This episode is brought to you by Alma.

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amazing deals. We're going silly topic, serious topic. This is semi-serious. This is semi-serious. Did you guys see this video of Pete Hegseth saying that the Trump administration was going to require soldiers to get testosterone screenings and perhaps injections? This is a really insane policy considering what the Trump administration thinks about certain other people getting hormone treatment of any kind. Do you guys have any take on this? I mean, I feel like my take is not entirely hot because it feels so flat on its face obvious that it's like the double-strand. standard is so crazy. Yeah. It's very okay for some people.

Have you seen that S&L sketch where she's like, I feel like things Donald Trump says are not true. There's a part where she goes, I feel like some things are okay for guns, gun rules are different for some people than for other people. That's how I feel about this. It's like, yeah. These rules are different based on who you're talking about. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, this is gender affirming care quite obviously for Pete Hegseth and his, but he's forcing it on other people. He's not even just like, hey, you get testosterone if you want it, if you're worried about it. If you've been listening to the wrong podcasts and you've, you have some worry about it. He's like, you must. We need you to have testosterone. At this point, like, let's get them all bitten by radioactive spiders.

And let's, I don't know, everyone's on steroids. Yeah. Like, we should, everyone's on Viagra. Everyone needs to be wrecked all the time. Like, what are we doing? Yeah. Just, um, because aren't they, aren't they also saying that giving people, hormones is like

when they say trans people it's like oh that's getting in the way of what we're trying to do here it's like but what about what about when you give them hormones to make them more mask right yeah what why we are open to yeah yeah we're open anybody has any anyone has comment below you think that Pete Hegseth would

be okay because he hates women in the military right he like fired a bunch of female you know upper officers like generals he thinks that women should not be in combat roles but A, does he know trans men exist? And B, would he maybe be in favor of them being in the military?

He's like, well, I like women if they become not women, if they're like, if we can defeminize them. I think the irony here is that they paint themselves into these corners where there's like blatant paradoxes. Yeah, that they can, yeah. There is nothing to explain because it's just like the, it's like the, I know you are, but what a my is. It just kind of goes on forever. Yeah. Yeah, like there's no logic to it. And he's put himself in a position where, like, no one can even say that to him.

And if they did, he would like evaporate or his brain would break, right? Like, I love the, yeah, just blatant paradoxes. There's no making sense of it. Yeah, yeah, that's true. It's almost difficult to talk about. Okay, let's talk about one of Trixie's favorite topics. This is another light and fun one before we get to something a little bit more serious. Can we pull up this video of these parrots?

Oh, I thought you were going to bring up Madonna and Grindr as my special interest. My special interest. Okay, I'm just kidding. No, no, no, I want to talk about, no, now I want to talk about Madonna and Grindr. What is the Madonna and Grindr story? Madonna, yeah. You go ahead. This is kind of your expertise.

She's taken over Grindr. She's taken over Grindr. And it looks different. And it, for a little bit from the release of her album. So Grindr is like Madonna album themed. Like, it's like the same graphic design of the album. That's what Grindr looks like. Basically, I think at this point, like, the Velvet Rage is so fierce that gay people won't

even let other gay men tell them to have sex. And so Madonna is like, I think you guys should have sex. And the gay guys are like, she's fucking right. And we should do it now. You two baggots need to fuck now. Yes. But I will say Madonna, like historically, like, you cannot decades. Her message from the beginning is all about like pro gay shit, you know, she.

Yeah. And so it's pretty. clockable and it's great. Yeah. And there's even an icon with her. Like you see the different profiles and there's Madonna. Fierce. I wish.

Did you imagine? Oh my God. Madonna is in East Hollywood. Yeah. Madonna is in East Hollywood. Are you up? Are you up? Send picks.

I would love for Madonna to send a dick pick to me. Oh my God. I don't care if it's hers. I don't care who's it. Just send it over. I would love it. I'd be honored. I would be honored.

And I'm sure she would. I'd be Madonnaed. I mean, have you been using it? Have you been using the app as the experience different? Do you feel different? differently about another baddanas involved. So it only lasted for like a couple days during the, but the interface was completely different and I felt a little disoriented for a couple

days. Okay. I'm not on Grindr, how did you like it? How did you like it? You know, I haven't installed it yet. I should.

But you know, it's a good cover for you because you're like, I'm here for the Madonna music. It's like Playboy saying I'm here for the articles. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they should be counter programming like Grindr.

They should do, you know, they should try to get, just like they did with the World Cup. They have Madonna at the World Cup. World Cup, right? They gotta get, if they had doodemel on Grindr, that would get me in. I'm a classical music fan. Yeah.

This would be like, what's the straight grinder, Tinder? Yeah. It'd be like if they had Jimmy Buffett take over for a few days. Do you know what I mean? If Jimmy Buffett were on field, the straight heads. If Andre 3000 was able to take over for a couple days on Tinder. Yeah.

That would be fierce. Jimmy Buffett's sadly dead, but I wish he would take over Field. Fantastic. Field sponsor the show, please. Let's watch these lonely parrots. Hell yeah. We have, we have, this is the cutest story. Trixie, you brought this one to us.

Okay, yes. So these scientists are studying, um, these birds having their communication through face times and video calls. So all these parrot species are highly like socialized animals in the wild. And one of the issues with their diets and behaviors and captivity is they don't get that level of socialization. So parrot kindergarten in partnership with all these other like scientists are letting these parrots choose to call each other and they're discovering things like the birds

who made the most outgoing calls got the most back. They were getting people they preferred to talk to. They were even recognizing each other's owners on camera. And they were showing each other tricks, learning tricks from each other on the video. That's crazy. Don't forget many of these species are as smart as a four or five year old toddler. Wow. Oh my God.

It's well, so they talk about how they did it. And they simply did it in a very careful way where first they would always have. have the human there with the bird, and they would limit the call to five minutes in the moment the bird got bored. They would, like, turn it off. So they're not just, like, abandoning it with a face time. But once they showed that they understood what was happening, they were then allowed to call each other.

And the owner would train them, be like, okay, tap your friend, tap the cockatiel, and you'll get to talk to the cockatiel. And then they literally would just call each other whenever they felt like it. Yeah. Real friendships. Mm-hmm. It's pretty cool. And they're looking, they're looking at the screen and you can tell that macaw is bobbing up and down now.

Yeah. I follow parrot kindergarten, which is this like this woman, Irene Pepperberg. She like is the person who basically invented how to train parrots and learned all about them. And they're kind of following her studies. And beyond this study, they also have iPads for the birds to just talk about anything. Yes, no, maybe so. Like the birds understand all of that. Oh, my God.

It's pretty cool. I mean, I get, you know, I know people who can't communicate this well. You're a big bird person, Trixie. Obsessed. And what brought about your bird obsession? I don't know. I think they're so smart. I mean, I think it's kind of foolish to be like they can talk and fly and we're all not interested.

Yeah. They're flying. They're flying. And they're flying. And they learned only in the last couple generations that they don't just mimic. They learn the context of words and can build whole sentences. African grays can learn up to like 2,000 words. Yep.

Wow. There's the famous African gray Alex that you. almost have a conversation with. Yeah. Like extremely passed away a number of years ago, but like very famous parrot. She's, Dr. Irene Pepperberg studied him for like 30 years. And when he died, his last words were, um, I love you see you tomorrow. Oh my God.

And she also studied. She's obviously tried to study him like a subject, but she also accidentally studied bonding because she kind of tried to resist it as a scientist, but they really became so close. I don't know. They're cool animals. They're crazy. Learning about this made me a little sad, though. I'm like, wow, these birds should be, it felt like I'm watching Sevens right now,

and I felt like the birds are in the innings. I mean, that's the sad thing is, it's a wonderful program, and it's a wonderful thing to learn about birds that they can do it at all. But the fact that they need to have it done indicates that there's something wrong about, we're solving a problem that we created very. clearly, right? This is a problem for pet birds that don't have other birds around them. Well, whose fault is that?

Us, the people who are setting up the iPads. Well, you're going to hate what KFC does to chickens. You're like, sweetie pie, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe life long vegetarian, I don't know what to say. I did a dog funerator. That's the perfect response to me. That's so true. I just had a chicken for lunch. You guys are like, actually not to be woe. I'm like, there's a mental health parent

prices and we're ignoring. And we need to talk about it. I did have a chicken cob salad for lunch. And so, like, what the fuck am I even doing, reading this bullet point about how it's not nice to them? I do think it's cool. And honestly, all these animals need to be socialized. But some of these ones like this, you're right, they're meant to live in giant packs. And so a lot of times, issues like plucking, like, birds pluck out their feathers out of, like, boredom.

They go crazy. So it is. I mean, and I also noticed they said that the scientists made sure it was safe. They said, don't go home and try to, like, stick. your iPad and your birds cage. Yeah. Oh, okay. You know, so don't try this at home. That wouldn't work. They've been trained to do it and they've been screened.

Yeah. Do you have birds? No, I travel so much, but I really want to get a Hans McCaw. I was talking to a breeder and she ghosted me. So we're talking to somebody else now. But I'll say this. I did this fundraiser a couple years ago for a dog fundraiser and I was like, you know, yeah, I love animals. Yay, dogs. By the way, how's the chicken or fish you're all eating? Like the paradox of eating animals at an animal fundraiser. I was like, where are we? What's going on? Oh, my God, that's such true. So you're all horrible people.

We have different standards for pets than we do for food. That's a really good. That is not the same because you're saying it's living in a cage. But do you feel that way when you see a gogo boy at the club in a cage? You're like, save her. No, I'm like, wow, that boy is exactly where he needs to be right now. I think that. I think that problem we have is we have trouble connecting our experiences of our pets with animals.

Like my dog and who stays with my ex. now because I also travel so much, but, you know, she's staying with me right now, actually. She, she visits. I have co-parenting. I have visitation rights, okay? Once every other month I get a weekend. This dog is so smart. She's a cattle dog. And she watches, like,

animals on TV. Like, if we're watching a movie with a rolling hill and, like, a flock of sheep, she's like, what the fuck is this? If I play Red Dead Red Dead Redemption or, like, Zelda, where I'm riding a horse, she will be like, that's a horse. And she will sit and watch. And so that's really smart, like, to be able to look at an image of not even a real horse,

but like a 3D rendering of a horse galloping and recognize I'm looking at an animal here. And just she doesn't quite know what it is. She's just like, this is triggering a response in me. This is interesting to me. That's really smart. And there's all these other things she does that makes me go, oh, there's a mind in there. It's different from my mind, but there is a mind. And I just, I know that cows are the same way.

but I don't have the emotional connection. I've been vegetarian many times throughout my life. I'm not currently. But I intellectually know that cows are that way or pigs are that way and chickens are that way. But I don't. I have trouble making the connection. But I think the good thing that pets do

is that they do give us that appreciation for. Yeah. I mean, I definitely sometimes get drunk in order to make chicken. I'm not perfect. I'm good for you. People are always so policing about it too. They're like, oh, I thought you were a vegetarian. I was like, if I fucked a girl tomorrow, I'm still gay.

Yeah. Like, this is one event. Yeah. Well, a real take that I have is, and the reason I say I've been a vegetarian and not all the time, is when I was growing up, the vegetarian culture was very much like, you become a vegetarian and then like, never again shall meat pass my lips. I'm a monk. Right. And if you gave meat to a vegetarian, they'd be like, ah, what did you do to me? You know?

Right. Right. Hey, why can't you just cut out like 95% of the meat and still feel good about yourself? Like I know vegetarians who put way too much pressure on themselves to have it be all or nothing for the rest of your life. And if we just all had an ethos of like, hey, what if you just ate a lot less or, you know? I think it's a mind game. Like I still recycle even though I know that they say like what, 75% of like waste comes from corporations. Yeah, your little recycling ain't shit. Yeah.

I still do it. Yeah. Because I think there's some kind of comic reward and I would feel bad throwing away plastic. Yeah. They do, this is whenever people say this, I do encourage people, just recycle anyway. Cycle anyway.

Because like your city is telling you put this stuff in this kind of can, just put it in the can. They're recycling some of it. Don't put food in there. Don't make it wet. Don't make it messy. Throw out your Chinese food containers. Tear the top off your pizza box.

Put the clean part in. they can recycle some of it and just like do it anyway. It's not that hard. It's not that much of a scam. I'll start. But it does not. It does not. It doesn't recycle.

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Hi, I'm Beck Bennett. I thought I was Beck Bennett. No, no, no, I'm Kyle Mooney. Sorry about that. Exactly. No, all good. All good. Thanks, buddy.

Yeah. And we host the show what's our podcast here on HeadGum. This podcast is brought to you by. SquareSpace. Square space is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and make you look like a kick-ass person online. Like your skateboarding through the internet or you're like you're surfing through the web. Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. I like that it's all in one place.

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Last story. This is the most serious one of all I've stated it for last. Cyclospora outbreak. It's the year for diarrhea. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National. announced on Tuesday, they've confirmed more than 2,500 additional cases of cyclospora infections in the United States. It's the worst year for this parasitic infection on record.

Do either of you know anybody who has caught this? Are you concerned about it? Have you stopped eating iceberg lettuce? I don't know anyone who's caught it, but I live with IBS, so I feel like it's like, welcome to my world. And I get so stopped up. I'm like, where can I get the lettuce? This is a lot of people are saying this.

You know, yeah. Also, my partner watches, you know, 16 hours of news a day. So every day I come home and the situation is heightened. We're at threat level midnight. Now it's like, I'm like, so what? We can't have vegetables at all. We can have fruit at all. Like, what are we just gnawing on bark until they say, what do we do?

I know. I was at Trader Joe's. And usually in the salad section, it's mean like six white girls fighting for our lives for the... Right. But it was just me this time. Trader Joe's a fight no matter what. It's a fight no matter what. It's a fight.

Because they have this policy where they like to have small stores. They have a small footprint because do you know this about Trader Joe? Okay, you know the memes about Trader Joe's has a small parking lot. There's always long lines. Trader Joe's has as a way to save money, they specifically buy stores that have small footprints, which means they have small parking lots, which means they are knowingly making their stores crowded as like a cost savings measure.

Oh. And so they systematically do this. I hate it. I'm on a tanning. A tangent a little bit, but like... I go to Gelson's to get robbed. Just so I can have some space. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I go to Gelson's because it makes me feel like an old rich lady. Right. I, whatever, she just put it in the cart. Put it in the cart. We're not going to grow up to hell anyway. Yeah. Can't take it with you when you die.

I do think I don't want to get this disease, but obviously it is real. But on the news, they talk about almost every single day. They're treating it like it is a meteor coming to Earth. Yeah. And I just think it's funny that we have a sinkhole in West Hollywood. like sewage flowing out. Right. And now all these FAAGs are going to be out here

shitting themselves. It's like a toilet that won't flush and like a street of feces. Oh my God. Yeah. Great for the community. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's on the news because people are so worried about food.

Like, you know, food stories get on the news much more than any other story because people are obsessed with what they're eating. Right. But this is also a real health concern. And the crazy thing is the CDC and the FDA have been, completely back and forth on like what the cause is.

They said as first they said it was a what's the name, Taylor Farms, a company that has bought up all these farms around the country and now makes like a huge portion of our iceberg lettuce through monopolization. They said they tested lettuce from this farm. It was a positive. Then the next day they said it was a false positive and they walked it back, but they still think it is coming from Taylor.

From iceberg lettuce. Like, it's just completely, they completely confused the situation, right? Like, and this is their fundamental job. This is like the only thing the CDC is supposed to do. Yeah. And is give people clear guidance. And it's so unclear. Seems like a job for RFK.

This is exactly the problem. I think he could chill out on the red M&Ms for a second and, you know, focus on the shitting lettuce. Focus on the shitting lettuce. Well, what part of Maha is, you know, they cut $11 billion. in grants to state and local health departments that the health that the CDC had put out. They fired a quarter of the CDC's workforce.

They reduced the size of a federal lab that was dedicated to detecting exactly this type of outbreak. The head of that lab resigned because all of the people who worked for him was cut. And then they destroyed USAID, which worked on cyclospora outbreaks. It wasn't just giving money to communists.

Oh my God, that's really good. I just let us. It's really good. We should focus on the color and the food. Yeah. It's awful. But you know what, though? It's like when they were laying off all the people at the airport,

all the planes were crashing. It's like, what's the worst that could happen? We deserve to be shitting. The failed experiment called America deserves to shit their brains out. Yeah. And you know what? I do it all the time and you'll survive. Whatever.

Cyclosopunk. Cyclosocontocontocin. Cyclospermia. Cyclosporraea. Cyclospora. Whatever. Whatever, bitch, monkey pox, whatever. Could I ask to the expert, like, what, for those of us who don't have diarrhea a lot, what's the plan?

What are the tip? So the tips are regular stool samples. And, you know, just metamusal and be vigilant. And be vigilant. Be vigilant. You know, be vigilant. Like, be vigilant for what? Be vigilant for, like, when it's not solid.

And... Oh, like, put yourself in scenarios knowing, like, I might need to access a bathroom. Yes. Okay. Be vigilant is like your best man looking out on top. Yeah, yeah, keep an eye up for that sinkhole. I thought you were being vigilant, like,

you feel a little of something and you're like, solid or liquid, let me... For sure. Yeah. While you're shitting your brains out, be vigilant for intruders. But you travel so much. Are you just like, you must blow it up at the airport? Yes.

And also, I have a CPAP machine, so I wake up and I'm just full of air. So it's like bloated and so. That's tough. You're getting it from both ends. I'm getting it from both ends, so you could deal with your little cyplosis. Honestly, for those of you who don't love healthy food, this is the push you needed to righteously have like gummy worms for a few weeks. That's what I know.

That's what I thought too. I'm just trying to stay safe. You guys are crazy over at Sweet Green. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it is weird that and we covered this on the Netflix show I did the G word. We have a really rigorous testing regime for meat talking about eating meat like because meat was making people sick in like Teddy Roosevelt's day.

We put all these laws in place. There's inspectors at every single meat factory. We never did the same thing for greens. And greens are specifically. like why is it always outbreaks of greens? It's like... Recently, yeah. Yeah, it's huge amount.

They're growing huge amounts. There's like stuff leaching into the water. And they just do not test where greens are grown as much as they do meat. And so you can really trust meat in America is not going to sicken you. Like you really can't. I mean, less so now because again, they've cut like meat inspectors under the trip administration. But it's still, that's not where the outbreaks are the outbreaks are always leafy greens that have been for like decades. That's true.

I mean, do you guys feel like America? is crumbling because the things we're talking about, planes not taking off, outbreaks, you know, we're cutting our disease prevention. And you mentioned the sinkhole in West Hollywood, just like a water main broke in the middle of Los Angeles

dumping hurricane levels of water on the streets. Oh, yeah. And they're still fixing it, right? It was like a 100-year-old pipe that they have not, they never replaced. And they was on track to be replaced in like 20 years. It just feels like bringing back to the World Cup, It's, like, embarrassing to have people come to America

and see the country in this condition. Well, I think we could victim blame a little bit. What are the gay people doing to these plumbing systems? What are you flushing? What are you doing? But also, it's all about perspective. It's class half full because we also get Madonna doing... We get two Madonna stories.

Yeah, right? I don't think she's necessarily the harbinger of the end. I think she could signify a birth in the beginning. Like, if she was a tarot card, I think it's like, the kids are going to be all right. Yeah. You can be pull Madonna. It's like, it's okay.

If you pull Madonna, yeah. I agree. So crumbling American infrastructure, no one can live, no one can work, no one can eat, but Madonna's having a late career resurgence. And that's the glass half full of America at the moment. Yeah. I would have to agree with that. I'll take it.

Yeah. I mean, I don't, what do you think, don't know, what do you think is wrong with America? Just real quick. Oh, my God. I think it's amazing. Don't change. I think they're perfect. Yeah.

Stay the same girl Stay the same bitch Don't ever change You've always been great No but definitely problems with America But also some bright spot Yeah Cut that

And in conclusion America is a land of contrast America is a land of contrast And you know I'm sorry if you came on here To learn something Oh that's why we created this show As we wanted to learn a little bit less

And have a little bit more fun And I think your viewers were flipping through and they were like, wait, are these experts? These are really smart people? Wait, are you start talking about... Are these the two CDC employees' labs? Once you start talking about birds, you were a font of information. You're truly an expert in birds.

I don't know my Apple login. Do you what I mean? Like, it's very high low. With the birds, though, the way I was like, oh, my neurodivergent corn. Yeah. I really was loving you talk about the birds. There's so much to know. Animals are wonderful.

They are. And they're going to inherit the earth because we're fucking it up. Yes. Okay. These birds are gonna need iPads. They're gonna need iPads. They're gonna live in our houses.

Yeah. For real. I mean, have you seen a raven? They fucking use tools. They know they're gonna be the next evolution of sentient life will be bird people. Dylan, are you an expert in anything that we don't know about? I'm an expert in roller coaster height and speed statistics. Really?

No way. I'm a roller coaster nerd and I've been obsessed with them ever since I was little. Me and my brother would build them in our, like, little toy roller coasters. And so I am a big, sometimes when I'm stressed, I'll watch POV videos of like riding six legs things. Just, yeah, I'm a nerd in that. Give us a roller coaster statistic that comes to about, what's your favorite one? The fastest in tall is for a long time was King de Kaa, a ride in New Jersey. And it, you know, the Topville Jackster used to be, it's the same shape, same size.

It gets you to 128 miles per hour. And then you go to, I believe it's 538, 536 feet. But then King de Kau was like, well, we're going to make ours 130 miles per hour. And you're going to go 550 feet. So it's like, the Cedar Point's like, fuck you, New Jersey for just barely doing, you. But that's just the equivalent of putting the radio tower on top of the Chrysler building. Or like on prices right when someone's like, they add one penny. Yeah.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I got nauseous just hearing about that. I'm the opposite. Rollercoasters have always made me violently ill, and I'll never ride another one. No one ever has a medium take about roller coasters.

Either you love them viciously or you really despise them. I'd rather be punched in the face than ride a roller coaster again. I truly would rather be punched at the face. Drixie, your take on roller coasters. Well, I love them. I'm going to ride all of them. No matter what. I've been to Hollywood, Disneyland.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love roller coasters. Last year I went to, I think it's called Gruneland in Sweden, which is like all those roller coasters. So cool. Love it. Would you ever write those ones because I love the TikToks

that people passing out on the slingshots? Oh, yeah. Would you ever do that? I love slingshots. You do? I've done many slingshots. Death-defying. That's what's exciting about it.

They pass out, though. Sometimes they do, but sometimes I watch like, drama queen. But maybe they really, are they really passing out? Yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah. Do you have diarrhea and you like put me on the slingshot?

Yeah. Yeah. I want to pass out just like them. Thank you so much to both of you for being on the show. Dylan, where can people find you? You can find me on Instagram at Jeline Adler underscore and I'm going on tour this fall. One of the funniest comics in L.A. And in New York, where not where I first met you and around the country?

You were so funny. And Trixie, where are the many places people can find you? Would you like them? Would you like to direct them do today? Yeah, you can check out Baldwin the Beautiful Me and Katz's Pod on Sirius and you can also check out I'm going to be at Lollapalooza

and the music festival's coming up so come see me DJ. Thank you guys. Go to Trixie Motel. Go to Trixie Motel. I can take over. Thank you guys so much for being here. Thank you guys for watching Faxually.

We'll see you next week. Thank you so much. That was a Hidgum podcast. Hi, I am Mandy Moore. Sterling K. Brown. And I'm Chris Sullivan. And we host the podcast That was us now on Headgum.

Each episode, we're going to go into a deep dive from our show, This Is Us. That's right. We're going to go episode by episode. We're also going to pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors. Are we going to cry? Yes. A little bit. Are we going to laugh?

A lot. A whole lot. That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to that was us on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday. Thank you.