Lovett or Leave It - It’s a Crypto Polycule Friendsgiving, Charlie Brown!

Episode Date: November 19, 2022

The whole Lovett Or Leave It family welcomes you and your hot dish to this year’s first-ever crypto polycule Friendsgiving! Byron Bowers and Diallo Riddle help Lovett put the “bit” in Bitcoin, while Stacey Abrams (Ashley Nicole Black) flies in on her way to a much-needed vacation. We conclusively decide who is the most annoying Thanksgiving guest, and end the show with a wholesome turn of the Gratitude Wheel. Because we’ll all have plenty to rant about. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Hello, Los Angeles. Welcome to Love It or Leave It. Live or Else is a very special episode. You see, in the news this week, it's been rumored that the grifting geeks behind the most spectacular collapse in crypto history lived in a polycule, a kind of romantically adventurous roommate situation. A sexual rat king, if you will. Well, as you all know, my side hustle has been to launch my very own Love It coin. And wouldn't you know it, I found myself in a polycule as well.

Lovett coin. And wouldn't you know it, I found myself in a polycule as well. So tonight, it's the Lovett or Leave It Friendsgiving Crypto Polycule Spectacular. We'll do the whole show twice if you're not careful. Two members of the Cule, Diallo Riddle and Byron Bowers are here and they'll quiz you on the worst moments in crypto's nasty, brutish, and short history. They'll be joined by Ashley Nicole Black to crown the worst attendee of Thanksgiving. A special almost governor of Georgia might swing by to fill us in on how she's filling her free time. And I know what you're thinking. Unlike the rest of these scam artists, I can say with certainty that Love It Coin is here to stay. Which is why we'll be spinning on this very special episode,

not a rant wheel, but a gratitude wheel. I, Cajun accent, guarantee, I can't. Can't do, what, guarantee, I won't do it. It feels wrong. It'll be a great show. But first, let's get into it. What a week. Well, it's official. Donald Trump announced he is running for president in 2024.

Yeah, great. Nice. Elections are like Netflix episodes. Oh, you wanted to watch the midterm credits? Too bad. Another episode has already begun. to watch the midterm credits? Too bad. Another episode has already begun. Many prominent GOP officials and former operatives were absent from Trump's Mar-a-Lago announcement Tuesday. Most notably missing were Matt Gaetz, Mike Pence,

and Ivanka Trump, who said that she no longer would be supporting her father's political endeavors. You can't blame Pence, though. Trump invited him to come hang, and that could mean anything. Explain Pence. I'm waiting to see where Trump lands on several important policy questions. For example, just off the top of my head, I can't help but wonder whether he still would love to watch a live news broadcast of a mob of his supporters grabbing me by my arms and legs and dragging me as I flail and demand to be released across the grass in front of the Capitol,

and then putting a rope around my neck as I go quiet and pray to God, and then dragging me up to the gallows, and then pushing me off from a height, but in a kind of dirty way that's not high or fast enough so I don't die immediately, but basically choke to death as the camera cuts away a few seconds too late. Anyway, I waited two years to describe the very real possibility of the above, which Trump encouraged and by sheer providence did not happen, as not evil, not monstrous. I just called it, quote, reckless. And then I said this. He was my president and he was my friend.

You don't know what a friend is, Mike Pence. friend is Mike Pence. Reports have detailed the Trump event as low energy, even boring compared to Trump's rallies and speeches of the past. One Fox host even had the stones to say this to Laura Trump. So I'm sure you're very supportive of your father-in-law, but those of us on the outside looking at it, it didn't seem as he got the old magic. And I'm sure it's totally unrelated to the nationwide Adderall shortage. Meanwhile, even as Republicans gained a House majority in the midterms, Democrats have officially retained control of the Senate. So you know what that means. If you're a federal judge with a picture of you in your chambers shaking Bill Clinton's hand,

it's time to retire and make room for a Harvard Law grad who loves three things. Expansive interpretations of the 14th Amendment, long distance running, and being born in 1995. It's time for federal judges who believe due process slays. But we still have to win Georgia, obviously. It won't decide the Senate majority, but it will decide some other interesting questions, like is Herschel Walker a fucking U.S. senator? Are you serious?

It would also mean that we would have a majority in every committee, and Vice President Kamala Harris's vote would no longer be required to break a tie, turning her role as president of the Senate into a much more symbolic one, finally freeing her to laugh maniacally about Venn diagrams uninterrupted. I love Venn diagrams. I really do.

More free time? Oh, cool, said the vice president, stoned and drifting through the Air and Space Museum at three in the afternoon on a Wednesday. More free time? Oh, cool, said the vice president, sitting behind her desk in her office in an escape room designed to look like the White House. At a recent campaign speech, Herschel Walker went on a long rambling digression about a vampire movie he saw. The other night I was watching this movie, I was watching this movie called Fright Night, Freak Night, or some type of night, but it was about vampires.

I don't know if you know vampires and cool people, are they not? But I'm going to tell you something that I found out. A werewolf can kill a vampire. Did you know that? I never knew that, so I didn't want to be a vampire anymore. I wanted to be a werewolf.

In response, the reporter he was addressing said, Sir, my question was about the child tax credit. Speaking of chaos, according to Politico, Rick Scott challenged Mitch McConnell at a closed-door lunch this week ahead of Wednesday's leadership elections in the Senate, telling reporters that he is not satisfied with the status quo. Mitch McConnell didn't seem worried, though, telling reporters this. Look, I don't own this job.

Anybody in the conference is certainly entitled to challenge me. And I welcome the contest. And I welcome the contest, he said again as the hand in his pocket pushed the little tack deeper into the meat of his thigh. When asked if she'd seek the office of Senate President Pro Tem, which is the third in line to the presidency, Dianne Feinstein told a reporter she hadn't thought about it. Then an aide told Feinstein that, in fact, she'd already declined. We know she's declined. She's declining in front of our eyes. Look at Vermont.

Patrick Leahy is 82, so he decided to retire and make room for a young up-and-comer. So now Vermont is going to be represented by a fresh face, Peter Welch, who is, it says here, 75. Come on! And then there's Nancy Pelosi, who announced Thursday that she will step down from the House Democratic leadership when Republicans gain control in January, though she will keep her congressional seat. So buckle up, folks, because I'm feeling some neolib cringe coming on. If we could afford it, we'd be playing Hamilton right now. You know what that sound means? It's time for a neolib cringe alert. President Biden praised Pelosi as the most consequential speaker of the House

of Representatives in our history. And he would know. Biden served with just about all of them. The most consequential speaker until now, muttered Kevin McCarthy moments before locking his keys, phone, and wallet in his car. Nancy Pelosi has led the Democrats for two decades and was the first woman to serve in the Post. She's also the first Italian-American to hold that position, but people always seem to forget about it.

I did go for it. You think we keep it? Do it again. Shut up. During the Obama years alone, she passed the Recovery Act, Dodd-Frank, the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and the Affordable Care Act. Most recently, Pelosi oversaw two Trump impeachments, passed the American Rescue Plan, and got the Inflation Reduction Act over the finish line.

Did she get a permanent daylight savings time bill through the House? No. But does that dim all of her other accomplishments? At 4.48 p.m. it does. During the January 6th insurrection, throngs of armed MAGA freaks screamed at the Capitol building to send over Nancy Pelosi or else they'd come inside and get her Bring her up here! Hey!

We're coming in if you don't bring her up! Democrats wanted her Republicans wanted to be at her As the insurrection unfolded Pelosi pushed the administration to respond and to get the counting of electoral votes back on track. I just got off with the vice president. And I got off with the vice president-elect.

So I'll tell him what she said. Schumer may as well have pulled out a Fisher-Price phone and mashed the buns with his fist to be met with such a pure uncut, great honey, mommy's working. And I wanted to take a moment to unironically celebrate Nancy Pelosi, our Prada bag with a gun in it, because underneath the cringe

and plenty of criticism that is very much earned is someone who made sure that how she led was not the limiting factor in how progressives our policies would be. And there were two examples. Look, it's easy to make fun of a senior citizen from San Francisco with an ice cream freezer and just weird ass hand gestures. But here's the point. When Democrats had the super majority in the Senate and we had

the House during the first years of the Obama administration, Nancy Pelosi pushed and got a climate bill through the House in the promise that it would be able to get through the Senate. It couldn't, but she got a lot of House Democrats to make a really tough vote and a lot of them lost their seats over it. And so I think it's pretty fitting that the capstone was passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the biggest investment in climate and the environment in world history. The other thing that I always think about is what happened with Obamacare. So Obamacare passes through the House a more progressive version than what ultimately came to law and a more progressive version than anything that had passed the Senate had passed through the House. To get that bill through the House, she persuaded

a bunch of House progressives to go along in the theory that whatever they would get through the Senate, they would negotiate in the conference and get a more progressive version than what's coming out of the Senate through. Because it was not just about getting the moderates and the dicks like Joe Lieberman on in the Senate. You had to get the House progressives on board who wanted single payer, but understood it probably wasn't possible, but wanted the most progressive bill possible through both the House and the Senate. So that was the plan. The more conservative would pass through the Senate, the more progressive would pass through the House, and they would fix it in the conference committee. But then something happened, which is Ted Kennedy died, and we lost that Senate seat. So we had 59 seats. So now we were screwed because we couldn't pass a new able to pass something through the Senate again. So Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Senate figured out a way to have the Democratic House pass the conservative Senate bill under the promise that through reconciliation, they would have 50 votes in the Senate to pass fixes through the budget process to bring the House progressives on board. We were so close to Obamacare not happening.

And Nancy Pelosi helped figure out how to get that done. She got a ton of shit done in that time. She did a lot of cringe shit too. But there is no point at which Nancy Pelosi is responsible for what came out of a Democratic Congress or a Democratic administration. She was never the one responsible for something being less progressive. It was always trying to get something as progressive as possible through the more conservative Senate. So I just want to take a moment to be unironically

grateful to Nancy Pelosi, because I think sometimes on the Democratic side, we do a lot of eating of our own. She's the first female Speaker of the House, which is no small thing. And so we remember her achievements in her many moments of pure cringe, like reading Bono's poem about Ukraine, or having the Hamilton cast memorialize the January 6th insurrection, or wearing kente cloth in support of George Floyd. She could be embarrassing, but she got the job done, like a PT cruiser or an iPad camera. Because it turns out that reality has a cringe bias. And that's our neolib cringe alert. Hopefully Twitter doesn't exist when this comes out. In other news, a judge in Fulton County, Georgia, has overturned the state's six-week abortion ban,

ruling it unconstitutional and saying the law cannot be enforced. Upon hearing the news, Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker told a crowd of supporters, please excuse me, I need to make like 30 phone calls. Here in California, Karen Bass on Wednesday became the first woman elected as mayor of Los Angeles. Defeating

mall magnate Rick Caruso, the Cheesecake Factory flags at the Grove in Americana flew at half staff. We ran a good race and didn't achieve our goal, but thankfully there was no better way to use $100 million to improve our city. Dolly Parton won the Bezos Courage and Civility Award,

which comes with a $100 million prize. Jeff Bezos explained, her civility is amazing. I'd have simply had Jolene killed. This week also brought a deluge of bizarre details about the collapse of crypto giant FTX after its founder Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly took 10 billion dollars of customer money to fund risky bets by his trading firm. It's kind of neat how even a brand new decentralized financial system eventually morphs into Lehman Brothers, like how crabs evolved five separate times.

This is why I just ended up putting my money in old-fashioned markets, specifically Boston Market. As FTX collapsed, rumors circulated that Bankman-Fried and his ex-girlfriend were part of a 10-person polycule. FTX's in-house psychiatrist denied those reports, telling the New York Times, it's a pretty tame place.

The higher-ups, they mostly played chess and board games. There was no partying. They were undersexed, if anything. Imagine if everything you built imploded in the most spectacular and embarrassing way possible, and then your psychiatrist tells the New York Times that you're a gamer that never gets laid. I think it's cool.

A new video game will allow players to control Jesus Christ as he performs the miracles of the New Testament. There's also a two-player mode where you can play as his brother Luigi. For an extra challenge, you can play on Jewish mode. Strength and dexterity are set to zero, but your rabbinical points are maxed out. Personal items from Joan Didion's estate went up for auction this week with one pair of her sunglasses,

fetching $27,000. I hope people know you can't absorb writing talent through writer's possession. Stealing Aaron Sorkin's credit cards has done nothing for me talent-wise. Anyway, shout out to the people who have to say, Oh, wow, when the person who purchased these sunglasses points them out on a tour of their undoubtedly garish home. glasses points them out on a tour of their undoubtedly garish home a gimp in essex in the uk is upset about another gimp who wears his own full body skin tight latex in the somerset region but with the intention of scaring people the essex gimp said the somerset gimp is giving gims a bad name the essex gimp tried to perform a citizen's arrest on the somerset Gimp, but getting out of those fuzzy handcuffs is pretty easy. I've heard. Russia placed new sanctions

on 100 Canadians, including Jim Carrey. When it comes to Russia, my advice for Jim Carrey would be, do not go in there. Anyway, Jim Carrey was later seen canceling a trip to Lake Baikal by way of rkuts, saying to his travel agent, somebody stop me.

Gotta get lower. Somebody stop me. When we come back, Friendsgiving begins. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back! Like all of you, I've been watching the collapse of FTX cryptocurrency exchange and its underlying polycule with a mix of confusion, amusement,

surprise, and above all, confusion. But I have to admit, it worries me. If one crypto polycule can fall apart so suddenly, what does it mean for the rest of our crypto polycules? I hope we figure it out fast because tonight is an important night for me and my seven business partners slash lovers. It's a Crypto Polycule Friendsgiving, Charlie Brown. That's right. I'm excited to celebrate my own cryptocurrency,

Loveitcoin. But to also introduce two valued members of the Cuele, fellow crypto enthusiasts who share my passion for scams and anxiety-provoking status-based love septagons, Diallo Riddle and Byron Bowers. Hi. Thanks for being here. What up? Make some noise. Wherever you want to sit.

Make some noise. Why y'all doing those golf claps back there? How you doing? Not bad, man. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me man On wheelchair They done cleaned it up

A little bit huh The vote just happened They already getting shit done Happy crypto friendsgiving To you both Thank you Thank you man We're scripted for the beginning

Cause it's just stupid Oh I just wanna be very clear About something here There are women in this polycule I really don't understand What a polycule is It seems like a big orgy But there's women in ours Eithercule i really don't understand what a polycule is it seems like a big orgy but there's women in ours either way you're busting the nuts so right yeah okay my bad the script there are women you're right yeah there are women in the

guideline here's the thing about it here's the thing about it it is just basically it's a kind of long-running orgy that the three of us are in, but there are also women. Not that anyone will go out with me. I don't think there's anything to worry about. The only thing more rock solid than Loveitcoin, in my opinion, is the polyamorous romantic network that runs its various subsidiaries and connected corporate entities. You're so right, Diallo. We're going to be fine. Thank you. I'm so glad you heard me.

Here's what you all need to know about Loveitcoin. It's a very popular cryptocurrency that you can use to buy NFTs of pixelated chicken nuggets. Here's what else. By buying a ticket to this show, every single person in this audience has also purchased one Loveitcoin,

which at the time of this recording is worth $1 million. Wow. Woo! To the moon! Wow. Can we talk about this? I feel like the only member of this polycule that doesn't get any dates.

The rest of y'all pair off. Y'all go make out, get people pregnant. See you later, Byron. Why do we even have an odd number of polycule in the first place? Yeah, listen, Byron, hold that thought, because we got a lot of show to get through. All right? Where's my fleshlight? Where's the polycule fleshlight anyway since you're both already out here what could be better than having you answer some of our audience's pressing questions about cryptocurrency all right

first of all okay byron diallo do you own any crypto yes i do really yeah of course cool of course yeah every hustler pimp crypto you have crypto I do have crypto. How's it doing? It's doing bad. It's doing bad. But we're in this together, and that's what's dope about it. Some people, they was doing bad when everybody else was doing good. Now they dead. Or they're in the Bahamas.

Do y'all ever eat crypto? You know, I think my wife and I, we invested in an index fund. So there's probably some in there. I remember when Robinhood was really taking off. I did invest in Dogecoin like everybody else. And I learned my lesson. I got out of it. The frustrating thing about Robinhood is I wasn't able to sell all the Dogecoin. I was able to sell it down to a fraction, but there's still a tiny fraction that's there.

So I still get these little notifications. It's like, Doge is up five percent you know and i'm just like it's nothing you know mine on the thumb drive so if you still got yours on the exchange y'all better run for the hills because you mean it's on a thumb drive it can be on a thumb drive i thought it was on the blockchain no you can take that and put it on a thumb drive did you know that i don't know a lot of things about this oh yeah. You got to take your shit off the exchange because if the exchange falls then your shit is gone. Right. But it wasn't never supposed to be that way.

Nothing was supposed to be that way, but the big boys always come in and swoop it up. But you bought Doge, so I know you'd be falling for the bullshit. It was peer pressure. Everybody was doing it. It was 2021. We were newly vaccinated. It seemed like the way to go. Yeah, yeah, that's true. It was hopeful.. Everybody was doing it. It was 2021. We were newly vaccinated. It seemed like the way to go.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. You was hopeful. That's right. Once you get vaccinated, there's a little bit of hope in you. But Tesla, I got in Tesla in 2020, and it ran up to six figures, and I bought a Porsche with it.

Wait, wait. Did you think about getting a Tesla? I mean, it done so nicely. No, that's boring, man. I ain't never heard no rapper like, it got head in a Tesla. You know what I mean? I don't want to get no sick.

What electric vehicle do you have? We want to protect the environment, so my wife and I bought two electric cars, but then you hear all the terrible things that go into making electric vehicles, so you're just like, oh, we're screwed. Well, that was your mistake. You just don't read those articles.

Those articles don't feel good. You gotta get an electric car to save the environment, then they tell you the electric car is terrible for the environment? It's worse for the environment. What are you supposed to do? Watch what happens when that power grid goes out and they raise the price of electricity when everybody has electric cars. You'll just be windows

down in your Porsche. I have a jet by then, because Dogecoin is going to the muzzle. To the moon. To the moon. Do you think Larry David should be sued for being in that

FTX commercial? It seems unfair. He's just a spokesperson. He just got paid for being in a commercial. You don't sue the guy from Dirty Jobs if your Ford doesn't work.

I don't think y'all should believe any celebrity when it comes to any marketing that we do. I took some money from Harris, Razors, and then had a beard the whole time through the whole commercial. The man knows no limits.

He invests in Tesla to buy a Porsche. I just want to say something. Look, look, we joke around a lot. I needed some rims. We joke around here a lot. I'd love to leave it. But let me tell you, there's something that is no joking matter. Endorsements.

When someone endorses a product, that's something I think we should all take really, really seriously. It's true. And when you hear that I've endorsed a product or you're an advertiser listening between the ads to see what the episode sounded like, you need to know that I believe every word I say. And even when the product changes, like when I say this mattress

is the best mattress I've ever slept on, and then there's a renegotiation around the upfronts, and come January I'm talking about a new mattress, you should know that I switched mattresses. And that's important. It is. I take everything back I said. That was not a great business decision.

Kevin Hart would have never did that. You take endorsements really seriously. Yeah, I take endorsements seriously. Look, I have no beard no more. Look how smooth my baby face is. It's so smooth. I'm like a milk bug. What makes that possible?

I wanted to look good for this polycule that I showed up to tonight by myself. But it is women in this polycule. This is so much fun. This is going great. Look, here's the thing. A Friendsgiving polycule spectacular is going to be loose. All right. It's beautiful.

Who out there in the crowd thinks they know the first goddamn thing about the worst moments in crypto history? Hi, what's your name? Hi, my name is Aaliyah. Hi, Aaliyah. Diallo, take it away. In 2021, Crypto.com acquired the naming rights for the venue formerly known as the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. Just last week, the CEO of the Singapore-based crypto exchange admitted to mistakenly transferring how much money to another currency exchange in what seems to have been a human error. Is that amount of money?

A, $74 million. B, $213 million. B. $213 million. C. $416 million. Or D. $731 million. A, B, or C? Or D. Or D. It could be

D. It could be D. I'm going to say that it's C. You got it! Yeah! Roughly $416 million. By boys and oopsie daisy. Who else wants to answer a question? Oh, Betsy up front. Let's come to Betsy.

Hi, Betsy. Hi, John. Byron has a question for you. A dark web NFT and crypto thief have reportedly stolen nearly $2 million worth of NFTs in the past several weeks. The notorious pirate has identified himself with what pseudonym? Monkey Drainer, Dark Banksy, Captain Dank Sparrow, Stonkman69. See? Way to go with your gut.

The answer is A, Monkey Drainer. Monkey Drainer. It was Monkey Drainer, Betsy. It was answer is A. Monkey Drainer. Monkey Drainer. It was Monkey Drainer, Betsy. It was Monkey Drainer. Monkey Drainer. Monkey Drainer. Who else wants to answer a question? Hi, what's your name?

Paulina. Paulina, Diallo has a question for you. Which problematic character actor had $185,000 worth of cryptocurrency stolen from his personal wallet this September while hosting an online charity NFT auction. Was it A, Jeff Goldblum, B, Bill Murray, C, Jeremy Piven, or D, Michael Fassbender? Was it Jeff Goldblum? I wish I could say it was. It was B, Bill Murray.

It was Bill Murray. Bill Murray's stolen off his wallet. Who wants to answer your question? Hi, what's your name? Shoshi. Bill Murray. Bill Murray. Who's up? Who wants to answer your question? Hi, what's your name? Shoshi. Shoshi. In March 2021, NFTs broke into the mainstream

when outlets reported on the 69 million sale of digital art made by what pseudonymous artist? Did I say that right? You got it. A, Mr. Bored Ape. B, Banksy.

C, Beeple. D, Leonardo DiCrypto. A. Wrong. The answer is C, Beeple. Fucking Beeple. It was Beeple. Let's keep going with Shoshi because it's a follow-up.

Okay, well, here you go. Follow-up. You're doing great, Shoshi. I like the name. It's fun. All right because it's a follow-up. Okay, well, here you go. Follow-up. You're doing great, Shoshi. I like the name. It's fun. All right, here's your follow-up. Later, the legitimacy of Beeple's windfall was called into question. Why?

A, people realize this NFT thing makes no goddamn sense. B, people realize Beeple's art sucks absolute shit. C, it came to light that Beeple's art sucks absolute shit. C, it came to light that Beeple and the buyer were business partners. Or D, it came to light that Beeple is the buyer's son. I'm going with C. I've got some good news. It is C!

Shoshi got it. Right? It came to light that Beeple and the buyer were business partners, so money may not have actually changed hands at all. And now you understand how this crypto thing comes together. Hi, what's your name? Hi, I'm Lindsay. Hi, Lindsay. Byron has a question for you. What's up?

True or false? As of 2019, mining Bitcoin used up more energy than was generated by every solar panel in the world combined. True or false? I think that's true. Ding, ding! Unfortunately, it is true. It? I think that's true. Ding, ding! The answer is true. It is true. Alright, let's stay with Lindsay for the last question. Okay, the

website, Web3, is going just great. Features a grift counter which tallies up all the money lost to intentional crypto-related scams and thefts. What is the current total? Do we give them... No, Lindsay gets nothing.

Nothing? Pick a fucking number, Lindsay. We're out of numbers. No number. It's a counter of all the scams. All the scams altogether. Everyone, okay. Intentional scams.

2.3 billion. It's 11.9 billion. Stop! Thank you so much to Byron and Diallo. We'll be back in a few minutes. Watch Diallo in Sherman Show be back in a few minutes. Watch Diallo in Sherman Showcase. It is so funny.

And for no reason at all, I'm going to ask Kendra to tell us the plug for Byron's special. You should check out Byron Bauer's special on Hulu. It's called Spiritual Nigga. That's right. Why didn't you read that? Why didn't you read that? For no reason at all. I know, right? We come back.

A Georgia peach. Woo! isn't it all? I don't know, right? We come back. A Georgia Peach. Woo! And we're back. How do we process this election where we eked out a bunch of surprising victories while headwinds cost

us races from Texas to Georgia? Here to talk about it, really, Stacey Abrams. What up, bitches? Woohoo! Yeah, turn that shit up! Who brought the mixers?

I've got a blender in the back, John. I'm ready to make pina coladas. You're glowing, Stacey Abrams. I mean, wow. Thank you for joining us. Oh, please. Call me Vacation Stacey. I absolutely won't be doing that. Well, please call me Vacation Stacey. I absolutely won't be doing that. Well, I can.

Vacation Stacey is here and in full effect. I couldn't be happier to be here, John. I'm letting my hair down and finding me. Just to clarify, you're happy? Over the moon, John. Despite the fact that you lost the governor's race to incumbent Brian Kemp, despite Kemp's main qualification being

he's only 80% as depraved as the white supremacist courting QAnon spouting MAGA freaks that flesh out the rest of his party? Honestly, just hearing that puts a smile on my face and a Mai Tai in my hand. Okay. Oh, oh, who here knows how to merengue? Anybody? I'll be honest, Stacey Cation Abrams. I thought you'd be, well, frankly, I thought you'd be bummed.

Bummed, John? Yeah, I'm extremely bummed. I'm bummed that we live in a world where not supporting a literal coup makes you some kind of independent i'm bummed that even though we organized and fought hard and brought in new votes it just wasn't enough this time i'm bummed that whenever i ask if anyone brought drugs to the club everyone thinks i'm kidding because i'm stacy abrams yeah i think you kidding. But then I remember that no election, win or lose, is the end of the story. Just because across this country we did a little better than expected, does that mean we can let up?

That democracy is safe? That extremism isn't rising? Sadly, no. Does the fact that I came in second to a blow-dried ham mean organizing and registering voters in Georgia wasn't worth it? Of course it was. Yeah, it's like political news trains us to be so focused on the feeling in the moment that we're in on what's happening right now as opposed to how it will seem and like the context of. Yeah, man, totally. I'm just saying we got to be in this for the long haul.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm a black woman running for state office in Georgia. John, explain the long haul to me. Okay, what's next for Stacey Abrams? Because we need you, Stacey. And that is why you will find me getting the people energized when I do a DJ set

at a pop-up rave downtown sponsored by 818. Allegedly, John Boyega might be there, and I want to bite his bottom lip. But Stacey Holliday-Brums, how do we avoid doing what the Democrats always do, have one decent election, and then default to everything's going to be fine mode? How do we stop ourselves from being complacent as we head into the nightmare that will be 2024? I mean, maybe just don't do that, you know? And in the meantime, we'll let ourselves be happy for one goddamn second, John.

I mean, take the win and propose a toast to me, Stacey Abrams. Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to try a sandwich from a place I saw on TikTok. Bye, friends. Stacey Abrams out. To Stacey Abrams, everybody. Come on. Thank you so much, friends. Stacey Abrams out. To Stacey Abrams, everybody. Come on. Thank you so much, Ashley. Go watch a Black Lady sketch show and Ted Lasso.

When we come back, we're going to find out how Love It Coins doing. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Let's welcome Diallo and Byron back to the stage for an exciting Love It Coin update. Thanks for joining me, Culemates. So just a quick Friendsgiving update. Love It Coin has collapsed.

Oh, damn. I did not see this coming. There's still women in this polycule. For sure. Listen. We all thought a novelty meme coin that could exclusively be buy and sell fast food clip art on the blockchain would have eternal value. Like gold or blank moleskin notebooks that once belonged to Joan Didion. It seems we were wrong.

Love it coin is now worth nothing and we're screwed. Except for me, remember? No one's screwing me for some reason. Okay, shut up, Byron. This is a disaster. Okay, how am I going to put my kids through college? How? You have kids?

Yes, we're in a polycule together. How did you not know I've got kids? Guys, please. It's Crypto Polycule Friendsgiving. Let's stay together. Yes, Lovetcoin has crashed and we've all lost millions of dollars in the process but it could be worse

it's not like the FTC is after us uh, yeah, about that I'm so sorry, we do need to keep things moving when we come back who's the worst person at Thanksgiving? the answer may surprise you and we're back let's welcome back to the stage

For the very first time this evening Our third incredible guest and Polycule member Ashley Nicole Black Hi Ashley Nice to see you for the first time tonight Ever Thanksgiving is next week and Love It or Leave It Is bringing the main course raw, unbasted chaos

Together with Diallo, Byron and Ashley We will decide definitively who is the worst person you will run into on Turkey Day. Use this information wisely, pick the carcass clean, and fall into a tryptophan coma, just so you don't have to talk to these annoying guests. Is everybody ready? Yes. Alright.

So here's what's on the most annoying person at Thanksgiving bracket. I'm going to read all of them so that we know when we go through. Your aunt's weird silent boyfriend who talks to no one. The holier-than-thou vegan cousin. The grandma who wants to see your dance recital routine from six months ago. Your sister who just got a promotion.

The aunt whose wig is always lifting but still has the nerve to comment on your weight. The uncle who always has an investment opportunity for you. The cousin who's back from his first semester at college and thinks he knows everything. The woman your age back from his first semester at college and thinks he knows everything. The woman your age, your mom befriended at work and invited as your replacement.

You should do this for one of your little skits, aunt. Cousin whose entire identity is their upcoming wedding. The out-of-touch uncle who thinks your partner is just your friend. Brother's girlfriend who's too eager to help and makes everyone else look bad. The chef who is so stressed out but accepts help from no one is in fact who's too eager to help and makes everyone else look bad. The chef who is so stressed out but accepts help from no one is

in fact insulted when you offer to help. Religious great aunt who asks if you're still going to church. Your college age cousin's goth girlfriend who you will never see again and who you will unintentionally edit out of your actual memories. And your second cousin who you have insane chemistry with.

Up first you have, chemistry with. Up first, you have, alright, let's decide. Who do we think is worse to be around? Your aunt's weird silent boyfriend who talks to no one or the holier-than-thou vegan cousin? Oh, that's a tough one. Vegan. I think so. It's honestly so much

true in my family that I'm scared to answer this. But I think it is. A silent boyfriend is actually a good break from any vegan. That's right. Never met a silent vegan. I've never met a silent vegan. That's very funny.

Next up, we have the grandma who wants to see your dance recital. And we have your sister who just got a promotion. You think the grandma's worse, but it's grandma. I would love someone to take an interest in my dance recital. Yeah, you're dancing. Yeah, I think the sister

just got a promotion. It's pretty tough. What do you think, Byron? No, my sister's got a promotion. It was kind of chill. Yeah, I gotta say, I'd be happy for my sister. All right, so it's politics for them,

but we're gonna do the sister one. The aunt whose wig is always lifting but still has the nerve to comment on your weight versus the uncle who always has an investment opportunity for you. I want you to know also that this list is... This is a strong...

What's interesting about this list, the list of worst relatives for the black members of the crooked staff completely different than the list of worst relatives for the white members of the crooked staff. All right, what do you think? Most of these are Kendra's family. I'm going to say the uncle who always has an investment opportunity.

Yeah, that's tough. That's tough. It'd be the weirdest shit, too. Next up. You ever heard of Ferdelazzo? What? The cousin. The cousin back from his first semester who knows everything.

The woman your age your mom befriended at work and invited as your replacement. Cousin. Shout out to Alex though. My mom's 30 year old friend. Very nice lady. I've been that cousin who came back from his first semester of college. Alright, next up we have

you should do this for one of your little skits, aunt. Versus cousin whose entire identity is their upcoming wedding. Wedding, right? Wedding. The wedding. Wedding is the more universal answer. But I think for you, I think you personally get a lot of,

you should do this for one of your little skits. Must happen a lot. Yeah. All right. Next up, the out-of-touch uncle who thinks your partner is just your friend, or the brother's girlfriend who's too eager to help and makes everyone else look bad. I think brother's girlfriend or anybody who is overdoing it and making everybody else look bad. It's the worst.

Yeah, I agree. It's one of the worst things about getting together with family. You can tell the source that. Yeah, that's tough. I agree. I'm like, they're not going to be here too long. Isn't it sad when the whole family gangs up on somebody's boyfriend or girlfriend

at some point? The tide turns, and all of a sudden, everybody's just attacking them. I'm like, this is terrible. They have to be able to take it. They want that to go plate. Exactly.

Once a year, mac and cheese. You better take these diss jokes. By the way, they can't even fight back because they don't know anybody's history in the family. So they just sit there like, I got to do some upper research. I'm sorry. No, I think you're right. I think it's a tough position to be in as the as the new boyfriend or girlfriend being mercilessly attacked by basically strangers. Next up, the chef who is so stressed out but accepts no help and is insulted by help versus the religious great aunt who asks if you're still going to church.

The church. Church. Church. Ashley, what do you think? Church. Church. Yeah, I think so. Y'all must be Catholic.

Because I refuse to hear passive aggression. That's just a part of my life. If you're like, no, I'm fine. I'm like, cool, you're fine then? I'm fine too. I'm with her on that. You can breathe as hard as you want to breathe. All right, what's up next?

We have your college-age cousin's goth girlfriend who you will never see again and not remember versus your second cousin you have insane chemistry with. There's a person you'd hate to stay and hate to leave. You know what I mean? Facts. It's the cousin, right? We're all... It's the cousin.

Alright, we're now in what's it called when it's eight? Elite? I never remember the terms of art. The elite eight. Holier than thou, vegan cousin Versus sister who just got a promotion Who's worse? Come on The vegan is the duke of this thing You know?

They might take it all the way They could go all the way Take your bets now Next up we have the uncle Who always has an investment Versus the cousin who's back from his first semester and knows everything. The uncle. Wow.

Wait, wait. Let's talk about this. Ashley, what do you think? Cousin or uncle? You think the uncle's worse than the cousin? Yeah, because I find that. He's a philosophy major. I find that amusing.

You find that amusing? Yeah. Okay. You're like, tell me more. And then the uncle's like, pickleball. No, pickleball. Not a bad investment right now. No, but you just don't want to hear about it all the time. Why do people love pickleball?

Where the fuck is pickleball? It came out of nowhere, though. Kevin Durant bought a pickleball. Came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. It was like nothing. It was nothing. You never heard of it.

Then all of a sudden, everybody's playing tiny tennis. It's just tiny tennis. All right, so I think we're giving it to the uncle. Two years ago, someone was like, you ever heard of pickleball? Next thing you know,

Stephen Colbert is like hosting a tournament. Hey, it's the only positive thing rich white people do. Please don't stop them. Oh, that's hilarious. I guess what I don't understand about pickleball,

here's what I don't understand about pickleball. I didn't know there was a space halfway between ping pong and tennis that needed to be filled. It's for people who was a space halfway between ping pong and tennis that needed to be filled. It's for people who are a little bit athletic and have free time. I think it's deeper than that.

I think during the pandemic there was a lot of people trying to invest in their first home and they were like, oh, we just don't have enough space for tennis but you can do a pickleball thing because it doesn't take up that much space. Also, what kind of fucking name is for sure, obviously a pickleball thing because it doesn't take up that much space. Also, what kind of fucking name is pickleball? What does it have to do with anything?

There's no pickles. There's no pickles. During the pandemic, my friend Spencer sent me a text and said, do you want to play tennis? I was never good at tennis. I don't love tennis. But I bought a racket and I said, let's play tennis. And because it was the pandemic when i played tennis

that first time it was the greatest 45 minutes of my fucking life i couldn't believe how fun tennis was i was like this is i'll play tennis every day for the rest of my life as far as i'm concerned what a thrill it was to be out playing tennis did it three more times that was it uh here's the point were people doing pickleball during all this yes why play tennis but do less running right

right pickleball okay cousin whose entire identity is their upcoming wedding versus a brother's girlfriend who's too eager to help what do you think Ashley

I went to several weddings this year a very good friend all I've talked about is weddings for a full year. That's my answer.

I think so. Weddings takes it. Next up, religious great aunt who asks if you're going to church versus your second cousin you want to fuck. Wow. It's heaven versus hell. It's God versus the devil. The rematch. Virtue versus sin. Virt heaven versus hell. It's God versus the devil. The rematch.

Virtue versus sin. Virtue versus sin. Head versus the heart. Either way, you're going to hell. And either way, you're going to hell. Cheap laugh versus infinite number of awkward gatherings from here on out. Forever. Who's the worst guest at Thanksgiving?

Ashley, what do you think? I think church grandma. Wow. All right. I think sexy cousin is just minding their business in the corner. See you at the reunion, sexy cousin. Because if the religious great aunt is moving forward, we are in

the final four. Semi-finals, right? The semi-finals. It is the number one seed, holier-than-thou vegan cousin versus the uncle who has a weird investment opportunity wow everything about this is just like the vegans need to work on their brand i really agree on that you know my oldest son is old enough now that he's on you know watching

tiktok videos and like there's a whole genre of tiktok videos about how annoying vegans are and i'm like this is carno propaganda. You know, like this is... What's interesting is there's anti-vegan propaganda and then there's also people making keto bread out of chicken. And they're connected. Alright, vegan cousin versus the uncle.

Byron, what do you think? Oh, vegan. Ashley? Yeah, vegan. Yala? Only because they're holier than thou. Wow. The audience is not with this. I think the audience... Ashley? Yeah, vegan. Gala? Only because they're holier than thou. Wow. Wow. The audience is not with us. You know what, though? I think the audience...

Some of the audience is. Some people still want that uncle. Uncle? No. They want the vegan. Vegan. Vegan? Vegan.

All right. The vegan takes it. The uncle is right at least twice. Every once in a while. Somewhere out there, one of the uncles was investment advice yeah has something fucking awesome toenail clip was making a comeback pandemic people were just at the house they needed to cut the toenails i don't know if that's a growth industry hear me out hear me out it's authentic it's bespoke it's vcrs all right stainless steel

cousin whose entire identity is their upcoming wedding versus the religious great aunt who asks if you're still going to church, it's church once or church every Sunday. Wedding. Wedding. Wedding. You think so? Jello? Yeah, I'm with wedding. Byron? Wow. What do you think? I guess everybody think it's the wedding. Everybody I know getting

divorced, so. I think, all right, so we're now in the finals. Vegan versus the bridezilla. Although I will say this. Every one of us, you know, we all pictured the cousin who's talking about their wedding as a woman. Not one of us pictured a guy. Well, you said bridezilla. I was going to say groomzilla.

Oh, you pictured a fucking groom? I was going to say groomzilla. You pictured a groom? Now grooms are always going on and on about the wedding. There's always a bachelor party with the dudes. I don't get invited to those. Oh, well. No, it's fine.

It's not my space. That's not my space. That's a straight space. All right. No, it's rude because all my gay friends, they go hard. They go too hard. I'm like, no, I'm going to stay over here. Y'all, they be wild with it, you know. Especially on the ground and out.

Woo. Tiring. I also don't like the gay spaces. I'm looking for another space. Pickleball, perhaps. A little pickleball for us. Small pickleball space. Perhaps it's finally time I join a queer pickleball league.

Maybe that's why I'm so antagonistic. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. I am drawn to pickleball in. Maybe that's why I'm so antagonistic. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. I am drawn to pickleball in some deep way that I can't explain. My feelings of pickleball

frighten me. Final is cousin whose identity is their wedding versus the holier-than-thou vegan cousin. It's cousin versus cousin.

Cousin versus cousin. Ashley, what do you think? This is a really tough decision. Take us through it. Because on the one hand, the cousin whose entire identity is their wedding is going to ruin Thanksgiving. We're talking about it the whole time.

But a wedding buildup can really only last two years. Being an annoying vegan lasts a lifetime. Wow. Agree. Wow. That's a really good point. A wedding has a clock. Wow. Agreed. Wow. That's a really good point. A wedding has a clock on it. A wedding,

there's only so many different holidays a person can go, I love this table setting. The one I chose, oh wow, I love what you did with the candles.

I was thinking about candles like this but we decided to do something better than what you did. But you can still eat while that's going on. You can eat while that's going on.

But while a vegan, every time you pick up something, it's like, that collard green had a soul. You're like, what, bitch? They can eat collard greens. Those yams came from the universe. Now, here's what I feel

radiating off of Diallo, which is he knows that's the answer, but there's a politics that he's dealing with, which there are vegans at his table. Several. And so this whole time, if you've noticed, he's not fought the consensus. He's a good politician. But at a few moments, he goes like, did somebody say investment deck? Like he's been like looking for a way out. Like I think somebody, I think somebody said church lady, right? I heard vegan. I heard church. It could be either.

Everyone likes, I mean, it's complicated, right? That's what's going on for you. So would you like for your own sake, for your own Thanksgiving, which is around the corner, to say that you disagree and then that'll be okay for you? I'm saying we'll do whatever you need to get out of this segment alive. Well, when you have, I'm one of six, so I have a lot of cousins. I was actually just at a wedding that was years in the planning,

but I will say that World War III broke out when we tried to find a restaurant that everybody could be happy. And we were in Miami, and everybody's like, well, let's go to a Cuban restaurant. Let's go to a Cuban restaurant. And Cuban cuisine, not the friendliest to the vegans. It was a nightmare.

The story of a big family trying to figure out where to eat and no one being happy and ultimately not being able to find anything perfect for everyone but having to find something that just works is how you end up also with President Joe Biden. Which is just something I didn't think about. So you're saying Joe Biden is the Applebee's of presidents. Which is just something I think about. So you're saying

Joe Biden is the Applebee's of precedence. That is perfect. Way to go. By the way, the vegans in my family, not big fans of Joe. Yeah, shock, surprise, surprise.

Bernie or bust. Wow. Bernie or bust from the vegans. That's beautiful. Oh, wow. That was eloquent. So despite, so look,

we all have noted correctly for history and the record that Diallo doesn't agree with our final decision. I disagree. I think holier-than-thou vegans are beautiful family members who I love a lot, and I really wish they would start talking to me again. And nevertheless, despite that vote, the majority wins. The most annoying person at Thanksgiving is the holier-than-thou vegan cousin. Yeah! We did it.

Thank you to all three of you for being part of this bracket. But shout out to Tofurky and everything. And shout out to Tofurky. Shout out to Impossible Meat. Impossible Meat. Shout out to them. Pretty good. They had a good run.

Is it Impossible or Beyond that we're not messing with? Oh, look. I know the founder ate someone or something, but it's still a good product. I drive a Tesla. I don't read the news about the things I like. I eat an Impossible burger. I go to the Chick-fil-A. I drive a Tesla. I don't read the news about the things I like. I eat an Impossible Burger. I go to the Chick-fil-A. I drive my Tesla.

I live my life. The fact that they suck doesn't mean my life has to be worse. All right. Now, our evening is drawing to a close, but I've got another exciting update on all of your Love It Coin investments. Oh, hey, guys. Did Love It Coin rebound? Are we rich again?

Please say we're rich again. I bought a tiger. Okay, fine. Oh, hey guys. Did love it coin rebound? Are we rich again? Please say we're rich again. I bought a tiger. Okay, fine. I bought three tigers. So the update is this. The FTC actually is after us and we need to somehow repay $12 billion.

Oh, shit. Once again, I did not see this coming. No, I'd never find love. Come on, team. Sure, we're about to be indicted and yeah, I'll probably flee the country on her private jet after you've all gone to sleep tonight. What? But for now, we're about to be indicted, and yeah, I'll probably flee the country on our private jet

after you've all gone to sleep tonight. What? But for now, we're all here together, and we still have so much to be thankful for. Maybe Love It Coin crypto journey was never about frivolous things like becoming obscenely wealthy or staying out of jail. Maybe it was about the polycule we made along the way.

I love you guys. Oh, that's beautiful, John, I guess. Also, if you're in the audience and you've read the fine print on your tickets, you're aware that by purchasing one of Love It Coins, you've agreed to join our polycule and are responsible for paying back up to $100,000 in legal fees. Nobody leaves this

room without writing a check and making a statement to federal regulators. Lock the doors. And while you're getting your wallets out, we've got more show. When we come back, it's time for the Gratitude Wheel. And we're back. Before we get to the wheel, it is

runoff time in Georgia. Early vote starts Monday, November 28th for the December 6th election. If you're a Georgia voter, we got two Atlanta natives. Please, please. I talk to my family all the time. I'm like, please vote. Streets. VoteSaveAmerica.com is where to go

to make your plan. And if you want to help out no matter where you live, you can donate and find remote and in-person volunteer opportunities to make sure the Warnock campaign has the resource it needs. 51 senators means the difference between a true majority are being faced within the two years of roadblocks by problem children Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. Make sure that every Georgia voter can make their voice heard again at votesaveamerica.com. All right. Now it's time for the gratitude wheel on this, our most beautiful Crypto Polycule Thanksgiving.

on this, our most beautiful Crypto Polycule Friendsgiving. Every calendar year, it's nice to devote one day not to bitching and moaning about the collapse of democracy or when the barista spells your name wrong. On the wheel, mushrooms, the drug kind, flying out of Burbank, my dog, and or cancel culture,

writing for TV, night courts reboot, and vote Save America. Let's spin the wheel. It has landed on Andor. And I would like to take a moment to express gratitude to the Walt Disney Corporation for creating the show Andor. Andor is the best thing

to ever come out of Star Wars. It is the best written thing. I mean, I would say you're going to have to go 40 years back to find something as well written as Andor is. Tony Gilroy's a fucking genius. He took over Rogue One and made it the best

Star Wars movie. Now we have a show called Andor, which is not just the best Star Wars thing ever. It's one of the best TV shows ever. And I think it's really great. And guess what? It's not doing as well as the flashy ones. Your Mandalorians. Your Ewan's McGregor shows.

Your Boba's Fett. It's pearls before fucking swine out there. You're all just clicking, clicking, clicking. You want something you can use your phone and not pay attention to you fucking addled freaks but there's andor a slow burn well-written dramatic interesting smart and history of the star wars universe from like the bottom like it's not about for the first time. It's not about Jedi fighting and kings. We're not seeing the god people above with their lightsabers and their force

and their weird religion. It's people on the ground living under the yoke of a capricious and cruel and all powerful empire that's own power is causing its incompetence

and cruelty to grow at the same time leading to Andor and Cassian. Is that his name? Yeah. Andor doing some cool

fucking shit. And I'm sick of reading stories about how nobody's watching it and Disney doesn't know what to do because they know it's the best thing they've ever made. So they're like, I don't know, put it on Hulu. What are we supposed to fucking do? By the way, watch Sherman's showcase on Hulu. And do that as well.

Hulu. So I don't know what I'm going to do to help Andor. Here's the thing, alright I'm going to do to help Andor. Here's the thing, all right? A few years ago, I made a mistake. I didn't talk enough about how people needed to watch the OA until it was too late. And that freaky, weird, fucking dramatic dancing show

bit the dust. And I'm not going to make the same mistake with Andor. So unless you people start watching it and I read stories about the surprise rise in viewership of Andor, you're going to have to hear about it every goddamn week. Let's spin it again. What a stupid thing to be grateful for.

Did you watch Andor, Byron? Fell asleep to it. You got to stick with butt. I plan on watching it again. Hell yeah. I heard it was great once you get to episode three. You gotta get to three. I'm like, why did I just input three as number one?

You sound like a studio exec. That's probably my future. I'm just being angry. It has landed on Writing for TV. Who suggested that? Well, I think it's interesting that they translated it as Writing for

TV because what I sent in to your producers... Kendra, what I said I was grateful for was that sometimes it's my job to look at two hot people, go, they should kiss, write that down, and then they have to kiss. That is fundamentally what writing for TV is.

And I'm grateful that I get to do it. Wait, I'm sorry. Great answer. I'm sorry, can you explain to me what you mean? Who's telling you to make them kiss? Nobody. I wake up in the morning, and I go, Hannah Wattingham and Tahir Jermoe should kiss.

And I write it down on a piece of paper and I hand it to someone and it goes through many hands. Costumes are bought. Sets are built. Someone flies to London. Months later, they kiss. Rebecca and Sam kiss.

And then I get to sit in my living room and watch it happen. One time I wrote Josh Gad falls down a flight of stairs. So that's my version of it. Yeah. It feels good. Have you guys ever written something just sort of in passing because you're just trying

to get to the next dialogue and then you're sitting in like a production meeting and they're like, and it's like that one thing that you didn't really put a whole lot of thought into and yet you realize there's a whole infrastructure that's being built to make that thing happen. When I turned in my first half hour episode of television, they said, if we produce this, it would be the most expensive episode of television ABC has ever

produced. I was like, and? Well, I got a comedy special. Not my job. I got a comedy special on LFX. It was kind of expensive for comedy specials. And we shot that on mushrooms. Hulu.

Hulu. Hulu. Hulu. We love Hulu. They got shrooms. And the Golden Girls is there. That's right. So there's that, too.

Solid multi-care. There are women in this poly... Let's spin it again. You know, if you could pronounce it. I know, it's one of those things. Speaking of, it has landed on mushrooms, the drug kind. Wow, look at how the universe works. You write it on a piece of paper, and then you get to talk about it.

Just like she said. I'm new. I'm new. This shit working. Feels good, right? It is magic. I'm grateful for Mushrooms because it altered my mind state. And it has made me present and gave me foresight into the past and into the future and allowed me to connect

with every living thing on this universe and it is making me a better human and allowed me to connect with my paranoid schizophrenic father and i realized he was just going through a bad trip the whole time is that what it was yeah i mean he mean, he's gone now. So, yeah, life was a trip for him. It was a trip for all of us. And we have some choices on how we can live that life. It's probably why I don't vote like that. You think I'm going to leave it up to Joe Biden to tell me whether I get good pussy or not? Or whatever presidents do.

I don't know what the fuck they do. No! It's up to me and the universe. It's not up to the president. And we here at Love It or Leave It have always said that. I just support you. Bidenflation is not real? Bidenflation is real.

But when I was in Paris, it wasn't real. We was drinking Prosecco 24 hours a day. And I caught COVID and it was the best COVID that a nigga could catch. Because in France, they kiss like this when they say, hey, so you gonna get it. It's French COVID.

It's French COVID. Not that American aggressive COVID. It's French COVID. Bonsoir. That's how we're called. Bonsoir. COVID. COVID.

I drove once to the Valley and I came back with a little tin that had micro doses of mushrooms. Great. Yeah. Just a little bit. A little bit. I was at the Oscars on a little micro dose. That's cool. Yeah. It was cool. Nice. Somebody a little bit. A little bit. I was at the Oscars on a little microdose. That's cool. Yeah.

It was cool. Nice. Somebody saw it out there. But did you feel it, though? But if you want to go to the desert and take a hero dose, that's when your third eye will open. You meet God. You see patterns in the universe and in your life and in your DNA. I think I did it wrong.

Because... When you said you picked it up from the valley, I was like, uh-oh. On a separate occasion. On a separate occasion. It was fentanyl and no mushrooms. It was on a separate occasion. I did go to the desert and I took mushrooms. But then I freaked out,

believed we would never get out of the desert, and then drank all the water in about 15, 20 minutes. it that's the end did you share the water no no i drank all the water i just sat there drinking all the water then we had to go home because we didn't have any more water did you learn anything from it yeah i didn't want to go with that group it was the wrong group for me well then anybody you won't share water with that's. It was the wrong group for me. Anybody you won't share water with, that's not your group. There was a moment where I was Googling what to do when you're on mushrooms

because I was freaking out. And it said, be in a safe place with people you trust. Don't be in the desert. And then I realized I couldn't see anything. We had walked far enough that we could no longer see the road or the houses.

You can cross over and all of a sudden it's desert in all directions. And I didn't feel safe with the people I was with. And I just couldn't stop laughing. People you feel safe with in a safe place, I don't have either of those. Better drink all the water. Yeah, you have to be with people you feel safe with.

But believe it or not, when you're in the desert, you're home. But you just have to find that in your heart. So next time, know that. I'll know'll know that next you are in your safe you just went with the right people so you didn't feel safe the next time i take mushrooms it will be at um uh a kind of you know there's the deserts and other kind of climates and the one i'll try it in as a climate called the four seasons um let's spin it again you might feel the energy of an old racist person that could happen too let's spin it again. You might feel the energy of an old racist person.

That could happen too. Uh-oh. I wish someone else had gotten this one. What are you grateful for, Diallo? I am grateful for cancel culture, and I'll tell you why. I'm grateful for it. I'm going to go back to my oldest son. He brought me a tiktok video and he said hey dad look at this this is really funny right which i always know if he says right he's not sure if it's funny

so you know i i watch it and it's like a comedian and he's like trading in like some it's a black comedian but he's trading like the laziest stereotypes about black people and i'm just like son i don't think this is that funny i i was like these are just really old stereotypes and he was like oh do you think he's gonna get canceled now my son is 12 and to me that tells me that the algorithm of the of the videos he's watching on tiktoks has taught him that there's such a thing as cancellation and that he has to be scared you know because the cancel culture monsters are coming to get you i I asked him, I said, son, who else has been canceled that you know of? And he was like, oh, I think J.K. Rowling and Dave Chappelle.

And then I was like, and probably like Joe Rogan. And I was like, you realize you're talking about bazillionaires. You know, like to me, I just fundamentally don't believe that cancel culture exists i think that it is a boogeyman created by people who like to victimize victims that is my opinion but i also think if you look around you'll see that the people who are constantly complaining about it are really just looking for an excuse to keep doing what they're doing so you know thank you for existing and uh and making people apparently very very very wealthy because I just don't believe it's a thing. I'll put it like this.

I didn't mean to get all serious, guys. I wanted to be funny. It was funnier in my head. You have to get canceled. Great. Cha-ching. I'll buy a pickleball team. But, you know, I always say, like, the one person I think actually did get canceled for taking an unpopular political stance was Colin Kaepernick. And you never hear people defend him when they complain about cancel culture.

So that's my soapbox, and I'm standing on it. I'm glad you brought up. I agree with everything you're saying about cancel culture, but I feel like there's another conversation we also have to have next. I watched what Dave Chappelle said on Saturday Night Live, and there's a moment where he says, throughout it, he kind of gives himself various outs,

and they're outs around saying, there are things you can't say anymore. I'm worried if I say this, I'll be canceled. Or he opens by reading a statement about what you're supposed to say to avoid being canceled. Throughout the remarks, he kind of gives himself just enough space to escape or to make it harder to kind of be boxed in by what he's saying, even though embedded in a lot of what he's saying are anti-Semitic tropes that he is making light of while at the same time repeating. And I don't really

want to talk about this one moment with Dave Chappelle, in part because I'm sick of talking about individual examples of someone decrying cancel culture while being on the biggest platforms that exist, proving cancel culture doesn't exist, while also taking the microphone and making it a debate about what's acceptable while, writers discuss what happens on the right versus the way people like Dave Chappelle and others that are kind of embracing a conservative mindset talk about people on the left. They speak about the left in abstract and generalities while saying what they think. What happens on the left is we spend all day talking about specific instances of what Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson and Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan and Bill Maher, whenever they espouse something right wing and hostile or bigoted, J.K. Rowling,

we discuss what they're saying in great detail while they speak about us in generality. And what it means is I think we spend way too much time living in the spaces that they create and talking about things from their perspective as the baseline from which we debate. We do it on Love It or Leave It. We do it on all of our shows. Okay, stop, which is something I don't do as much anymore, in part because what I feel when we're doing it is we are interrogating and debating and talking about these figures and their words as if their words are so important. And I think we need to do a little bit less defense and a little bit more offense and spend a little less time talking about what these people are saying

that we find abhorrent and doing a little bit more of taking the mic and making the conversation so interesting and fun and entertaining and smart on our side that they have no choice but to talk about what we're saying. Because I agree with everything you're saying and I think it's great.'m not even speaking we have to say it we have to say all the time but we have to now start thinking all right now what do we fucking do about it and i think

what we do about it is we need to i find what dave chapelle is doing very very frustrating but what is the most frustrating thing to me is how much applause and laughter and celebration it gets the guys behind dave chapelle the fucking sax player and guitar player, they were fucking guffawing left and right. And it's like the laughter, the audience, like those people are out there. Let's get them. Let's figure out what is subversive and interesting

and rebellious and defiant in a way that appeals to them. We have to figure out a way to reach those people because I'm just so fucking sick of talking about Kanyeye and chappelle and rogan and bill maher i'm fucking sick of i'm sick of this fucking debate because they're not listening at all we are not convincing them so we have to kind of push them aside i don't want to make it a two yes yes i don't want to make it a two-way conversation but can i offer one thing that I think would be a great solution? I didn't expect to see it. Please.

So real quick, we were just talking about your annoying relatives who come over for gatherings, right? So think about this. If you're having a party at your house with a lot of different people, you try to create an environment where everybody can have fun, right? you try to create an environment where everybody can have fun right i think that one of the biggest sea changes that's happening in politics right now is that somehow because they're being like you said crass and bigoted and all these other things somehow they're adopting the mantle of being the fun side you know what i mean like the side that's like oh we'll let you just be you um and somehow we're becoming the scolds i think think it's really important that we set out this idea that, no, actually, the reason why we want you to use the pronouns

or the reason why we don't want you to give in to anti-Semitic tropes, if you had people at your house who were trans and Jewish and black and white and Christian and everything else, you would go out of your way to make everybody feel comfortable. I think that is what's getting lost in all this. The reason why we try to show respect to all these different groups isn't because we're trying to be schools, it's because we want to throw

a party where everybody can have a good time. And I think it's so important that we re-adopt the mantle of we're actually the fun side, we're not a bunch of jerks, and we're going to make a space where everybody can actually have some fun. I know it sounds simple, but I really have a problem

thinking of my side of any kind of divide as not being the fun part, because we're trying to throw a good party. Sure. I will say, though, I think they know where the fun side, and that's where some of the anger comes from. If you look back, I sincerely hope everyone

has seen the video of ted cruz um in his drama play in high school like he yes he did the crucible and he was a young man it's fantastic in that it's really bad but if you look into a lot of people's backgrounds they wanted to be actors they wanted to be artists they wanted to be on the fun side and it didn't work and then they were like oh but if i just yell mean things i could still get a camera pointed at me so i think part of it is that they do know the other side is more fun but they didn't feel like they could get in it's like when a guy is like hey uh would you like to go out with me sometime you're like no thank you like you're ugly anyway that's what it is i think it's totally true i think that's a feelings-based thing it's not a

logical thing right like how do you be back against a kind of very seductive idea that like these people don't want you to talk but you can say whatever you want over here go fucking ham over here like how do you defeat that and i think like you don't really defeat that by explaining why that person is wrong because explaining arguing isn't as fun i think the way you beat that though is by just being fucking funny and fun and enjoyable and making great stuff and we are doing that right like they're not making great comedy gutfeld is not that good you know it's like the comedy is coming from over here like we're doing okay anyway Byron any thoughts you want in on this well I don't I'm in the middle politically so once y'all

done fighting because it do seem like the left is so far left that it became right when I say streets when it comes to voting and stuff that's because I believe and um educating yourself uh becoming financially wealthy as a group of people where you could put the politician in office that can change the law in your favor because that's what has been done well that's interesting you bring that up because it all comes back to ftx right like sam sam was making money and he said he was about, what did he call it? Effective altruism. He said that I'm going to make all this money because I want to basically buy political influence. And they had him up there with Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

And that was his theory. But then the second he got in trouble, he said ethics is a game that the woke Western world plays. Yeah, but that's one person. No, but I'm just saying that like... It need to be a bunch. We can't just have one person because one person can corrupt easily. Oh, absolutely. And you've seen that motherfucker.

He might take money from his trading firm and put it... That's what I'm saying. You knew he was going to do that when you looked at him. Like people say we show up at business meetings with cut off jogging pants on. I show up at business meetings with cut off jogging pants on I show up at business meetings With cut off jogging pants on Billion dollar businesses You at least have some nice loafers Or something with those shorts

But it is a way that it can be done But it still needs a collective to be done You just can't have one person And I think that's the problem When you have like a one celebrity Especially that the black community There shouldn't be no celebrity as you get political advice from anyway we need real leaders that's not paid as well as celebrities that the celebrities can fund like diddy jay-z they can fund somebody to take them bullets for them i'm saying this because

y'all know they kill every black leader you know know what I mean? But it's something we have to work out. The point is, I bought one Bitcoin, and I did buy it at the very, very peak. Oh, it's like 60? I don't know. I texted my friends Dan and Benji, and I said, I want in. And then it started dropping. It just started falling and falling and falling.

It's been a terrible year for crypto. Hold on to it, but welcome to the investing world. Listen, I also have like stocks, you know. Yeah, but you're playing with wolves. Know that you're playing with wolves. You're playing with wolves. No, it's true shit. Sorry, I have to say, as I'm a millennial, my porn is Zillow, right?

So every night I'm looking at houses on Zillow. And I did not follow this FTX news at all. I think I saw like one headline. It's like, oh, something crashed. I opened Zillow just doing my regular nightly scroll. And the first thing I see is a house in North Hollywood. Looks like a normal house. You look inside.

I know this house. And there's a neon sign that says the crypto house. All of the wallpaper is those monkey NFTs. And the wallpaper in the dining room is all, I guess, their tweets turned into wallpaper. And it said, it was like, seller is very motivated to sell. We'll accept Bitcoin, which says to me, these people have learned nothing. If there's one lesson we hope you take away from the Friendsgiving Polycool Crypto Spectacular, it is this.

Buy the dip. We made it. But the dip keeps on dipping. Dip keeps on dipping. Sometimes. Let's spin it one last time. Okay. Oh, wow.

It has landed on Vote Save America, and this is where I will leave you. This is a tough year. Pundits wrote a bunch of obituaries in advance, but the Vote Save America community showed up. They showed up for pro-choice, pro-democracy candidates at every level, and we didn't win every race,

but we should be pretty damn proud of how we defy the odds. I want to give you the numbers of what we now have collected all the numbers with the Vote Save America community did. And it's amazing. In 2022, you signed up for 46,657 shifts in all 50 states in DC, double the number we saw in 2018, 33,570 people signed up for midterm madness. Over 1,300 of you became part of the VSA virtual community to make over 1.5 million voter contacts. And that is continuing with the Georgia runoff. You raised $700,000 for 20 of the closest House races so far. That was 20 of the closest races. And in all of them, Democrats have either won or the race is too close to call. Over $750,000 for pro-democracy secretaries of state and attorney general candidates in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

$400,000 to gain power and flip legislative chambers in Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, to defend our legislative majorities in Maine and stop supermajorities in North Carolina and Wisconsin, which we're able to do. Over $1.1 million to fund abortion access, almost 300,000 to organize locally to restore reproductive rights. That's organizations that are going door to door to try to build the coalitions we need to protect abortion rights in places where they've been stripped.

Over $320,000 and counting for every last vote, we're still raising money for voter mobilization in Georgia. And over $1.5 million to keep the Senate majority. And we have to keep that going. If you go to VoteSaveAmerica.com, you can vote to support Raphael Warnock in Georgia. Republicans are dropping millions of dollars. So please do what you can. That is an incredible amount of volunteering, donating, door knocking, texting, calling.

Thank you all so much. There is no organization that is getting this many people involved that has been this engaged. Like every time we hear this from Ben Wickler in Wisconsin, we hear from campaigns all across the country. They tell us that Vote Save America volunteers show up and make the difference.

It's not just that you show up, you show up, you knock on doors. You're the best volunteers that these campaigns had. And in races that were winning by hundreds of votes, dozens of votes, like you all made the difference. Everybody listening made the difference. And so as we head into Thanksgiving,

as we head into the new year, we're going to have a lot of work to do. We have to win this fucking runoff, but hope everybody feels really proud of what they were able to do. And I know that we at crooked, we are so grateful for everybody who signed up to vote, save America. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for everything that you did. When we come back, we'll end on a high note. And we're back. Here it is, the high note. I love it. It's Brian from Pennsylvania. My high note for the week is that today my wife and I got to celebrate one year since the finalization of our children's adoption. For several years, we were pursuing adoption and all the while spent a lot of long, heartbreaking car rides listening to Love It or Leave It to find joy in other people's High Notes. Hopefully this High Note helps someone who needs

it. John, thanks for all that you and your team do. Pistachio. Hi, John. My name is Ayla and I live in Brooklyn. I work in book publishing and this week my colleagues at HarperCollins, their union went on strike, an open-ended strike, as they worked to force management into giving them a fair contract that would give them living wages to stay in New York and protections within the workplace. And I've been working in publishing since I was 21. And I'm just so proud to see all these people who don't want to have to be activists just to live. And it is what my 21-year-old self needed to see. And I'm just proud to know a lot of them.

So support the HarperCollins Union. You can find them on Twitter. And thanks so much. I love it. This is Toby from Arkansas. I am an ABD grad student who is in a place where hell has literally frozen over. It has snowed in Arkansas. Sarah Huckabee Sanders won.

And yet on this Saturday morning, I'm about to listen to Love It or Leave It as I run the slowest 5K that I could ever possibly imagine. But it's a dash for democracy for the League of Women Voters. And democracy ain't dead yet. Love you, Love It or Leave It. Love it. Just thank you. And please bring back Emily's Garden Show. Hi, Love It. My name is Kristen, and I'm from Austin, Texas. And boy, has it been a shitty

couple of weeks to be a Texan. But I do have a high note that I wanted to share with you. I have volunteered in so many elections, and being an active Dem in Texas is exhausting. Quite honestly, I wanted to sit this election out. but my 23-year-old son convinced me to get off my ass, and we joined Beto's campaign. I headed up a few block walks, and my son and his girlfriend sacrificed their days off and knocked on over 250 doors all on their own. He fought so hard for Beto, and even in spite of the loss, he's stoked to fight on and eventually flip this wonderful, amazing, frustrating state. I'm so incredibly proud of that boy and all

the work that he put in. So my high note is my son Burke. He is my high note every day. Thanks for all you do, Levitt. My name is Josh from Topeka, Kansas. and my high note for this week is before coming out and doing a second set, as well as two encores, including this final encore, which was Hallelujah, which was my wife and I's first dance at our wedding. Rufus Wainwright announced that the Democrats had won the Senate, which was news to me and happy news and the best part of my week. and the best part of my week. Thanks to everybody who sent in a high note tonight. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, call us at 323-538-2377. That is our Friendsgiving Polycule Crypto Spectacular.

Thank you so much to Byron Bowers, Yala Riddle, and Ashley Nicole Black. There are 17 days until the Georgia runoff. Have a great weekend. Go Georgia. Thank you guys. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, and Lee Eisenberg. Kendra James is our executive producer.

Brian Semel is our producer. And Malcolm Whitfield is our associate producer. Hallie Kiefer is our head writer. Sarah Lazarus, Jocelyn Kaufman, Pallavi Gunalan, and Peter Miller are the writers. Bill Lance is our editor. And Kyle Seglin and Stephen Colon are our audio engineers. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McClain and Caroline Haywoodwood for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't

see because this is a podcast. And to our digital producers, Norma O'Connor and Zuri Irvin and Milo Kim, Mia Kelman and Matt DeGroot for filming and editing video each week so you can. You can find those glorious videos at youtube.com slash C slash Crooked Media.