It Could Happen Here - 2025 Q&A

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

The gang answers listener questions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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For the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth, high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Are you desperately hoping for change in 2026, but feeling stuck? I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, and in a new year series of my show, The Happiness Lab, I'm going to look at the science of getting, well, unstuck, unstuck at work, unstuck in your

relationships, and even unstuck inside your mind. I am the absolute worst culprit when it comes to getting into these ruminative loops and just driving myself crazy. Listen to the Happiness Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. Whether it is getting swatted or just hateful messages online, there is a lot of harm and even just reading the comments. That's cybersecurity expert Camille Stewart Gloucester on the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. Every season is a chance to grow. And the Therapy for Black Girls podcast is here to walk with you.

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Please stop talking. Welcome. Welcome to It Could Happen here, 2025 Q&A edition. We have the whole team here. Mia, Garrison, James, Robert Evans. I'm your producer, Sophie Lichterman. We're going to answer some of your questions. How's everybody feeling?

Great. Trepidacious. Amazing. Bad. I just got back from vacation. So anything's going to be bad that's not me continuing to not look at my phone or computer. Great.

Yeah. you should stop looking at the phone. Are you guys aware what this Trump dude's doing? Jesus Christ. This is a very, very yikes. I went to the W.J. Holiday Party this weekend. And the amount of like 2017 Trump jokes I had to hear. Oh, no.

That's a crime against humanity. God, I love that party. I love that party. I'm going to a holiday party tonight with some friends who do insurance for people who live in the U.S. and go to Mexico. So I'm sure I will get lots of fun and exciting anecdotes. Yeah.

I am throwing a holiday party and planning it with a four-year-old, which is exciting. Nice. It's going to be good. One of my favorite experiences as us having our job is at almost every party I go to

somebody's like, so, how's the news? Yeah. Well, people just ask you to summarize the fucking news. Yeah. Not good, is the answer. Listen to executive disorder

No, I had to explain 764 to a screenwriter yesterday And they were not happy Anyone who goes to a party that I am at Knows that there's a gun on the table If anyone asks me how the news is That's just the rule It's always sprays that way Stay the fuck out

Yeah, yeah What's going on over there in Burma? Let's answer some questions Alright, let's do it All right, so we posted on Blue Sky We posted on Instagram and we have some of your questions. Let's start out with a, with a fun one.

Can we have a fun, non-incriminating story from your youth, any and all of you? No. Fun non-incriminating story about you? I mean, for Robert, this is, and James and maybe Mia, the statute of limitations for all of you should be fine. Yeah, Garrison. I cannot answer this at all. I have a lot of interesting stories, but I'm trying to think of something from my youth that I can actually share.

I can do one that's, I think, non-incriminating. I'm sad about having been part of it, but that's okay. I was gored by a bull when I was younger. That's a James story. I feel like if we put money on it, like two of us would have bet a bull was involved. I've actually been present at several goring, various species. I probably have most of the goring that's available for a human being to witness, because I've seen like a water buffalo goring.

Oh, nice. That's got to be like the top goring. Yeah, that was a really unpleasant day for everyone involved. Guy lost the use of his legs for a period, actually recovered it later, which is nice. So you can laugh about it, yeah. You said fun dreams. Yeah, well, it's a funny story. I think it's fun.

First of all, you shouldn't be unkind to animals, so I did deserve it, right? I don't think you should tawn animals for human pleasure. I don't think you should make them suffer. And if you do, it's kind of your fault. So in that sense, it's funny. I don't know that I've ever heard of a goring where I wasn't like, well, the animal was in the right, clearly. Yeah, 100%. I'm on the bull team with this.

The funny part was that my friend who was staying with me had previously not driven a manual vehicle. I had broken probably the bulk of my ribs, right? Like a lot of rib breaking. And we drove home like that, learning to use a clutch on the way. And that was one of the most painful experiences I think that's available to a human being. Is it bad that the story that popped into my head was when I ripped my pants in front of the entire eighth grade class at our school picnic? Because I was wearing way too skinny of jeans playing basketball and my pants ripped

and I was wearing TMI red undies and pants ripped so like my entire butt. No, that's got to leave some scars. That formed me. That formed me as a person that I feel like you just felt, yeah. But that was my fun, non-incriminatory. story from you that was the time I...

That's a very millennial trauma from the entire eighth grade class that are like graduation picnic. Yeah. I love that you were like skinny jeans

icarus. Like that's something that I only a certain generation. They were so tight. Why? Yeah. Why?

It was the way things were back then, Sophie. I know. I know. Robert, you have to have a fun one. I do. I do.

What's the statute of limitations on murder? Uh, not very long. Is it like five years? A couple weeks. You're fine, buddy. you're fine. No, I'll tell a pants splitting story, too. I got a really good one, Sophie.

Oh, good. So I'm in rural northern India in this town called Rishikesh, which is where like, it's where like the Beatles had their ashram. It's like a holy city. There's a lot of yoga there. You're up in like the Himalayan foothills. It's beautiful. The Ganges is actually like clean enough to swim in up there. But it's also crazy whitewater rapids. And we're going like whitewater rafting one day. And I grab a, I buy a pair like pants that are like, it's like a long set of athletic, you know, tights or whatever like that to have on the boat. Because, like, okay, that'll make sense. They zip so I can keep, you know, some cash or whatever in them.

And we're going down the Ganges. We're doing this whitewater raft, and we hit a calm spot. And the guy's like, okay, everybody who wants to get in the water, hop out. And I hop out and immediately two things become clear. Number one, the quality of textiles that you purchase in a market in India, not necessarily up to the standards of a lot of other countries. Number two, the Ganges, mighty river. So my pants immediately are gone.

Like, just instantly. It's soon as I get in the water, torn off by the Ganges. And then I am, so I am realizing this, that now I am naked from the waist down. We are surrounded on both sides by a very holy city, and we are heading towards the rocks. So I have to get back in the boat in fairly short order. This presents a problem, because, again, as we're getting buffeted around, I have to get like help pulled up into the boat and wind up showing absolutely everything moving the entire side of the sacred city so now i'm in the boat naked from the waist down but i come up with a plan i did i do

solve it i take my shirt off and i put my legs through the arm holes and i just like tie the neck hole and i'm just putting my pants my shirt is what a what a sight we went to lunch that way There's still a restaurant there where they won't let, Robert still. There's, James, there's more than one restaurant in India. I can't go back to it. There's a hotel in Bangkok that neither are you can go back to. No, they handled you puking in the parking lot like a trooper. Yeah.

Because I puked directly into my analogy, like a considerate. Exactly, like a hero, like a hero, James. And then sent a picture to Sophie. Yeah, yeah. That was before I worked. Tara sent a picture to Sophie of Analjean for the puke. And I was like, let's hire that guy. I feel like it was like 30 seconds into our relationship that I told Sophia's story

about me puking. So it's fine. It was like 15 seconds. Yeah. Yeah, it might have been 15. Anyways, Robert, can we get an update to the sequel of After the Revolution? It's done. I'm editing it.

I even got edits back from my editor. I'm editing it. It should have been done so much faster. I could, like, bring up the fact that my dad died last year, but that's really, just me trying to make you feel sorry for me and the fact that I am well past the time at which I expected to have this book done. But it is done. And I'm finishing it and you will get to read it soon. I'm sorry. Good for you. Good for you, Robert. Wow. Incredible. Do you plan to cover recent political developments in Canada? I feel like that's a Gare question. Yeah. The answer is

always yes. The answer is yes to all of like yes. We will be covering Canada. I mean, especially Alberta, I've been wanting to do stuff on Alberta and a conservative party there and a few of the key figures for a while. I've, you know, we've all been busy, but yes, I should eventually do a dedicated thing. Again, like, and I do occasionally, right? Usually

once or twice a year I try to get some Canada-related thing out. We've talked about Canada. Gar and I, I feel like did something. Yeah, I mean, like the Canadian election happened this year, right? Supreme Leader Carney is is still in power and will be for a while. But, yeah, specifically, the Alberta Conservative Party is rife with potential stories.

My recent political development in Canada that I would like to talk about is, what's his name, dating Katie Perry. Oh, God. Because it makes me upset. Wait, who? That's not our problem anymore. That's the same.

That's one famous Canadian person. It's Justin, it's Justin. Yeah, that's the only famous, Jesus Christ, really? Not Bieber, Trudeau. Trudeau. Okay. Still bad, still weird. Trudeau and Katie Perry are dating a match made in heaven.

Oh, wow. Their Instagram official and the photos are upsetting. I do feel like this is the potential. We have a potential for like the one ring of couples Halloween costumes situation to happen here, and I'm excited for that. But no, I'm living pretty close to Canada now, so I would like to travel up and do more Canadian stuff in the next year. Yeah, you love Canada, Garrison.

I do. Yeah. As a general rule, people, if you're ever asking, asking, hey, this major thing is happening in another country. Are you guys going to cover it? The answer is probably yes, but there are, how many people are on this call? Five people. And there are, I believe, 10 countries in the world, at least.

So many are saying more. Well, everyone's now while there's a civil war and one of those splits into two. So I think there's actually 11 countries right now. It's somewhere between five and 11 countries. Yeah. Well, ironically, when there is a civil war, there's a decent chance. So I'll be traveling there in the next 12 months. We have a pretty broad remit here.

And we, we, I do think we cover a lot of ground. But again, you know, there's, there's only so many people on the team. And we have so many days in the week. So the dancer is generally, if we think we can and have more to tell you than like, here's an article I read. We'll try to do it. But, you know, world big, us small. Yeah.

Yeah. And there were other people who do excellent work on lots of things. So like, you know, we don't have to cover everything. God, I missed the trucker convoy. That was fun. That was a good time. Oh, I was a good time. What about that?

Roma Diadlu? She's still kicking around? The Queen of Canada, yeah. The Queen of Canada. She got arrested recently. I don't know if she's out on bail or whatever they call it in Putin, Bail or whatever in Canada. But they can't arrest her rubble because she's the queen.

Anyways. Notes about that, yeah. What's a fiction book that y'all have been reading lately? Ooh. My answer is, I work too much. I haven't read any good fiction book lately. I've been reading a sci-fi book called Children of Time. Oh, good.

Oh, Adrian Tchaikovsky, great guy. Yes. I just read Winter in Madrid, because even when I'm reading fiction books, it still has to be about a Spanish Civil War. Yeah. So funny. That makes sense for you, James.

It's a load-bearing element of my personality. I'm restarting Sirens of Titan for the first time since I was a little kid, which is Kurt Vonnegut's sci-fi novel, and, like everything, Kurt Vonnegut. I get wrote. One of the best to ever do it. And then, you know, I was on vacation. So I was just rereading some Warhammer books to not think about the news when I needed to look at a device. Yeah. I'm going to try to take a little time off around the holiday. So if people have good fiction books to recommend me, message me on Blue Sky. I've been listening to, oh God, like the entire

Kate Daniels series, which is a very fun sort of urban fantasy series where they have a magic apocalypse where sometimes there's these magic waves and magic works and technology stops working, but then they just flip randomly. And so technology works and magic doesn't. Yeah, that's basically the plot line to Shatter on. Yeah. Yeah. And it's fun. I got absolutely flashbang jump scared by one of the characters and one of the spinoffs doing a full analysis of the whole translation debacle of the old world is dying. The New World struggles to be born now as a time of monsters, which I was not expecting the author of this fantasy book to know about. So it's a fun time.

Yeah, there's where lions, there's where hyenas. It's good. We like to see it. Cool. Well, we're going to take a quick break and we'll come back and continue answering some questions. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com.

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Lenovo. Lenovo. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this? How is that not a story we all know? What's this, where is that? Why is it wet?

Boy, do we have a show for you. From smartless media, campside media, and big money players comes crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoval, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's

dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank than a crime. Who cat Fish is a city. And meet some memorable anti-heroes. There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys.

Clap if you think she's a witch. And it freaks you out. He has x-rayed vision. How could I not follow her? Honestly, I got to follow me. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimless on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

You know, we always say New Year, New Me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind. in your spirit the same attention you give your goals. Hey everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of Checking in on the Black Effect Podcast Network. And on my podcast, we talk mental health, healing, growth, and everything you need to step into your next season, whole and empowered. New Year, Real You. Listen to Checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart

Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Are you desperately hoping for change in 2026, but feeling stuck? Just spinning your wheels in old routines and bad habits? I'm Dr. Lari Santos, and in a new year series of my show, The Happiness Lab, I'm going to look at the science of getting, well, unstuck at work, unstuck in your relationships, and even unstuck inside your mind. I am the absolute worst culprit when it comes to getting into these ruminative loops and just driving myself crazy.

We'll look at ways to reignite your sense of purpose. Rediscover your values and get more creative. We'll also explore how to design a life that feels more fulfilling. It's sort of like the game of life. I don't know if you ever played that game. Oh, my gosh, yes. You take the car along and you try and get money, and you try and get degrees,

and you try and get to the end where either you have a mansion or a ranch or a shack. And once you get to retirement, you're done. What about the whole path along the way? So join me to get unstuck in 2026. Listen to the Happiness Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get. your shows. We're back.

So on that note, there's a broader question, and it's favorite media from 2025 can be books, shows, movies, games, etc. I mean, Andor's going to be up there for me. Andor Season 2 is definitely up there. That's going to be hard to beat. I really enjoyed that new show,

The Pit, the medical show. Oh, yeah, I've heard good things. Yeah, you would like the pit. I liked it. It made me dizzy, but I liked it. It was interesting. I mean, we'll see how it does it in season two, but the first season I was like, huh. I finally started watching that smiling friend show, and that's fun.

Oh, cool. For TV shows for me, besides like Ann Dorches, which is good, I think rehearsal season two and the Paramount Nazi episode. Oh, rehearsal season two. Yeah, yeah. It's more and more accurate every single day. Phenomenal, yeah. As well as Tim Robinson's new show chair company, which I think gets to the. American conspiracy mindset better than almost anything I've seen.

Now, parts of that are, like, rivaled. I can film. Yeah. I still think, I still think Eddington is pretty good. It doesn't have as much, like, a depth or humanity as, like, one battle after another, which I quite enjoyed. I like that a lot, too. I watched the first two episodes of Chair Company and then was like, I need to wait until

they are all out so I can derange myself and, like, stay up until dawn, watch. Oh, it's so good. That's the way I need to encounter this. But I'm excited for that. I've finished your company now and it consistently keeps hitting. Yeah. I don't think Tim Robinson is capable of not pleasing me at this point. That's good.

That's a healthy relationship. Yeah. I liked on Netflix adolescence, that mini-series. That was pretty good. The acting was incredible. There's just so many things this year that were pretty decent. TV's been good. TV's been good.

TV's been good. Yeah. I haven't watched. shit. I just watch, I watched Andor and nothing else. So, uh, Hades 2. Great game. Very fun. Yeah, death to Kronos, et cetera. Also, I want to talk about one of the boys, which is a book from like the beginning of this year that we talked about on the show. That's a really, really interesting basically like sort of like a coming of age story about a trans girl who's trying to go, who goes back to her football team. And there's a lot of really interesting stuff there about

the relationship between trans femininity and masculinity and masculinity and, you know, the sort of like politics of sports and it's also just really fun has the the best written group chats I've ever seen in any piece of media so shit rocks uh yeah it's it's great uh one of the boys victoria zeller it's it's fun i also watched uh paradise the ostensible focus on the show is that like a secret service agent goes to live with a president who is retired after like you know how the the detail that they stay with and it becomes clear over the course of episode one this isn't really a spoiler that the president is living in an underground bunker with all of the other survivors of a catastrophe that ended the world.

And so it's like all of the leadership cadre of the United States living underground in a bunker after the world has ended. And then it turns into a murder mystery. It's pretty good. It's fun. Nice. I don't watch much TV. Yeah. But I have been enjoying, sticking to the theme,

I guess, AK Press have a translation now of two books that I very much enjoyed reading. in other languages. One is called Zaragoza Bound, which is exclusively about the Derutie column. I think it's probably the best book I've read on the Derutie column. And Sons of Night by Antoine Jimenez, who was actually, that was not his birth name, but he was an Italian anarchist who fought with the international group of the Derruti column. And it's his diary. And then he later, like in later life was a groundskeeper at the Libertarian People's Club in Marseille.

and after his passing the young people at the club found his diaries, published him, and then have these incredible series of annotations. Like two-thirds of the book is annotations, but it's really well done. So I like that one lot. I think I can answer this next one. Given how we see media companies

from Disney to Condi-N-Ass Purge or otherwise censor anyone dissenting against Trump, do you fear I-Heart Radio doing something to Cool Zone? My answer is they've never censored us in the past. So I don't see it happening in the future, but you never know. Yeah, I mean, anything can happen. It's media. I'm on my third or fourth industry, depending on how you count it, within the digital media space.

But what I'll tell you right now is that at the moment, and this has been true for almost a decade, we make them money. And they, in return, say, keep doing what you're doing, kiddos, buckaroos. Yeah. So that's about as good as it ever gets in media, in journalism. So, you know, let's keep our fingers crossed. Yep. What was a piece or series Cool Zone Media put together in the past year, 2025, that you were most proud or happy to be part of?

What about you, Gare? Probably the piece that I'm most proud of in, like, a reflective sense is the dog whistle politics episode I did. I still think that's really relevant and a useful addition to, like, our cultural dialogue around understanding dog whistles coming out of the Trump. administration. And like, even still now, I will see, see posts with people decoding false messages in overtly, like, nationalistic communications from the DHS. Again, and this whole focus on, like, dog whistles versus the actual implementation of their policy, which they're already doing a few

times this year, DHS has posted. It's very, very blatant, like, fast wave stuff. They posted a moon man meme earlier this year, right? And if you told that to like we were a robber five years ago, we would have like, I don't know, I don't know what we would have done. I would have had, I would have 5150ed you. Like, yeah, yeah. I would have put your ass on a 72 hour hold. So like, there's obvious stuff like that.

Like, yeah, no, they're, they're clearly, clearly doing like intentional nods towards like online fascist memes. And then they are also just posting regular, regular sentiments of like nationalist policy that people are then reading it. in coded statements to, and I don't think that whole practice is super useful when they're actually implementing this stuff. And I think the sort of like anti-ice protests you see in Chicago and like in New York on Conall Street is a way more useful way to channel frustration at the administration and like a frustration around like this nationalist immigration stuff, rather than

trying to, you know, look for these maybe real, maybe not coded messages on X the everything up. Yeah. I'm proud of the Zizian episodes that I did earlier this year. I think those were my best episodes of the year. You know, I'm, particularly this year, have done a lot more back-end supporting work, but I continue to be extremely proud of how Ed Zitron's both show and influence in the industry that he covers has grown, especially as he's been really on the ball ahead of some of the breaking of open AIs, irrational exuberance, been really really. happy to play a small role in that. It's just really satisfying to, like, stumble on to somebody and be like, oh, I think this person has some good things to say. I'm going to try to get that out to more people and then really feel like, yeah, that was the right call. It turns out this was exactly the voice that needed to be louder in this space. That just feels good. It's the kind of good feeling that you only really get in this business. And it really makes up for all of the bad feelings that you also only get in this business. Mia?

Yeah, I think I have two things. One on sort of just a personal level, I'm really proud of the episode that I did that was sort of about Elon Musk's Nazi salute, but was mostly about the way that all of our reality has been consumed by spectacle and the way that we relate to each other through, you know, through screens and through like images of media and a very, you know, this was a very guided board society spectacle episode. but I'm really proud of how that episode played out and how I think in a lot of ways it kind of

it kind of predicted some of what's been happening in terms of if you look at the sort of decrease and uses of social media over the last sort of year and the turn away from these social relationships that are purely mediated by images that suck and make you miserable all the time. And then the other thing that I'm really proud of

is some coverage we did about the Republicans attempt in one of the previous budget fights to impose a role that would have blocked Medicaid from covering trans health care and we covered it and we helped blow it up and we helped get that killed and that rocks. I don't know. It's awesome. I'm really proud of it. I'm also really proud of the trans news network people. Yeah, particularly like MediCast again, Mira Levine, who did a really great job covering that. and helping stop it, and it rocks. Love to see it. I think for me, like, still the border stuff, really. It made me really happy that, like, last year, I went to the jungle and made a podcast, and now one of the people I met has a place to live.

That's really cool, and, like, it really makes me happy, like, not just when we can, like, shift the discourse, like, that's cool, but also when people listen to that and then change the things that they do. Like, every day or sometimes, like, that's always what you want, What I want as a journalist is like for people to listen and care. That's why I go to places. And so it's been really cool to see people. And just to run into people engaging in like mutual aid at the board.

And then like them slowly realize that I'm the person that they listened to on a podcast a year ago or two years ago, whatever is kind of funny. But yeah, I think I'm really proud of that. And I'm proud of all the people in the second series for all the stuff that they've done. I'm super proud of the Anti-Vax America series that I commissioned Stephen to do. I think it was a really good complete project that covered the story in depth more than anyone else. So if you haven't checked that out, check it out. We're going to go to another quick break and then we'll answer a couple more questions. Sound good?

Mm-hmm. Cool. Yep. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit.

Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. shows and found yourself with more questions than answers?

And what is this? How was that not a story we all know? What's this? Where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you? From Smartless Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players comes Crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists.

And me, Roy Scoville, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways. folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank than a crime. Who catfishes a city? And meets some memorable anti-heroes.

There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap if you think, she's a witch. And it freaks you out. He has X-rayed vision. How could I not follow him? Honestly, I got to follow him. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimless on the IHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. You know, we always say New Year, new me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind and your spirit the same attention you give your goals. Hey, everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of checking in on the Black Effect podcast network. And on my podcast, we talk mental health, healing, growth, and everything you need to step into your next season, whole and empowered. New Year, Real You. Listen to checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Are you desperately hoping for change in 2026, but feeling stuck?

Just spinning your wheels and old routines and bad habits. I'm Dr. Lari Santos. And in a new year series of my show, The Happiness Lab, I'm going to look at the science of getting, well, unstuck at work, unstuck in your relationships, and even unstuck inside. your mind. I am the absolute worst culprit when it comes to getting into these ruminative loops and just driving myself crazy. We'll look at ways to reignite your sense of purpose, rediscover your values, and get more creative. We'll also explore how to design a life that feels more fulfilling. It's sort of like the game of life. I don't know if you ever played that game. Oh my gosh, yes. You take the car along and you try and get money, and you try and get

to the end where either you have a mansion or a ranch or a shack. And once you get to retirement, you're dead. What about the whole path along the way? So join me to get unstuck in 26. Listen to the Happiness Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. We're back. All right. This question says, as we become jokerified, sure. As we all become jokerified. Eventually, what did it for each of you? I mean, I mean, let's just say, let's just answer in, like, the last, like, year. Sure. Not, not overall.

A recent jokerification inciting incident. I can answer that, and that might also be kerosens. It's one we couldn't get into the DNC for Kamalaeris' speech. Oh, no, that was nothing to me. That hurt me. That hurt me so much because the DNC was so depressing. It was so depressing. Yeah, the DNC was way worse than the RNC.

Post-DNC. certainly was a jokerifying moment for me. It didn't hurt. Gerson, I had people reaching out to me in Portland who were worried about you after the fucking DNC. Yeah, no, the DNC was a jock horrifying moment. I guess to piggyback off that, though, in terms of like a recent Joker moment,

working on the, like, Democrat left-wing conspiracy stuff really did a number on me. Yeah. Yeah. And just like seeing the scale of that stuff, especially around like the Charlie Kirk assassination and just that,

That whole moment definitely was, like, just drilling into my head. Yeah. Those, like, truth tunnels that people went down. The whole team could attest to this. I was getting pretty out there. Garrison sustained damage. The uniformity of the embrace of counterfactuals is, like, I don't even know what to do about it anymore. I don't feel like fact-checking works.

Yeah. I feel like positing alternate facts feels bad too because then you're just like saying, well, I guess we're just openly having a lie fight. Let's all have a big lie fight. Let's see who's lies. Yeah. Yeah. No. And when you're when you're trying to be the only one holding on to like the life raft of truth as everyone as everyone else is like drowning and like mad at you. Yeah. It's like, I don't know. I don't know how to handle that. Yeah. Yeah. Whenever I encounter someone who's like, you think Trump got shot in the ear. Like, yes, yes, I do. Yes, in fact, I do think he got shot in the ear. Yeah, and also, can we know? It's a year ago, like, we're here now. That one is so comprehensively disappointing to me because one of the little things it reveals

is that there's even among progressives in the left this belief that, like, someone can't be injured by a gun and handle it reasonably well and not be a good person, right? So it has to have been fake. It had the fact that he didn't, like, panic and piss himself. It has to be fake. no. He just like didn't freak out or whatever. He was on a fucking huge high. He was on a huge

adrenaline. If you ever been shot at, like when you get, when you realize you didn't get hit, it feels awesome. Yeah, you are living, you are surfing a cloud for a while there. So you're not anymore. I think the insights I got from this like left wing conspiracyism like seizure, right? Like the seizure of the left embracing this. I got one of the biggest points of clarity as on like what's happening right now is this like tactic. flattening of, especially after the Charlie Kirk stuff as well, like with the right wing embracing this like cultural cancellation strategy of trying to get people fired for saying things online, which they've tried to do before, but was done way more successfully that

month and like directed by the administration. And then the left embracing a style of conspiratorial thinking that previously was really only embraced as fully on the right. So like this, this flattening of tactics across the left and the right, I think. It's been a useful way to look at our current situation for me. Yeah. The ice guided missiles. Yeah, man. That fully fucking sent me.

Like, as someone who's been a journalist for a while, just seeing these outlets that you were previously kind of, like, the first time I had a byline in Mother Jones, I was pumped. Yeah. And then here they are, just being like, love to know more about these missiles. We haven't fucking bothered to do your job. Look, I literally did that while I was, like, waiting for a coffee or having a shit or something. Like, it took me that much time on my telephone to find that contract. Like, what is wrong with people? Again, it's all just fucking shibboleths and virtue signaling.

Why would that be worse? If I said guided missiles, do you know how guided missiles work? Do you know the kind of tail that's required to make them function? Do you know the kind of, like, mechanical, like, experts that you have to have in order to keep these things working and keep them usable? Why would ICE be more dangerous with these? It's just going to distract them from doing the thing they're already doing the hurt. people. Like, guided missiles do not do any. It would be just like extra trash for them to carry

around. Yeah, and they'd be as bad at using them as they are and everything else. And to be quite frank, the government is already using guided missiles to do war crimes via the military. Yep. The people who know how to use them. The other thing that really just, wow, every single time that there's a mass shooting event, which is often in this country, the fact that they have to transvestigate and every single time. Oh, yeah. Holy shit is it unnecessary, annoying. It makes me very angry.

Yeah. Very angry. Fuck me. God. Man, just, I don't know. Recently, there was a wide piece about, like, in range TV, Carl Casado's had on before in the matches. The matches he hosts and, like,

the brutality matches, yeah. Probably 30% of the piece was reflecting on the killing of Charlie Kirk and, like, nobody who goes to Carl's matches has been accused of shooting Charlie Kirk. No, again, and the guy who shot Charlie Kirk didn't shoot him because he trained doing matches. He shot deer. And then he shot a guy in a similar way to how he'd shot deer.

Nor is he a trans person. You know what's a better practice if you're going to shoot someone at a hundred-something yards distance than a tactical shooting match? Shooting deer. Yeah, like the whole thing is just like, I don't know, yeah, the discourse around mass shootings has become less helpful and more toxic. No, part of it's because I think there's a decent chunk of, like, progressives in the left for whom, like, it's immoral to actually know anything about how guns work or how shooting works or gun culture works. So you can't actually, like, understand what you're talking about, which is another problem.

There's a lot of problems. It's not high on the list of problems, but it annoys me. Yeah, maybe it pitches me off irrationally more than it should. But, like, I just find that frustrating. Like, we cannot have a reasonable discourse around guns in this country. no no that that ship sailed yeah with some bullet holes in the hole one one last serious one what's everyone's opinion on the best implementation of dual power in the modern era that's a me a question i mean how are you defining modern era i guess how you defining dual power

yeah yeah and how long do you have the people who've objectively done the best job of it is is Apatistas, and they've done the best job of it in large part because they've been willing to change the structure of their systems over time as things have worked and things have not worked, and as the systems that they've been using have decentralized, I don't know, and the fact that they were able to, even under massive attack, they were able to do a massive expansion a few years ago. Yeah, they've held out against, you know, the wrath of the Mexican state, which is one of the most violent in the world. Yeah, I mean, I would in a similar vein talk about like the PKK and the YPG and J in Rojava, right, where you had these non-state groups that had connections and that had some experience doing what we might call mutual aid prior to the government's collapse and then kind of expanded that into these networks that began to mimic and replace state function in an area that about three million people lived in.

I think that's a really, that's certainly a more important story in terms of how that kind of thing. might work on a larger scale than anything that's happened up to the present point in the United States, right? Yeah, I guess in less of a militaristic way, but more in like a party capacity or like political proposal capacity, probably some of the stuff coming out of the New York City chapter of DSA the past year, which is not reflective of DSA as an entire like national organization, but specifically the New York chapter has been very, very provocative in actually doing like more like party oriented dual power.

Yeah. And obviously, I think probably we should also talk some about, like, the different immigration defense hotlines and immigration defense reaction forces around the country that have been really ramping up and doing a lot of really good and really difficult work under duress and under, you know, fire, so to speak. Yeah, like, people have built a community safety. Yeah, to keep that community safe when the state has failed to keep their communities safe, right? And sometimes it's put their communities in danger. Yeah. And, like, especially, I think it is kind of hard. heartwarming to me to see people who were just like straight up statist liberals, right? Yeah. Realizing that actually the cops aren't going to come and arrest ICE, that's not going to fucking happen.

And then being like, okay, well, how do we organize the strategy that will maintain safety in our community, given that this load-bearing part of reality for me, that cops are good, seemingly collapsed. And I'd say in general, James, the fact that there's a whole lot of normy people who would have, you certainly would have describe them as Normies a year or two ago that are now like, yeah, we've got to get rid of ice. Maybe we've got to get rid of all these cops.

Yeah, Bill Crystal. Yeah, Bill Crystal be on the anti-ice train, right? Yeah. It's not bad. I do get the first. I'm not saying, like, we should invite Bill Crystal to the party or whatever. I'm saying that, like, the fact that... Bill Crystal blocked me on blue sky, so I can't invite him, sad.

Bill Crystal's coming to the anarchist book fair, and it's going to be serving vegan slop. Is that even a joke, garrison, or is that real? That could be real. Okay. But it's just in general good that a lot of people who are like where my parents were politically 20 years ago are looking out at what's happening and being like, we got to get rid of these fucking people. Yeah. That's good. That's positive. Yeah. I would say that that's kind of like a downstream change from what I think will be the most long term positive change from the 2020 uprisings, which is a huge number of people who hadn't thought about the cops realized what the cops are. Yeah. And to wrap it up, Robert, we got like multiple requests for you to do various accents. Are you fucking shitting me? Various what?

Accesses and so many requests for you to do various accents. Okay. Some Australian ones, some Boston ones. Some Boston ones. A few other. But like the specific areas of Boston, I think they were asking about like like different like inter-Boston regional accents. Sure. And I'm sure you can just do those like one.

1-1. Oh, you've Sealed Boston. All right. Yes, enough of that. See, is that half? Are we good? Are we good?

Our Q&A episode. Okay. Yeah. Oh, it could happen here. Nailed it. Perfect. Yeah, no notes.

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