Lovett or Leave It - Gaetz of Hell

Episode Date: April 3, 2021

Matt Gaetz faces Tucker Carlson. Amazon faces twitter. And Lil Nas X faces away from the Devil. Josh Gondelman is back to break down the week's news. Satan (Josh Sharp) talks about his latest media firestorm. And Theo Henderson of "We the Unhoused" talks about the housing crisis and why we all need to do more to listen to people experiencing it first hand.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/lovettorleaveit. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Love It or Leave It, Vaxxed to the Future. Gonna do things like we used to. Gonna get boozy when we all go out instead of home all by myself in private. We're going back to the future Gonna do things that we used to Gonna go out and drag my folks along To argue over QAnon But it's time to go That amazing song was by Chris Keen. Loved it. These songs are incredible.

If you want to make a Vax to the Future theme song, please send it to us at leaveit at crooked.com. Leaveit at crooked.com. Before we get to the show, last week the House held hearings on D.C. statehood, and you know that at Crooked Media we are fans of making D.C. the 51st state. We have new D.C. statehood merch that you can get at the Crooked store,

crooked.com slash store. As always, a portion of every order supports VoteRiders. store, crooked.com slash store. As always, a portion of every order supports Vote Writers. Shop at crooked.com slash store. Also, the Oscars are just around the corner. So to stay in the know, tune in to our award season experts on Keep It. Recent guests have included Oscar nominee Riz Ahmed, Tony Award winner Delroy Lindo, and WandaVision star Kat Dennings. Plus,

Ira Lewis on Eda. They're there too, you know? Subscribe to keep it wherever you get your podcasts. Later in the show, we test a listener on Amazon's weird tweets. I interviewed the devil, and I had a great conversation with the host of the podcast, We the Unhoused, Theo Henderson, which you should definitely check out. But first, welcome writer and producer for Desus and Mero on Showtime and the host of the podcast, Make My Day, returning champion, Josh Gondelman. Good to see you. Good to see you too. I didn't realize I was a champion in the past.

Oh, you're a champion. Thank you. You're a champion. Thank you. No doubt about it. And you are also. No doubt about it. Oh, that means so much. Thank you so much're a champion. Thank you. No doubt about it. And you are also. No doubt about it. Oh, that means so much.

Thank you so much. Thank you so, so much. Of course. I think it's Kathy Griffin who said that in LA, if you say congratulations to anyone, they won't say why. They'll say thank you. Yeah. Because they just have so much going on.

That's so funny. I always want to say why. Because I am so pathologically terrified of taking credit for things I don't deserve. So like, what did you hear? Congratulations. Congratulations. Screw you, congratulations. You're not getting me to take credit for things.

Let's get into it. That's so funny. What a week. This Sunday, Christians around the world will mark the holiday of Easter. Easter, said Matt Gaetz. I hardly know her. Yep. Yep.

That joke makes me feel gross, but I don't think it's the joke. I just think it's the invocation of Matt Gaetz and the female pronoun her in the same room together. And I'm just like, well, something bad is going to happen. It's not great. The New York Times reported that Matt Gaetz under investigation for possible sex trafficking and the beleaguered congressman went on Tucker Carlson show to say emphatically that he did not travel with a 17 year old, which is, you know, people noted, slightly lawyered language. It is as if Jeffrey Epstein said, I never committed crimes on an archipelago, you know? He really went on TV to split hairs, which is weird considering his hair

seems physically impenetrable. Yeah, he does have quite a look. I'm open to reading some kind of piece on the aesthetics of the right wing that connects Mar-a-Lago to these politicians. Their appearance reveals it's like an attempt to cover some deep emptiness, badness. Yes. And it can't be covered. Gates specifically looks like he's a young guy who looks like an old guy trying to look young. He's my age. I don't understand. Like he's my age. And

it's like, why are like, I guess he's just putting some city miles. Those are some city miles on the, on the Matt Gates machine, you know? Anyway, Gates happens to be the only member of the House to vote no on a bipartisan anti-sex trafficking bill that got 418 yes votes in 2017. And not a single person, Josh, has even taken a moment to praise Mr. Gates for his consistency. The man has a position. There's so much hypocrisy, I think, within the Republican Party, right? Saying one thing in public and doing the other in private. And I think Matt Gaetz is the person that says like, yeah, I'm pro-sex trafficking. Look at my record. That should be in his ads when he runs for reelection or when he hosts a new show on Newsmax. Yeah. They should just call it the pro-sex trafficking hour with

Matt Gaetz. There are so many politicians who are like, do as I say, not as I do. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. But not this guy. No. He's like, I'm a creep in my actions, in my private life. I'm a creep in my public positioning. Yeah. He's literally a sex criminal in the streets and a sex criminal in the sheets. I will, for the rest of my days, I am never tired of a streets sheets joke. I love them. I love them 100% of the time. They always work on me. A very pleasing rhyme.

Always fun to set up a dichotomy. Yeah. CNN also reports that Matt Gaetz showed nude photos of women he slept with to other members of Congress, including on the House floor. Did you hear that? Did you know that? I did. I saw that last night. What's even worse is that he pointed to the vaginas of the nude women and was like, this is where I want to deny them health care. So it's just like a gross thing on top of the already gross thing he was doing no i know i it's just um it right

because again it was also a policy matter and i just think it's also like know your audience man it's like okay you want to show nude photos on the house floor but pelosi's like i don't why are you showing this to me like i'm the wrong show this to your bros not what i feel this is like the same cohort that like thinks the Lil Nas X video is a problem. He showed it to the squad. They weren't going for it. He just wasn't discerning enough and he would be interested in seeing the nudes he had taken of women in his life. It's like borderline, if not outright, criminal.

And it's just like, who is he trying to impress? It also reminds me that the House of Representatives is a terrible work environment. Like, forget everything else. Forget, put everything else aside. He's at fucking work. That's your job. You work at the house. Yes.

Have you not been paying attention to the world? It's just such like a gross, I mean, like, I think like frat boy as a, as an adjective is maybe overused sometimes, but it's such like a gross frat boy thing to do. In addition to the fact that it's like, who are you showing it to? It's like, you're going to show this to other people in Congress. Like Mitt Romney has 11 kids. Mitt Romney fucks. Like you're not out fucking a guy who, a Mormon, a Mormon adjacent Senator. I know this wass. Like, you're not out fucking a guy who, a Mormon, a Mormon-adjacent senator. I know this was the House floor, but that's my point.

Yeah, I mean, right. Mitt Romney has 11 children, and he's never seen a breast. That's how much he fucks. It's hard to do. I do go back to something that I've said before, but Matt Gaetz is what happens if a frat paddle becomes a person. Like that is what he is. I think Matt Gaetz, seeing his TV appearances,

I think like he's like Pinocchio, but if instead of the nose growing when he lies, his head just gets one millimeter taller. I also can't believe that we're in the middle of a Matt Gaetz scandal about sex trafficking and the word Nestor is not even coming up. I know.

I would have assumed that he was involved. Involved? It just feels so gross. Like, this whole thing is so disgusting, right? And there are victims involved, right? He, like, hurt people. This is a crime. This is not a victimless crime.

I was really hoping that when Matt Gaetz went down for, like, a sex scandal, it would be one that was, was like purely we could enjoy it. And we, you know, like I was hoping he would like have embezzled taxpayer money and used it to buy like a silicone horse vagina he could have sex with. And then we're just like, ah, this is fun for everyone. And so it's like, I do want to say we've, it's like important to think about like he's hurting people and he's just a truly horrible man. Yes, that is a good point. We joke, but he's a monster. And Republicans should, as you said, go back to objectifying women the old-fashioned way by trying to ban funding for Planned Parenthood. That's their bread and butter. Moving on from the Gates material. Human error at a vaccine manufacturing plant in Baltimore ruined up to 15 million Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses. So, Josh, I did a little digging, all right? And here's what happened.

So they had these two new people working at the plant. And they had already screwed up at a bunch of other departments. But they had one last chance, right? And so their boss, who was a kind of stern woman, set them up at this conveyor belt, and their job was to make sure each of the vaccine doses was wrapped before it got to the packing department, okay? And so it started, and at first it seemed like relatively easy. A vaccine dose would come, and they possibly wrap. And the boss was clear. If even one vaccine dose gets to the packing department without having been wrapped, that's it. This was their last chance. And so they're wrapping these vaccine doses as fast as they possibly can, but they can't keep up. So they're putting them in their shirt. They're putting them in their hat.

They're taking some of them. They're giving themselves some vaccines. And it just got out of hand. And that's sort of what happened. That's what happened to the – Is this I Love Lucy? That's what happened to those doses. I Love Lucy, I'm not familiar, but no, nothing to do with that. No. I don't understand the reference.

Honestly, I'm, like, impressed whenever you can ruin 16 million of something at once. I think about the times that I've fucked up at work. You know? Yeah. Just in the last week or so, we have seen two world historic fuck ups. Like I remember when I was a kid and I was learning to drive.

I had my learnings permit and I accidentally backed my mother's car into the closed garage door. Sure. I forgot to open the garage door. And that was haunting. Yeah. There was a car-shaped dent in the garage door.

I paid for that emotionally. I mean, that came up for a decade. Forget the cost. I heard about that for a decade. And then they get the ship stuck in the Suez Canal. You ruined 15 million doses of the vaccine. That is such a bad day. Yeah, really bad day.

Oh, I hadn't even thought about like, yeah, this in context of the Suez Canal captain. Oh, so embarrassing. Do you think all the other captains on their group chat were just blowing up that person's phone like, uh, nice shipping loser. I don't know what boat jokes are like but just sending them gifs of cars in too small of parking spaces as the captain of a ship you really never want to be in the wikipedia of a canal no you know like the wikipedia unless you're the first one through the canal, then.

Yeah. Yeah. Like that's a nice place. But every other entry is like a canal had to close because of a catastrophic spill was caught embezzling tons of cocaine through the canal. Would have been better. Would have been better for at least that's a rep, you know? Right. That takes some daring do.

Boat cred. Yeah. This is just a fuck up. Yeah. Smuggling is like, at least that's a rep, you know? Right. At least that takes some daring do. Boat cred. Yeah. This is just a fuck up. Yeah. Smuggling is like, at least it's like, you know, you're getting something going. You're proactive. Right. Side hustle, folks.

Yeah. Gotta be hustling. I feel like 15, 16 million vaccine doses ruined is like at a time where so many people are waiting for the vaccine, in addition to it being like, oh, what a bad day at the office. It's like, this is kind of a great reminder of like Joe Biden's ability to tell these companies to like open source the recipes or whatever it is. Yeah. Get the recipes out there. It's an alcohol recipe.

I don't think we need a more technical term. Because I'll tell you what, when Chipotle had the problem with their burritos, I was like, that's okay. I know where else to get burritos. Right. But if Johnson & Johnson is the only one making mRNA vaccine, it's like, ah, we need a vaccine Qdoba. See, for me, when Chipotle had the troubles, that to me was a great opportunity to go to Chipotle because there were no lines. There were no lines.

And a lot of times they were just like, just take it. Just take it and go. That's how I feel about these Johnson & Johnson vaccines. It's like, sure, hit me with one. Let's see what happens. Let's roll the dice. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that the Federal Communications Commission

could relax rules limiting the number of newspapers, radio stations, and television stations that a single entity may own in a given market, which is why we are proud to announce that Love It or Leave It is officially part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's great to be here. It's great to be here. Hey, I'm a named gay character. I'm a gay character with a name. It's possible. You don't have to, hey, a gay character in a Marvel Universe doesn't just have to be somebody in a group therapy session with Captain America. This is huge.

This is huge. Representation. This is excitement. I feel like it is a matter of time before you're either the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not you specifically, but any entertainment entity is either part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or is like pirate radio. Yeah, that's it. It's just like – That's the only option. It's just going to be – it's just either a Marvel movie or like some dreck from Jim Jarmusch.

That's it. Or just something – Oh, what's your radio – what's your podcast on? I transmit it individually to truckers over CB radio. I'm going to get killed for that. I don't think Jim Jarmusch makes Drek. A little slow. Yeah, quiet.

Small movies. Quiet. We need a small movie every now and again. We like small. It can't all be The Incredible Hulk. It can't all be The Hulk. I do think, though, especially with The Joker, obviously, I know your favorite film. That's what I understand.

You're a huge Joker guy. Big Joker guy. But the Joker, huge Joker guy. You go like tie for best Joker, Jared Leto, Joaquin Phoenix. And then you go down Jack Nicholson. Working in comedy, I just feel like the Joker became a household name without working in other kinds of entertainment. Like he's just a stand up. So I think there's something to be said for that.

But I do think that like Marvel, what they're going to do is like they're going to creep into other genres. Like we're going to end up with like a Sofia Coppola style film about an Avenger. We're going to get Marblecore. Marblecore. Yeah get Marblecore. Marblecore. Yeah. Marblecore. That's what it's going to be. Oh, no.

The Duplass brothers are going to get into Marblecore. So, yeah, obviously they're wearing masks, but aren't the real masks what we put on in a marriage? Like, that's really what this film is about. Yeah, they're superheroes. But they also kind of have lost their affection and it's through the eyes of a kid it's the squid and the whale and the hulk adam driver just punches fully through the wall of his house

that's awesome oh Oh, my God. I would see that, by the way. But I'm, like, joking, but it's, like, sign me up. I know. I mean, I kind of like those. Now we're way off course, but I kind of like those, like, unbreakable style movies about, like, where it's, like, a superhero, but it's just, like, a tiny little story about, like, a guy being, like, but if I can't die, what does it mean to live? Yeah. Explore it. Explore it.

Explore it. Hey, how does it affect your relationship with your son? I'm interested in that. I'm interested in that. I don't need another like a ray of light going to the ceiling and then a gray battle against a monster where the rules are punch, punch, punch, punch, punch.

These punches don't count. Then one last super punch. That's the punch that counts. That tends to be the rules in these things. Yeah. Look, I don't count then one last super punch that's the punch that counts i that tends to be the rules in these things yeah look i don't thanos sure that guy's uh he he reads some havoc but what about climate change where are we on that tony stark i don't know i actually have not seen enough of the movies to know if tony stark was working to combat climate change it definitely doesn't figure prominently uh it may have been it's the kind of thing that you could see slipping in in some like kind of dialogue getting like you know your your investments in climate change are paying off handsomely mr stark and then you're off to the

next thing i think you know just bullshit corporate lip service the carbon footprint of his iron man suit alone i have to imagine and look again are we off topic? Sure. But like what I have never understood is like, okay, the suit is very strong, but he's a person inside the suit and like kinetic energy is conserved. So, you know, like, so why is it that every time he like kind of crashes into the earth, they don't pour him out, you know? Right, right, right. He'd be poured out of that thing. Maybe the suit absorbs, it must absorb because otherwise it would just be like every NFL

player. Like, he would, Tony Stark would have just like the worst CTE in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yeah, like, that's, by the way, a direction we could go with the series, kind of a Rocky 5, late stage Rocky, paying the price of his career, all the success he had, and yet the dark side of it. Absolutely. Will Smith coming in as a doctor, an expert in the field.

You thought we were going to get yelled at about Jim Jarmusch. We're going to get yelled at about like, actually, here's how the suit works, idiots. Tell the truth. Tell the truth, Tony. This Iron Man suit. All right. Fitting, given how we've been talking about this.

On Wednesday, New York State legalized recreational marijuana. Hey, I'm token here. I'm token here. No notes. Sorry. No notes. No notes from Josh. A plus. A plus. Also, according to the White House, President Biden's dog Major was involved in a second biting incident this week. As a result, he will be demoted to captain. I can't decide whether it's a good sign that we know about how badly behaved the dogs are, because it's like, wow, the journalists are really getting into the nitty gritty, right? Like we're really getting the little stories. So no corruption is going to go unseen. Or whether it's like a smoke screen, like every time Biden is like changing his immigration policy, he's just like, hey, Major, maybe take a little bit out of that guy's hand so we can do a Friday News dump. Yeah, we're doing some we're doing some controversial EOs.

Can Champ take another shit in the dip room? That was actually pretty helpful. I do like the idea of seeing how badly behaved the president's dogs can get. I want it to get to like Beethoven levels. Beethoven. Just pausing to remind everybody that the plot of the children's film Beethoven is that an evil man wanted to test bullets on Beethoven's brain. Is that really what it was? The plot of the film Beethoven is that an evil weapons manufacturer or dealer pretends to be a vet so that he can kidnap Beethoven so that he can test

his super brain bullets on a human-sized skull that is Beethoven's skull skull that is the i'm i'm look i will say i've not seen this charles groden bonnie hunt vehicle since i was a child but this is seared into my fucking memory that the plot of the film is about stopping a man from testing bullets on beethoven that's and again no i'm not criticizing it because that is such a like consultancy group solution to him being like, well, I want to shoot people in the skull. And they're like, that is a bad look. Is there like a really big dog? They're like, isn't that worse? And like, depends on how big the dog is.

But it's also unaddressed in the film is like why it has to be this family's dog. Like it's it's a really intricate plot. Like he gets to know like the dog is it's personal yeah he's very intent on this one dog right instead of like creating a dog skull in a lab or something like a synthetic a lot of options yeah he's like we need to disappoint those kids that's who I want to see cry. If I remember, in order to get Beethoven, he frames Beethoven for a bite. He pretends to have been attacked by Beethoven, which obviously the children know is a lie because Beethoven would never hurt a living soul.

Yeah, Beethoven's a gentle giant. He's a gentle giant, absolutely. Just a gentle giant would never do it, which is obviously what sets off the third act. Anyway, Major is a vicious monster. And just a ferocious animal. So anyway, Biden jumped onto a countertop to avoid yet another lunge from this untamed, unquenchable beast that now can only survive on human blood, like the bear in the film The Edge. If you go back to your scripture in the film The

Edge. So Biden gets on the counter and then he announces his infrastructure plan. It's $2 trillion to modernize our electric grid and transportation network and other infrastructure, and $1 trillion will help fight climate change. And new polling out shows that Americans are more likely to support it when they find out it's paid for by raising taxes on the rich and corporations. Infrastructure, said Matt Gaetz, I hardly know her. I saw it. I saw it coming. And I clenched my body like I was about to get into a car crash. Because in a way you were. a sense you did i feel like he could pull the full cuomo right of being like oh allegations against me uh everybody get high as hell he should just

be like infrastructure baby i'm all i'm all in you know what i mean he could just totally flip and people would be so mad at him they i the Republican Party would be so much madder at him for supporting a Biden policy than they would for sex trafficking. Oh, I mean, if there's one thing that we have learned, that there is only one sin in Republican politics, and it is the sin of supporting minor tax increases for rich people in the corporations. That's the only unforgivable act. The thing I saw, not to go back again, I saw the reports that Matt Gaetz was using ecstasy, right? Like that was one of the other things, which like I'm not here to look down my nose at people who use recreational drugs. I will say Matt Gaetz hangs out with a lot of Holocaust deniers. And I think if you don't think the Holocaust happened, I would be so happy if there was no holocaust i

wouldn't need ecstasy right just like hey you know what there was no holocaust like for real if that was for real i'd be like wow what a what a weight i've been carrying just thinking about the worst evils humanity can come i mean there's other ones but that specific one as a Jew. It's a big one. Yeah. I'm rolling. I just want to touch velvet and dance to EDM. Yeah, I would say hell is being trapped in a conversation with Matt Gates while he's on MDMA. I think that that is the definition of hell on earth, and I would not wish it on my worst enemies. Josh Gondelman, it has been so great to talk to you. This was so fun.

Thank you for helping us break down the news this week. When we come back, I talk to Satan himself. How about that? How about that? Thanks for having me, John. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back.

Earlier this week, Lil... Lil. Lil. Jesus. Lil Nas X released Montero, Prenz, call me by your name, and Prenz, which has created some light controversy over a romantic interlude in the music video between the singer and Satan.

We reached out to Lil Nas X, but he was unavailable. Thankfully, the Dark Lord was an easier booking. Here to discuss his appearance in the music video is the devil. Thank you for being here, Satan. You didn't plug my podcast. Okay, I figured we'd do it at the end. Hi, I'm the devil, and I have a brand new limited series podcast. It's a candid conversation about life, about growing up, about cancel culture,

with me and one of music's biggest names. Nervous. Nervous about who this is. It's Prince. No, stop it. You stop it. It's not. It's not.

It's not. It's Clapton. It's Eric Clapton. We do it over Zoom. It's really just two friends not. It's Clapton. It's Eric Clapton. We do it over Zoom. It's really just two friends talking. You know, he talks about his racist outburst. He talks about that anti-lockdown song he did with Van Morrison. I talk about working with some bats to make a brand new coronavirus and my work on Emily

in Paris. You can get new episodes exclusively on Luminary. It's only on Luminary. That's a bummer. Can we just focus, though? I really want to... That's not why you're here. Um, yeah. Uh, are you surprised by the backlash to the video?

Am I surprised that there's backlash to a music video in which a young man slides down a pole into hell and then two men pantomime gay sex, one of whom is me? Are you under the impression I participated in this video because I thought no one would talk about it? Honey, I'm the devil. I invented drama. I quit my job one time and they wrote poetry about it. People still talk about what is literally my first scandal. And the only thing that happens in it is a girl eats a dang apple. Do you know how hard it is to sell that? Do you think that just happens? No, no, you have to choose your moments, John. Okay, you have to read the zeitgeist, mama. I was generating likes before the earth cooled.

My story is the story. But the song is also about empowerment and overcoming the confines of sexual and gender binaries. I can't believe you're interested in that message. I know the video was meant to create a firestorm. That's clearly like the goal. But that firestorm is one in which a young person stands up for the idea of being open about a sexuality

of like rejecting shame. Yeah, and I hate that part, obviously. Honestly, I was just, I was bored. Ugh, Trump is gone. My boy Chris Harrison got shit canned. Being cute stopped being fun like a while ago. My prank show with Chris D'Elia got put on hold and I still don't know why. Do you know what happened to him?

You don't know why? No. He won't return my texts. Ghosted? Ghosting the devil? Yeah. That's too bad. That's too bad.

That's too bad. I FaceTimed him the other day without texting first, which I know is rude, but I just had to know what's going on. That's such a, that is something the devil would do. That is something the devil would do. He wouldn't even answer. Honestly, it's just, I'm bored. It's like, how many novels can I write under my pen name? Robert Galbraith. Skipping. I'm not going to. Thanks for the last president, by the way. that was a huge bummer oh trump you mean trump yeah yeah trump no oh god i'd love to take credit but i don't work that way you know i play a long game babe you know as long as the board game gloom haven which i also invented

we have a saying in hell john have you been to hell uh not not recently not since they renovated sure oh it's beautiful now we have a a saying, though. Give a culture Trump, and you'll have Trump for four years. Teach a culture to create Trump, and you'll have Trumps for the rest of your life. Chilling. Do you love it? I mean, it's a hard thing to hear. Yeah. Oh, I did convince Tev Cruz to grow that nasty beard, though. That was me. That was you. That was you. But I still don't get it. Like, it's a manufactured controversy. Like, I was struggling with this. Like, yes, it's good for Lil Nas X. It's good for the grifters who stir up outrage against him. It's good for everybody talking about it. We're doing this segment, like we're commenting on it,

but we're also part of the firestorm. We're all generating content about this all the time. Like you could have scripted this, like the second you see the video, you know, what controversy is coming, the backlash, the backlash to the backlash. And like, I'm generally cool with it because I like the message it's sending. I like the conversation we're having, but it still just kind of feels like... I'll tell you what it is. It's noise. Yeah, like noise.

It's lots and lots of noise, honey. When Mark and I were figuring out Facebook, even I didn't understand the power of noise. Okay, I'm a huge fan of lying. Lies are my bread and also my butter. But then with mark i said oh this is my aha moment you know which is a phrase i learned from oprah when i was telling her about the secret so you told her about the secret that came that's how that happened uh-huh yeah dr oz too was that you from start to finish that was that was one of the few i didn't even

need my team that was all me concept i pinned a page and then she was born. Do you sometimes find that it's nice to kind of do that all? Just to show like that you can still do it, you know? A hundred percent. Especially when you're a leader, they need to know you still have the stuff, you know? Okay. All right. We're off topic here. Okay. So you were talking about noise. The thing with noise is that it's way harder to overcome than lies. Okay. The truth can drown out a lie, but you can't drown out noise. What are you going to do? Make more noise?

Then I win. You can only make more of it. All right? Go Patriots. All right. Satan, everybody. Knives Out didn't even have a twist. Amazon doesn't need unions.

Get out of here. They like to pee and poop in those bottles. They like to. Get out of here, devil. Get out of here, you devil. Thank you to the devil himself, Josh Sharp, for joining. That was hilarious. We come back, my conversation with Theo Henderson. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. He is the host of the podcast, We the Unhoused.

Welcome, Theo Henderson. Theo, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me and for your gracious welcome. So I wanted to start by asking you about the podcast, We the Unhoused. Can you just tell us a little bit about it and why you're doing it? Basically, it's due to my lived experience and the ever-growing frustration of mainstream media miscategorizing the unhoused and the community and all of the nuances that were lacking in mainstream media. I took it upon myself to create an independent journalism or guerrilla journalism to interview my closest friends, as well as unhoused people in other communities, to get their stories and to basically humanize

them where that seems to be lacking in the mainstream media, if you will. I'm a new listener, and there were two things that I found striking when I was listening to the show. The first was just hearing the voices of unhoused people and just interviewing people about their experience. Because what was striking to me is I think there's a lot of assumptions people have, a lot of baggage they bring to the conversation. And this sort of cuts through that about what the experience is like. And one question you ask is, what was the first night of being unhoused like? Can you talk a little bit about what you've learned just interviewing people about their own experience, how it differed from yours? What have you learned in these conversations?

Actually, I've grown better interviewing as a result of it and understanding the nuances about houselessness. When I became unhoused, I definitely drank into the mainstream Kool-Aid and listened to some of the corrosive ideas of deserving and undeserving housing. Sometimes media always only gets superficial issues. So when I started to talk with unhoused people, I noticed there was a different development that mainstream media does not have. They relax around me.

They could be a little bit more open because we have a shared common experience. And they tell me their stories that maybe a lot of times media just don't want. They want the punchy headline. You see like the Streets of Shame, they're talking over the unhoused person. They're trying to get their point in.

The producer just wants them to get the idea of just being neutral or indifferent to people's real trauma and experience. So that way, when I found out about the scope of houselessness and the scope is a lot wider than people that are people write them off as mentally ill, don't want to work or substance usage. And that's been seen to be most people's ideas of what helplessness is. But we're not talking about the ever-growing and frightening spread of unhoused elderly senior citizens. They can't work themselves out of this. They're not on substance usage, and they're not mentally ill. Some of them have maybe dementia or Alzheimer's, but it's not the scope of what they're talking about. Most people really frame that and they call upon law enforcement as the panacea to this

overgrowing wound. You had a conversation with a woman named Shirley and she talked about how hard it is to not drink, to stay clean, which she sounds like she was successfully able to do when there are no tools, no resources. She felt that she had built her own internal tools, but it's hard to be around a lot of people who have not had the opportunity to do that and have no resources whatsoever. And so I do think part of this too is people talk about mental illness, they talk about substance abuse, not the inability of people dealing with those issues to get out of it if they're unhoused. And even if they are, that even though she has the intestinal resources to abstain from drinking, she's still unhoused. That's the second part of the pronger issue.

But also the reason why many people are using substances, as Shirley also pointed out, is the trauma of being unhoused because it's a traumatic experience. Every constant NIMBY or neighborhood disdain, constant police harassment because people that live in houses are calling the police or city council members and painting them as the pariahs of society. And so that can take a toll. And in dealing with the winds and rains of heaven, and in respects of dealing with cold climate and different other challenges like vermin running over you and things like that,

I have to put up any house person that is running around calling on house people to live a year out there in the same environment and see how they perspective and their mind and their landscape would change and how would they cope with it. What's also striking in the conversations you have is you talk to people that are unhoused,

you also talk to people that are working with people who are unhoused, you also talk to people that are working with people who are unhoused. And what seems to be a thread was how much of the job of organizers, of volunteers, is trying to keep public services at bay, trying to keep the police out, trying to keep sanitation out, trying to just keep the government away so that they can do their work. And then how much of the work that these private organizations are doing that we wish the government would do, right? That they're doing the work that we kind of would rather the government do. What has been your experience in dealing with

in the services that nonprofits have been doing that you wish the government would be doing? Well, let me be clear. The city and the government are not there to help unhoused people. Their solutions have always been criminalization, case in point, the Afropark debacle. They believe that unhoused people should be easily criminalized. And once we get them in services, we should always have a specter of criminalization

or making a paternalistic 1800 white supremacist idea of health services. I can't talk about nonprofits. Nonprofits I have an issue with because many of them have a religious slant to it. And then a lot of it is doesn't reach the entire scope of unhoused because they're telling them they're going to hell or they're having this belief, pick yourself up by your bootstrap. But when I can speak intelligently on the people that I talk to, these are volunteer people that are not paid and they are coming in, like for example, Street Watch, Ground Gang, K-Town Parole. Those organizations are stepping forward because they're in need and they're trying to reimagine

public safety. And when you contact, when people are linked together like LASA and sanitation, and when they're coming to upend people's lives and when people have the temerity to stand around, they get afraid and call police. They make it like this situation is such unattainable. Like this morning, I covered a sleep down in the valley and this elderly woman who was disabled,

they called over 13 service workers, but at least six or seven police officers to upend this woman, as well as this other elderly gentleman, Mr. Tony, that could barely walk. And when we see this, out of $3 billion, this is 54% of our budget, and we utilize them as they are the panacea to every social ill that there is. And without understanding, they're in tandem. They are not there to help unhoused people. The lots of workers are abrasive. The sanitation worker was very disrespectful to the elderly woman about the

abundance or excess of food that she couldn't cook anyway because she did not have the cooking implements to do that. And then basically trying to shame and humiliate them. And then when they get on places like the Hollywood Reporter or Los Angeles Times, who doesn't really quote them to test, they make it sound like it's the activist that is causing the hang up or slowing down the production of getting unhoused people in it. But it's really they refuse to meet with the people that have a say in their own lives. I give you an example, if I may, and I'll let you go to the next question. Let's say, for example, that you were looking for a home or you were looking for an apartment. You know what your likes are and your dislikes are.

They want to have a pet. You may don't want to smoke smoking. You may want to have another person in a sub lease. All of these issues that is according to you and you go in and you ask these kind of questions and in return, they may be the place that you're looking for. Maybe it's close to transportation because so you want to get your groceries. You may not have a car. You may want to take your laundry and go down the street. Now, let's imagine this. Take this to another concept.

The unhoused community want this very same thing. They don't want curfews. They want to key into their own door. They want to be able to be respected like adults. But somehow the mindset of maybe some of the nonprofits, as well as the city, refuses to allow that humanity and their dignity. What if they want to go and take their shopping somewhere else? Or maybe they don't want to eat the food that's given to them because they may have an allergy or maybe they have a dietary need. And so they may want to go in there, but they can't bring certain things in.

Or let's say, for example, that people have certain sufferings of some illnesses and they believe in alternative medication like CBD or cannabis smoking. That would be grounds to eject the person out of that. Or let's take it a step further. If someone is having substance use issues and they don't have the supportive services to support them and they have a relapse, that's another grounds to eject them. So when you hear these questions and when unhoused people are saying that they want to stay at the table, they want to talk about how can we meet people where they are and have understanding capacity instead of this carceral idea that we just throw them in there and we force them in it and they don't like it, they're going to jail or we're going to ticket them and create more hardship for them. This is not solving the problem. This is what the city has to offer. I'm curious what you think about how we can make a change here. These organizations that are on the ground,

are they doing the kind of work you'd like to see the public sector adopt? Are you seeing the actual tools and methods and ways to help people, really help people, in what these volunteers are doing? I wouldn't recommend them if I didn't believe in them. So I believe in them, and I recommend them. They are reimagining them. So I believe in them and I recommend them. They are reimagining public safety. And because they're having conversations, ongoing conversations about changing the dynamic. So we're doing de-escalation things. They're doing trauma-informed care.

They're doing harm reduction. All of the things that the city should be embracing instead of the 1800 model of beating down on house people, sweeping them up, putting them in jail, and causing more hardship. Can you talk a little bit about Project Roomkey and if there are aspects of it that are working and what aspects aren't working? Well, Project Roomkey is a step above limiting on the streets in some respects. It has a shower where you can go and take a bath. It has a bed. But one of the things

that it doesn't work is they tip the TV out. They tip the phone out. You have a room that looks like a jail cell. And then you have a curfew. Then you wandered in. And then you're treated like as if you are in jail, but you're free. You're not on any kind of criminal pain. So basically, I've heard mixed reports, honestly. Some unhoused people like it because it's a way for them to feel safe and have a place to put their things, because some people that run Project Roomkey doesn't have those same structures. But many of the unhoused that I've conversated and interviewed have stated the opposite. They did not like the aspect that they lose their freedom, and they didn't like the aspect that

is a pervasive idea with the staff members, not always the security, but the staff members, that they are the scum that's on their shoes and they've been treated like that. And they don't appreciate that. I wonder if people listening hear that and they say, well, this is still better than being on the street. It's still a bed in a room with a roof. People always say that. Yeah. What's your reaction? I'm curious what you think about that.

It's always interesting whenever I push the conversation back and says, okay, let's trade your position. Let's put the unhoused in your place and you live there for a year and then you come back and see how it would be like. But then it always appears

that the conversation fades off because like this gentleman that works sanitation, he was trying to push that very same thing. And I said, okay, it seems like you know that this is a problem, but yet you want to put someone else in it. So what does that say to you about a person? Because you're giving a paternalistic,

a harmful solution where you know that this dehumanizes human beings, but you're okay with it being a vulnerable population, but you won't take the courage to jump into that. So that tells me, you know, it's a problem, but you don't want to go through that same suffering. So if you don't want to do it, why do you think other people should go through it? Are there strategies or policies that you've seen that are working that you think more that we should be adopting that you should point people to, that we should point people to? Most of the actions and things that have taken place in the city that's starting to change some things has been due to direct

action from the activists and policies. Like, for example, I've noticed I've been on beat a couple of times with other places where they are doing cleanup before sanitation arrives. So all they can do is just spot clean and leave the unhoused and camped medical. The second thing we are doing is understanding the nuances of medical issues. And I think one of the things the Street Watch is doing a very good job of is trying to get a medical statement from doctors to see them, to tell them we're in CDC guidelines as well as medical issues. You should not be moving people that have open medical issues out just because you want to clean the sidewalk or something. Maybe NIMBY Nelson wants to enjoy the life of a duck or whatever the nonsense that they have and not understand the true scope of the problem of homelessness. Exploding rents, not livable wages, all of these kinds of things, along with medical

challenges, make up this whole recipe or this whole stew of corrosiveness. What can people do to get involved? How can they help? If people are listening and they want to support you, they want to support the work you're doing, what should they do? Two things. I've noticed that it's very difficult for people to support my Patreon. That would help. And the second thing is, it's like, I have a podcast that's auditory, and I have a visual. And I strongly encourage, I've been trying to get to where I can get 2,000 viewers. So if you can please go to Weedian House, the videos, because it's a little more expanded than the auditory, then you can see a little bit more and can gain a little more insight.

So my Patreon, and then also I have a Venmo to really support this kind of thing. Because this reporting is not embraced a lot with the mainstream media. There's some of them that are slowly getting to the point to it, but they're still not quite there yet. But I give you a straight with no chaser. Theo Henderson, thank you so much for your time. And everybody, search for We The Unhoused, listen to it, support this work, and hope

to see you again soon. Thank you very much for having me on. Thank you to Theo for joining us. When we come back, I quiz a listener about some unsettling Amazon tweets. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. Amazon.

It's one of the largest companies on earth, and it has made its founder the richest person in the history of the world, but it's also paid a price for success. Bad tweets. Also a documented record of dystopian work conditions and brutal incentives exposed by journalists and whistleblowers from bottles of pee to dead bodies unattended on the floor. This has led to an historic organizing effort at one of Amazon's facilities in Bessemer, Alabama. As we speak, the National Labor Relations Board is counting the votes very slowly for some reason, the results of Amazon is not taking this lying down. You're not allowed to lie down. They have some tweets of their own, including some by supposedly real Amazon employees

who can say what they want so long as what they want to say is what Amazon doesn't not want them to say, if you understand what I'm saying. But these Amazon tweets, like any photo taken at Mar-a-Lago or any interview with a golden girl about working with Bea Arthur, can hide an underlying existential sadness just beneath the attempt to paint a happy portrait. In fact, we don't think you'll be able to tell the difference between real tweets sent on behalf of Amazon and ones we made up. That's why we are joined by Alyssa. Hi, Alyssa.

Hi. And we are going to read Alyssa some real, quote unquote, real Amazon tweets and some ones we made up. And you have to decide which are the real ones, real adjacent, and which are the fake ones. Okay, Alyssa? Okay. Where in the country are you? I'm in adjacent, and which are the fake ones. Okay, Alyssa? Okay.

Where in the country are you? I'm in Washington, D.C. Nice. We should make that place a state. We should. I agree. All right. Here we go. Are you ready? Yes. I can safely say that none of my ideas have panned out anywhere near what Jeff Bezos has accomplished. I am more than happy, though, to continue working here at BFI4 in Washington.

I receive a more than fair wage and work with some pretty good people making history every day. That's fake? Nope. That's a real one. Next tweet. Long time picker, first time caller. Amazon gives us breaks with plenty of time. Just the other day, I went to the little employee's room for 10 full minutes, which left me more than enough wiggle room for the 10 minute walk back to my station, even though I was lost in a kind of fog and came to in a different part of the warehouse. Fake. That is fake. Okay.

Next tweet. I don't want to bring up images of the three bears with the too much, too little thing, but my wages are just right. Bear wink. Seriously, I can pay my bills just fine. That one's got to be so weird it's real. That's real. You got it. Amazon has really developed into something pretty amazing since it started in 1994. And I, for one, I'm sure glad it did. I have been with the co just over a year now. Wouldn't trade my time in the FC

for anything real, real. Hey there, haters. Yeah, I work at Amazon and yeah, I like it here. People buy so many dildos. That's hilarious. A job with benefits and unlimited dildo chuckles. Sign me up. Fake. Yeah. Yeah, that's fake. Yeah. I suffer from depression too. And at one point I wanted to quit Amazon, but I realized it was my fault for the problems I was dealing with and not Amazon's. I'm allowed

to talk to people, but sometimes I don't want to. Now I have some great coworkers to pass the nights with. That one's real. That one's real. Yeah. Next tweet. Hey, probably shouldn't tweet this here, but I am stuck between a forklift and the side of what appears to be a waiting pool for children. It is minion themed if that helps you isolate my location.

Fake. Yeah, that one's fake. And finally, last Thursday was my five-year anniversary working at Amazon. Five wonderful years of frequent bathroom breaks and lessons learned. Here's to many more. That one's real. That one's real. Alyssa.

Yeah. You've won the game. Thank you. When we come back, we'll end on a high note. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Because we all need it this week, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Because we all need it this week, here it is, the high note.

I love it. It's Toby from Arkansas. including some small humans that were able to be vaccinated and celebrate together and understand that we weren't able to celebrate together last year, but in the middle of Arkansas, where we joke that we only have three Jews, we were able to be together and to be safe and to uphold our traditions of remembering the Exodus and remembering what it's like to be oppressed. And we discussed how we can better advocate in our own communities and uplift those who are currently oppressed. So very grateful for the vaccine and for the ability to safely practice our freedom of religion here in Arkansas.

Thanks, love it. Hi, John. This is Leah from Minnesota, and I want to talk about my six-year-old son. He has been trying for months to snap his fingers, and the other day at dinner, it clicked in every sense of the word. He was able to snap his fingers, and the look of pride on his face when that crystal clear snap rang out was just really heartwarming and we celebrated and we snapped and just had a great evening. So hope you have a great day and thanks for everything. Bye. Hi, I'm calling from Massachusetts. I just want to say that my

hand out for the week and my high note throughout the pandemic is a little bit cheesy and a little bit meta. But my high note is these high notes. Every week they make me a little bit emotional and just fill me with such hope. So my high note for the week are this show and this high note. So thank you so much for all you do and I hope you are staying safe. Thanks. Hi, love it. My name is Jen from Portland, Oregon. Jen from Portland, Oregon. My high note this week is after 28 years of trauma, I finally have a BIPOC therapist and have finally trusted someone and am about to get to work and leave it and love myself. Bye.

Thanks to everybody who called in. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at 213-262-4427. Thank you so much to Josh Gondelman, Theo Henderson, Josh Sharp, and everyone who called in. There are 584 days until the 2022 midterm election. have a great weekend. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, Lee Eisenberg, Jocelyn Kaufman, Pallavi Gunalan, and Peter Miller are the writers.

Our assistant producer is Sydney Rapp. 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 Jamie Skeel, for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast and to our digital producers, Narmal Konian and Milo Kim for filming and editing video each week. So you can.