Lovett or Leave It - And We're Back!

Episode Date: March 5, 2022

We finally, finally, finally return to touring, and set our clam chowder and sour dough dreams on the beautiful city of San Francisco, all set to the dulcet tones of the incredible B. Noel. Author George M. Johnson crosses out America’s book banning trend. Jared Goldstein and Holmes say Ok, Stop to Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Ben Shapiro. Guy Branum finds out, “Are you smarter than a gay coastal elite?” Ezra Klein takes stock of our times, and we finish it all with a brand-new comedy technology: the Hyper Wheel.Support trans kids:crooked.com/tentFor 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. 

And now, please give it up for San Francisco's own B. Noel! B. Noel! Ask any of the lefties out crooked Which of their boss is afraid of bread It's all dairy now that he went keto. So he would look his best for the city of San Francisco. Pundin is with Ronan. So John's at Castro

Yes, we mean the theater, not Senior Trudeau We start with the mono, end with the high notes When you're good to love it. He'll tell you to vote. They say the news is bad and dumb. Fox News is full of shit. But we've got on the right. A Jenny and a Mitt.

Now the queen has COVID. There's war in Ukraine. Katonji Brown Jackson, your school board is insane. We have Gagai Branham, Gerald Goldstein, too. Hello, George M. Johnson. Johnson Hey Holmes, is that you? Oh, is that a straight man? Yep, that's Ezra Klein We all tried for homos

One ally is fine The mask mandates will loosen For homos, one ally is fine. The mask mandates we're losing are those nostrils I see. So twist open those poppers, kid. Now how loose can I be? Say hi to your neighbor. Hey, they're pretty hot. Pretend COVID's over.

Shoot your booster shots. So sit back and relax now for the podcast of the year. You'll be good to love and Here is what you deserve Yeah! Yes! Good evening! One more time for the incredible B. Noel. Oh, this is exciting.

Back at the Castro Theater. What a dream. This is my favorite city to visit where... Wait. Where I only ride the elevator up to have my chance of being stuck in there during an earthquake? That's true. Stairs down. Why not? It's a little tip. I mean, pretty cool to cut the odds in half. I haven't thought about it. That's a big reduction. A few months ago, I interviewed Dr. Bob Wachter,

who all but guaranteed that this show would be possible. Is my man Dr. Wachter in the house? Yeah! There he is. Incredible public health. Come on. Come on. One of the...

Got us through this godforsaken mess. I also want to say something else, which is for the past couple of months we've been doing live shows out of my backyard because I said the show was live or else and I fucking meant it. And obviously, I make it look effortless, but it took an incredible team

to make those shows happen on the spur of the moment in my backyard, so I just wanted to say thank you to Kendra, Brian, Hallie, Ari, Nar, Milo, Steve and Justine, and everybody at Crooked that helped make those shows possible they were not permitted but doing a show without a permit

is queer culture we're back and you know who else is back? Guy Branum is here We're back. And you know who else is back? Guy Brown is here. And he brought the wonderful author of the off-band book for Being Too True, All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson. George is here.

Returning champion Jared Goldstein and first-time champion Holmes will be stopping by to play OK Stop. Ezra Klein is here to lend some credibility to this whole operation. And we're going to end with a wheel, but all I'm saying right now is, what kind of wheel?

What does that mean? But first, let's get into it. What a week. Netflix says it will refuse to carry the 20 free-to-air, state-sponsored Russian propaganda channels all outlets are required to carry while operating in Russia. Tough day for fans of Emily in Volgograd. It's Tommy's favorite show. Dennis Miller decided to quit hosting his show on RT America, the Russian propaganda network, which is how we all found out Dennis Miller was hosting a show on RT America, the Russian propaganda network.

Every month, put your money away. I don't care who you are. Sound advice. One day you're saying Chachi on HBO. Meanwhile, some Russian porn performers have been cut off from OnlyFans, the platform blaming sanctions applied to the Russian banking system, finally targeting the real villains.

It's not good. Meanwhile, on his show, Sean Hannity suggested that NATO fighters bomb the Russian convoy heading into Ukraine. We have a clip. Nobody takes credit for it, so then Putin won't know who to hit. Checkmate, said Sean, sweeping his game of hungry, hungry hippos off the table. These are serious fucking times. The Ukrainian company that designed the main components of Russian electric vehicle chargers have reportedly hacked the charging stations, incapacitating them in Russia,

and streaming messages like, Putin is a dickhead. Here we go. This is going to take some acting. You ready? In Russia, fuel burns you. I can do it better. In Russia, fuel burns you. No, I can't. That's it. That's my max. Don't encourage me. Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham is in a heap of trouble after calling for the assassination

of Vladimir Putin on Twitter. Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? Referencing the Roman senator who killed Julius Caesar and the Nazi officer who unsuccessfully tried to off Adolf Hitler. The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. Hitler. The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.

That woo is why 75% of people think we should do a no-fly zone. You know? Trying to get us all fucking killed. I appreciate the woo. I understand where the woo is coming from. The point is Lindsey Graham should make like every other boomer and save this sort of thing for

a self-published thriller. In fact, to encourage this I'm going to offer him a free dust jacket book blurb right now. He can quote me. Nonstop thrills, spills, and kills. This book is a Graham slam. The point is, it's not a bad point,

but he just shouldn't say it. Because if a senator says another country's leader ought to be killed, that person might try to kill a senator. And that's very dangerous and destabilizing. And while it is very clear that Senator Lindsey Graham does not enjoy the experience of being alive, that his every moment is a kind of torture, that isn't true for most people. Even the broken narcissists we call politicians. Graham crossed the line so hard,

even Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene pushed back, with Greene calling Graham's remarks unhinged and dangerous. You know that you... Yes! Yes! Do you know how far from the mark you are? If Marjorie Taylor Greene is like, this is where I get off. Speaking of the devil, House Minority Leader

Kevin McCarthy condemned Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gozar for speaking at the America First Political Action Conference, which was organized by far-right-wing nationalist Nick Fuentes who praised the Austrian fascist Adolf Hitler at the event. Now that I've condemned her, said Kevin McCarthy, please be sure to leave that condemnation here at this moment, as we continue to flow down the river of time, as that rebuke gets smaller and smaller behind us, until you forget it happened,

and that I've enabled this person over and over again, because I've convinced myself of some rationale to justify my inaction that isn't moral weakness and fear for the consequences of saying what we all know to be true. Please understand, Kevin McCarthy continued, at this point, at this point, I find it easier to imagine the capital burning to the ground than I can conceive of a version of myself that tells the truth and lets the truth guide his behavior, though even that is a lie because it assumes I, Kevin McCarthy, live a life of conceiving and imagining it all, as opposed to what it is, a slog that manages to be both full of events and meetings

and seemingly high-stakes decisions, but also dull, loud, and full enough to quiet any chance for reflection, but ultimately devoid of meeting, added Kevin McCarthy. My life is noisier than any conscience could hope to be, and thank God for that. Thank God for that. Now back to gas prices. On Wednesday, the January 6th committee filed a brief saying Donald Trump and his former attorney, John Eastman, could be criminally charged for conspiring to advance a corrupt scheme to undermine the election. Yeah, remember that applause when you're fucking disappointed.

Merrick Garland believes justice is best sous vide, you know? That's the style. He likes his justice. Very slow. You know what I mean? Maybe you see a bubble, but... At an event at the University of Southern Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis chastised college students chosen to stand behind him during a press conference for wearing masks.

You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it's not doing anything, and we've got to stop with this COVID theater. So you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous. All right, well, it's good to be at USF. Hey, Ron, they found five high school students willing to stand behind you for a picture. All right, beggars can't be choosers. While a guest on Crooked's own Pod Save America yesterday, Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain hinted that the White House might extend the student loan freeze, saying they'll make the decision before loan payments are set to resume in May.

loan freeze, saying they'll make the decision before loan payments are set to resume in May. Come on, Ron, don't threaten us with a good time. The tease on student loans has gone on long enough that it's taken on a vaguely S&M energy. Just the government holding a wax candle. That's what it's like. Is it due yet? Payments could resume soon. Ah. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that salt used to de-ice roads can have catastrophic effects on the ecosystems of freshwater lakes, though it will improve the flavor of any pasta you cook in there.

The price for stilts and divining rods shot up Monday after the United Nations released a new climate change report. You didn't. That's not a real market. There's no data on that. You can't find out what's happening with stilts. Just an oblique reference to the water level rising. But also there being places with less water. Ironic.

It's climate change, not global warming. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called it an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership. And I know what you're thinking. Didn't we just release a climate change report? Yeah, we did. We released them surprisingly

often. And each one is more dire than the one before. And each time we think, this one will be the one. Why am I like this? Why do I hope? The report, while laden with harrowing warnings and predictions, does tell us that we still have time to prevent worst-case scenarios. We still have time to prevent worst-case scenarios, he said have time to prevent worst-case scenarios, he said on February 13th, desperately trying to find a restaurant and telling himself that everyone loves a Whitman sampler from CBS.

Insider recently reported that during this year's cookie season, Girl Scouts have been berated by adult customers about a debunked conspiracy theory linking the Girl Scouts to Planned Parenthood. To set the record straight, hopefully for the last time, Girl Scouts have nothing to do with Planned Parenthood.

You're thinking of the Keebler elves. Those cheery little abortionists. Those cheery little abortionists. In the new video for Kanye's song Easy, a claymation Pete Davidson gets kidnapped and buried alive in the desert. This wasn't Kanye's original plan for winning back Kim Kardashian's heart, but for a whole host of logistical reasons,

he had to abandon his dream of shooting President Ronald Reagan. In the song, Kanye says, no more counseling. I don't negotiate with therapists. Alarming, yes, but pretty good line. Speaking of Pete Davidson, Pete Davidson may join Jeff Bezos on a flight on the Blue Origin rocket into space. Yeah, concur. What kind of fucked up, Fauci and damn Yankees make-a-wish,

monkey's paw shit is this? Are we all NPCs in Pete Davidson's game? Because if that's true, fine. But just tell me so I don't try so hard to do my own story when he's not around. The other day I was patrolling the area of the perimeter I'm responsible to patrol. And I did my usual loop. And then I saw my associate, who does not have a name, and we did what we always do. We talked in general terms about the

current situation. And then I thought, I saw Pete Davidson out of the corner of my eye, but my attention meter only went halfway up, like barely yellow, not red. So it wasn't Pete Davidson, it was probably rats. Must have been rats. Just turn back around. let my meter go down so i'll feel better get back to my usual loop did that make sense to you at all okay that's okay it was a 30 percenter

at max you know max but i'm okay with it It was the idea that I was like a classic NPC. Like I was like the guard that patrols an area. Actually, I was thinking of the game Dishonored. Because one thing that's really funny in the game Dishonored is you play a kind of ghost-like assassin. And you can basically fall on the head of a guard. But if you get away fast enough,

he kind of stands up and he goes, probably rats. Do you think it was better that I explained it? A company in Cyprus has started offering its employees 30-minute paid breaks in which they're encouraged to masturbate inside specially designed pods after the employer noticed staffers returning to work post-COVID seeming kind of agitated. We've got something like that at Crooked Media,

but we just call it Tommy's office. And we share an office. I don't know what that means, sir. On Thursday, California State Supreme Court ordered UC Berkeley to freeze its undergraduate admissions at 2020 levels. Boo is fucking right. Meaning as many as 3,000 students who would have been accepted and able to enroll may not get that chance because of this bullshit lawsuit by some nimby pricks in Berkeley. This is an abuse of the California Environmental Quality Act, a law passed in 1970 and signed

by Governor Ronald Reagan and which has in recent years been stretched to prevent all kinds of development never intended to be captured by the law. This is a law from 1970. This is a law to stop 1970s pollution. Rivers on fire, oil wells in kindergartens, can't see the Grand Canyon because it's filled with asbestos. Nixon being like, fuck, we need an EPA. Like, 70s pollution. Not supposed to be about college kids. Not supposed to be a catch-all to stop any kind of development in a community just because a committed band of angry homeowners doesn't like it. This is a law about protecting California's majesty and beauty.

Now it's a boot crushing down on California's dick. The instigators of this travesty of justice is a group called Save Berkeley Neighborhoods, led by a guy named Phil Bacavoy, who is desperately trying to preserve, quote, the character of Berkeley when he's not spending time at his second home in New Zealand.

That the Supreme Court could not find a way to avert this outcome is pathetic, and I'm going to tell you a little story, which is this. A dear friend of mine was a longtime aide to Governor Jerry Brown, and he was appointed to the state Supreme Court in, I believe, the end of 2018. And I was so proud of him, I flew up here to come see the ceremony where he became a Supreme Court justice. His name is actually Josh Groban, which is hilarious. And I'm telling you, a member of the state Supreme Court of California

is named Josh Groban. But so he doesn't, he's an ethical person. He doesn't, I don't know what's coming. And so I saw this news that this dumb decision had been made by the Supreme Court allowing this travesty on some technicality so these fucking students may have to go remote or not get accepted at all. It's bullshit.

But I was terrified that my friend might be involved and so I googled and I found the decision. 4-2. Who dissented? Justice Josh fucking Groban dissented. Along with Justice Goodwin Liu. And good for them. And shame on the four members of the court that went along with Justice Goodwin Liu, and good for them, and shame on the four members of the court that went along with this bullshit.

They didn't write an opinion. There's only a written dissent. That tells you something. You know what I mean? I don't know. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know the rules. Not a lawyer. Great LSAT score. Not a lawyer. Republicans cause a lot of mayhem and destruction in this country, but not in this case. This is California. We've got a GDP bigger than France's. The closest Republicans can get to power in this state is once in a while

we let them ring the bell on the trolleys. Meanwhile, we can't build enough housing. We aren't expanding our university system to meet demand. I was a little stoned last night. It was, after all, a Thursday. And so we're staying in the Union Square area, so maybe we went to my favorite San Francisco restaurant, which is the Cheesecake Factory in the Macy's. It's a beautiful Cheesecake Factory.

Yes, that's where I went. It's a beautiful cheesecake factory. Yes. That's where I went. It's a food city. Anyway. That's right. I'm here for two nights. One of them, cheesecake factory. Union Square. The point is, I was standing on the beautiful balcony they have there,

looking through the Macy's sign your Hollywood sign and you look at Union Square this beautiful square built at a time when a group of people will get together and say we're putting a big fucking penis at the middle of this thing and there's going to be a Greek goddess at the top why shut the fuck up, that's why

are the only beautiful places going to be from Greek goddess at the top. Why? Shut the fuck up. That's why. Are the only beautiful places going to be from 200 years ago? Great schools from a century ago? Great parks from a century ago? Now, Governor Gavin Newsom is upset about this. Members of the legislature are issuing statements. But we as Democrats need to stop accepting we're helpless from our leaders for an answer to this problem that is coming up again and again and again. Those kids deserve to go to Berkeley and we all deserve to live in a state that does more than survive off the generosity and optimism of the past. It is shameful. And as progressives everywhere, we have to get comfortable with fighting to build in this state. We need more

housing, we need more schools, we need to cut some of these bullshit fake environmental objections offered in the pretending they're progressive they're not. This is going to be a tough transition. It's okay. And finally this week, the FDA approved the one condom specifically for anal sex. Anal sex, as you know it here in San Francisco, second base. All right. I'll tell you something else. What do you mean these haven't been approved for anal sex?

Okay. When we come back, we've got some news, and that news is gay. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back! Look, I wish tonight's show could be a total love fest

where we celebrate San Francisco and queerness and walking uphill for what felt like an hour to get to Walgreens, which you know I absolutely love. Wish it could have been two hours. Unfortunately, this past month was a slowly rising sewage leak of anti-LGBTQ bookmanning, the advancement of Florida's Don't Say Gay Bill, and Texas' deeply vile anti-trans order, and I know

from sewage. I recently had a sewer explode at my house during some of the backyard shows. It was incredibly embarrassing. Wading into the thick of it with me is a phenomenal author, George M. Johnson, and a true friend of the show, Guy Branum. Welcome to you both. Come on out. Hi, Guy.

Hello, John. Did you say Don? I said John. It's your name. Hi, George. Hello. Thank you both for being here. So I want to start by just talking a little bit about what's been happening because there is now this trend and George has actually been at the vanguard of it, unfortunately. So how did you find out that your book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was being targeted by these activists trying to stop

teens from reading it? Activist is a very cute term to give them. I mean, they are. I mean, they're very active. They're very active. So I found out about it on Twitter. Someone literally was like, hey, George, they're trying to ban your book in Kansas City, Missouri. And so I laughed. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. I found the guy's Facebook post. And, you know, Facebook being the dinosaur app that it is, you have to, like, quote tweet. Like, it's not a quote tweet.

It's kind of like a quote post. quote tweet is kind of like a quote post. So I like quote posted above it and said some funny things around his desire to ban my book. And he deleted the post, but the movement, I guess, had started. And so from that one post in late September, we are now at 19 states that have banned or pulled the book from high school libraries

and there we go not in the Bay Area cool thanks for not banning the books that's a good example of bragging about not doing something terrible and I

yeah I didn't hear it but I love you and I love you and I think you're great doing something terrible. And I... Yeah. I didn't hear it. But I love you, and I love you, and I think you're great. I bully them a little. So, there's also been this kind of Streisand effect where... It is a Streisand effect. It's a Streisand effect.

By trying to hide something, you make it more visible. It is the Streisand effect. I am validating John right now. And he's a lawyer. Guy Branham is a lawyer. But the conversation around this effort to make these books disappear, especially

yours, your book shot up the bestseller list. Is there a little part of you that feels like, I'm gonna bend my book a little harder, boys. Ow, ow, oh no. Ow, this hurts so bad. You know, that kind of thing.

I didn't mean to make it sound that, I did. But you know what I mean. It's a double-edged sword, right? Yeah, I think it's funny because like most of them are coming from this place of like purity and morality around like the Bible. And it's like, but clearly the first story in the Bible talks about the whole notion of the forbidden fruit.

And it's like, clearly when you make something forbidden, it just makes people want it even more. And so the adverse effect, I guess, of trying to ban a book that kids weren't even reading because they didn't know it was in their libraries. Personally, when I read Genesis, I was like, I would like to learn more about Gamora how can I get there

and the answer was it was here yes and I mean it's like because we all wanted to be turned into a pillar of salt and so just what's funny though because like when I've been doing these interviews and arguing with these people you know they're like and your book is porn and I'm like, yes, and

zero people checked it out of the library you tried to ban it from, so I'm not exactly sure, or it's been, well, the book's not in that library that you just tried to ban it from, so I'm not sure what you're trying to pull, but it has now hit the New York Times bestseller list,

and so I thank them for 22 months later putting me on the New York Times bestseller list. And so I thank them for 22 months later putting me on the New York Times bestseller list. So Guy, with these bands, as with Don't Say Gay, there does seem to be this effort by politicians who grew up in the 80s and the 90s to kind of preserve an atmosphere in which gay people just don't exist in the classroom.

And it does feel a little bit like they are nostalgic for even not so long ago when we grew up, for when maybe there was some movement towards tolerance broadly, but being gay didn't exist when you were a kid. Well, that's what's so funny about it is, I mean, it is, of course, super dangerous for queer kids to not have cultural context or historical context for who they are but it's not like gay people have ever needed informational tomes to figure it out like you don't need the price of salt to figure out being a lesbian you honestly just need a field hockey team um and you know if they really want to stop gayness

they're going to have to go after drama programs band like there was a period of time when you couldn't officially talk about gay people but you did have constant presence of gay jokes about what the worst of gay people were in like pop culture and stuff and the danger

of something like George's book is that it shows a human being and the possibility that queer people could have like complex lives and not just be at best a sassy secretary. Though we are very good sassy secretaries. We are. The best.

It does, George, it does seem like so many of the objections flow from, I don't want my cisgendered white male son to be presented with this kind of a story, to let them know about the existence of this kind of person and these kinds of experiences. But implicit in that is the complete erasure of the fact that there are little gay boys and little trans boys, little queer boys that don't have anything to hold on to. And in defending the book, you're representing those people they're trying to erase. How has that been as you've been kind of in these sort of fights to keep the book from being banned?

Yeah, it's been interesting arguing with white mothers about why their white cis son would want to read my gay queer sex. That has been one of the funnest parts about the whole book ban. That's been the best part, to be honest. Because it's like, in all actuality, once they get down to the bottom, it's like your white hetero son wants to read about my black queer sex. Maybe you should have a conversation about that and not be so concerned that I have a book out there that has four pages of it in a 320 page, you know, book. And also I think the other part about it. To be fair, it's the good part.

a 320-page book. And also, I think the other part about it... To be fair, it's the good part. It is. It's the best part, right? And I think what's funny about it, though, is, like, let's also be very clear, like, it's not 1980, 90, or even the early 2000s. Like, if your child wanted to find sex,

I don't think they need to come to my book to find it. So I think that's been the most interesting part about the challenge of the books is the fact that I am fighting for queer kids to have some type of space to be able to read about themselves, see themselves, right? Like I am not holding Caulfield. I do not care about catchers in the rye. I do not care about the glass menagerie, nor do I care about Boo Radley, but kids just want to be able to read about themselves, and that's what I'm out here fighting for.

I have a tough hit on Boo Radley. Glass Menagerie is super gay, and Suddenly Last Summer is good. Like, Suddenly Last Summer is good. And Sarah plain and tall. She wasn't just plain. She was tall, but she was a little bit better than plain. She was a little better than plain.

Of course, if being queer meant you couldn't have fun while groups of people try to burn or ban your books, we'd never have any. So now it's time for Gay News. Look, we're going to do it. George, you know how to do this, right? I don't, but I have my cue cards and my bourbon, and we're going to work through it.

We're going to do one practice. So basically, in between each one, we go like this. Guy and I will do it. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b- We're going to go with Ella Fitzgerald's version of scat and Aretha Franklin's version of scat for this. Yes. Let us begin. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba walk out in protest of the state's looming Don't Say Gay Bill, with the protest organizer, a senior, getting suspended indefinitely for distributing pride flags after his principal warned him not to. Has this principal never seen a teen movie?

You tell a teen not to do something, that makes the thing more appealing. If this principal has any sense, he'd be doing a rainbow roller skating dance routine at the pep rally, then the kids would be back on vaping or skate shoes or whatever. I'm not young. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba revealing that she received facial surgery in the fall explaining that's why I have been looking so cunt. Congratulations to Willow Pill both on your transition and for looking so fucking good. You had to publicly address it on social media.

I want everyone to know that publicly was misspelt on the card. It was just, it was a bad typo. It was. So I'm just going to say, is that publicly? Because I was like. You got it. You got it. Ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba- gay bill currently rocketing towards Governor Ron DeSantis' desk for his signature in Florida, Disney issued a statement of support for the community Friday. The biggest impact we can have in creating a more inclusive world is through the inspiring content we produce.

So Disney's position is they will fund anti-gay politicians and make up for it with two guys holding hands in the background of a dramatized live-action version of Space Mountain. They're claiming to support the LGBT community while funding its worst adversaries, but in a way, Disney is really acting very patriotic. There is nothing more American than funding both sides of a war. So speaking of Disney, Josh Gad says Disney's depiction of Beauty and the Beast LeFou as a gay character didn't go far enough. Josh went on to say, the point is, I went on prep for nothing. My publicist is going to call me in the morning.

It's good. It's good. Josh went on to say, that's why Olaf needs to start eating ass. Josh went on to say, they wouldn't even let me fist Lumiere. Ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba-ba-ba. And I just want to say, before

we move on from that, Josh gave an interview where he talked about the story about LeFou being gay and had a really poignant remark about the fact that it didn't go far enough and that getting a lot of credit wasn't deserved and we all need to be represented. It was a good statement and Josh was good for saying it. That's all I wanted to say about that. Anyway, bada bada bada gay news. Yes. Ten civil rights groups demanded Texas's Granbury Independent School District replace

125 books yanked from their libraries for alleged graphic sexual content. So far, 103 have been returned. Weirdly, the other 22 seem sealed shut for some reason. And one of the 22 is my book. Gay news.

During the State of the Union, President Biden denounced recent state-level anti-trans laws. Folks, for our LGBTQ plus Americans, let's finally get the Bipartisan Equality Act to my desk. The onslaught of state laws targeting transgender Americans and their families. It's simply wrong. I said last year, especially to our younger transgender Americans, I'll always have your back as your president so you can be yourself and reach your God-given potential. Even though there is zero chance I, Joe Biden, will ever master they, them,

it is simply beyond me. I support you completely. He just won't be able to get it. And that's okay. But up, up, it up, gay news. Gay news. During his recent interview on Marc Maron's podcast, Sam Elliott railed against Jane Champion's movie, The Power of the Dog.

They're all running around in chaps with no shirts, the actor said about the critically acclaimed Western. There are all these allusions to homosexuality throughout the fucking movie. How could they do that to the beloved Western? There was a time in Hollywood when men were men, and you got dressed up in your costume, and you got your makeup done so you could do what men do,

eat a breakfast burrito from a truck, and then do ten takes where you slap a prostitute for giving you lip. Now that's so western. And I know a thing or two about the Wild West. I grew up in Sacramento in Portland. Unbelievable. Buh-duh-buh-duh-duh-day news.

And finally, Jeopardy! champion and my friend Amy Schneider. I did her Downton Abbey podcast ten years ago. Check it out. It's very good. Got engaged to her girlfriend Genevieve. Schneider said she

was pretty nervous about popping the answer. Yes! Applaud that joke. It's fantastic. It's a good joke. Before we go, I just want to say to everyone listening we would love if you love trans kids and hate greg abbott go to crooked.com slash tent and make sure it's all lowercase because that matters for some reason that goes to support trans texas that's doing great work to fight for trans kids in texas let's try to raise some money for them because they're going to need the help. Crooked.com slash tent.

Get in there. And thank you so much to Guy and George. You can catch Guy in Fort Collins, March 25th and 26th, and in LA, April 29th, as part of Netflix is a Joke Fest. And buy George's book, All Boys Aren't Blue, and buy it now.

When we come back, OK Stop. And we're back. What better time than our first official live show of 2022 than to bring back our beloved Love It or Leave It game, OK Stop. Please welcome two hilarious comedians, returning champion Jared Goldstein

and the incredibly funny Holmes. Hi, Holmes. Hi. So nice to see you. It's so nice to see you. I'm so happy to be here. Hi, Jared. Hi.

Yeah. What's so nice to see you. I'm so happy to be here. Hi, Jared. Hi. Yeah. What's up, San Francisco? Now, I know you two haven't played this before, so I'm going to break it down. I should have gotten you both pens and paper. There are a lot of rules. We're going to watch a clip, and when you have something funny to say about it, you say, okay, stop. Okay. Perfect.

I do want to say, we got the video ahead of time and couldn't make heads or tails of it. There's a big political world out there. It's a big, wide political world out there. I'm here to learn. And I'm here to teach, so let's get started.

Let's roll the clip. Alright. There were a couple of moments. I think that the nod to Stephen Breyer, the retiring Supreme Court justice, and his nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson. I just want to say, as someone who has chanted USA, USA, USA, I think it's really fun and it's a perfectly thing to want. And as a white person on stage, I disagree.

And as a white person on stage, I disagree. So the chyron says, Democrats suddenly want to chant USA, USA. So it's like these fucking non-patriots. Then when we chant USA, they suddenly think they love America, these fucking fuckers, you know? They're like, on July 4th, we want you to sit inside and cry.

You don't get to celebrate. Come on. Come on. Come on. Here we go. The young kid who suffers from the diabetes and needs his insulin. Okay, stop. Has never said diabetes before. I'm sorry.

Are you serious? She's like, he suffers. He has depression. The diabetes. That's all I have to say. Okay. But again, even there was that missed moment for humanity, right? The president says, and it was his birthday yesterday.

Well then, clue. Sing happy birthday. Okay, stop. I just I just want everyone to imagine a world in which, in the middle of the State of the Union,

one of the most watched political events of the year, besides a presidential debate or an inaugural, I mean, truly, we do not have audiences like this for anything. They stop to sing in full, happy birthday. Also, I love that she thinks when someone says it's someone's birthday,

that's a big clue that we should sing. She's like, we got a hint. We have a hint. It's his birthday. I'm going to guess it's his birthday. And so here we go. Happy birthday. No, we've done it. Is there any parts of it you did agree with? You know, I mean, I think I have to think about some of the stuff. Well, OK, stop. Just that isolated part felt very relatable to me. Like even right now, I'm just like, OK, I'd have to think about a lot of the stuff. I agree.

You know, if you think about what they've done, Fauci is in the witness protection program now. Okay, stop. So I just, I think that's worth. So the question was, was there anything Joe Biden said in the State of the Union that you agree with? The question was, was there anything Joe Biden said in the State of the Union that you agree with? Obviously, that question came in, and it was like when the machine at the parking lot can't read this thing. It's like it's bent or something, and he's like, no, I can't answer that. So he had to quickly think, right, because he knows that for his politics, which is being Trump, that he can't even admit, like even if he says like the patriotic parts

that the State of the Union is strong, standing with Ukraine, he isn't sure, because he doesn't have real politics, he's a fake, what he's supposed to say he agrees with. So he's reaching, he's reaching, he's like, I agree with what Joe Biden didn't say,

which is the exact location of Anthony Fauci. If you listen to them, they never supported all these policies that were so destructive. Now it's like, you know, we all want to be like Florida all of a sudden. Okay, stop. No one said that. No one said anything like

that. Not going to happen. You could put a bunch of monkeys on a typewriter for a thousand years and we want to be more like Florida. Doesn't come up. As someone who went to college in Florida, that was the worst chunk of my entire life, okay?

And people who live there call the capital Telenasty, like, not in a sexy way. That's, like, what they call it. They'll be like, yeah, I lived in Telenasty. And it's like, you're not proud of it, like, yeah, I lived in Tala Nasty. And it's like, you're not proud of it, you know? Best thing is alligators. Sorry.

Tala Nasty? Best thing about the place is alligators. And that's saying a lot. I remember I left for one year, came back, and my friend was like, oh yeah, this is the bridge

where someone ate someone's face who was on bath salts. And I'm like, I don't want to live here anymore. It's just so funny to watch that say that you're going to be the governor of florida and be like did somebody say florida did somebody say everything it should be like florida that's what i heard

in the section about inflation i guess the only people who want to live in florida are grandparents and then still half the year they're like michigan sounds good abraham lincoln had a full-scale insurrection on his hands in the beginning of his administration that wasn't caused by abraham lincoln everything bad that has happened over the last 14 months is a completely self-inflicted wound joe biden is the kurt cobain of politics okay stop uh we have to say something to that. He just means that Joe Biden is super sexy and has really good hair. I just like a politics that's like, everything bad over the last 14 months is caused by Joe Biden. But maybe what he was saying is that what he likes about Joe Biden

is his kind of grungy indie vibe. Yeah. And the way he kind of speaks to the angst and sadness inherent to what it means to grow up, having the power of youth, but also not really understanding its power because you're too young to appreciate it. Maybe that's what he means.

Maybe what he's gathering is like sort of Joe Biden evinces a kind of 90s, both optimism, but it's kind of shallow, like there's something deep and wrong and missing, as if this idea that history is improving is a fundamental lie, and you know that in your bones, but everything is so cheery and acting as though history is over, and so you're stuck in this place where you know something within society is wrong,

that like, no, we're not being treated equally, no, misogyny isn't in the past. No, this isn't the land of permanent wealth and opportunity. We're told it is. No, that's not what this is. Something is broken and I need to sing about it. Maybe that's what he means. Let's see where he went with it. He put a shotgun in the mouth of the American body politic and then pulled the trigger and the brains are on the wall. Okay. This is the mouth of the American body politic and then pulled the trigger. And the brains are on the wall. Okay, this is... The president of the United States is really, really bad at this.

I don't... That clip out of the three clips makes the least sense to me. It does not make sense. Backstage, I was asking Ezra for some advice and some help and what I should say. And Ezra was like, it sounds like what he was looking for was a murder metaphor, but he took a suicide metaphor.

So he used the wrong metaphor. And now he's roasted. Roasted. Honestly, no, no, no, no, no, no. He seems like a good guy. And that's okay stuff. And you can see Holmes in Welcome to Flash on Fox on March 17th.

And Jared is in the new season of Dollface on Hulu. Holmes and Jared Goldstein, thank you so much. That was awesome. When we come back, we've got more show for you. You know? That was great. They'll be back for The Wheel. And we're back.

And we're back. For everybody listening, you're hearing our live show in San Francisco. Starting next week, we're live on Thursdays in LA at Dynasty Typewriter. First up, I'll be joined by an incredible lineup, Emily Heller, Joel Kimbooster, Jenny Yang, and Councilwoman Nithya Raman.

We have a big show planned in DC on March 24th, which is basically sold out, but there's a couple tickets left. And shows across the country. After that, we have incredible shows lined up. Go to crooked.com slash events to get tickets in L.A. and across the country. A recent study published in the American Sociological Review based on the work of sociologists from the University of Notre Dame found that, on the whole, gay teen boys excel academically over not only straight teen boys,

but also straight and lesbian students of every kind. Yes, okay. We have some questions about these findings. For example, what is a straight teen boy answering a research question about their sexuality if not a gay boy terrified to come out to a complete stranger from the University of Notre Dame. Now, obviously, gender is a construct. Maddie Morphous has proved that once and for all this season of Drag Race. When challenge after challenge, they bravely dress like and had the stage presence of my friend from college who works at Vanguard. Gender and sexuality officially deceased. However, as the study suggests, the concept of gender is why gay teen boys rise to the top

and straight teen boys are bogged down by toxic masculinity. Will there eventually be a generation undivided by sexual orientation? Maybe. But until then, I'm going to need a straight male volunteer from the audience. Do we have one? Right here. We got a couple. You we have one? Right here. We got a couple. You're in.

You're in. Very straight, says the woman to his left. Hi, sir. What's your name? Chris. Chris? Yes. Okay.

Staccato. Not very talkative. It checks out. And when did you realize you were straight? Good question. I don't know how to answer that. That's correct. And again, it checks out.

All right. And please welcome back to face the ultimate K-teen boy, Guy Branum. Guy is back. Here's how it works, Chris and Guy. I'm going to ask you each questions rapid fire style. We have straight trivia for Guy.

We have gay trivia for Chris. Are you smarter than a gay media elite? That's you, guy. Here we go, Chris. I'm not going to know any of these. You know what? That was toxic masculinity. Yes.

Button it up. What's your name? Chris. I should have assumed. Chris, button it up what's your name? Chris I should have assumed if you just say Kylie Minogue for every answer you'll get one of them maybe two

it's like putting C's down the scantron alright Chris what is the name of Judy Garland's daughter who is not Liza Minnelli? It's Lorna Luft. Guy. Yeah, that's right.

Wrong, Chris. Too slow. She performed the week after me in San Diego last year at the same venue. Or two years ago, there was a pandemic. Keep going. Guy, what major league sport just had their first day of the season canceled due to an ongoing labor dispute?

Oh, that was Major League Baseball, I believe. Thank you. Chris, which queen dropped unconscious butterflies out of her bustier during a disastrous drag race finale performance? I think I watched it. I don't know who it was. Oh, wow. So wrong. If you had just had butterflies under your hoodie,

you could have been a stunt queen. All right, let's keep going. Who wrote your dad's favorite book about World War II, 1971's The Winds of War? They also wrote 1951's... Oh, Herman Wook. Herman Wook. Holy fuck.

Can you name the four Golden Girls actresses or their character names? Betty White. Okay, that's one. You can also say characters. I'll give you anything. Blanche and Bea Arthur. I'm going to give it to them.

I'm going to give it to them. I'm going to give it to him. Chris's girlfriend, Chris's girlfriend, you helping him out of these situations, we need to let straight cis men fall on their faces for just a couple of decades and then everybody gets paid the same.

We do that a lot on our own, but yes. Guy, which NFL team had the worst record of 2021? I do not have a solid answer, so I boned up on some straight things. I'm just going to say Amari Stoudemire and walk away.

The Jacksonville Jaguars. Name is... No, that's not possible. Oh, no. What is the question? No, this is for him. Oh, I know, but I want to hear. It has to do with Josie and the Pussycats. This is not going to happen. What single Broadway production has earned the most Tony Awards? Into the mic, you straight fuck. Into the mic, you straight fuck. Incorrect.

It's 2001's The Producers. Oh. My gut said ragtime. My gut said ragtime. Guy, which rap rock band remixed the Mission Impossible theme in 2002? I don't want to know. Also, 21 Pilots? Nope, the correct answer is Limp Bizkit.

Okay. Chris, final question. If you get this, you win. No, he doesn't. What? I answered a lot of questions right. If he gets this, he doesn't win. If he gets this, he can try to win it like a straight guy and fight me.

Don't take me down, Chris. Guy. I'm sorry.'t take you down, Chris. Guy. I'm sorry. You live in the world with me. Yes. The story of being a gay person versus a straight person is getting seven questions right. They're getting one question right and losing.

Fair. And so I say to you, Chris, which song became Madonna's first entry on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100? Like a Virgin? Incorrect. It was Holiday 1983. Guy Branum has won.

Chris, you've also won. Great job. Thank you for playing. Give it up for Chris, Guy. Give it up for Guy. And we're back. The news in Ukraine has been alarming on many fronts. It also highlights

our reliance on fossil fuels and the connection between national security and climate security. Here to talk about how this unfolding conflict is already reshaping many debates in our politics. He's not gay, but he is a vegan. So we decided we'd allow him on this episode. Welcome the host of the Ezra Klein show, Ezra Klein. Hi, thanks for being here. They love you. Yeah. The no fun part of the episode. No, this is sophisticated. Everybody's come out. They're all charismatic, telling jokes, and it's like Russia.

Let's just get through it. So you wrote a column about Biden's State of the Union and described a kind of disconnect between the discussion about Ukraine and the rest of the speech, which dove into more traditional domestic topics. Energy is a signal example. Can you talk a little bit about the connection that you wish President Biden would have made? Yeah. So if you listen to the State of the Union and I'm sorry, it had this two. I mean, you're a speechwriter. It had this two speeches layered on top of each other feel like right at the top.

You have this almost semi-economic Churchillian speech about Putin and dictators. And if you let them do this kind of thing, they always cause more chaos in the future. And it's a real call to, again, not literal arms, but economic arms. And then it's like record scratch. And you go into the normal state of the union where the most important thing is bringing down prices. And the problem is that if what you are doing is trying to stop Russia with the stakes that Biden correctly laid out by economically devastating them, then what you are going to do is raise prices. Like that is the way that will feed back into the West. And because the West has been afraid to do that fully, I mean, we've done pretty

profound sanctions. We've wrecked their financial system, we've stopped their central bank from accessing a bunch of reserves, but the thing we are not doing is the thing that would actually fully cripple their economy, which is cutting off the energy flows. Right? We have... And I

want to say, like, I'm not a foreign policy expert, it's not an easy call, but if the stakes are what they look like they are, it's at least one you've got to be willing to talk about. And if you are not willing to begin to combine these ideas, if you're not willing to begin to say, look, in order to stop Putin, we are going to have to absorb some amount of economic sacrifice here. That is maybe the least we can do. If you don't prepare people to do that, then you are not going to be able to do that. And so you could see in there the exact tension Putin has

been exploiting in this, that we don't want prices to go up. And his view is that he is willing to absorb enormously more sacrifice to take Ukraine, and we are willing to absorb basically none to stop him. You interviewed Adam Tooze, who's this brilliant historian, and he noted that in Europe, in part, as we watch this crisis unfold, that the push for clean energy was becoming what he said was more reciprocal. In other words, there's a climate argument from the left, and there's a national security argument from the right. It is hard to imagine as a similar kind of reciprocity taking hold in the U.S. because of the polarization and the kind of dogmatism on the right in this country. As you've been watching this unfold and thinking about how this may shift the conversation about clean energy, are you thinking about ways we can be talking about this that takes into account the ways in which the debate over

clean energy has already become a question of identity, a question of polarization. Yeah, I mean, you gotta fucking try though, right? You have a state of the union, and you have perhaps the most profound geopolitical upheaval of decades now, right? I mean, my sense is this is probably bigger in terms of how it will shape the next three decades than even something like 9-11. If we go back into great power conflict with Russia, there's a Russia-China block potential. I mean, this could shape lives, right? Like generations. Try, right? Try to create a new argument around energy. Try to change. So one of the really crazy things that happened that same day is that Senator Joe Manchin comes out with this pretty fascinating

statement. And what it really means is I think anybody's guess, but he goes like rip shit against the idea that we should not be buying Russian energy and that this is a time to do energy independence consistent with our climate obligations. And I want to be really clear, because you could definitely read that statement as like pipelines, like coal pipelines and oil pipelines. But you can also read it, as I wrote in the piece, as a door jar. And at least try. Like if you're Joe Biden and your energy agenda is stalled, try. Like, I don't want to be too tough on Biden on this because they are actually the ones working on this issue. And it's all easy enough for me to sit here hanging out with you all and say what

they should have done. But Build Back Better is stuck. And meanwhile, and this is a bigger point of the piece, he's actually got the right agenda for all this on two levels. There's both the energy agenda and actual decarbonization, like energy independence that is green would have reduced Putin's leverage on everyone and reduce his ability to do what he's doing in Ukraine, but also long-term, this sort of productive side that he wants to do this massive increase in our semiconductor independence and all these pieces of his agenda to actually change what the economy can produce on a 5, 10, 15 year time frame. These are the right ideas, but he's been framing them in sort

of weird ways. So here comes Russia. And for all the horrors of it, you have this moment to say, this isn't just part of my huge grab bag of build back better agenda items you've been hearing about. This is actually how you don't allow dictators to have economic leverage on the countries that could stop them. So let's fucking do it. And they just didn't. One last question on this. It feels like for a long time, the debate on trade was pretty small. There was kind of an economic argument from the left that said trade is benefiting corporations

and causing an increase in profit, but causing a lower quality of life and eliminating sort of the manufacturing base of the country. You heard that from the left. You'd hear that from populists on the right. And then there was this, rarely do you get to use it correctly, a neoliberal consensus

around the value of trade. And it now seems that in part because of COVID and the supply chain issues, and now because of Ukraine, it seems like we're having a different conversation about what trade really means in a way that's about more than trade, right? It's about, do we have the capacity to make gloves and masks? Or, hey, if all of the capacity to make these incredibly important computer chips is in Taiwan, what does it mean in terms of the leverage China has in that dispute? What do you see happening next in terms of our ability to kind of turn this into a kind of, I don't know, benign or positive nationalism to build in the U.S.?

I'd never make a prediction we're going to get a benign or positive nationalism out of it. us. I'd never make a prediction we're going to get a benign or positive nationalism out of it. But I do think there's some, look, the way I'd put it is that it turns out there's more to life than economic efficiency. And for a very long time, the entire governing assumption was that if you can get something to the lowest possible price at Walmart, you have done your job. That's it. That's all you're going for. And now we're seeing there are other dimensions here. For instance, maybe you don't want a huge portion of your country's energy supply to be dependent on an autocrat with imperialistic ambitions stretching back to the 17th century theory of his country. Yeah, that checks out. For instance. For example. Or given COVID, maybe you want the capacity to, in a pandemic,

actually produce your protective equipment here, like where you can actually get it. So there's a different set of governing assumptions coming in on the economic side of this. Like my quick loss on this, in addition, is that it also reflects some pretty profound failures in progressivism over time, because it isn't just what we can produce in terms of gloves or masks or even energy, just progressivism for a long time, just not building enough stuff all together. And I think that there is a dawning recognition, Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, has talked about this modern supply-side economics, that liberals need to actually think about what they are capable of building, not what they are capable of subsidizing people to buy, but what the economy is actually

able to produce, in what number, how quickly, when. And that's requiring the Biden administration really rapidly to get into the productive guts of the economy, not just think about tax credits and so on, but what infrastructure do we need to build to have green energy, not just think about tax credits and so on, but what infrastructure do we need to build to have green energy, not just as the debate used to be, what price do you put on dirty energy so the private sector builds all the green energy you want? It's a really different way of thinking. It requires different tools. And it's important. And it's why I think the national security side of this is actually significant, because if you look at a lot of the infrastructure we've built in this country, a lot of the big infrastructure, it came out of a

recognition that there was more to life than economics. I always think it's weird that our highways are fundamentally a, were framed as a defense project, but there it is, and we got them, and so maybe there's something to learn. Speaking of building, one last question. You are a product of the University of California schools. You went to, is it Santa Cruz? You went to Santa Cruz? Santa Cruz in LA, yeah. I feel as though you are as outraged as everyone here around this idea that Berkeley has to turn away thousands of people from in-person schooling because of a homeowner deciding they don't like, I guess, keggers in their neighborhood. If you'd like to spout off, the floor is yours. Yeah, I'm totally ripped shit about this.

Okay, so here's one big point about this. It turns out that Republicans are not the only reason liberals cannot govern. It turns out liberals are the reason liberals cannot govern. So this lawsuit is brought under the California Environmental Quality Act. I really want to push this. This lawsuit to stop Berkeley from expanding is brought under the California Environmental Quality Act under the theory that Berkeley has not done enough environmental planning to see what the impact of having kids at Berkeley would be. The person who brought the lawsuit lives in New Zealand half the year. That's the thing I almost can't get over that you can't make up.

He lives in Berkeley but also in New Zealand half the year and spends a bunch of other time traveling. If you live in Berkeley, you live in a college. It's so infuriating. But the thing that you really see here, Gavin Newsom didn't want this to happen. UC Berkeley didn't want this to happen. You have a state like California

where Democrats control everything. There is not one statewide elected Republican. We have built one, one UC since 1965. Since man stepped on the goddamn moon, we have managed to build one University of California campus. It's the greatest higher ed system in the world. We've added one since 65, and now we're cutting their ability to grow. At some point, you actually have to turn around and say that the way that power has been fractured in this state, the way that old bills are used to stop new development

is a really fundamental problem. And what is like the ultimate irony of it is it's devastating this kind of thing for the environment on a couple different levels. One level it is it's devastating, this kind of thing, for the environment on a couple of different levels. One level on which it's terrible is it's just a bad environmental outcome. This kind of nimby, housing, low density politics, it pushes people into sprawl, they have to drive further, they're out in the urban wild interface, there are more wildfires, there's more cars.

Like, all that's bad. Then, like, on level two, this is, of course, used against clean energy projects. If you want to try to, say, run power lines, if you want to build a new, like, wind project, this all goes against that. But three, this is going to get all kinds of actually anti-environment politicians elected

when the places that believe themselves to be environmentalist and have all these laws allow the laws to be used to make it so nobody can live there or go to school there, the places can't expand, the housing prices rise, that is what is going to get the people elected who say, on the one hand, I oppose all this, and also, on the other hand, I don't believe global warming is a thing. So like this is death for liberalism if it can't be fixed. Ezra Klein, thank you so much for being here. Everybody should listen to the Ezra Klein show. I genuinely love it. I really do. It is an incredible show. Thank you. When we

come back, a wheel of some kind. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Joining me once again are Guy, George, Holmes, Jared, and Ezra. Friends. Country persons. We are here to debut a new twist on the iconic rant wheel. It is time for the hyper wheel.

Let's see the hyper wheel. Yes, that's right. Two wheels. Here's that's right. Two wheels. Here's how it works. On one side, we have topics, but for the first time, on the other

wheel, are takes. Is this increasing the number of fossil fuels consumed by the wheel? How is this... How is this affecting climate change? I mean, it might... It's twice the wheel!

It is twice the wheel. This week on the wheel, we have Elden Ring. Talking dogs on TikTok. Avant-garde ice cream flavors. Kanye's Pete stunts that he's not suspended, even though the news, smoothies, oligarchs, Oscars fan favorite awards,

and that thing in movies from like the 2000s where you throw your phone in a fountain to signify that you're free. And here, and here are the takes. Afraid,

conflicted, horny, disgusted, delighted, haunted, enraged, and opposed. Up first is Holmes. That's right. Let us spin. Absolutely.

The hyper wheel. So much. That's right. Let us spin. Absolutely. The hyper wheel is so much... It has landed on Afraid of the Oscars Fan Favorite Award. Holmes, you're afraid of the Oscars Fan Favorite Award. Take it away. Okay. This award knows what it's doing. You think that fans don't have opinions, but they fucking do.

I, for one, I have no fucking idea what the fan favorite award is. So that's really exciting. Let's go into it. The Oscars in general, I don't want to get in trouble, are fucked up. They're racist. But I still like movies. So I'm scared to talk about it. If I get invited to the Oscars, I'll fucking go.

And I don't want to, but I will. I like Meryl Streep I don't like when the guy who did the cartoon hosted it let's spin it again this time Guy is up Guy you're up

come on Saber Ice Creams it has landed on Conflicted About oligarchs. Okay. All right. Fundamentally, at the end of the day, do I want rule of law? Yes.

At the end of the day, does somebody having too much money create a system where they cannot be properly bound by the rule of law? Does this disparity in income create a situation where democracy is not possible? Absolutely. You guys live in the Bay Area, you know. But also, I like a nice yacht. You know? I like a lovely vacation. Did I love the periods on the crown when Princess Margaret was on her private island? Were those the best parts of the crown?

Did I think about the sunspots I would like to get on my bosoms on my private island? Abso-fucking-lutely. Do I think that that is all the more possible if I became close personal friends with the man who runs all of the aluminum in Russia? Abso-fucking-lutely.

I mean, it's hard. We love Disney princesses, but we want to live in a democracy. Similarly, I want to live in a place where everyone is equal, but also you get to have really, really high-end vacations. That's why I live in Los Angeles. George, it's your turn on the wheel. Oh, yeah! Turn on the wheel.

Oh, yeah! It says here that you're horny for throwing your phone in the fountain to symbolize that you're free in a 2000s era of film. It turns you on. You're horny for it. Don't you want to throw your phone in a fountain to symbolize the fact that you're not going to accept or be bound by the rules of the 2000s?

You know, growing up in the 2000s, like denim on top of denim on top of denim kind of makes me feel a way. I love coarse fabrics, touching coarse fabrics. Touching more coarse fabrics. Now imagine what it would feel like to be wearing denim on denim

with a boot cut and then throwing a Motorola Razr into a fountain. And you know, you have to have like a chic bob to go along with it. For sure. Maybe there's a belt that serves no function around your body. But the belt also had to be bedazzled.

But absolutely. One of those belts that's all holes. And, I mean, a bedazzle that cut into your stomach. So that, like, when you took the belt off, there were lines. And keep in mind, your phone is in a fountain. It's in a fountain. Because you're free. Because I wanted no one to hear my orgasm.

Let's spin it again. This is, oh Ezra, you're up. Let's see what it lands on for Ezra. Opposed to avant-garde ice cream. So this would be like Jenny's Everything Bagel-flavored ice cream or places that try to trick you into something that has, like, herbs in the ice cream. So you all heard me say a few minutes ago

that to succeed, liberalism needs to be able to build, but not too much. And left to its own devices, unconstrained, unrestrained by the rule of law, with no ability to demand an environmental quality review on which ice cream flavors come forward. Also, the strange thing is that you actually can't get normal ice cream. It's not just that there's avant-garde ice cream.

I can accept the fact that sometimes people need to push boundaries, but it's not pushing a boundary if you don't anymore have territory, right? It's one thing to have one flavor, but when everything is just another way to show that you actually don't like your customers, that you... And to make my almost serious political point here, this is like the... I could do a whole segment with you on this but the scariest thing in left politics right now is the new idea of

cringe which is we took things that were popular because people liked them and we've put a word on them to show you shouldn't and that is what this ice cream movement is about. Everybody liked all these ice cream flavors but that made them lame so we've come up with new ice cream movement is about. Like, everybody liked all these ice cream flavors, but that made them lame.

So we've come up with new ice cream flavors that nobody likes. Ezra, wait. Are you saying that my Ruth Bader Ginsburg-flavored gelato is a bad idea? I do want to say Jared made me go to three ice cream places today. He loves an avant-garde ice cream place. I'm choogy, babe. I'm choogy, but I'm free.

Incredible. What a rant. Rocky Road is cringe. This ice cream tastes like steak. Jared, it's your turn. I just want to say my favorite ice cream flavor is rosemary pine nut.

Ew! Ew! Disgusted by the TikToks where a dog presses a button that says a word. This is very specific. Are you familiar? There are these videos on TikTok where people claim their dog can speak by pressing buttons for like hungry, belly, poop. And you're disgusted by them. Right now? Yeah, right now.

I am disgusted! I am sickened by these TikToks of dogs pushing buttons to say that they are hungry. To say that they are sleepy. To say that they are hungry, to say that they are sleepy, to say

that they are ready to go pee. And I'll tell you why. It's because this should be happening on Instagram Reels. You get it, you get it, you get it. Amazing.

Yeah, not a laugh. One more spin, I'll go. It says here that I'm delighted by Elden Ring. Rigged. Rigged. A littleen Ring. Rigged. Rigged. A little Scosche rigged. I am delighted by Elden Ring. George R.R. Martin procrastinating.

George R.R. Martin is so talented. This man is such a genius that he can procrastinate into creating one of the greatest video games of all time. This man has dominated books, then dominated a far more important medium, television. Far more important, far more significant, television. Books niche, famously. significant television, books niche, famously. Television where it all happens. But he is such a genius and such a procrastinator that while he was telling all of us he was finishing the books that he was supposed to finish roughly a decade ago. He was living in the dark playground of procrastination where the rest of us look at Twitter or do Wordle or shop online

or the other broken things we do when we're supposed to be working that feel terrible. You know, that like, oh, I should be working but I feel really bad and I'm going to do something I shouldn't be doing. He was creating an advance in the art of video games? I'm delighted by that. And if you would have told me nary six months ago

that it would be possible to merge From Software's Dark Souls Die Every Seven Seconds, If You Go Down the Wrong Path One Time, You Miss an Entire Story and Will Never Be Told It, and Open World's Fantasy a la Skyrim. If you would have told me it was possible to put those things together, I would have called you a liar. I would have called you a dirty fucking liar and a scoundrel. But I would have been wrong.

And the only downside to a show I've been looking forward to, this show, for literally months, is that a little part of me right now wants to be back in Los Angeles, safely on my couch, grinding it out until I get the next fucking sword.

And I want a big sword, and I don't have the strength for it yet, but I will, because George R.R. Martin refuses to finish a book. And that is a great debut of the Hyperwheel. Get up for Jared, Guy, George, Holmes, and Ezra.

When we come back, we'll end on a high note. That was great. Thank you. One more time for all of our guests. And we're back. If you have an LGBTQ high note, we'd love to hear it. Let's see those hands. We have one right here in the front. Hi, what's your name?

My name is Troy. Troy? Yes. And what is your high note? My high note is me and my husband, we live in Oakland. And we came over here to see the show and enjoyed some time in the cash row today and bought a fresh bottle of poppers. Fantastic. Fantastic. Hi, what's your name?

Alicia. Alicia, what is your high note? Our program in Santa Clara County, the Q Corner, we got binders and gaffes, which are chest compression and tucking garments for folks that are looking for gender for Maine experiences. And we give them out to the community and we've given out over 100 in the last six months. And a lot of youth come with their parents and get them and it's really beautiful. That's so great. Thanks for sharing that.

Hi there. What's your name? Thanks for sharing that. Hi there. What's your name? My name is Amanda. What is your high note, Amanda? I'm a middle school teacher. Thank you. That was nice. And at the beginning of this school year,

I decided that I was going to, as part of learning more about my students, I was going to explicitly ask for their pronouns and what names they want to go by and if I could use that with their parents or not. And, oh, thank you. It's the bare minimum. And I have had so many more students be honest and come out to me than I've ever had in the past. And in addition to that, it's just been really lovely to see all of their classmates use their correct pronouns and call them by their names and even correct people, like students who aren't doing it right. And so, yes, things are really shitty and we are seeing these horrible laws going in

right now. But the kids are okay. Kids are all right. Kids are all right. Let's leave it there. Thank you, Amanda. Thank you to everybody for joining us on those high notes. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, call us at 213-262-4427. That is our show. Thank you to everybody at the Castro Theater who put this show on. Thanks to everybody who worked on this show and the crew. Thanks to all of you for coming out. What a blast.

Thank you to Guy Branum, George M. Johnson, Holmes, Jared Goldstein, Ezra Klein, and B. Noel for kicking our show off, and everybody who shared a high note. Thank you to our whole cricket team with special thanks to Justine Howe, Sandy Gerrard, Tanya Sominator, Jesse McLean, and Vendelin Von Schroeder, our production team, Kendra Janes, Brian Semmel,

and Ari Schwartz, and our writers, Hallie Keeper, Peter Miller, Jocelyn Kaufman, and Polovi Gunalan. There are 248 days until the 2022 midterm election. Have a great weekend. Good night, everybody. Thank you so much. Lovett or Leave It is a Crooked Media production.

It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, and Lee Eisenberg. Kendra James is our senior producer, and Brian Semel is our producer. Hallie Kiefer is our head writer, and Jocelyn Kaufman, Poulavi Gunalan, and Peter Miller are the writers. Bill Lance is our editor, and Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McClain and Caroline Haywood, for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast, and to our digital producers, Norma Elkonian, Milo Kim, Mia Kelman, and Matt DeGroote

for filming and editing video each week so you can.