Lovett or Leave It - 2 Marianne 2 Williamson

Episode Date: March 2, 2024

Lovett wishes a very happy, very infrequent birthday to all you Leap Day babies out there. Andrea Jin, Jiavani, and Cara Connors use this extra 24 hours to solve some of life’s pettiest grievances. City Councilwoman Nithya Raman discusses what it takes for a progressive candidate to get progressive policies passed in today’s political climate. And we end our show with a leap of faith, though not necessarily in our ability to read and understand expiration dates. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

What kind of fucked up, half-assed energy was that? Welcome to Love It or Leave It. Every four years we celebrate a momentous day that means so much to us as a nation. The part of the Olympics where really hot guys do little flips. But also Leap Day. And if we got a Leap Day show for you, happy Leap Day, everybody. Live like there's no...

this. Andrea Jin, Cara Connors, and Giovanni join me to patch up some tiny, tiny social problems for the occasion. Nithya Raman is here to talk about what it actually takes to make progressive change in progressive places. And we end the show with our very own leaps of faith. I'm sitting on two pillows.

Right before we began the show, like literally moments where the curtain rose, we were fixing some of the lighting and we were noting that because we do this in angles away the prompter, but I can see you. Sometimes this side of my face is more lit than this side. And Stephen, the audio engineer said, it's your face. But first, let's get into it. What a week. President Biden and Donald Trump won their respective primaries in Michigan on Tuesday. Biden won 81% of the Democratic vote, but faced some organized resistance led by Arab and Muslim Americans over the war in Gaza,

with over 100,000 people, 13% of Democratic primary voters, turning out to vote uncommitted. Also voting uncommitted? My fucking boyfriend. The protest campaign may head to other states, and I get it. I've been on Hinge and felt like I wanted to scream to the universe, none of the above. And it feels good for a moment, but then you pick your phone up off the ground, wipe the tear from your eye, and the dismal buffet Kamala Harris showed off her Funko Pop haul after stopping by a record shop in Michigan. Now you want to know what I bought. So you want to know that I got the George Clinton doll. Does everybody know who George Clinton is? Do you know P-Funk?

No. Okay, well, there is lessons to be taught, like Bootsy Collins. Anybody know who Bootsy Collins is? Okay, so there's some education that needs to be done. I can see that. This is embarrassing. White people should do their homework

and watch the 1994 college film, PCU, starring Jeremy Piven, in which George Clinton and the parliament funkadelic make an appearance, which taught me who they were. Also, they're just bobbleheads. Are they not bobbleheads? Do they not bobble?

Only some bobble, says Kendra. So, and is that an insult to your people to call them bobbleheads? Anyway, speaking of bobbleheads, Marianne Williamson unsuspended her presidential campaign on Wednesday, a day after defeating Dean Phillips in the Michigan primary, even though she'd already dropped out with 3% of the vote. Here's what she said. As of today, I am unsuspending my campaign for the presidency of the United States. I had suspended it because I was losing the horse race. But something so much more important than the horse race is at stake here.

And we must respond. And what's at stake is when I got home, it was so very quiet. You know that feeling when quiet isn't just the absence of sound, but something thicker, as if noise isn't what intrudes on silence, but silence is what holds back the world, like it's laying on top of you between you and life itself. Anyway, I once got so mad at a campaign staffer, I punched a car door and had to go to urgent care. My brand is love. Here's what Williamson said later in that video.

Some people would say, oh, Ms. Williamson, you're delusional. I'll tell you what's delusional. What's delusional is just closing our eyes and crossing our fingers and just hoping that somehow Biden and Harris will be able to beat that juggernaut of dark, dark vision. All right, Marianne, listen,

saying we're delusional doesn't mean you're not also delusional. This isn't a zero-sum game. You unsuspended your presidential campaign after winning 3%. I have several conversation starters for Lee Pace ready to go, just in case I run into him at Jenny's one of the times when I'm not crying. Every time, every time I go to a concert of any size, a bar, the Hollywood Bowl,

I imagine the drummer falling ill and the lead singer coming to the front of the stage and asking, is anyone out there a drummer? And then I'll raise my hand. Point is, there's plenty of delusion for all of us. Biden 2024. Yeah. Hunter Biden told Axios in an interview that he sees his continued sobriety as critical to ensuring that his father wins a second term. But for me, his father winning a second term is critical to ensuring my sobriety. Hunter, you can call me anytime, day or night.

I don't care if I'm in the middle of a show. I will tell these people to fuck off and we'll go get a bitters and soda at the strip club. Whatever you need, buddy. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know that if I mess this up, we'll back out of the Paris Climate Agreement again. Imagine if you did coke, Ukraine would stop existing.

Also, Hunter Biden, stop doing interviews. Shut the fuck up. Oh, you sat down with Axios? Why? Why are you doing that? President Biden received his annual physical at Walter Reed on Wednesday. Good news, he still has a physical form. And he's in good enough shape to proceed with that BBL scheduled for next week.

Get that nice big dumper. Help with the suburban moms. Biden was asked afterwards if there's anything the public needed to know and replied, they think I look too young. Yeah, right. It's charming in a wrestling your grandpa into his coat while he flirts with a Denny's waitress sort of way. I do think joking about his age is probably the best defense Biden has because he's got to be sharp to crack a joke, but it still only gets him so far. It's like, attaboy, Joe, get their ass. But OK, like, for real, what did the doctor say? Speaking of being old, yes, it's been almost a week since Joe Biden ate ice cream.

But the fallout continues. To refresh your memory, this happened. Can you give us a sense of when you think that ceasefire will start, sir? Well, I hope by the beginning of the weekend. I mean, the end of the weekend. At least my national security advisor tells me that we're close. And I know. Just lower the cone. If you're going to take the Gaza question, lower the cone. That's all.

Anyway, and the right has really made a Sunday of it. Here's Jesse Waters. You know my rule about men eating soup in public. I don't think it's manly to go like that with a soup and you're blowing on it. It's just not a good look. I think the same thing for ice cream. You should save that for vacation. A grown man, especially the president, should not be licking ice cream in public.

Fellas, is it gay to eat soup? Masculinity is a prison. It's a prison. And like prison, the food is terrible. You can't have soup. You can't have ice cream. Poor Jesse Waters, he's saving the sweetest delight for his one vacation a year, just on the beach in Cabo, frantically eating an ice cream cone and a bowl of soup at the same time, counting down the minutes until his annual gay handjob.

Also, Republicans are now telling us just to just to catch everybody up that they want voters to associate Democrats with football, starting families, bodily autonomy, Taylor Swift, Bud Light, Disney, and ice cream. So they want their fans angry and scared, armed to the teeth, eating Papa John's and posting on Facebook while checking the ring camera every few hours in case the caravans arrive. Speaking of caravans, on Thursday, President Biden and Donald Trump made dueling visits to the U.S.-Mexico border. Biden headed to Brownsville, Texas, where he met with border control, law enforcement, and local officials. Funny, Brownsville is also where I go after I eat ice cream. My parents are here. President Biden then urged Trump and his Republican acolytes to address the crisis. So here's what I would say to Mr. Trump. Instead of playing politics with the issue, instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me or I'll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan

border security bill. We can do it together. So instead of playing politics with the issue, why don't we just get together and get it done? He looks good there, huh? Put a point on the board. He looks good there. Come on, let's put our differences aside and agree to work together, said Joe Biden to a riled up and starving grizzly bear barreling directly towards him. Biden continued. It's time for the speakers and some of my Republican friends in Congress who are blocking this bill to show a little spine.

Here, I'll show you a little of my spine, said Joe Biden as gasping reporters got a look at his C5, C6 and C7 poking through his back. Trump was more than 300 miles away in Eagle Pass, Texas, where Texas Governor Greg Abbott has deployed razor wire, making it a popular photo op destination for Republicans who want to cast themselves as tough on immigration. It's the Instagram angel wings at the mall for fascist losers. Trump offered some pure, uncut xenophobia. People from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don't speak languages.

We have languages coming into our country. We have nobody that even speaks those languages. They're truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them. What the fuck are you talking about? He's leading Biden by 10 in Georgia and he thinks immigrants are speaking Klingon. Also, this is America. There are people who now speak Navi. What language? Trump also unveiled the new nickname for California Governor Gavin Newsom

You look at what this governor, Newscombe from California Isn't that his name, Newscombe? Sometimes it's a single brush stroke that changes a whole painting Trump rambled about the election being stolen And described murders by immigrants in grisly detail But he was cranky because it was a big week after all on Wednesday Trump offered a New York appeals court a 100 million dollar bond To pause the more than 450 million dollar payment. He owes as a penalty for fraud I'll even throw an eric free of charge his lawyer said

Trump said that at the appeals court denied his request, he might have to start selling some of his buildings. Oh no, not his buildings, said a judge who carries her lunch to work in an NPR tote. But the appeals court did deny the request, effectively requiring Trump to post a bond for the full amount, which I believe means Trump has officially lost monopoly. You guys want to go Dutch on Trump Park Avenue? I'll put my card down and you can Venmo me. In fact, New York State Judge Anil Singh ruled that Trump must post a bond covering the full amount in order to stop enforcement of the judgment. Singh did grant some

of Trump's requests, including pausing a three-year ban on his seeking loans from New York banks, which could help him secure the necessary bond. Singh is a long-serving and well-respected judge who was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager. And I fucking love that. Judge Arthur Engurant has former hippie written all over him, and he rules that Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars for his malfeasance. Roberta Kaplan, a lesbian who represented Edie Windsor and helped overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, takes the E. Jean Carroll case and destroys Trump in court. Two black women, and Fonny Willis and Tish James,

are coming for his freedom, and now some fucking immigrant is making Trump pay in full. USA, USA. In less pleasing legal news, after taking two long weeks to say anything at all, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments over whether Trump can claim immunity in his election interference case. The court, in no hurry, will hear arguments the week of April 22nd. This, of course, gives Clarence Thomas plenty of time to update his Amazon wish list. Given the possibility that this could push a trial past the election, the president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School called it a grossly

partisan move by the Supreme Court, effectively granting Trump immunity for his alleged crimes, regardless of whatever ruling they ultimately make. All the Supreme Court had to do was help Trump stall for time, and that's what they've done. Basically, Trump just changed the file name of a JPEG to termpaper.doc, and they're going to wait until April to even try and open it. As of right now, the only Trump criminal trial scheduled to start before the election is the Stormy Daniels hush money case. Carrying the fate of democracy on her shoulders, that's got to be the second worst weight Stormy's ever been under. And this week, the court debated the federal ban on bump stocks, a tool that turns a semi-automatic

rifle into what amounts to a machine gun able to fire hundreds of bullets per minute. The justices appeared to be split on the issue. The victims of semi-automatic rifles with bump stocks also appear to be split. A ban on bump stocks, the absolute lowest hanging form of gun safety measure, was actually put forward by the Trump administration after a gunman used them in the 2017 mass shooting at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas, the deadliest shooting in American history. So far, said a fucked up 15-year-old boy who already brought one of his dad's guns to school once

and everybody was just pretending it will grow out of it. In one surreal moment of the hearing, a lawyer arguing against the ban actually said this. Bum stocks can help people who have disabilities, who have problems with finger dexterity, people who have arthritis in their fingers. There could be a valid reason for preserving the legality of these devices as a matter of policy. You scoff, but have you tried killing everyone at your church when it's about to rain? Justice Sonia Sotomayor had one follow-up.

Why would even a person with arthritis, why would Congress think they needed to shoot 400 to 700 or 800 rounds of ammunition under any circumstance. If you don't let a person without arthritis do that, why would you permit a person with arthritis? Thank God for these last remaining liberal justices

on this court. Alito's questions are like, is a woman a person? That question was so good. We don't have a joke. It's just an A-plus question. Anyway, speaking of arthritic maniacs, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Wednesday that he will step down from his leadership position in November. Yeah. One of life's most underappreciated talents is to know when it's time to move on to life's next chapter. So I stand before you today, Mr. President, and my colleagues to say this will be my last term as Republican leader in the Senate. Don't cry because it's over. Freeze for 30 seconds with a vacant expression because it happened.

McConnell will be stepping into an exciting new position as one of the gargoyles on the National Cathedral. Maine Senator Susan Collins paid tribute to McConnell by saying this. His tenure as leader will be remembered not just for its historic longevity, but also for his unparalleled devotion to this great institution, which he has always defended. Yes, he was devoted to the Senate, but not in the way like a dog is devoted to his family, more in the way that Yolanda Saldivar was devoted to the Senate, but not in the way like a dog is devoted to his family, more in the way that Yolanda Saldivar was devoted to Selena. We're coming in hot today.

In other Senate news, in response to the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling that embryos are adorable little children, which effectively banned in vitro fertilization, Senator Tammy Duckworth called for a vote on her proposal to federally protect IVF. I warned that red states would come for IVF, and now they have. But they aren't just going to stop in Alabama. Mark my words, if we don't act now, it will only get worse. It will only get worse. That's also our 2024 campaign slogan. Some Republicans argued that enforcing IVF protections was a job for the states. GOP Senator Roger Marshall, who's an OBGYN, said,

I don't see any need to regulate it at the federal level. I think the Dobbs decision puts this issue back at the state level. Of course, Marshall proudly co-sponsored the Life Begins at Conception Act, which would obviously do the opposite of leaving this issue up to the states, declaring that the protections of the 14th Amendment apply from the moment of fertilization. And while Republicans have been falling all over themselves to distance their party from Alabama's completely predictable attack on IVF, Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked Temi Duckworth's bill. You tell your therapist, he says he's in favor of IVF, and your therapist patiently once again asks whether or not his behavior reflects that.

What is he actually doing to show you that he's in favor of IVF? Well, not really anything. And you told him this was important to you. Yeah. And what did he do? He said he agreed. And then what? He spent years campaigning for laws and judges that would ban it. How many times are we going to do this, Sarah? Okay, we're done with the political news. We did it. It's just Wendy Williams and Willy Wonka from here. The FAA said Wednesday that it has given Boeing 90 days to provide the agency with a comprehensive action plan to address its systemic quality control issues. We will not let you down,

said the CEO of Boeing, taking a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his flop sweat as about a dozen bolts fell out of his pocket and skidded across the floor. An Australian photographer has accused Taylor Swift's father of punching him at the waterfront in Sydney after Scott Swift stepped off a yacht with his daughter. The photographer claimed the punch wasn't provoked. Swift's team painted a different picture, saying the paparazzi was being aggressive and grabbing at security personnel. did a different picture saying the paparazzi was being aggressive and grabbing at security personnel. Travis Kelsey could have stopped all of this, but he wasn't on the trip because he kept getting stuck in his basement trying to find a shortcut to Australia. Speaking of cameras being jammed in the wrong place, the over four hour, deeply unsettling documentary, Where is Wendy Williams, aired on Lifetime over two nights last

weekend, just days after a press release from Williams' team revealed that she had been diagnosed with dementia. Mark Ford, the documentary's producer, told The Hollywood Reporter, if we had known that Wendy had dementia going into it, no one would have rolled a camera. But then what happened, bud? What happened between finding out it would have been unethical to film the documentary and airing the documentary? In justifying the team's decision to keep rolling the camera, Ford said, she loves the camera and she became very close with our producers. There was a real emotional connection that the project gave her. And honestly, it got to a point where we were more worried about what would happen to Wendy if we stopped filming than if we continued. For example, she'd be really, really sad if we didn't make any money off of it.

Executive producer Erica Hansen also framed the project as a means of ensuring Williams' well-being, saying, I'd also like to point out that a lot of people on our little team have been touched in their own worlds by dementia and addiction, so everyone had this great sense of moral responsibility. And there were times when we really felt like if we stopped, what would happen? Would she just continue? And would she fall down the stairs? What are you talking about? That's like saying, well, what would happen if I stopped recording my children doing dances for TikTok? Could they drown in the pool? Families in Scotland traveled hours

and paid the equivalent of $44 per ticket to attend what turned out to be a wildly disappointing Willy Wonka-themed event in Glasgow over the weekend. Listings for Willy's chocolate experience, including AI renderings of a fantastical candy wonderland and promised chocolate fountains, performances by Oompa Loompas, and immersive interactive experiences

in a place where chocolate dreams become reality. Willie's Chocolate Experience sounds like what I used to call it when white girls would first sleep with me, said Love It or Leave It writer Will Miles. When families arrived, they found themselves in a sparsely decorated warehouse with dirty windows and bare concrete floors where children were offered two jelly beans and half a cup of lemonade each. That rules. Everything was a letdown. The organizers said a real-life Augustus Gloop would

be there, but instead it was just a kid who drowned in a river. Paul Connell, an actor who was hired to play Willy Wonka, said he was given an AI-generated nonsense script that was terrifying to children, telling reporters, the bit that got me was where I had to say, this is from his AI script, there is a man we don't know his name. We know him as the unknown. This unknown is an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls. I just want to take a moment to thank the WGA for sticking it out on the whole AI thing. Connell said his monologue was supposed to end with him using a vacuum cleaner to suck the unknown out of the factory walls, but that he wasn't provided with a vacuum and had to frantically improvise, as opposed to elegantly sucking the unknown out of the factory walls for his training at the

Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. The actor said he played Wonka for nearly four hours with no break as organizers urged him to hurry kids through the warehouse faster. Said Connell, I didn't know where I ended and Wonka began. I was losing my mind by that point. I even killed three kids. The fast food chain Wendy's faced blowback after announcing a plan to use dynamic pricing at their stores, which many compared to surge pricing by companies like Uber. Patrons will also be able to save big if they select Wendy Pool,

where they share their combo with another patron and eat the burger from either end like Lady and the Tramp. Said Wendy's CEO, Kirk Tanner, beginning as early as 2025, we will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing, along with AI-enabled menu changes

and suggestive selling. Kirk, Kirk, shut up. No one wants this from Wendy's. We just want a Frosty and a drive-thru to sob in. After that story began to circulate, Wendy's insisted that we'd all misunderstood and that it didn't intend to spike prices during its busiest times.

Said the company, Wendy's will not implement surge pricing. Oh, good, because I was gonna kill myself. Also, Kellogg CEO Gary Pilnick suggested in a CNBC interview that families struggling with their grocery bills should simply eat cereal for dinner. The cereal category has always been quite affordable and it tends to be a great destination

when consumers are under pressure. They're great if you're at the losing end of a broken economy. But don't worry. These won't be breakfast cereals. We're working on a line of savory dinner cereals made with animal protein, rice bran, yams, and so on. And no, I'm not describing dog food. And finally, Chrysler recalled 338,000 Jeep Grand Cherokees this week, citing an issue with the SUV's steering wheels. It shouldn't be too hard to get the issue fixed, said a spokesperson, as long as your Jeep is currently pointed in the exact direction of the dealership.

And when we come back, a happy 12th birthday to Jeffrey Atkins Sr., I guess. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. In honor of this most sacred holiday, Leap Day, we wanted to wish a very happy birthday to all the Leap Day babies out there. Today, we hope you're at least one-fourth as happy as a normal person with a normal human birthday, not a birthday that blinks in and out

of existence like a quantum particle. First up, happy Leap Day birthday, Dinah Shore. Singer, actress, golf enthusiast, Dinah Shore was born on Leap Day in 1916. She's dead, of course. But when she was alive, she might not have known that it actually takes 365.241 days for the Earth to traverse the sun. If we didn't add a day every fourth year, slowly, over centuries, our calendar would warp irrevocably. Spring would become fall. August would become December. Of course, if that were to happen, we would be forced to confront the truth that all of our calendars are a fiction we created to control the uncontrollable natural world which turns around us and threw us unyielding feckless intemperate and vast beyond our ken we are but tiny ants crawling on the tree of life a fact which should soothe us but instead only fills us with a horror in front of which hp lovecraft himself would cower and beg

for mercy so here's to you dinah shore There's a lesbian party weekend named after you, even though you were a straight cougar who dated Burt Reynolds. And that's a much better legacy than being born on a day that stands as a testament to man's fruitless quest for dominion. Happy Leap Day. Up next, we're taking advantage of this extra 24 hours to solve some of the world's least problems. And we're back. Please welcome to the stage, almost too many wonderful guests to count, the hilarious Kara Connors, the hysterical Andrea Jin, and the uproarious Giovanni. Hi. Hey. What up, what up? Come on out What's up? Hi. Thanks for being here. How are you doing?

So good. The Leap Day birthday people, they're cursed with a bit that doesn't work. They have to do the bit, which is like, you know, they're like, I'm seven today. Ha, never works, but you got to do it. That sucks. That's a curse. About the Leap Day weddings. Oh, Leap Day weddings. I never thought. Do people do that? Yeah, then they don't have to celebrate an anniversary. Wow. It's actually very smart.

Wow, Leap Day wedding. A Thursday wedding? Not crazy. Save a little money. You cheat yourself out of cake. Well, you're an adult you can have cake whenever you want no that's right no that is an anniversary only thing you go out for a special dinner that is when you can have cake that's what i understand about adulthood okay so i can't wait to get married because annually i will have a piece of cake so leap day not for me wow what a

um what a shitty little life you have. There are other good things. There are other good high points. There's not a lot of cake, but there's a lot of friendship and love. Real rule follower. Damn. Andrea, do you eat cake when you want? Yeah. I eat anything all the time. So it's wild. You guys are living on the edge. Today is Leap Day. In honor of this temporal little band-aid we've all agreed to, we thought it was a perfect occasion to finally fix some small problems with society that actually don't really need to be fixed, you know?

You could just leave them there. They're bigger fish to fry. These are little fish, you know? That's what this segment's all about. Itty bitty little fish little fish it's called small steps giant leaps oh no what the fuck is that what is that flex tape is that a boeing in the thing what is this graphics are getting very baroque

so we're going to discuss a problem that's not really a problem and one we don't even really need to fix. It's always good for a podcast when the funniest thing that happens is on the screen. Number one, getting up to go to the bathroom at the movies. Why must we duck and run like a goblin? Does anyone lose sight of Sidney Sweeney falling in love or arguing with Dakota Johnson for even one fraction of a second? My proposed solution is we should bring back the intermission. At the movie theater?

Yeah. No. Let's discuss it. No. Let's discuss it. No, I like that. You're into the intermission. I like that.

Yeah, because Avatar was too long. And I brought wings to the movies i brought 40 wings 40 and then were you alone i was with friends and i i they couldn't have any of it's for me right and so i brought 40 wings and then i ate all of it and my hands are sticky but i don't want to miss like the way of water, you know? Because then if you, because if you leave at the wrong time, you might never find out that the way of water is holding your breath. Exactly. But I did because it was uncomfortable.

I had 40 wings. And so I went to the bathroom and then I cleaned up. I came back and then I felt sick. And then I went back and then I pooped and then I cleaned up. I came back. And then I felt sick. And then I went back. And then I pooped. And then I came back. But all of that, I missed so much of the movie. I didn't like the movie. Right.

Yeah. No. And I do think if you leave for the wrong 40 to 50 minutes. Yeah, I was going to say. I don't think the intermission would be that long anyway. Every once in a while, I go to the movies. And for me like now at this point like i do come to this place for magic and i really do like it's like i'm gonna recline and i'll tell you something my shoes are coming off i'm saying it deal with it deal with it deal with it i'm wearing socks

no it's fine what so the your pants are touching the seat. That's also just sock. Yeah. In a sense for your legs. Pants are socks for your legs? I agree. What is the difference between wearing a pair of sweatpants that touch the seat and wearing socks that also touch the seat?

Your socks go inside your shoe and it gets all clammy and gross and hot. Your sweatpants are like in the breeze getting fresh air. That's a good argument. And your feet smell. Not mine. Not mine because I'm constantly taking my shoes off. They don't smell bad to you. If you take off your shoes enough, they're just more leg. According to your

own theory. If we walked on our butts, they wouldn't be as clean as they are the outside of our butt well the bottom of my shoes is touching the outside but you're taking your shoes off all the time but not to move around when i'm got when i've got when i've reached a dead when i've reached a destination like a movie theater or anywhere but you've been walking in the shoes the point is I want the fucking intermission. Me too.

The point is, there does not need to be an intermission. I can't even make it through a regular movie. I'm probably going to leave after about 40 minutes anyway. I don't have the attention span for a full movie. But that's the beauty of the break. Let it reset. You can check your phone. Do your twitchy phone check-in that we all do now.

Just do your twitching. You just leave. I would go home. Right. Put my shoes back on. See, the thing is like Offenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, these movies are long.

Too long. They're going to put you to sleep. It's too long. And also, by the way, won't the theaters make more money if people go and they got to go buy more food and buy more popcorn? Yeah. I feel like it's win-win.

But then they can play less movies. These movies are already three and a half hours long. People go and they got to go buy more food and buy more popcorn. And yeah, that's I feel like it's win win. But then they can play less movies. These movies are already three and a half hours long. It already it already means there has to be one real normal time show and one freak show. Right. For the like, come on, come on. Who's going to see you're going to see killer. You're going to see a three hour movie at 11 or 12 at night.

You should be followed home by police. There are bodies under your porch. That's where you should go if you want to take your shoes off to the midnight showing. So it's a yes on the intermission. No. Next up, car horns are too aggressive. So aggressive. There ought to be a, excuse me, horn.

Like just a little excuse me you know as opposed to the it's just the one horn which is really meant to be for like we're in danger but it's really kind of like you're an asshole or I'm an asshole

or both you know but there's one that's just like a gentle horn but you can like tap it lighter yeah oh like more like an analog thing

yeah you're like right yeah wait tap the gentle one lighter or tap the normal one lighter? No, the normal one lighter. Just like. Well, now we're just doing UI. Or you just lower your window and talk to the person.

No, I'm not going to do that. Okay. Did you see Netflix's Beef? Yes. No. Road Rage. Oh, yeah. You ever get. You ever get. Andrew, do you get road rage? Yeah. No. Road rage. Oh, yeah. You ever get, Andrew, do you get road rage?

Not anymore. Oh. Because I became the problem. It's like, it's more fun to be the issue. Right. Because before that, it's like you're just mad at everyone and then you start being crazy and then everyone's mad at you but then you're not mad anymore so it's better that's beautiful well if you lean in it cures the road rage yeah like you know because then

you're making mistakes now so people are mad at you instead of you're mad at other people's mistakes right right you're the chaos agent yeah exactly you're you instead of you're mad at other people's mistakes. Right, right. You're the chaos agent. Yeah, exactly. You're stopping on a cold yellow. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I didn't know. Oh, yeah. But you do know. I do know, but then, yeah, I just don't want to be... Wow. That's a really... That is stolen

valor, I have to say. Doing, I don't know, when you do know, sucks because then you don't trust because you see a lot of... No one ever I don't know to get behind you. They always, I don't know to get in know sucks because then you don't trust because then because you see a lot of no one ever i don't know to to get behind you they always i don't know to get in front of you you know yeah but they don't know that i know you know but then i'm like i'm like i don't know i'm from canada hey have you seen the call waiting screen on the iPhone? No. It sucks. That sucks. That sucks. Yeah.

In the moment, it's hard to know what to do. Look at that. What? What would you rather it be? I don't know. I'm not in charge of it. I'm just complaining. Do we still put people on hold?

You can. I know we're capable, but if somebody was like, can you hold for a moment? I have a call on the other line. I would be like, no, you call me back. I don't just stand here and wait in silence. No. Right.

That's an important point, too. Yeah. Yeah, you just hang up immediately. You know, when someone's like, can I put you on hold? It's like, no. And then you just hang up. Hold is for when you call a business with an issue. That's the, can I put you on hold? It's like, no. And then you just hang up. Hold is for when you like call a business with an issue. That's the only time I'm on hold.

Yeah. I think what's confusing about this is end and accept feels like it's saying a paradox. It's like, can you both end and accept a call? Because it means end your current call and accept the new call. But you just don't, in the moment, you know, you're on the phone. There's another phone call coming in. Hey, do you ever get a phone call from an unknown number, but it looks vaguely like, wait, that's a dentist. That's a doctor.

And then you're trying to Google the number before the call ends. Oh, that stinks. Send a voicemail. Always send a voicemail. And then they have to tell you who they are. Yeah, I don't answer. No, I would never answer. I. Oh, that stinks. Send a voicemail. Always send a voicemail and then they have to tell you who they are. Yeah, I don't answer. No, I don't answer.

I don't answer loved ones. I don't answer if I know who it is. Yeah, exactly. Why are you calling me? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Now it's time for specifically gay problems in a part of this segment we're calling Leap Day Lead Gay. Yay. God, these graphics. I love your charts.

Are we all queer? Yeah. Yay. It's gay stage. We did it. We did it. Take that, Trump. Yeah.

We're calling it a queer worm. Nah, it's nothing. All right. Here's my, here's, okay. Here's my problem. That isn't a problem we need to solve. Maybe not even a problem at all, but bisexual is too limited. Pansexual has bad branding. Oh, we need a different word because bisexual, it's like, well, why are we using, you don't want one of the words to kind of, we don't want parts of the flag attacking each other and bisexual is kind of like taking shots at like the other parts of the flag you know but then pansexual it's like okay okay great you went to vassar right you know what i mean it's like and also it's like pansexual, really? Everyone? Yeah. So you want a new word for people that are bisexual or which one?

I just think bisexual is limiting. I don't know who would call themselves pansexual for whom bisexual, like if you're bisexual, I get not wanting to use pansexual, but the word would apply, right? It's like, well, no, I'm not attracted to everybody. Neither am I. You know what i mean we all we're not for none of us are attracted to everybody right i mean speak for yourself everybody you're attracted to everyone on earth everybody are you attracted to everyone press to find someone i'm not attracted wow fascinating i think you get rid of both words i think it's enough is enough. What do these queer people want?

It's too much at this point. Now I have to learn a new word. What's next? There's so many letters in our acronym. Back in the closet you go. I did that as a bit once. We cut it from the show because I sounded like your impression.

Alright, I'm pitching one. Ready? Omnisexual. Sounds like a grocery store. because I sounded like your impression. All right. I'm pitching one. Ready? Omnisexual. Oh, I like that. Sounds like a grocery store. It sounds like TV program.

Hotel. It sounds like a hotel to me. Yeah. I'm an omnisexual. I only have sex in omni hotels, which I remember because I believe that's where you got put up if you were on Oprah. Remember? They're like accommodations provided by the Omni Hotel.

Anybody remember that? It's not where Oprah stays. I'll say that. No, it's not. It's not where Oprah stays. They don't have one in where she goes. Where does she live? I don't know.

Where does she go? I was going to say Oahu, but I don't actually know where in Hawaii. But then she did. That doesn't make sense because it's about her. She has it. She owns it. It's a mansion. Yeah.

Okay. New problem. Too many damn pride flags. It's a lot of flags. That's too many. That's too many. My favorite is straight ally.

That is beautiful. I wish I could see a couple more of those every once in a while. If you're enough. Yeah. You know what? Such an important point. Political. Yeah.

That's right. If you are a straight enough ally, if you are a straight, if you are allied enough to have that flag, you're not straight. No. You can't. You're just not. I don't care. I don't.

I barely believe anyone's straight. But if you have that flag, you're not an ally. But why is the heterosexual flag in grayscale? And why is it on the pride flag collection to begin with? Because honestly, no, but that's exciting. No, that's exciting to me because, because it's getting, we're going to get to the point where that is, is almost like a defiant act of queerness.

To be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Just, just straight down the middle for me. That's it. I like the original thing. The original? I like the only one we used to allow. Yeah, that's right. Why is polyamory

about... Why is there a math? Yeah, why is the pi symbol on the polyamory flag? I't didn't know that the colors seem quite harsh as well yes aggressive colors for polyamory yeah yeah oh what pie why would it be a pie a poly person just said they like because it's like three three more. Three plus. 3.14 or more. Because the polyamory flag looks like that because a straight guy that has a bisexual girlfriend designed that flag. And he's like, it's time that I'm included in the pride flag.

Anyway. The pansexual flag seems gayer than the gay flag. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Also, it's like, it's not like there was a vote. Like, where was the meeting where this was decided?

You know what I mean? Like, it's not like we, like, called for a, what do you call it? Attendance? Yeah. It wasn't like we all got the memo. We got to,

went online and voted. Who decided? We should unionize. Yeah. Yeah. That's Leap Day Leap Gays. Small. decided we should unionize yeah yeah that's leap day leap gaze small you'll all be back for the what are we doing leap of faith wheel it's gonna be great when we come back councilman nithya raman is here car giovanni andrea thank you so much thank you thank you

don't go anywhere this is love it or It, and there's more on the way. And now another Leap Day birthday celebration. Happy Leap Day birthday, Mark Foster, lead singer of Foster the People. Did you know that some historical calendars, like those used in the Hebrew, Chinese, and Buddhist traditions are lunisolar and use entire leap months called intercalary months to account for the 11 days between the lunar and solar calendars? Forever, humans must chase and yet reject harmony with the natural world. What does it mean for different cultures

to chase that unity in different ways? Does it scare us knowing that culture can shape every part of us, including how we understand the passage of time itself? Can we reckon with that fact or must we insist on distancing ourselves from the truth that we cannot conceive of our minds without language and that we cannot conceive of language without culture, that we are both the ape and the zookeeper? Thankfully, one thing stands between us and true revelation,

that which we both fear and desire. Why, it's Leap Day. So happy birthday, Mark Foster, lead singer of Foster the People. Pumped up kicks. Your wife is the actress Julia Garner, who I think was just great in Ozark. And despite what the internet might say,

I thought she would have been great in a Madonna biopic. Happy Leap Day birthday, Mark. Pumped up kicks. and we're back please welcome to the stage friend of the show in los angeles city councilwoman it's nithya raman hi thank you for being here i'm glad you can make it the last time we're in the show about halfway through, I started coughing. I couldn't stop and had to leave the stage. And I didn't have COVID, but it was really uncomfortable. I think for you. No, it was fine for me. Oh, well, you have to say that now. Okay. So first of all, I have to tell you something.

I came home and a sign for your opponent was in front of my house. What? And I pulled it out and replaced it with a lawn sign for you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Immediately. But I don't know how long it was there. I'm just saying. I just want you to know that I didn't know.

Okay. So this is going to be a pretty hard hitting interview. Okay. So. All right. Okay, so. All right. So I really wanted to talk to you because I think, you know, we spend a lot of time on this show and just in our lives thinking about all the ways in which Republicans are standing in our way. But in California, Republicans aren't standing in our way.

Right. For the most part. In terms of who's elected. Right. Yeah. Like we this is a democratic city in a democratic county, in a democratic state. And yet getting progressive change done is really difficult.

Very hard. And so I first wanted to say, so you are in this race and I think people in California maybe understand this, maybe they don't, but outside they don't. We don't have,

we have what's called a jungle primary, which we need a new name for, by the way. Yeah. Very awkward word. Wild. Wild. But basically, can you just talk a little bit about why this jungle primary has become such a challenge for electing progressives in the city? Well, so across California, and it works slightly differently at the local level

than it does at the statewide level. But we have a primary system where you don't always have a Republican primary and a Democratic primary, you just have a primary and then the top two vote getters go on to the general election, whether or not they're from the same party. And so that's what happens across the state. At the local level, if you get more than 50% in the primary, you actually win outright. And I think both of those ways of organizing elections can work against progressives. Because if you have a primary election that decides the outcome of an election, basically, progressives often don't vote in primaries. Voter turnout is half of what it is in a normal election. And younger voters, renters, voters of color, they often don't vote in a

primary at all. And so progressives often don't make it out of the primary. And then if you're in a general election, a progressive is not the best funded candidate. And so if you have top two people going on to a general election and it's a moderate Democrat versus a progressive Democrat, it's often very hard for a progressive Democrat to get elected against the flood of money that's coming in for the other candidate. So let's talk about that flood of money that you're facing. So this is the end. You're in your first term. Yes.

And you were elected in part because you wanted to take on the housing crisis in the city. Yes. The crisis of unhoused people in your district and beyond your district. But there's been a lot of backlash from certain interest groups. And can you just talk about how that, first of all, can you just, what, what is their, what is their problem with you and what have they done as a result? So, you know, I always wondered in a city, which was majority renter, why the city of Los Angeles didn't make more renter-friendly policies. And now I know why.

So over the last three years, so it's a four-year term, I just finished three years and two months. And then I'll be, this is my last year of my first term, and hopefully I'll get reelected. But in my first three years, we passed the largest expansion of tenant protections in LA in 40 years, including universal just cause eviction protections, which means you can't just get evicted because your landlord wants to make money. You have to get evicted for a certain set of reasons, right? And those eviction protections added protections to another 400,000 households. And they're really, these are really powerful protections for tenants

in the city of LA. And we've done a lot to make sure tenants are secure at a time when rents are rising really rapidly. And there's an incredible amount of housing insecurity here. I also have faced an incredible amount of pushback as a result of exactly that work in this election. of exactly that work in this election. So we are facing, I'm having over a million dollars spent against me in a local election for a city council race, a million dollars plus. And most of that spending is coming from corporate landlords, including one corporate landlord who's put almost half a million dollars into the race against me, as he is carrying out the largest eviction in LA in decades, he's evicting 600 households on the West side right now. And he owns a huge slew of properties across LA. And when he was asked by the LA Times why he was investing

so much in negative campaigning against a sitting council member. He said, we don't really comment on politics, but this is for shareholder value. One other thing that also happened is you faced pushback from within the council itself, your district. I'm still in your district, but luck always luck would have it. So what, what happened? Just, just, just just I think it is a good example, even if you're not from California, of just like the actual practical reality of what happens when someone who moves into actual elected office. What happened to your district? We have a redistricting process that is council controlled. We draw the lines. There's a commission that offers us some suggestions, but ultimately the council has control over what the lines are. And every 10 years, there's a redistricting and it's always a political fight. And this time I was the newcomer on the council. I came in without the support of the political machine. And I don't know whether you remember those tapes that leaked. Yeah, those horrifying tapes. So besides the incredible, awful racism, homophobia, just arrogance that was displayed on those tapes, what they were actually discussing was redistricting and how to draw the lines to benefit their own reelections and the reelections

of their allies on the council. And what was discussed on the tapes was how they were going to redraw my lines so that I would have a very hard time getting reelected. And the council president, who said some of the worst things I've ever heard, also said, let's keep her on the fence. Let's keep the renters out of her district. Let's make sure she doesn't get reelected. And that now what ended up coming to pass was not the there was there was what you didn't end up in the version of the district, the word, the version of the most difficult district for you to get reelected. Well, there was a version of the district where I would have the district I'm in originally went from Mid-City to Silver

Lake into Sherman Oaks. It was already a weirdly shaped district. There was a version of the district that would have had me in Winnetka. So just very far away, just basically giving you a narrow of more conservative and less, and just less the constituency that had elected you the first time. Deep Valley district, basically. I still go into the Valley. So I managed to keep more of my district, but I lost the most of any council member. I lost 40% of my district and my district now goes from Northern Silver Lake to Reseda. And so, and, and one of the things that I just find that I think is like worth talking about in this situation is so you, despite these sort of

obstacles, you do manage to get some progressive policies across the finish line. You have, can you just talk a little bit about how many people you have helped get into housing? Yeah. So we have a whole effort in our district where we, rather than what Los Angeles had been doing for a long time, which was when you have an encampment, a tent encampment that's on the streets, what they used to do was just to do these cleanups that would push those individuals out of that area and they would move to another sidewalk where they would do another cleanup and they would move to another sidewalk. And that was really the process. Sometimes they would be put in jail, but mostly it was just

shoving people around who were experiencing homelessness from sidewalk to sidewalk. And just so people understand, LA is strange and there's, you know, different peculiarities all over, but city council districts are kind of little fiefdoms that almost like you're like the mayor of this area. And so city council people would basically just try to get people out of their district into the neighboring district, right? Yes, exactly. And you were incentivized to do so because somebody would be calling from your, from your, you know, your constituents would be calling, complaining about an encampment. The easiest way to respond to it, because it's incredibly hard to find housing for somebody, it's incredibly hard to put together their services and make sure that people are getting indoors. Why do that when you can just make them disappear, just shove them down the

street, forgetting about the fact that these are individuals who are still going to be homeless when they're down the street. And so what we did in our district was very different. We put together a homelessness team. We found many more shelter options for the district. The reason why we have so many people who are living on the streets in Los Angeles is because we don't have enough shelter. We have less than a third of the shelter beds that we need for our total unhoused population. And so what we did in our district was to add shelter, which is hard. You know, we found shelter beds, we raise money for motel and hotel vouchers and all of that. And we actually managed to get people indoors. And we've housed hundreds of people. We've housed

about 600 people across the district just through our offices work. What have you, what have you just sort of, especially for people that are listening that are not connected to Los Angeles politics at all somewhere else, like what have you just learned in going from being on the outside to being on the inside about when it is time to kind of draw a line and fight and when you have to get pragmatic and make deals with the people that aren't all the way with you? Los Angeles city politics is interesting because there's only 15 people on the council, right? And it's a council which has very few people who I would say identify themselves as progressives. And you need a minimum of eight votes for things to pass. Sometimes you need up

to 10 votes depending on the nature of the thing that you're voting on and so there is no way to make change happen on the council without building alliances and so there is a lot of pragmatism and coalition building that is inherent in the work in la city council that i think is can be frustrating for people who want, I think, a more, a more clear pathway on every decision. Each decision has challenges, you don't want to alienate partners that you can work with to actually make material change for locals. And that has been hard. That has been really, really hard. I wasn't really involved in politics before either, right? So I was just, I was an urban planner by training. I did a lot of work in the nonprofit sector. I ran this volunteer group in my neighborhood.

And I think what I've tried to do is to move through this work with a feeling that most people want the same things for Los Angeles that I do and that people in my community did and really tried to build that coalition and tried to make sure that people who never were engaged in local politics were actually engaged in fighting for those things too. So I've really tried to move through this in that way. And I think that absolutely requires building coalitions.

Can you tell the mayor to finish the airport? Yes, I have to answer. Nithya Raman, everybody. Good luck. And we're back. As you probably know by now, Tommy, John, and I wrote a book called Democracy or Else, How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps. We are only four months away from you having a copy of the book in your hand, but maybe the lure of a reasonable page count loaded with illustrations isn't your thing. We've got you covered there too. That's right. We hunkered down for what was,

let's be honest, a tedious eight hours. We'll never get back to bring you Democracy or Else as an audio book. It's perfect for the avid listener who loves the pod but just wishes it could be 10 hours longer. Please go to crooked.com slash books and pre-order now. We've got to hit those fucking pre-orders. I've worked hard on this book. It's so much doing a book. It's never over. It's always like, ah. And all the deadlines in writing a book are built around the fact that writers do not want to write. So it's always like, you have until March 5th or you're, and then it's like, March 5th will come.

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All right, please welcome back to the stage, Andrea, Cara, and Giovanni for a game we're calling A Leap of Faith. And finally, one more Leap Day birthday for the road. Happy Leap Day birthday, Ja Rule. I hope that you are, in the words of your 2001 hit, living it up. Was October 2001 maybe a little too soon after 9-11 to release a track called Livin' It Up? Or was it exactly what America needed? Probably the first thing.

But today is your birthday, Ja Rule, so go ahead, live it up. Because if you're not careful, if you let yourself think about it for even a moment, you'll realize that the whole notion of leap days and the construction of the calendar itself is a flimsy veil we've hung between ourselves in a wild and different universe. The stars do not care about your birthday, Ja Rule. We fancy ourselves gods who bend time to our will, when in reality we are but quavering and desperate beasts here but for a flash of time in an expanding and everlasting void surrounded in all directions by a yawning, deafening fire. Our existence is irrelevant. Does the sun care that you, Ja Rule, wrote down ass bitch? The sun knows nothing of bitches.

Nothing of us. Do you celebrate your birthday, Ja, on February 28th or March 1st? Does it matter? Why are we here at all? How could something come from nothing? What does it mean to say that time began? What if we are doomed to ask such questions?

What if we were cursed by evolution itself and the power that comes from seeing smashing atoms as more than careening physics, but a story we could tell each other in greater and greater precision? What if like hermit crabs, we scuttle across the sand, exposed and terrified, finding refuge in the meaning and order we make of detritus washing up on the shore? Ja Rule's birthday is today, but also yesterday and tomorrow. Atoms are particles in waves. Matter is light and dark. The you that is you is not just the you we can see and touch,

but you are nothing more than that. Ja Rule is a particle, separate and alone and bound by time and space, but also a wave existing everywhere and for all time. So happy birthday to you, Ja Rule, and happy Leap Day, everybody. Hi, welcome back. Oh, we reordered. Oh, that's exciting. Did you plan that or just it happened?

It happened. Hi. Hello. Oh, it's different energy. Okay. Now for a segment we're calling Leap of Faith. And how it works is, this week on The Wheel, we are going to, in the spirit of Leap Day,

describe something we believe even though we cannot prove it. We'll each have one minute. Let's spin the wheel. It has landed on Kara something I believe in that I can't really prove yeah I mean I take leaps of faith all the time I feel like I take a leap of faith when I go to my group on dentist

no reviews on Yelp I don't know so I feel like I'm pretty brave. I think my leap of faith though, is I believe I'm going to be okay. Not having air conditioning in my car again for another Los Angeles summer. Because I think that, I think that's how God wanted it for me. And yeah, I roll around. Does that help with my road rage absolutely not no it doesn't i have to have all four windows down at all times it's not safe vulnerable it's not okay it's very vulnerable i know you're out there no people are not admit yeah people aren't like admitting that people aren't acting like that people most most people in los angeles have privacy when they want

to make a phone call a sensitive phone call i do not do not. Uh, I, I open, I crowdsource. I'm like, does anybody have anything they want to weigh in on? Uh, please God help me something. So I think that's my leave of faith. I think it's going to be fine. I actually upgraded from last summer because a friend actually heard about this and gifted me a dog fan. Um, it's called a pup fan and you plug it into the lighter and then uh it's meant to like cool dogs down in the car right it works for people too yeah no 100 percent uh you look really good what's just like how does the fan what's what why is it for dogs yeah so what about it is dog you know what i mean yeah you clip You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, it's the design, I would say, predominantly. So it's two small fans.

You clip it to the back of the headrest. So it's like if your dog's in the back seat, they just came home from the groomer. But for me, I like to put it right here. And I kind of point the fans up. Right. And I get a little. And then I'm like, well, okay, I'm in the air conditioning now. That's cool.

That's cool. Relatable for you guys. Yeah. Sounds bad. That's cool. That's cool. Related business. No, I'm really... Relatable for you guys. Yeah. Sounds bad. Everybody's like holding space. Donate to my GoFundMe.

I'm a Nepo. I'm not a Nepo baby. I don't have like a... Sort of now we think you might be. You think so? Yeah, my 2010 Honda Fit 200,000 miles.

Let's spin it again. Honda unfit. That's right, baby. Landed on Giovanni. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay, so I think that if you are from any solar system, that you can come to Earth and live in the deepest parts of our oceans and be uncontested even if we see you and you look absolutely nuts we will accept immediately that you've always been

there and we just never knew and we're like you got a light bulb on your head and fangs. Oh, good to meet you. Um, uh, I think that we're a sanctuary for whoever wants to come. I said like an atmosphere is an atmosphere. Like you don't care if you're like on land, that doesn't mean anything to you. Like you don't have air or water where you're from. It's just like,

who cares? The substance, I can live down there. Kara also doesn't have air where she's from. I feel very accepted. That's such an important point. You know what's interesting? Oh wow, we found another new fish.

Or did you? Yeah. Or did you? Jay just came here from Glouclyd. Let's spin it again. Andrea? Okay, the first one, I believe that my health supplements, like sea moss gel. Do you guys know sea moss gel? It sounds like a health supplement. Yeah that does fuck all i know but you know what i believe that it's doing something

and i'm spending 40 on it and i believe that it's doing something what is it doing it's supposed to be a multivitamin, but it's in gel form. But is the... And it expires really quickly. And one month I ate it expired, but it's so expensive. And it was the first month of me eating it. So then I didn't know that it's supposed to smell not like rotten, you know? And so it was already expired. And so I was eating it every day and it was when you

see you keep saying eating it we're sort of we were picturing like what are we are we what are we talking about what is our form it's a jar of gel and you scoop it oh yeah oh so it's not like so it's not like in a capsule it's like a loose gel it's a loose gel and it's supposed to be good for you and it shouldn't smell rotten but uh i didn't know that because it was my first time and then it was already expired it smelled rotten i was like this is just what it tastes like i had right i had diarrhea like that was seven on the bristol stew a chart what is that is that like a fog like yeah it's like evaporating as it's coming out yeah no but it's like it's severe that's severe

and you went to shows in cleveland yeah i came back i came right back because i was like it was expired you know so that was my bad and so i come back again i come back and i and i'm eating it and it hurts it burns my throat when it's stop hey hey here's a pitch stop just stop right now it's what you're eating

you're eating a terrible you're eating poison from the sea you're eating ocean goop okay but that's causing your bowels to explode and it burns my throat right

when it's going down and what are the things you think it's doing for you I think it has what do you think it helps I think it has vitamins and minerals. Right.

What do you mean? You're not seeing any direct results. I don't know if it's doing anything. It makes you really sick and it costs $40 a day. No, like a month. Right. You could just eat those wings you were eating.

I do that. I do the CMOS thing so I could have wings when I want to. I mean, if you want, you can give Kara 20 bucks. She'll punch you right in the stomach. So you should get her a C-Fix. And I'll find a way to give you diarrhea. 20 bucks?

This is America. We can get you diarrhea. Don't worry about that. You can get that for free. That's a round. Believe me, this is Los Angeles. Believe us, you can get diarrhea if you want it. Don't worry about that you can get that for free that's around that's around you can get that believe me it's los angeles believe us you can get diarrhea if you want it don't worry about that is not hard thank you thank you everyone for your support so it just seems like you just described that you took poison and it hurt you but that's okay yeah and. And, and, uh, yeah.

And wait, it's supposed to, and you like it. What's the second part that you believe in it in some way? You know what? It's okay. You're okay. You did great.

Did I do a good job? Yeah, no, you did a really good job. I believe in CMOS gel still. I have so many packets at home. It was so expensive. I have to finish it. I don't want to come for you too hard

because we don't know how long you'll be with us. Spit it one more time. We'll close with this. Here is something I believe in that I cannot prove and it is this i know i know but i really do think justin trudeau is fidel castro's son i really i just genuinely and like here's the thing and i've said this before and i'll say it again if you don't believe you every single person should believe in one batshit conspiracy theory just to prove that your mind is supple.

Just to prove that it's still elastic, that the neurons are still firing, that you still have that, that there's still the creativity and possibility of innovation, that you're still young and vital and alive. And I believe that nine months, roughly, before Justin Trudeau was born,

there was a secret trip in which Justin Trudeau's parents, I believe named Pierre and Maggie, had a second honeymoon. It was on an undisclosed island. And I think a Castro stopped by. And I think keys went into a bowl yaves if you will and i believe that and i know it's silly and i obviously don't really believe it in case he wants to come back on a podcast on this network, which has literally happened. But it is certainly not,

as several mainstream, lamestream news outlets have said, debunked. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's not, but it's not debunked. I think you're right. Thank you.

I think that's the CMOS talking. And that's Leap of Faith. When we come back, we'll end on a high note. And we're back! Because we need it this week, here is the high note. Hi. My name is Ashley. I'm from Savannah, Georgia.

My high note is about a week late just because I've had a very busy week, two weeks in between. But I bought my first house. And as a millennial, that seemed nearly impossible. It might still be a little rough. it might still be a little rough, probably going to be a lot of mac and cheese nights for my son and I, but I'm so excited to have a little townhouse with a backyard where he can finally play.

Thank you. Thanks everybody. You send in a high note tonight. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can send a voice memo to lowlyhighnotes at gmail.com. Or if you're a Friends of the Pod subscriber, you can leave us your high note on the Discord. And maybe you'll hear it on this very show,

which is now over. That is our show. Thank you so much to Nithya Raman, Andrea Jin, Cara Connors, and Giovanni. There are 261 days until the 2024 elections. So if you haven't signed up for Vote Save America, you better do it now. Joe Biden's not getting any younger and neither are you.

Have a great night and have a great weekend. Woo! Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, and Lee Eisenberg. Kendra James is our executive producer, and Chris Lord is our producer. Hallie Kiefer is our head writer. Sarah Lazarus, Jocelyn Kaufman, Peter Miller,

Alan Pierre, Will Miles, and Mahana Del Shiki are our writers. Evan Sutton is our editor. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis provide audio support. Stephen Colon is our audio engineer, and Milo Kim is our videographer. Thank you. Mia Kelman, and Matt DeGroat for filming and editing video each week so you can.