Kump - 140 - Kump Book Club

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

Ray and Lucie discuss Roald Dahl censorship, Jordan Peterson's children's book, Taylor Swift, and much more. Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/RayKump for an extra episode every week! Follow Kump on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/raykump Kump Hand Merch https://bonfire.com/store/kump/ Follow Ray on Sound Cloud https://on.soundcloud.com/QbP8

Today on Kump, we're talking about Jordan Peterson, Roald Dahl, and Taylor Swift. Stay tuned. Hello and welcome to Kump. hi how are you I'm doing well you like that intro I did I did it was a second take the first take I screamed at the end keep in tuned keep in tune no keep in tuned I think it's a keep tuned whatever uh just peeling back the fourth wall here we yeah why why we have to do a second why'd I even redo it I was gonna tell everyone how I flubbed it that's Hollywood baby this is it's the magic you maybe I did it on purpose I'm a monster uh

How are you? I've been well. You've been, well, you've been better. I've been. We, uh, there's a little bit of a delay since the last episode because we're, you got sick. I fell. God knows where you caught illnesses. Subways.

I probably caught it on the subway, but it also hit me on the side. There's a tendency with me to just, when I'm about in the world, like I won't know how sick I am until I'm riding the subway and I'm just like, oh, no. I just picture you kind of like in a daydream while a, homeless guy breathes into your mouth and like you know he's not you you're just kind of standing wherever you want in middle of some homeless guys a sphere of vision yeah sphere of a sphere of influence head in the clouds yeah and you're just listening to like the mammas and the papas in your on your iPhone yeah and he's just breathing just you know e coli or whatever I'm just thinking I'm going for

a walk on a winter's day right now yeah and you're really getting this a bubonic plague or whatever so you were knocked out and then you gave me the illness it wasn't COVID we're allowed to mention COVID on YouTube where we're going to get blacklisted you're not allowed to say that any that you ever got sick with anything other than COVID on YouTube interesting okay that's illegal now that's going to come up later and um I like that policy I think it's it makes everything easier oh my kids got leukemia whatever it's COVID you kids COVID it's a comorbidity you know uh oh I've one leg You have a, you have a, you have a, you have a, welcome to the show. Uh, there's a lot going on this week.

A lot of, uh, nuanced, uh, things. Discourse. Uh, random events. Uh, a good friend of the show, uh, is, his, his, his work is under fire. Is it fair to say he's a friend of the show? I think he would consider himself a friend. I think he would if he could. Uh, Mr. Roald Dahl.

famously dead in the 90s, I think 1990. I don't think he even lived to see the Gulf War, let alone the Iraq War. Yeah. Or the other good wars we've had. It's too bad. I would have loved to see his take on the Gulf War. Abu Ghraib.

When I saw Abu Ghraib happened, I was like, I wish I had rolled doll right now. It felt like rolled out. I mean, did he really die or did he go work for the CIA as a consultant? He designed those pyramids of men. It does seem like something that Ms. Trunchbold would do. and Matilda. I never knew Matilda was a

Roald doll IP. Oh, is it a famous role doll? That's the one when she's like a little rat

who spies on her friends. No. No, Matilda is about a precocious young lady who has terrible parents and

a terrible principal. I'm thinking of Harriet the spy. What's I call it? Oh, Harriet the spy is like the anti-Matilda. Harriet the spy was a real rat.

Yeah. Harriet the rat. Real pig of a girl. Harriet Estazi. So Matilda is a book about a girl who hates her parents and she hits them with a bat. Her parents are bad because... This is a different author. We'll get to that later.

This is the one of... I know the girl from Mrs. Doubtfire was in the movie. I didn't see it. Matilda is about a young girl who has, you know, Excellent reading ability and but she also has little like a you know ESP powers or a little like telepathic powers What but um her parents are kind of like these uh so she's a witch yeah kind of there's like a sequel to the witches which she also wrote i'm pretty sure she has powers in it and like and her parents are kind of these um you know dishonest slobs okay um it i think it her her dad like sells lemons or something sounds like

like on the side of the highway lemons here yeah cars that are lemons oh okay well he's a car salesman yeah you can't just i know it's a term but i don't think you just say sells lemons um and her mother's you know a whore or something wow uh but not for pay and so she's just like a she's constantly comping her or she is she a prostitute who doesn't charge like who forgets to charge money i think your mother's where main crime is that she wears too much leopard print or something this seemed look i mean here's the thing this guy is out of his mind or was yeah he's crazy but regardless uh i i think he's a fine you know companion for young people uh as they as they realize the fruits of the world and people are trying to silence his dead voice what's cool about reading role doll as a kid

is that he treats the adult world the way a kid kind of sees it. Like, right? It's just full of like, full of horrible people who are trying to keep you, make you do things you don't want to do. I mean,

he sounds like a stranger who tries to convince you your parents, you know, your panelists, you're parents, listen to me. Which is weird, but I still don't think

he should be censored and yet, uh, what is it, like 30 years after his death? That's exactly what is starting to come into, uh,

fruition roll doll his publisher has tried to uh is trying to uh censor him so there's a whole developed the whole series of events of what happened they they came in they were like just rolled doll shit to it's too it's too raunchy they this was this the guy who wrote charlie in the chocolate factory he wrote uh um what else did he write the fantastic mr fox um James in the giant peach James Peach, the giant, do you write BFG? I don't think he wrote BFG. He might have. He could have.

I think he could have wrote. He wrote E.T. I think he wrote a screenplayed at E.T. Whatever. Anyway, so what's going on? He wrote Nymphomaniac Part 2. The Lars Runtrear masterpiece, I guess. And now he's, so what?

Now they're trying to, they've come in. the what do you call the Hollywood of books the publishing industry yes the public industry says enough is enough the who is his publisher by the way this was puffin puffin yeah so it's different than penguin what's the relation they truly are a bunch of they're a bunch of puffs wait is that an anti-gay thing in Britain oh sorry I know that are you sorry for me for that or are you sorry for what you think it meant in the second edition of this podcast feel free to take that out um nice nice a little reference to the yeah uh what is so what what what what do they take an issue with these uh Hollywood book

people um well they're their stated goal in this new edition that they were the plotting of all his books right was like his entire library of a lot of his books yeah um was uh to make them more inclusive more sensitive to all kinds of child readers okay and so um they changed a lot of stuff i mean they changed this was definitely more than like i remember when i was in school uh we read uh huckleberry fin sure and in freshman year of high school i think the mark twain uh uh uh uh racist tirade. And I remember the teacher actually, like he wheeled out one of those big dirty televisions

that they have in supply classes. Yeah, in high school. You are you writing a book now? So my teacher pulled out big dirty television. My young, my young heart beat with anticipation. And he showed us like a little documentary about the debate over whether to take out the N-word. Okay.

And it was actually, It was a good context. I think we actually read the uncensored version ultimately, but it was a good kind of introduction to like, look, there's a debate about this. Right. This is something we think about. And I don't care.

Yeah. I'm going to keep saying it. People say I shouldn't be allowed to say this. Well, I say no. But like, even though I was kind of like a renegade. Right. And I didn't like the idea of censoring anything. Like I kind of got that.

Like I was like, I kind of see what the utility is and not making like a black kid read the N-word just like every other. word for 300 pages yeah we just don't teach it in school is like look huck fin's fine but it's not necessary reading for school don't make kids read it you think it is it is kind of a classic though but there's a lot class you don't read every classic in school that's true i mean what here's the thing oh we're gonna teach it we should change it how about you just don't teach this one and you leave it alone maybe maybe yeah you need i don't if some kid wants to read huck fin learn we huck finn sure And like, and you don't need some friggin' weird guy who drives a Toyota Corolla,

1996 Toyota Corolla explaining the social ramifications to him. Just let him read the book and that way you don't have to change people's stuff. Yeah, right. Yeah, it has to be an itinerary. Yeah, you're totally right. But like, but this is like way different than that. This was like huge paragraphs that were changed. Well, give us some, well, let's get some examples because, you know, people might be confused.

because, you know, you read Charlie the Chocolate Factory and there's not a lot of Nazis in it. Right. There's not, I don't remember a lot of, you know, race riots in the middle of the giant peach boy. So, you know, what's, what is this? Let's see. What we got here? So this is, so go to the next one. These are the six most glaring edits in the books, according to the independent.

so this is one that's kind of odd uh this was a change that was made to matilda where they swapped references to the authors right matilda is a voracious reader in the book sure and um just a random kid who has ESP and reads or whatever um the original of a version of matilda stated quote she went on old and day sailing ships with joseph conrad she went to africa with ernest hemingway and to india was with Rudy, how do you think that that? Rudyard Kipling. Rudyard Kipling, yeah. In the new edition, the new edition says, quote,

she went to 19th century estates with Jane Austen. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway, kept that one, and California with John Steinbeck. Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold. So this is actually a change. Okay, so they took issue with the fact that, like, I guess he's trying to say, you know, yeah, she's reading these books and she went there.

And you're taking issue with what? She went olding day sailing ships. I mean, the only thing I can see, is not enough women? Well, it's like the woman thing I see, I still think it's stupid,

but I see the purpose of it. Like, but they kept Africa with Ernest Hemingway and then just changed Kipling to Steinbeck which doesn't seem to accomplish anything, other than that like the politics of the grapes of wrath is a little bit different probably than like Kipling's work. Is it because would you,

it's still white. guy. I guess the idea are they trying to say because Ruder Kipling's a guy who wrote like uh with that book was Raj or whatever or Kim about the British Raj um um you know I think he was like a British imperialist maybe I forget if he was pro Britain or not yeah but it's like it's why is Ruger Kipplin teachers about India I don't know he wrote the book yeah yeah and it's like so we're saying Ernest Hemingway didn't have any strange views about anything and Ernest Hemingway is the biggest piece of garbage i ever you know encountered in my in my reading uh life um just just a fraud in my opinion just a just a bore and just an awful person but whatever um but this isn't this is a good

place to introduce the changes because it's like because that's a theme in these changes like not only do they change the the words of the book significantly and like make them less entertaining and worse but like a lot of them they're not even necessarily more sensitive oh here we go because because this is right there both conrad and kippling have been accused of racism and reappraisal of their work so why why so so they get wiped out but roll dog like why is the matilda then racist why aren't we accusing but why aren't we you know reconciling with the fact that Matilda is a dirty little racist who enjoys the works of other racists. Yeah.

You know, if Conrad, some of, you know, and Joseph Conner is a guy who wrote Heart of Darkness, which is, you know, what they put base apocalypse down on amongst other things. And he wrote, he wrote the other things, I guess. But he's a racist. And Matilda is his comrade norms. Yeah. She's probably reading Conrad going, yeah, let's get going a boat into the middle of the Amazon. Was that where they went?

and just start killing. I don't know. This is so dumb. That would be great. I mean, honestly, that might redeem the role of the sensitivity reader

if instead of making changes to just like soften everything, they just made changes to make beloved characters horribly bigoted. Yeah. Just like bring it to the surface. Yeah.

Matilda, racist as she was, love Joseph Conrad. Heart of darkness. Her too. Um, so this is an interesting one. Is this rolled out here with these little dogs? Aw, look at that. He does look like a real creep here.

I mean, there's an ad with Grenad Dumburg's face. It kind of looks like he looks like Greta Dumburg, kind of. A little bit, yeah. You know, weird. Is she reincarnated Roll Dahl? Maybe. She was born. Was she born the same day that he died?

Imagine that? Maybe if she hadn't been sucked into the climate activist lifestyle. Oh, okay. I thought you're saying some of that. She would be writing great children's books right now. Sure, I guess. While in Doll's original version of the witches, women were described as being supernatural,

supermarket cashiers or read the. While in Doll's original version of the witches, women were described as being supernational. supermarket cashiers or letter writers for businessmen. In the new edition, women are top scientists or business owners themselves. Which women, the witches? So I'm trying to think. These witches were in STEM.

It's very important to understand. Look, they might want to kill children, but they're real good at math. Yeah, so that quote was crazy because this is a quote where the grandmother is describing the conspiracy of the witches, right? Like that it's like they're all over the place. establishing this hidden world where some women are witches right and it was like some women are bitches some women are bitches but but that's one of the crazier changes to me because like how is it less sexist to say that a successful business woman is a witch right than to say a letter writer is a witch like if anything the the former is just like kind of establishing the secret world it's all around you

The latter is actually kind of like plays into a cabal of, of feminists. Also kind of a literate buffoon is rewriting this book saying they're top scientists. They're right. Top gun scientists. This is idiotic. They're firefighter pilots. God damn. Lucinda was the goddamn best macrobiologist in all of Britain, but she also murdered

Children were poison chocolate. Turn them into rats. Nice. I mean, this is just like self- I don't know if I don't know if I could even say like this is like all just PC culture. I feel like this is just people who have, who have snuck it as writers, but they've kind of snuck into this weird role in the industry.

Right. Where they can put on their resume like I rewrote the work of a great author. Like I rewrote Roll Doll's books. The role of most social jobs. at the end of the day it's unfortunate it hasn't always been the case but in the current world I feel like the role of most quote unquote woke whatever you want to call it all these movements it's for late you know mediocre people to get weird jobs right you know yeah I okay can you just make a job for my niece yeah like

can you just can you just figure something out it's nothing to do with like you know these legitimate you know causes a lot of the time whatever but just it's just it's just some guy some some some random guy you going to school is now like rewriting the grapes of wrath or something right yeah it's like what we're taking all the references to grapes grapes grapes are racist now on what grounds are you writing grapes wrath are you rewriting this book um i'm bisexual yeah that's okay how are you rewriting grapes of wrath based on you being bisexual um at some point in the book now there's somebody's bisexual yeah they need they need someone who's bisexual so yeah i got me i got it

I'm a shoeing. Gary and I went to Harvard together. Who's Gary? I was just like the- Gary Rath? The publishing guy. Oh, okay. The Hollywood publisher?

The Hollywood publisher. Anyway. Okay. So what else we got? What other changes? Electrocution? What does it say? Oh, wow.

This is a dark one. Electrocution turns into an erection? Oh, ejection. Okay. electrocution turns into ejection. In George's marvelous medicine, Dahl had written, it was exactly as though someone had pushed an electric wire

through the underneath of her chair and switched on the current, unquote. All right, so that's visceral. Right, but it's also not necessarily like the electric chair. Yeah, it's not. It's not supposed to be the, how could you ever confuse this with the electric chair? It's a little similar.

I mean, but it's like. I don't get that far. A bullet went right through her head. How can you say she was shot? Well, it's like, it's just, it's clearly a little zap. Yeah, it's a zap. It's a, it's an electric chair that's turned down to two. It's a little bit different than a dry sponge being put on your head

and your skull gets burnt off. Sure. The new version says, quote, it was as though someone had switched her chair with a fighter jet seat and press the eject button. This is just worse writing. This is just, yeah, this is. There's just people who should, like, otherwise would have been, like, I don't know.

Like, he's like, all the people who wrote for stupid magazines are gone, though, I feel like. Like, most magazines are gone. These are be tons of people who just write for bad magazines, like, you know, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like glamour. Right. The lady who wrote for, all these women who wrote for glamour and that rewriting great works. This is, you know, they would have been doing a, you know, a little, like. blurb about Harry Stiles

and now they're just you know like editing the Bible right for racism yeah was no more fat phobia well about time a passage in James and the giant

peach used to say quote Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat and tremendously flabby at that her tummy and waist were as spongy as paste it was worse on the place where she sat because she broke she's sitting a lot of chairs yeah big dumps sweaty shits leaving leaving slow trails behind now it reads and

sponge was a nasty old brute and deserved to be squashed by the fruit we all felt a big bump when we dropped with a thump we left aunt sponge behind us because you but you needn't remind us that we shouldn't feel rotten for we haven't forgotten how spiteful she could be this is terrible this is absolutely atrocious and also not more sensitive no i don't know what they're talking about not more sensitive to wish for the for the the the painful death of someone and sponge had a gunt a bit of a and all of the children were dainty uh some some shit their pants no romance and committed suicide in the park there you go that's my new one it's beautiful right that's that's that's that's that's the peach the peach book so

what what this is even come from because honestly rolled down there's not even like been that like much in the media like why is this even like I mean I guess this book sell a lot yeah like and I think that like still under under the radar because all those movies got made right right 90s and the 2000s the fox movie and the peach movie and the the wit they made new witches you do you go right yeah they made a remake of the way and hathaway oh oh was she in it i think i don't know i picture her i can see her killing kids um anyway so what what what's what are the people pushing back um yeah there was a lot of pushback and they actually ended up sort of trying to offer a compromise um role doll publisher

bents to controversy will release classic version of controversial kids books this is like star wars now this is basically like you can also buy the original version but i want my my my stupid uh wukies digital digital wukies same thing right so now you can you but is it's it going to be called like the racist version racist remix I mean how how are they going to market you like what is it going to like you can have two roll dolls next to each other two peach books two giant peaches what's one going to be called the sensitive edition um I guess there's one will just be like the newest edition 15th edition or whatever no it can't be it'll have to have some disclaimer like warning include this

The old one will say warning includes offensive language. James of the Giant Peach, parentheses, the one where they call that bitch fat. She got a stank. What do they call that stag bitch fat? I mean, people often, I think he's a lazy analogy, but people often on Twitter, when something like this comes up,

will say something to the effect of like, you know, well, we're worrying about this. this is why China is going to kill our soldiers. Right. Which, well, you know, like, it's because their kids are too sensitive. We're raising these kids too sensitive. Do you think they're starting to have a point? Well, look, it's a weird, it's just a weird,

I don't think you have to take that leap that, like, we're going to be, how do you, our military now doesn't matter because people are reading. But if you can't handle, if you can't handle a fat woman, you know, leaving a little uh you know uh streak on a park bench sure when she sits and processing that in your young brain how are you going to bay and add another young man in the face but you have to years later you know you know how hard this to be an end the man in the face i mean you you think oh it's like no big deal no this is a guy who's coming at you and

like he's too close to shoot i guess i'm not sure how war works and you have to shove it in this nice on the end of your gun into his face maybe it's hard i don't know but like if you can't handle a giant peach how are you going to do that do you think there's going to be a lot of like hand-to-hand bayonet fighting and there are war with china uh well no hand-to-hand would be hand-to-hand this is with a gun this is when you use your gun you know you mean melee intimate fighting like that maybe well i mean yeah possibly if we you know i don't know how war with china okay i'm not the pentagon But I know they still sometimes have bayonets in their guns. Maybe it's just decorations, though.

But I mean, I got to imagine that's part of it. If you're too sensitive, or how are you going to throw white phosphorus, which is a war crime, at a village, if you, if you thought the witches was a little too much. The thing is, I'm not totally convinced that this kind of stuff doesn't make it easier to do that. Doesn't make it easier to indoctrinate people into throwing the white phosphorus. Tell me why. Which is a bad thing in my opinion. Sure. I think this idea when the purity culture of like, you know,

the black and white feelings of like some words are just bad and some words aren't. And some like some like some like books are bad and some aren't like it's like that black and white thinking I think actually feeds a lot very well into like militaristic. Oh, they'll be like, well Chinese people are bad. They'll say. Yeah. Yeah, like Chinese people were rolled. Look at how easily people were just, just got on board with like super strong anti-Russian sentiment.

Right. On the left. Well, they didn't fade the country. Look, I'm not saying it's unbestified. Are you saying that you're throwing Ukraine into the bus here? No, no. I still stand with the Ukraine, the breadbasket of Europe. Oh, God.

Where's my flag? Where's my Ukraine? No, but yeah. So you're basically like, they'll basically come out and be like, here's a deal. China, they're rolled doll now. Right. Yeah, no, exactly.

Yeah, China's role. Remember how he, that's China now. So now we got to do this. Remember how we, we gave him his comeuppance? Now it's China's term. China doesn't think that you can be healthy at any size. Right. China doesn't think Lizzo is a goddess.

I just, I hope we don't go to war. People keep saying we're going to war with China. I don't know. It seems like, it seems like you don't want to go. It does seem like people want it. I say we just, we start giving them stuff now. here you guys want some uh what we have to give them magic the gathering cards uh well you know some NBA jerseys give them stuff people people are we appease hit like i think if you appease

china though it can work out we can give them like fruit baskets um what else do we have everybody likes a fruit basket everyone likes a fat kid give them some fat kids why don't we just get them fat. Yeah, there's got to be a way to make China fat. You know, I mean, they, look, they'll probably do another opium war because that's what the opium was about. Like, you know, the British were giving them opium and eventually like, no, no, no, you get, you got one too high.

Get out of here. They'll start a war because we're making them too fat. Yeah. No, I think they will, yeah. I mean, I feel like they did, they would be like, you know, stop. Hey, we got an extra Big Macs. You want some? They'd be like, cut the shit.

You know what this is. you're not opening up again right oh we so i meant like opening like they tried to open us up but we were too timid uh anyway well i don't know what we're talking about so is that is that anything more is any more this rolled out what should we move on well there's like this other thing i mean if you wanted to get another angle on the sensitive reader thing there is this lady who published an op-ed I thought it was kind of interesting it was about this memoir she wrote how sensitivity readers corrupt literature it's called this woman okay tell you tell us about read this to us what did the sensitivity readers say this was this woman's British

which is going to be a problem clear in a moment yeah And did I care of all the aspects of the recent attempt to cancel my work? The one that seemed to fascinate most people is the moment when my publishers sent my Orwell Prize-winning memoir, some kids I taught and what they taught me, to be assessed by experts who would detect and reform its problematic racism and abelism. All right. Problem one I have with this, a kid should never teach you anything, especially if you're a teacher. Like, oh, this kid taught me. I learn nothing from children that never will. I'm not ashamed of that.

I think that's like if you're learning from a child, there's a problem there. I mean, they know very little. I mean, I don't think she's saying that the kids taught her basic math. I guess they could teach you that a hopscotch, perhaps. Or like the new little, the duggie,

is that a new dance? By dating myself a little bit? The ducky. Wasn't that a dance for a while? Yeah, I don't know. That's a dance They can teach you Yeah, I think it's a dance

They can teach you Gangam style Whatever You can know those You can learn those things I guess that is that the book They taught me gangam style Right

And you do the dance with the horse No but this woman is I suspect they're teaching her life lessons Which is atrocious to me You're suspicious of her Yes Her narrative Stupid red glasses

Of course I cared I'm horrified that people found prejudice and cruelty in my book, and I went into the process willingly. I've always enjoyed and benefited from editing and saw this as an extension. I did an initial rewrite. There were many things I was eager to change in the autumn of 2021 and sent it off full of interest and optimism.

I received the reports on it before Christmas. They were never formally used, and I share the content here, anonymously, of course, because sensitivity readers are being used more and more widely. Just get to the good, get to what they censored. Okay. She's tedious, a tedious bore. Okay.

Their scopes vary. One reader fuss pots around single words. I should not use disfigure. I should not use disfigure to describe a landscape in fraction level three as presumably comparing brings, blah, blah, blah, blah, comparing bings to boils might be harmful to acne sufferers. What? No, look, I mean, clearly these people are.

out of their minds. Yeah. This is the problem. She's just a bad vessel, in my opinion, but we'll get that in a second. But like, no, but this is, so basically she wrote this figure of a landscape, but that's a problem because there's people who have, you know, who have disfigured genitals. Yeah. For instance.

Which is weirdly. Someone who got a car accident and their genitals were crushed. Yeah. We'll be offended. Or acne. Like, which is. Acne is not a disfigurement. Right.

That's like weirdly offensive in its own right. Right. It's like, acne isn't a disfigurement. Like, it's just something people get. Yeah. It's like, well, that's a, this figure, that's offensive to people with large noses. Like, what?

Anyway. Nor should I use handicap in its ordinary sense of impede. Blah, blah, so there's a bunch of things like that. And then, okay. So she talks about the memoir a little bit. The setting is London, 1992. After end of terms drinks, a favorite student, Liam, comes out to me and then asks me to take him to gay take him to gay take me to gay

can you take this look there I am not the entire education system here is as fault the entire I mean this is a he's coming out to her that can you take me the gay well gay's not a place gay is a way of life I guess an orientation at least I would like to go to gay but uh but i i guess that this is a gay bar that uses an acronym oh it actually is called gay yeah it's a little on the nose yeah that's a little i feel i feel like some guy who had a pub that watch like you know football or whatever right it's like just like just trying to get in on the whole uh george michael thing or whatever maybe we'll be a gay club let's call it gay so what happens so was is she yeah is she homosexual um i don't think so maybe she is she is

i don't look i don't believe this for a second the kid asked her to take it why why why is this happening um because i guess she he trusts her after end of term drinks oh he's this is like a oh he's like 18 yeah all right still odd it's a guy is a so a guy is asking his like older teacher to take him to a gay club? Well, like she says, actually, I was very worried about doing this at the time, even though Liam had just left school. I still felt like his teacher, and I worry even more now when teachers no longer take 18-year-olds to the pub

and are much more aware of influence and consent. None of the sensitive issues, though, raised at length in the book, worry the readers. They are concerned, rather, that I might be boasting about helping a young gay person. Quote, straight, white, save your trope, suggests word search list. could be problematic they set up a chorus about what I feel and say after Liam hits the dance floor and I note um okay so this is a quote from her memoir he was too young to understand you only got one fortunately was only 20 minutes or so before he came back

out of the crowd and grasped his beer Liam I said I love you you have to promise me to always use a condom and never get AIDS okay what here's a problem uh is it white savior trope i mean that should be something you can you should censor right i don't know i'm not going to get like but she's a maniac do you think this woman's weird this kid came out to her presumably for the first person you ever came out to her within 20 minutes she has him in a gay club screaming at her not to get AIDS this is traumatic i know the age crash was bigger back then but still i think i'm gay that's great don't ever get it yeah 20 minutes later she just black out drunk yeah you know she's sloppy she's got like six uh whatever uh pilsners

what they call them over there and then then she's just like that she had a few guineases yeah she's got about six stouts yeah so i just don't you got you like i'm so i'm so Fraddy, don't ever get AIDS. Everyone's looking at her. He's like, all right, right, right, yeah, well, don't it. It's just like, this is how you treat gay people? Scream at the Mexican AIDS. And like, who is she saving?

White Savior? This is horrendous. This is the epitome of, like, you know, like, pick the people you put in your, you know, sometimes when we are fighting a car. cause you have to be selective right i feel like the civil rights movie used to be like go like no we're going to pick they picked rosa parks right yeah they pick people like you're good you you you know if you're fighting censorship don't pick this woman like so i was yelling they didn't let me yell at a gay kid all right well maybe you have your points but maybe

maybe you're not you're not a spokesperson for us you know well we'll write an article next year about you we'll call you we'll call you we'll call you we have your nice you so this is a what a buffoon yeah so you don't think this is the best argument she's and she she she got a what you call it no oral a prize yes books i really i really i feel like most books are useless if this idiot is getting the normal world prize like how we need more books you don't think we need more books i mean not if this idiot's winning prizes I won an oil prize and they wouldn't let me create to the game club what do you think was a reasonable like if it if like what do you think was a good year to stop making books um I don't know like 1978 what year the jaws come out that was a good book no I don't know it's just we just need less of them I mean, it's just, you know, it's,

most books now are like Prince Harry. Oh, right. My brother gave me a wedgy once, and now I want a torpedoed monarchy. Right. Like, enough. Apparently, apparently he, like, part of that memoir was that, like, he sold out some woman who he lost his virginity to.

Like, some girl who's, like, a year older than him. Sold her out to what, like, human traffickers? Well, you know, like, the British press is, like, is, like, ruthless. like they'll actually like hunt a person down based on like small details and like and like you said she was like an older woman who like it used him for his uh prowess or whatever it was just some prowess it was just some girl who like was a year older them used him for her his prowess yeah like you know like an older woman like uh like almost like a succubes or something but what does he have freckles yeah i mean i don't know i doubt it's

what does he have to give an older lover yeah yeah what does any younger lover have to give an older lover strong back yeah maybe that was that well speaking of books uh look here's the other side well this is a book that what what what what made you i i told you about this book you told me about this book and uh i immediately ordered it off amazon uh it sounds amazing it is in its own way amazing and it's a book he's like i don't i don't see this get the orwell prize or any prize no one's it should get the orwell prize it's terrible no one reviews it no one talks about it uh it's written by a good friend of the show um we've never met he doesn't know we

exist i i think but i consider him a friend dr jordan peter Peterson, the author of such tomes as 12 Rules for Life and 12 other rules for life and 12 more things that I forgot about, perhaps, I don't know. This is the ABCs of childhood tragedy, Volume 1. Now, I just realized it's Volume 1, but it's sort of basically the format, and we're not going to, you know, show the whole book or anything because we don't want to damage Mr. Peterson's business of selling books, but it's illustrated. You can see, we'll show you vaguely the illustrated book, but it's all, it's like E, F, G, it's

ABCs. ABC is. So how are you going to have multiple volumes? You've covered all the letters. That's true. You know what? That's a very good point. He didn't cover all the letters.

He just really wanted the publishers, like, let's keep it open mind. And it's also not really a volume. Like this is not a volume's worth of material. What's the volume? How do you define volume? Usually when I think of a volume, I think of something that it's like, it's packed. It's dense with content. Like, it's like you couldn't have stuffed another page into this.

So there's going to need to be a volume too. Oh, I see what you're saying. Like, it's like, perhaps. Or perhaps, look, I mean, can we, well, we have a video, right? If him, we'll let Jordan Pearson tell us in his own words. But I have the book. I've read it. I can verify it's a book.

When I say that we don't need more books, I'm not including this. I'm not including this book. I think we need this book. Right. So is this the clip where he's reading? He's reading a poem, so all these poems are about little, like, dark chapters in children's lives. Is it queued up to the right part? Or is that? Yes, I think so. Okay. F. Frederick was sadly flawed after he was madly pawed by his neighbor deeply awed.

Where the hell was Christian God? all right so basically that's it so you want to go back well let's go back where the hell frederick was sadly flawed after he was madly pawed okay so basically that's a common motif in this book a lot of molestation there's a lot of molestation is the ABCs of child so is there even though you know what's interesting about this it's a book that has a lot of molestation, a lot of abuse, a lot of kids, and there isn't even a thing on the back that describes what this is. Where would you eat? Like, the, the publisher wants you to go into this cold. There's no, there's nothing on the inside, as you've never seen it, childhood. That's the only

that's the only thing we have here. If you've never seen it, childhood, but there's no, there's no indication like this is a book where we use the letters of the alphabet to describe various crimes against children various nothing to that effect various stripes of molestation right or just or drunken abuse things like it's not all that it's not all this would be a great i mean this would have been a great opportunity for for a prologue of just like you know he's a psychologist right so saying like why why he wrote this book like right on the back here you could have written like Dr. Jordan Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life, you know, takes this opportunity to give, you know,

use this to teach your kids or to cope with your own childhood or just to laugh at abused children, whatever the goal is. But there is nothing, this is one of the most crazy books I've ever seen, and there is nothing to describe it. Right. There's no indication of what this is. I guess the publisher assumed, like, well, we put what this is, no one will pick it up.

but when they're right behind I mean there are several like you said that like you said like or to just laugh at kids getting abused but like

you're only kind of half kidding there like there are like poems where it just seems like well it just kind of seems like you're shitting all over an abused kid you made up you remember which one was

we'll read one maybe was he read more let's go back to Mr. Pearson you know he can illustrate more of this wait no there's that more there's that more there Oh, that was the only reads the one?

What? He only reads the one? Yeah, he know that. I don't want to, look, we, I'll cross a lot of lines, but I'm not going to, I don't mess with the guy's business. By the way, the way I heard about this book was from this video. It's actually pretty good if you want to check it out. This guy, Jose on YouTube, he did a video essay reviewing this book, like in more detail.

He does a really good job. It's a crazy fucking book, but like. I like it. Yeah, but it's, yeah. it's just insane it's mysterious like what is the I mean the illustrations you can see are very off-putting yeah it just it's oh here we go about the author look at this about I can show this right this is fine it's not hurting the business this is Jordan Peters is an illustration of Jordan Pearson about the author and his illustrator

dr. Jordan Pearson is the or so yeah okay is the author of the best-seller 12 rules for life and anecdote the chaos beyond order 12 more oh oh that's the first one then's beyond order 12 more rules for life and maps of meaning the architecture of belief he currently resides again but this doesn't tell you anything about this book nothing uh the illustrator is juliet foie gras fogra a fine art painter and graphic artist she was the illustrator of dr peterson's beyond order 12 more rules for life she was born in rega latvia interesting uh so she drew drawers all these very disturbing children and she won a contest right to get into this uh yeah yeah something like that and

what i mean there's like there's literally just like this it's like a parody of a bad story some of these like they don't read it because we look he read one i don't want to give away the story here we're not bit torrent you know people get the idea well there's this one i'll just summarize what it what it is it's just this girl who the whole there's only 26 of these there are four lines each i'll summarize it even more i i i like a little girl uh gets abused she cries and then she dies and everybody's happy like it's like yeah you know like that's kind of like the vibe of it it feels like it's supposed to be like it's like shell silverstein um or something

Right, he wrote it like with a while with sidewalk ends. Don't bring him into this. Why? Don't breathe. It's one of the most beautiful children authors ever. That guy was a weird ghoul too, wasn't he? Shel Silverstein. He was so funny.

It's, his rhymes were so good. Name one, say one line. Shells Silverstein. You can't. I can't because I'm not, I can't just conjure them up.

They're too complex. But Shakespeare, on the other hand, I'll say a lot for Shakespeare, much to do about nothing. That's the title of, that's the title of it. Whatever, I remember it. so we have uh that it truly was much ado about nothing one crazy summer so this is his

illustrator here this just gets darker and darker what is it Jordan look at the eyes doesn't it remind you of anybody oh so she's showing him a painting this is some pictures she drew of of Saint Anthony she's being tortured by demons okay interesting Who is it? That's you. He doesn't seem happy about it. He seems overwhelmed by it. Right.

Well, he's gotten very emotional. Even Peterson looks a little uncomfortable during that, and it seems strange. Yeah. He needs to be partnering with an artist who is so utter... Check out his video essay. Check out. Yeah, watch his guy's video essay.

But, like, it's like... But yeah, I don't know. This is a weird book. So, look, that... I'm starting to come book club. And this is the first, the first entry in the comp book club is the ABC, an ABC of, an ABC of childhood. Is that the ABCs of, I just realized, I thought it was the ABCs of childhood strategy.

It's an ABC strategy. Sorry, let me rephrase that. I thought it was called the ABCs of childhood tragedy, volume one. But it's actually called an ABC. of childhood tragedy which I guess means the same thing it seems like an other ways to say it but so this but I want to be clear I don't want people getting confused that's the title of the book as the first book in the come book club can we get a sticker made I'm not happy about this I mean I think don't

you think this is a useful tool for parents who abuse their kids to give to their children see that see this is Yeah, see, Mr. Dr. Peterson, this is, all these other kids are fine. Look at the pictures. I don't know. It's, look, don't, aren't you, if you had to choose between a world where this book existed or didn't exist, aren't you happy to exist? Didn't exist. Didn't exist.

I say the former. And by the way, don't just say that, I'm not saying, I'm not saying burn it. I'm not saying, you know, put it in a trash can. Right. But, but yes. Just a different book, maybe a different version of it. What, what bothers you about this book? It's just bad.

It's lazy. It's, all the rhymes are lazy. They're incomplete stories that are, that have no, like, human feeling to them. I think they're charming. It's shock, it's cheap shock value. Dr. Peters said, and it's not, and it's not apparently for anyone. It's not for kids. I don't think it's for kids.

If it's for adults, that's fucking weird. Well. Like, it's like, it's like, it's. It's, who is this for? It's for adults to murmur to each other about abused children. And I think it's a useful thing. I mean, why? Why is that useful?

Because when you're at a cocktail party, you need things to discuss. And I think abused children should come up at cocktail parties. And this is a great way to get into it. So then it raises awareness. Now, it may not do anything about it, but I think it just brings it to the surface. I think enough kids get abused in this country that someone bringing it to the surface, even if they're not necessarily... This isn't bringing it to the surface.

This isn't increasing anyone's understanding of why people are abused or what happens to them. Like, this is just like, this is just showboating. Well, it's not only because no one. It's showboating, like, look at like the half, look at the half baked, you know, images of misery. I can kind of in my diseased brain. Here's why I disagree and I slightly agree. I disagree because it doesn't need to. It just needs to put into the conversation, right?

Now, here's where I do agree. No one seems to have read the book. so it's not working on that level we couldn't find a single review besides this you know YouTube one and some stuff on Amazon like you know for Amazon reviews right how many stars they have on Amazon

not sure probably a lot yeah Amazon reviews don't make any sense I look you can pick the next book in the comp book club if you want maybe as long as a good book as long as it's as good as this book I pick

wait wait Wait, just don't give it away now. Oprah didn't just, like, read a list off, like, and rattle it off. All right, we got the James Gunn book, wherever his name was, the James Fry, and then we got, what's the other one? Well, there's some Oprah books. I don't know. It was Infinite Just an Oprah book?

No, Infinite Just wouldn't have been on there, but maybe the, we're the Crawdads. We got, where the Crawdads, we got James Fry, You got to learn showmanship. You parse these things out. Technically, the first Kump Book Club book should be my Civil War Dump book book. Well, that could be number two. When we have our live event with Jordan Peterson, Dr. Jordan Peterson, we have a live reading, I want to be able to tell him that this was the first, you know, book in the Kump, Book Club.

If it seems like I'm being harsh on Dr. Jordan Peterson with this book. Yes. I think you are. Well, look, this is volume one. Yeah. I think volume two could be better. Well, I think we should. But you need harsh critics like me who will cut something down so that it can be built back up.

Well, you also need encouraging critics like me to start a petition, which I will be doing to get volume two published. So, you know, stay tuned. And look, I want to get permission of Jordan Pearson to read the whole thing. I'm not trying to, I just don't want to hurt his book because I don't think anyone's buying this. And I don't want to, you know, damage his book sales, you know. So that's why I'm being a little, a little stingy with, you know, reading these wonderful poems. Also, you know, I don't want to hurt his image by reading them.

Because they're great, but, you know, I won't do them justice. I'll just say that. Moving on. I so regret telling you this book exists. It's my favorite book now. Every book, this should be, this should be, every book should be, this should be in, like, when you sign up for school, you should get this book

and this should be like the Gideon should put this in hotels instead of Bibles. I could see this maybe functioning as like a very raw base level warning about like these things happen in the world if it wasn't so gloating

and weird about them. If it wasn't so like giddy if it wasn't so giddy about like this book serves no purpose whatsoever. agree to disagree I don't look we'll move we'll put a pin in this

we have to get we have to get to another we call this out in the intro but one more time because we did use a couple of clips from it like check out that Elijah Jose Jose

video essay about it is very fun his name is just Jose yeah okay Jose on YouTube we have his other story which we alluded to

this is about similar personality as Jordan Peterson this is about Taylor we'll talk about Taylor swift I put him in the same category maybe yeah um this is a

an article about a swiftie she built a following is taylor swift's doppelganger then the swifties came after her now who were the swifty though he's the the swift boat uh swift boat veterans for truth i think there's a different group the swift doesn't know the swifties are who are the swifties i mean some of them might be swift boat veterans for truth i guess there could be overlap i think it probably is a lot of overlap so swift these are fans of taylor swift

interesting okay it's specifically the rabid ones the ones that'll that'll tear your throat out have you so much to say boo about their boo okay so it's like it feels like a clock or orange kind of thing yeah oh yeah right in the gulliver right i'll go i'll go it's however something like that uh anyway uh So what was this, read some of this, what's his article about? She built a following, okay. Earlier this month, Ashley Leachin, a registered nurse, mom of two kids, and TikTok creator known for her uncanny resemblance to Taylor Swift,

posted a change.org petition to her page. Quote, this petition shares me. By the way, that's where our petition for Jordan Bueson's volume two will be on change. org but go on this petition is to stop cyberbullying harassment and false defamation towards myself ashley leachin as well as others she wrote and the petition leachin who has 1.1 million followers on ticot addressed a laundry list of allegations that people have leveled against her on the platform such as that she voted for trump she such as that she voted for trump she is a registered democrat and she got plastic surgery to look more like Taylor,

though she did acknowledge she has gotten Botox and filler. So basically she's trying to get a career going as a Taylor Swift lookalike. Yeah. And the Swifties are like, nah-uh. And they're calling her Ashley Leach. Ashley Leach? Calling her a leech. That's pretty intense.

I mean, a lot of celebrities have lookalikes who do make a career out of being look-alikes. Look, I would love to have fans who protect my intellectual prize. property the way thrifties do I mean this is getting to be a mad max kind of world so what's wrong I think artists need to have their armies of people and I think we need people I mean a lot of people have come to me uh because South Park had reference to gun hands in their in their premiere a couple weeks ago and a lot of our fans and I I've been a little bit more like the voice of reason going like look I don't think they stole from us but you know reading this I'm like no maybe no maybe I should encourage these things

fans to take the fight to South Park not physically you know but like but maybe maybe they should get a petition going to get South Park reprimanded for stealing my idea you know maybe we should send Matt and T-Tree a gunhand t-shirt maybe and says like watch your back but but uh no god I'm I'm starting to like these swifties you know Did they do anything about Kanye after he, like, he attacked her years ago? Yeah, they jumped all over that. Yeah. No, they are a rabid fan base.

I'd love to be swathed in the, in the Swifty Embrace. I just think they're hurting her here. Why? It would be like, it would be like Elvis fans going after an Elvis impersonator. Like, those people make you more famous. No, he don't. No, some fat guy in Reno, uh, singing, uh, well, he's on pills,

it's not helping the Elvis estate at all. I think it is. They get royalties off of that if they have a... I don't think most... Like, I saw guys, like, Long Island Open mics and coffee shops when I was doing comedy, like, doing Elvis in person. And I'm pretty sure they weren't, you know, filing their taxes and paying dividends to the, the Nashville, the Graceland's estate.

I hate how you're just groping that. that book with your fingers as you talk about this just petting it like it's your little bunny it's got a nice finish to it feel it yeah it's a nice tome you have to admit this is a lovely tone so what's going on have they have they heard her these these uh these these these swifties they have uh she lengthy petition also denies claims that she quote stole taylor swift's favorite number 13 her birthday's on the 13th though not in December as Swift is I mean who wrote this Rolling Stone this is Hunter Thompson used to write for this fucking outfit and now this is the article they're writing or that she adopted cats that look

quote exactly the same as Taylor's cats or that she holds her pen the same particular way I mean it's getting a little weird why you hold your pen the way Taylor Swift holds her pen I mean are these all fat men are these like 50-year-old fat men who were like abusing to like a four-year-old woman. Hey, bitch. Yeah. We're Swifties.

You know, that's a good point. I've never actually seen a Swifty in real life. I've only, they're only an internet phenomenon. Right. You wouldn't want to. They exist in the shadows for a reason. I hold my opinion in such a manner that brings comfort

which releases direct pressure off the median nerve, she wrote. I don't think there's any winners in this article. The petition may have been intended to shut down Leach's haters who have long accused her of being a pathological liar, obsessed with Swift. Instead, as is often the case on the internet, it had the opposite effect.

Her quote, her name is Ashley Leaching because she's leaching off Taylor's career, Swiftie on Twitter. In response to the petition. Another wrote, quote, Has anybody called her to Swifty George Santos yet? Topical. It's nice.

You can't say they're not informed. You can't say they're not well. No, they're top. They're on top of things. The Oracle ends with, I don't think, I don't look in the mirror and think, holy cow, I look like Taylor. It's just Ashley, she says.

Then dot, dot, dot, and someone stabbed her. I don't know. This is, things are getting. bad um war with china or this i don't know or or jordan peterson's book i mean there's a lot of things going on a lot of plates what would you do what would you do if a sensitivity reader tried to get their hands on this book how would you respond um i don't want to say because i can't you know you can't like you can't say threats but your response would be full-throated i i it would be clear no i don't know i think no uh what would i do i look i feel like tried to put a jane austin reference

in this book i feel like i would have to i i would die on this hill all right i mean at a certain point you have to stop censorship yeah and uh jordan pearson's fought for long and hard on similar fronts i guess uh different fronts different yeah i don't know i can't keep this bruise up i like the book though the guys the guy's a little kooky yeah anyway um thanks so much for tuning in if you love the show as i know you do uh consider checking on our patreon where you get an extra episode every week for five bucks a month and we just did a very funny episode where we explore something called the lucky girl syndrome lucky girl syndrome is is a it's haunting and uh people have asked me like you know weeks where you guys get sick

and you're vomiting and you're dying on your deathbed you still put a patron out we do so you know uh it's just a perk you always did every week you get an episode on patreon and most weeks here we try so thanks so much uh you know you can do that and if you don't uh do that we'll see you next week have a great week Thank you.