Lovett or Leave It - Live Free and Die

Episode Date: April 18, 2020

Bernie backs Biden and Trump blames the WHO. What a week. Megan Rapinoe (!) and psychologist Dr. Ali Mattu join Jon for another week of Lovett or Leave It: Back in the Closet. Plus we talk to our listener-teachers about what it's like to teach remotely and we hear your high notes. A big thank you to everybody in Portland who joined for the monologue. And please call Congress to safeguard our elections! We make it easy: votesaveamerica.com/call

Welcome, everyone, to the sixth episode of Love It or Leave It, Back in the Closet. Way too long. I'm going back into the closet again. I'm going back into the closet again. You can love it or you can leave it. But I'm going back into the closet again. That incredible back in the closet intro song is by Gian Wright. We want to use a new one each week. If you want to make one, you can send it to hey at crooked.com, and maybe we'll use yours.

You can also tweet it at me. I would like to see them. And hello, Portland. Joining us for the monologue is around 50 people who had tickets to our canceled Portland show. It's been great to be here in Portland, except for this rain. And listen, I don't want to tell you how to

run your hotels in this town, but if I hear traffic, it's not a high floor. You guys are ahead of the curve in Portland. Exposed brick, bicycles, food truck. Look, I love the hit comedy New Girl as much as anybody. But you really made it your entire aesthetic. All right. I'm genuinely sad that we couldn't come to Portland.

You've got a great weed culture. Your bars serve food from open to close. All right. You consider jeans formal wear. It's my kind of town. Before we begin, there is an incredibly important thing you can do right now to help us protect the vote in November. We just saw Republicans in Wisconsin force an election under unsafe conditions. It backfired. Democrats managed to win a seat on the Supreme Court. The Republicans hoped low turnout would help them save, but it put a lot of lives at risk and a lot of people had to choose between their health and their vote. We can't accept that.

That's why we're asking you to call Congress this week. We have to demand that Congress pass safety rules and at least $2 billion in election funding so states have to invest in vote-by-mail, early voting, and safer in-person voting. We get that you may not have called Congress before, and it's daunting, so we launched a new call tool on Vote Save America that makes it really easy. You click call, and it will call your senators from your phone and give you a script to use. Check it out at votesaveamerica.com slash call. I know we ask you to do a lot.

I know that there's a lot of asks you hear and maybe skip over. Take this one on. Do us a favor. Call your senators, okay? We need to make sure that every voter in every state can vote safely in November. It's really important, obviously.

Also, last bit of housekeeping. The CDC says we all need to be wearing masks when we leave our homes for essential activities, but not medical masks, right? So we've made three packs of reusable non-medical masks on the Crooked store. 100% of the proceeds go to our coronavirus relief fund. We've already sold so many masks and been able to add a lot of money to the fund. And you can find them now on crooked.com slash store. Later in the show, we'll be joined by Megan Rapinoe and mental health expert Dr. Ali Matu, and we'll call listeners about the challenge of being a teacher teaching

remotely right now. But first, let's get into it. What a week. On Monday, Senator Bernie Sanders officially endorsed Joe Biden when they joined a live stream together saying this. Today, I am asking all Americans, I'm asking every Democrat, I'm asking every independent, I'm asking a lot of Republicans to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy, which I endorse. And I want to say this wasn't a perfunctory endorsement by Bernie. This wasn't someone solving his own political problems. Bernie Sanders understands the stakes in the election. Bernie is deploying his moral authority to achieve two goals, pushing Joe Biden to get behind his movement and pushing his movement

to get behind Joe Biden. And while these two men have real differences, it's clear they share a bond. Gold Bond medicated powder. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. I'm going to now do another version of that joke. Here we go. The only thing stronger than the bond these men share is the smell of medicated powder in both of those rooms right now.

Oh. Uh-uh. the bond these men share is the smell of medicated powder in both of those rooms right now. Fine, whatever. This is, I don't, whatever, Portland, whatever. All right. Then Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama decided they were riding with Biden. Let's take a listen. I'm so proud to endorse Joe Biden for president of the United States. Choosing Joe to be my vice president was one of the best decisions I ever made. And he became a close friend. And I believe Joe has all the qualities we need in a president right now. That was a good speech by Obama,

but someone needs to tell him to go easy on the Pete Buttigieg impression. Now, Joe Biden's opponent is, of course, amateur pharmacist Donald Trump. On Monday, Trump announced that he was forming a committee to reopen America, which included top scientific minds like Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Larry Kudlow, Larry the Cable Guy, Jim Carrey's the Cable Guy, Mario Lopez, Super Mario, Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Balloon Boy's father, the Menendez brother who just went along with it, Baby Nut, Ken Bone, Carol Baskin, Chris Gaines, and the developer from Breaking 2, Electric Boogaloo. Trump is not alone in wanting the economy to reopen. Protests began popping up from Texas to Michigan, fomented by right-wing corporate interests and astroturf groups,

yelling that the economy must reopen and for some reason that James Bond can't be black. That one, I didn't understand. I don't understand how they're related. Now, many protesters were photographed without masks, but with assault rifles, because a mask may stop a virus, but with assault rifles because a mask may stop a virus, but an assault rifle stops you from acknowledging the ways in which the rise of two income households, the shift towards service and health industry professions, the decline of manufacturing, the rise of economic inequality, the shift away from religious and communal organizations, the decentering of masculinity in our culture and the urbanization

and diversification of our society have threatened the traditional structures that make you feel inherently powerful, despite the setbacks and hardships and economic dislocation all around you, leading you, guided by self-interested nihilistic right-wing propagandists and conspiracy theorists, themselves often backed by billionaires and corporations, to seek solace in racial grievance and fantasies of revolution and tyranny instead of confronting the pain and uncertainty and dull existential fear that has left a hole no dose of Facebook memes can fill. Plus, your penis is probably small. And for Trump, the economic news got worse as 5.2 million more people filed for unemployment,

bringing the total over the last months to 22 million, which is roughly all the jobs gained since the 2008 recession. The Obama recovery is over. The Trump depression is here. But luckily, help is on the way. A $1,200 check should be arriving for many Americans this week. Here's the executive producer of Suicide Squad, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, talking about it. Well, I think the entire package provides economic relief overall for about 10 weeks. This guy is so out of touch, he thinks 1,200 bucks can last 10 weeks.

This is Los Angeles, Steve. You worked here. For a typical household, $1,200 is barely enough to cover 10 weeks of cocaine. But don't worry, folks. The checks are almost on their way. The distribution from the IRS was delayed after Trump insisted his signature appear on every single check.

The funniest part is it's against the law for his signature to be on the signature line because the money's not from him. It's from us. And it's from Congress. money's not from him. It's from us and it's from Congress. It's not his money. But so they decided to add Trump's name to the memo line. You know, the memo line, it's the place where you write rent for some reason, or happy birthday to your niece, or a funny joke to a friend like here's $1,200 for cocaine. or a funny joke to a friend like,

here's $1,200 for cocaine. And then, and then as Trump saw governors around the country building coalitions promising to work together on the timing of reopening their economies, he decided he wanted in on the action. So on Wednesday, Trump took to the White House coronavirus propaganda chamber to announce the administration's plan to reopen America.

America wants to be open, and Americans want to be open. Babe, listen, I think we should just try to be open and see how it goes. South Korea is open. It's working for them. Sweden is open. If we're smart about this and make sure everyone's tested, it might be good for us. ones tested, it might be good for us. In the press conference, Trump was expected to demand states open their economies on a certain date, but ended up walking that back and announced non-binding guidelines saying it was up to governors, to which the governors replied,

no shit. Trump's plan was divided into three phases. Phase one, eat a dick. Phase two, buy stocks. Phase three, walk it off, homos. Trump also defended his response to the virus, saying the following. Areas of our country that have been hot spots have done much more testing on a per capita basis than South Korea. We've done more than South Korea. Sure. Just like how I've done more than Food Network's Bobby Flay. Yes, we both deep fried Thanksgiving turkeys, but he never had to put out a massive oil fire.

And our tuna melt in chief wasn't done yet. On Tuesday, Trump ordered his administration to halt funding for the World Health Organization as he desperately cast about for places to shift some blame for the economic depression and mounting death toll. He's short. I can work with that. I need to figure out where my base is with Italians. Italian is basically white, so it probably won't work. But I don't know. We used to hate him. Could come back. Anyway, 4,000 people died today because I'm great. I'm just going to let that one linger. And Republican governor and coronavirus groupie Ron DeSantis classified professional wrestling as an essential service and explained that this is necessary to help people who are starved for content. Shame on Ron DeSantis.

Starved for content. We just got Quibi. I want to just I want to talk to you, Portland, for a second. All right. Can you do me a favor? Raise your hand if you've heard of Quibi. Okay. Wow.

Okay. All right. All right. Some penetration. Now let me see this. How many people believe they could explain Quibi under oath? Oh my God. Nobody knows.

Nobody knows. So many ads. Just tens of millions in ads. I'm getting some half hands. Fantastic. Always into month two. And I talked to Dr. Matu about this later in the show. But when you know how rough it is for so many people who have lost jobs, who know people who are sick, who have been sick themselves, who are struggling to afford the sort of daily essentials of life, who are grappling with addiction or depression without the relief valves and support networks of daily life, you can feel ungrateful and shallow for still feeling kind of beaten down. But I think we need to all be okay with our feelings and just sort of try to buck ourselves up by remembering that we're engaged to Ronan Farrow.

And we all have our own version of that, okay? Yours may not be as hot, all right, but we all have our own version of that. Okay. Yours may not be as hot. All right. But we all have our own version. Thank you, Portland. This was so much fun. Thank you so much for joining us. When we come back, Megan Rapinoe. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

And we're back. She is an Olympic gold medalist, two-time FIFA World Cup champion, captain of the U.S. women's soccer team, and the winner of the prestigious Ballon d'Or, which is awarded to the best soccer player on Earth. Please welcome to the show Megan Rapinoe. Bow, bow, bow, bow. So I'm going to ask you the question that everyone asks everyone right now, which is how are you holding up?

I'm doing pretty well. I mean, I feel like lucky that we're safe. We're like sheltering in place. We have Internet access and actually we're quite busy working out and doing zooms and on calls and podcasts and lives and all the things. So it's, it's kind of fun. It's giving me an opportunity to do something different, but it's such a bizarre time. How are you working out? How are you successfully working out? I bring like 1% of the motivation needed to work out in the relationship. And then Sue brings 99% of it. So I am very thankful. Like I just acknowledge every day that I'm dragging us down and I'm sorry about

it, but I'm sorry. I can't, I can't be motivated to work out right now, but like I'm, I'm doing it. I'll tell you, there's a huge mistake I make every day, which is I need to admit to myself that once I've taken an edible, I'm probably not going to like crush any squats. No, no, definitely not. Definitely not. Especially a full one. I mean, you could potentially microdose and like get away with a 10 minute hit workout, but yeah, even then you're more likely going to do something else. I find that people are now, when they say that they're microdosing, they're just taking that drug now. It's now the word just means I'm on drugs. Yeah, I'm on drugs. That once was a full dose and now I'm considering it a microdose. attention, success, notoriety, giant crowds. And you use that moment to draw attention to the achievement of your team, but also women in sports, inequities in sports, also inequities and

injustice in our broader society. And now you're at home. What have you been doing to try to stay involved now that we're all kind of activists from home? I've actually found that I've had more time to do that and trying to find more ways to use my voice or to do different things that normally I wouldn't have time for just because we're traveling around and playing games and such. I'm hoping to start like a little series of conversations. I had one with AOC so far, just to try to like break down like what in hell is in the stimulus package? What is it? Who can

get it? How do we get it? All that kind of stuff. Hopefully lining up a few more of those. Sue and I partnered with an organization called Hunger Not Impossible to get families and kids in need and who have food insecurities to get them free meals. So it's kind of through their local Boys and Girls Club. They can send a text message and then go to the clubs and pick it up. And I think eventually there'll be a delivery aspect to it. So doing a little bit of that, just trying to like generally stay informed and keep up on what's happening and try to help in any way they can, even if it's just talking about it.

Yeah, I mean, I know one of the things that was on your mind and it's on our minds, too, is so we're in this window right now where we have a chance to make sure that our elections in November are safe, right? That, you know, we just saw. I mean, what did you think when you saw what unfolded in Wisconsin? And what are you sort of thinking about as ways to make sure Congress does what it needs to do now? I mean, I couldn't believe it. It was I just I mean, I can't believe it because that's like what the Republican Party does.

And that's why they obviously don't want everybody to vote. Just to see that laid out in plain sight, like you hear about it a lot or hear about gerrymandering and you know that it's happening. But like people lined up in a pandemic outside of their homes. It just enraged me. And I hope other people had that reaction as well. Like we're still making people come out of their houses and put themselves in danger and put other people in danger. So hopefully in the next stimulus package, we'll fight for that. Hopefully we can get on the other side of this and realize the way that we vote and who can vote is already kind of fucked up. And so let's rectify what's already been bad. And then also ensure in this time when we're probably looking at, you know, social distancing for a number of months still,

probably into next year, how can we get everyone to vote in this vital time? Yeah. And I want to encourage everybody just to, I want to plug, if you go to votesaveamerica.com slash call, you can call your Democratic or Republican Senator. This should be a bipartisan issue. You know, it used to be that Republicans thought vote by mail was an advantage for them. You know, that this isn't something that necessarily redounds to the benefit of one party or another. The truth is nobody knows what happens in an election that's affected in this way. But right now is a moment where you can push your senators at votesaveamerica.com slash call. We'll give you the script.

You'll press a button. Your phone will ring and it will connect you to your senators. You'll hear my voice briefly. Nothing can be helped about that. And then you'll be connected to your senators and they'll give you a script for how to urge them to make sure that there's $2 billion for voter protection and also rules so that every voter in every state can vote safely. That's going to be vote by mail, but not every state can do vote by mail this quickly. So that means more early voting.

That means more polling places. That means appointment voting. So states need the resource to set that up so that everybody can be six feet apart and vote safely. And Megan, you know, one thing I was thinking, something that I just, just a free pitch for you. This is an idea that you can take and run with it. Your famous arm position, your asymmetrical arm extension happens to be, I think, roughly six feet.

Ooh, I like where you're going with this. And so I do think that we all need to remain one Rapinoe apart during this time of crisis. A Rapinoe is a unit of safe social distance. Thoughts, comments? Remain a double-armed Rapinoe apart at all times. Hopefully we won't make you do this while you're trying to vote. Hopefully you can vote from home. But if you have to go outside,

it is this much distance. That's awesome. Thank you. So Megan, would you mind sticking around to play a game? I can't wait. All right. So a lot of people are facing hardships right now. Many are sick or know someone who's sick, and everyone has been vacillating between good days, bad days, and a new kind of non-day where time itself seems to stop and the sound of a still room becomes a deafening roar. And you realize you've been standing in front of the sink in your bathroom for minutes, maybe hours, and perhaps you have children on the other side of that bathroom door,

and you realize those children are again calling your name with yet another request, like tiny little CEOs from hell. And for maybe a little too long, your eyes linger on the Benadryl on that medicine shelf, and you consider grinding up just a little, so that perhaps that go-gurt will become a go-to-sleep-gurt, and you can finally watch an entire episode of Law & Order or knit some toilet paper in peace. In times of uncertainty, sports are something that brings life back to normal, but right now that's not possible

and that's hit two groups hard sports reporters and gamblers and the sports filling the gap are at times surprising we want to explore some of the weirdest

sporting events that have either hit the small screen or the sports book Megan's going to help us in a game we're calling I guess Settlers of Catan is a sports now

I said is a sports now and we're just leaving it. That's just going to be fine. It's fine. That's what it is. So there are two rounds of this game. Here's the first round. I'm going to quiz you. The next round, you're going to quiz me. First round, Megan, I will read you a quote unquote sport, and you will have to guess if it's something that either has been televised or gambled on since the pandemic began. If it's real, you say real. If it's fake, you say fake. Oh, dear.

Okay. Are you ready? I am as ready as I could ever be. All right. Cherry pit spitting. Real. Correct. Marble racing.

Fake. Real. Gambled on. Horse. I saw, and it was was real and it was tragic. I used to love horse, but Megan, I used to, when I was a kid, I did not have the arm strength to make a basket. I was too, first of all, it's not really my fault.

I was closer to the ground than a lot of the other kids. It was really hard for me to make a basket. So we just would have to play pig. Yeah. You just cut it short. Cut it short. You got to cut it short. Easter egg hunt.

Real. Fake. Weather prediction. Real. Correct. People have placed bets on what they think a temperature will be in a given city. Competitive breath holding. Is David Blaine involved? I don't know. I don't know if he is. He should be. It is. It's fake. Virtual NASCAR with pro NASCAR drivers. doing racist things real i didn't know it see you're keeping up this is out i don't know yeah i think his name was kyle larson or something uh dropped just a casual n word in there got himself in trouble no yeah it was bad while racing a car while racing a virtual car pretty stupid wow. It seems like if it's coming to you that easily, you're probably saying it more often not on TV. Stone skipping. Real. Yes. Axe throwing. Real. Gotta be real. Correct. Broom balancing. Fake. Correct. Social distance tag where you chase strangers who don't

know they're playing. Oh, God. I feel like this is a real life thing that's been renamed. It's fake. No, it's fake. I will say, though, I'm afraid of putting that into the... Because, like, remember when there was the knockout challenge? Yeah. Like, I can totally see a local news story about, like, area teens are chasing people to get within six feet.

So I don't want to put that out there. Don't do that if you're listening. Swedish trotting. Don't even know what that is. Fake. Apparently it's real. I don't know what it is either. It's a kind of horse race where jockeys

is pulled behind a horse in a small cart and galloping isn't allowed. Huh. Double Dutch jump rope. Real. Fake. Bare knuckle boxing to defend a woman's honor. Fake. Fake. Virtual NBA with real NBA players. Unfortunately, real. Real. Virtual FIFA with real soccer players. Real? It is real.

It seems like if they haven't let you know about that, it's not a party if you're not invited. Virtual NFL, but with real concussions. Well, they already have them, so that's real. Yeah, we'll call that one real. And finally, dogfighting. Ugh, fake, I hope. It's fake, it's fake. Let's hope that lasts. Let's hope people don't get that desperate.

Now, because our head writer, Travis Helwig, is a homophobe, we are not allowed to talk about sports on this show unless I am quizzed about just how little I know about sports, which is a lot. So now, Megan, you're going to give me a lightning round quiz of rules from different sports, and I'm going to have to guess if they're real or made up by our homophobic writing team. I have not seen these questions before. Are you ready to quiz me? You hate to see it, but I'm ready. All right, I'm ready to go. Let's do this. In lacrosse, a player can be disqualified at the onset of the

game for having a loose net. True. Fake. Oh, it's fake. Okay. I was, I got, I got cocky. All right. You gotta get ahead of yourself. In hockey, if the puck crosses two red lines without touching any stick, the resulting penalty is called icing. So I don't know what icing is. And every time I've seen icing being called, I'm like, I still don't understand what it is. I'm going to say that that's real. It is real. I don't understand hockey, period, at all.

I can't ever find a puck. It's like, it's so wild. Back when Major League Soccer started, instead of penalty kicks, one player with a ball would run from 35 yards away directly at the goal in an attempt to score in under five seconds, all while the opposing goalkeeper would be running directly at them. Real? It was real. It was weird. It was really weird. It didn't last long.

It was real. In baseball, if a batter hits a baseball straight up the middle, but it hits the pitcher's rubber mound, it's considered a foul ball. Fake? Real. Huh. Weird. Sounded weird. In bowling, a frame can be thrown out if it's determined you didn't use the thumb hole on the ball. Fake.

Fake. Fake. Fake. In hockey, if a Dropkick Murphy song comes on, players are required to, quote, throw the fuck down. It should be real, but I bet that's fake. It is fake, and it should be real. You're right. In professional tennis, if someone's hat falls off, they can request to replay the point. Fake.

Real. What? Yeah. In professional golf, is it against the rules to talk to another player about the rules of golf? Fake. Real. You can't. That's so funny.

Golf's so dumb. I don't get it. What if you have a question? I don't know. Yeah, you guys can't throw someone off their game. That's like when I used to go bowling with my friends, you would say right before they went bowling, hey, how many steps do you take before you bowl? And they'd start walking and they'd think about it, you know? Trickery.

That's what we used to do. That's what we would do. A little strategy there. Back in my bowling days? In the love's bowling days. In a World Cup, if a knockout game ends in a tie and the penalty shootout ends in a tie after five shooters, the winner of the game is decided by a coin flip. Fake.

Fake. True. In golf, once all players are putting on the green, the order of who plays next is determined by which golfer is the shortest. No, that's got to be fake. That's got to be fake. You'd be first up, though, a lot. I would.

I get a real finely an advantage. You can knock some other balls off. In baseball, a pitcher who can throw with both arms must declare before each batter what arm he will use to throw the ball. Wow. True. Yes. Reel.

Reel. In Australian rules football, if the referee finds a team accidentally has too many men on the field, their entire score is wiped away up until that point. Real? Yes. Huh. Seems a lot. Don't put too many people out there. In gymnastics, points are allocated in the floor routine for winking to the judges. No, that's got to be fake, right? It's fake. But it probably didn't hurt. Wouldn't get a Russian judge, you know? Yeah.

Air suede. In the NBA, dogs are actually not allowed to play, despite what you may have seen in the movies. I would say that that's fake, because why would they need to write that down? I think that's a fake rule. I think dogs are allowed to audition, or whatever you call it.

Try out. Says fake. Okay, okay, okay. Hey, you know what? You won the game. Dogs are allowed to audition or whatever you call it. Try out. Says fake. Okay. Okay. Okay. Hey, you know what? You won the game. Megan Rapinoe, the winner of today's Megan Rapinoe quiz.

Thank you so much for being here. I just, again, you know, everybody needs to stay one Rapinoe apart. All right. That's the length. Because it's a gesture of it's a gesture of triumph and a gesture of triumphing over the virus. Megan, stay safe. You and Sue, stay safe out there. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. See you next time. Good to see you. When we come back, we're going to talk to some listeners about their experience

teaching their students remotely. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. As every commercial for light trucks and big box retailers have told you, we may be alone right now, but we're alone together. In this spirit, we're going to chat with some of our audience members on the phone and hear how you're doing. This week, we asked to hear from teachers to give anonymous teacher confessions about what it's like teaching kids online right now. In this week's Here's My Number, So Call Me Gaby. Hi, is this Erica? Oh, my God. Is this John Lovett? Sure is. Sure is.

Oh, my God. Calm down. It's a podcast. Okay, sorry. Okay's a podcast. It's not. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Stop it. Yes.

All right. So Erica, I'm going to say the catchphrase now. You're on with John. Okay. Now. He's out of the closet. Back of the closet. Okay.

Sorry. Hey, is it hard teaching kids on meth? Erica. No. No. It's actually really rewarding. It's amazing. You would really love it. I would recommend everyone try. So Erica, what has been your strangest observation teaching kids remotely? So I am a assistant principal. And I supervise

a building that is kindergarten through eighth grade. And the other day, one of my teachers sent me a message saying that she needed administrative assistance in her digital classroom because one of her students was causing a disruption. When I went into the classroom, all of the students were yelling a whole bunch. And even though they were all muted, we had to get, we had to remute them again, put them in the waiting room, bring them back in. And finally, the teacher explained to me that one of the students, a bird had flown in their window. The student had freaked out, left the room, and all of the students were just screaming, going absolutely insane, cheering for the bird to get back out the window, and the teacher could not get the class back under control. So we activated everybody back out of the waiting

room so we could determine what student it was. My three-year-old son actually came over and was cheering the bird on out the window, telling him, be free, be free. All of the kids were going completely insane. At that point, we had to end the Zoom meeting, end the class early, 30 minutes early, call the child's parent because the child had left the room and had barricaded the door so the mother could not get back in and then talk the mom through over the phone how to get the bird out the window. We called our dean of discipline. He gave a big hand. It was incredibly exciting. So it really sounds like it was not that much different than what you would have had to do.

Probably not. If a bird had flown into the physical building of the school. Yes. And we are an outdoor campus. So that does happen. I think what made this extra exciting is the bird was smashing itself into the wall, trying to get out the window. So the children were becoming afraid at that scene. So it was a lot. Where are the parents during this? I work at a Title I school. So we have a high percentage of students that are homeless, a high percentage of students that are families in transitional housing, things of that nature. So oftentimes they are on their own. And with this

situation, this student was on their own. They had an older brother that was down the hallway that was able to get the mom on the phone and help us talk her through the situation. But older kids are usually by themselves in fourth grade and up and little dudes are usually hopefully with somebody that can give them a hand with technology and birds. Well, Erica, you sound like you are certainly have a, the right amount of passion and energy for this job. So thank you for joining us.

I am literally shaking from like head to toe. This is absolutely the best thing that has happened for me. All right. Well, we got to get some better stuff to happen to you, Erica. Thank you. And seriously,

your show has been such a light through everything that's been going on for me. So thank you so much. Well, thank you, Erica. Thanks for what you're doing in that school. Thank you so much.

Love it. Have a great day. Tell Pundit and Ronan I say hi. I bought his book. Oh, good. Oh, good. He'll appreciate that. All right. Bye. Have a good one, Erica. Bye. Thank you so much. Love it. Have a great day. Tell Pandit and Ronan I say hi. I bought his book. Oh, good. Oh, good. He'll appreciate that. All right. Bye. Have a good one, Erica. Bye. Thank you. Hi, is this Sarah? Yes.

Hi, this is John Lovett from a podcast called Love It or Leave It. How's it going? Hi, it's going pretty good. All right. Well, I'm going to say the catchphrase now, and I have not yet been able to say it without creating ironic distance by announcing it. You're on with John. That's happened. I've said it. So, Sarah, so you're a teacher. How old are the kids that you teach? I teach high school students. So I teach 10th graders and 12th graders. And what is the strange experience you've had teaching kids remotely? Basically, we've started teaching. We do Google meetings with our kids twice a week.

And I was doing one for my econ students. And I thought one of my students was just sort of sitting outside enjoying the sunshine on her computer. And then the screen sort of bumped a little bit. And she said, oh. and I asked her what happened and she told me she had run over a rock and she pulled the phone, like she was on her phone, it turned out, and she pulled it away from herself and I realized she was currently driving a tractor while listening to me explain economics. Well, sounds like an industrious person. Yeah. I mean, I was pretty proud of her. I thought, you know, if anything,

she's committed to be in there and in, in the class with us. So. What, uh, what's, uh, so you're teaching econ. What, what part of the country are you in? I'm in Georgia. You're in Georgia. Do you know what the crop was? Do you know what she was, uh, what was she trying? What was she mowing the lawn? What was she up to? It was a crop. It was actually at a farm. But I don't know what it was. I was too alarmed by the fact that she was driving a tractor. So I didn't think to ask her. I just immediately told her, maybe you should stop moving right now. Or if you need to do this, we could talk later. It's easy for you to say, but tell that to the okra that's ready.

Fair, fair. How are you doing teaching remotely? How's it been working from home? It's incredibly strange. I am one of those people who is usually at the school, first person there, one of the last people to leave. That's just a big part of my life. And so the hardest part for me is not even the actual teaching remotely. It's just not being around my students. So I really look forward to these, you know, our meetings that we have set up every week.

But it's also been, it's just a challenge to try and translate stuff that I do with them in class because we have pretty interactive class sessions and it's really strange to suddenly be just sort of throwing work at them and not being able to explain it to them in person. So it's definitely a challenge. How frustrated are you that your governor is not currently Stacey Abrams? Extremely. Very, very frustrated. I have been ever since.

I still have my Stacey Abrams bumper sticker on my car, and I plan to never take it off. Nice. In my mind, I like to pretend that Stacey Abrams actually is my governor. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for calling and hang in there. Thank you. Hi, is this Diana? Yes, this is Diana. Hi, Diana. You're on with John. As we say here, uh, I'm John Lovett. Welcome to love it or leave it. How's it going? It's going, I mean, I'm doing what I can, but I'm going crazy. All right. Well, we all are. So that's something we share. So Diana, you're a teacher? Yes. I teach high school.

And what subjects do you teach? Spanish. Spanish. And what is the problema you've experienced recently? It wasn't really a problema. It was kind of really funny. Well, during one of our Zoom sessions, I try not to do them as often, like an everyday thing, because I know these kids are going through a lot. But I try and catch up with them at least once a week. And in one of them, we were going over like a homework assignment we were doing. And all of a sudden, all of the kids start laughing.

But I don't know why so it turns out that a very young sibling i think he was like three or four uh video bombs his brother and like is making crazy faces and everyone just starts laughing i don't have the mute option on because they were calling out answers the boy gets so embarrassed and he shuts down his video, but then everyone's like, no, bring him back on, bringing him back on. And so like, um, his little brother joined in on the class and we taught him how to count to 10 in Spanish. And it was really cute. It was just like a moment of humanity within all this craziness. That's so sweet. What is a, that's so sweet. What's something you've learned as a teacher during this period of time when you're not in the classroom in the way you used to be?

That the reason why I do this is for the connection I have with the kids. It really sucks to do all of the shitty stuff like the paperwork and all of that without getting the reward of seeing my kids and interacting with them and laughing with them on an everyday basis. Like, it just sucks. I'm sorry to hear that. What's one thing you're looking forward to doing once you can get back in the classroom? What are you thinking about when you're thinking about getting back into school either the end of this year or in the fall? Oh, I just want to see them and talk to them

and just have those moments of wackiness. Like we had one in the zoom call, but I mean, it's the one in four weeks that we've had online learning already. Like most of the time is just very like to the point, let's get back to our normal, I guess, routine, but just like having those moments of spontaneity that come out and just interacting with them. I just miss them so much. Well, Dan, I'm sorry to hear that, but thank you so much for telling us this funny story, and hang in there. Yeah, you guys too. Thank you for keeping me sane. You're part of my routine. Oh, good.

I'm glad we can be part of your routine. Diana, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Hello? Hi, is this Dimitri? Yeah. Hi, this is John Lovett of Love It or Leave It. You're on with John. I'm good. How are John. I'm good. How are you?

I'm good. How are you doing? I'm, you know, I'm here with my dog. She's chewing on socks. Everything's fine. So you are a teacher. I am a teacher. And how old are the kids you teach?

Mostly sophomores in high school. I teach geometry and AP statistics. Oh, AP statistics. Yeah. That's good stuff. It's been interesting., AP statistics. Yeah, that's good stuff. It's been interesting. It's a small class, but a good class. Have you been teaching statistics around the modeling that's been going on around coronavirus? Have you been using what's been happening in the world as you're teaching these kids? We actually talked about it a little bit before we went on lockdown. A girl came from the previous class and pretty much explained the flattening of the curve and everything to us. So we talked about it then,

and we've kind of been talking about it a little bit moving forward. So what is your strange experience teaching kids remotely? So we were supposed to have like a spirit week the week we went on, that we were shut down. Spirit Week, the week we went on, that we were shut down. And so it was rescheduled and we did it all on Twitter basically. And we had to have meetings every day on Zoom and we had to do like a daily challenge basically and post it to Twitter. And I think the most embarrassing one was definitely a TikTok challenge. I had to do a coronavirus dance or something. How did it go? Poorly, poorly.

I had to do a coronavirus dance or something. How did it go? Poorly, poorly. Are you sure that there was actually a spirit week or were you perhaps tricked into filming a TikTok by a group of teens? I didn't see many other posts, so it's very possible. Well, Dimitri, thank you so much for joining us. How has it been working from home? Like, how are you holding up right now?

I am doing all right. I'm kind of used to staying at home and not doing much during the summers. So this has been all right for me. I've got a lot of teacher friends that are definitely struggling. My wife is a school psychologist and she's been extremely stressed out because obviously she can't do her job, but she still has all these deadlines she has to meet. I know she's been having a lot more trouble with it than I have. And how are your kids doing? Like the kids you teach? So I teach in Peoria, Illinois, and it's not like a huge city, but it's a lot of urban, poorer students that don't have access to necessarily the technology or internet that a lot of others do. So the ones I've been in contact

with, I think they're just kind of happy to be able to see each other and their teachers. And we've been working really hard to make sure that other students can get what they need to be able to participate. Well, thank you for doing that. Thank you for doing this hard job during this time. It's just not been easy. It's one of the things that it's a struggle even when we're at school and it's kind of amplified now that we're not. Hang in there, Dimitri. Thanks for telling that story. Good luck on TikTok. There was no spirit week. That did not happen. Everyone knows about it. I know about that. It's a big joke online that you're not a part of. Have a great night. Thank you. You too. When we come back, we have a really informative conversation about mental health challenges during this time with Dr. Ali Mattu.

Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. He is a clinical psychologist who has served in a variety of leadership roles within the American Psychological Association, a professor at Columbia University, and he shares helpful videos about mental health and psychology on his YouTube channel, The Psych Show. Please welcome Dr. Ali Mattu. Welcome to the show. Hi. Oh, it's so good to be here.

It's so good to be anywhere. Well, we're not anywhere. We're in our separate abodes, I assume. We're separate but connected. Sure. Wow. So first of all, can you talk to us a little bit about how coronavirus and social distancing is affecting people, even those who are not predisposed to any mental health issues?

It's the first time in my life where I'm seeing problems related to anxiety, trauma, depression be the norm. They're what's typically expected now in this situation. So people are struggling to deal with all of their worries. People are struggling to have energy to go through the day, to remain hopeful and energetic and be able to focus. Sleep is all messed up. And now we're expected to act in ways that you would normally only see with PTSD. Like we're supposed to be hypervigilant. We're supposed to be on guard. We're supposed to be looking at all of our surroundings those times that we do have to go out.

So it's a variety of things that you would never want to see become the complete norm. And we've never seen that. We've never seen this unique combination of isolation and fear of contamination and economic stress and a wide-scale disaster on a global level ever. All of these things come together in this way before. So what advice do you have for people who don't have access to their usual coping mechanisms, right? They can't get a dinner with a friend. They can't go to a bar. They can't work out.

They can't go to the movies. What is your advice for people who are struggling but don't know how to fix it right now? You've got to be compassionate towards yourself and the people that you are around. Or if you aren't around anyone, be even more compassionate to yourself. That's the first thing. Like, just getting through the day right now is a pretty big accomplishment. No one really has their shit together anymore. So, like, I am living in fear of my daughter barging her way in here and completely messing up this interview or making it better, depending on how I'm feeling. 100% would make it better.

It would be a real boon. She'd be like, Daddy, what the hell are you doing? You're so dumb. So it's, number one, you've got to be compassionate towards yourself. And the second thing here, I think now most of us are a few weeks into this, at least in the United States. We have to find some way to develop some routines. Your brain doesn't really distinguish between making small decisions

and making big decisions. All decisions require a lot of effort and resources. And so if you don't really have a routine in place of what your day is going to look like, those are all a ton of decisions that you have to make hour by hour. And that's all draining. That's all pretty exhausting. So as much as you can have like one thing to anchor the morning, one thing to anchor the afternoon, one thing to anchor the evening, that's going to go a long way just to help you get through the day without it being completely overwhelming and exhausting. And the big thing, oh my gosh, so many people are struggling with this. Cut the news out, like almost, almost

as much as you can. Well, you know, listen to a podcast or two. Get a, you know, I would say like a Pod Save America Monday, Pod Save America Thursday, throw in a love it or leave it, maybe a Pod Save the World. That's it. Leave it at that. That's it. That's what I've been recommending.

That's the exact regimen I have been recommending. A day in the form of a digestible podcast, right? Just that. I would say that's really good advice. Again, medical advice. Just Crooked Media cut everything else out. Thank you so much for joining us. 100%.

Hopefully that checks in the mail. Yeah, I mean, actually, I've been recommending people return to audio formats, whether that's getting your news through a podcast every day or listening to NPR. One thing that's national,

one thing that's local, one thing that's local in the morning and in the afternoon, early evening, that's it. Like if you can cut out TV, because what happens is we're getting exposed to all of these images that are really hard to get out of your head. And for anyone that might be dealing with stress and anxiety, also known as everyone right now, those images are going to just make it even harder for you to get through the day. It's like, they're very like, they're like these Velcro images that kind of get stuck and they really get hard to get out. So you got to manage your media content and consume a lot of stuff that helps you to get kind of detached from

all this chaos that's happening in the world. Like that's a good thing. That's a healthy break to have. There's no such thing as like your guilty media pleasure, like whatever helps you to deal with your emotions. That's a good thing. And that gets to my last two points is number one, we got to solve problems in your daily life. Like my wife and I are now completely working from home with our toddler. And so we had to find some kind of space where we can tag team and work from home because we never really did that before. So anything you can do around your home to just get rid of stressors that you might have or make it a little bit more comfortable, easier for you. That's number one, get really good at solving problems. And number two, you got to have some way to deal with your emotions. So whether that is like what I do is once my daughter

is asleep, I put on something that completely helps me to forget the fact that I'm a parent and in this mess. So Tiger King was working real good for me because like as bad as my life was, it's not that. So that really helped. But find your media that really helps you to get disconnected a little bit and helps you to cope. So all that stuff. Just easy things like that. Manage your emotions in a global pandemic. A lot of conversations that I'm hearing go something like, I want to murder my children. I need this to stop.

I am genuinely miserable. But I know I can't complain because I have it so much better because I can still work from home. I have food in my fridge. I'm not actually in as precarious or bad a position because we are in a moment of crisis. More than 20 million people have lost their jobs. People are sick. People are in genuine peril and crisis. And so to complain in that moment feels shallow. It feels like you lack compassion. What do you say to people experiencing that? So we all have things going for us, and we all have things that make our lives more difficult.

And so number one, it is super helpful to be grateful for the things that you do have. Gratitude is a super powerful emotion where not only does it lift your spirits, expand your thinking, but it also helps people who receive gratitude. Like if you're expressing gratitude to someone else, it helps them. And it also helps everyone around who witnesses that it's kind of the super emotion that we can experience. So gratitude is awesome. So if you are feeling grateful for something, it might even be better if you can feel grateful towards someone else and express that like to the essential workers who are delivering your stuff. Like if you can write

a note on your door expressing how much they are helping you to get through your day, that's amazing. That's going to help them out. Expressing your gratitude towards people in your life, all of that kind of stuff. Or just like journaling about it yourself or sharing it on social media about how you're very fortunate to have a job. I don't know. Stuff like that. That's good.

At the same time, we are all struggling in some ways. At the same time, we are all struggling in some ways. And real compassion is about being honest with yourself about the ways that you are struggling and finding some way to share that, to share that with a friend, to share that with someone else. Like if you're a parent who wants to murder your child, like that, I would probably fall into that category. Finding another parent that you can share that with. Because the more times I've done that, the more I felt like, oh, you know what?

That's not me. I'm not weird for feeling this way. This is an extraordinary situation. Humans are not built to parent alone in isolation when you can't go outside. I spent two years raising a daughter who was excited to go outside and almost didn't watch any TV at all. She got maybe like an hour of TV a week. Now she's getting like four or five hours a day because her mom and her dad are double booked on meetings and doing Zoom sessions all day, and she's running around trying to

get our attention. So all I have is Moana to babysit her. So sharing those stories with other people who might be in similar situations as you will help you to understand that your feelings aren't bizarre, they aren't strange, you aren't a horrible person. You're very much a human being in an extraordinary situation. So we've got to balance gratitude with real compassion that is very honest about the situation that we're in. So and then there is this other group of people who are in a really desperate circumstance. And I'm thinking of people who have lost their jobs and no one has a good answer for them right now, right?

There's no clear path out right now for people. And usually, you know, you would want to say to somebody in a moment of crisis, like, here are the steps you'll be able to take to fix this. But right now, there is no fixing it. How do you help somebody for whom there is no good answer in the moment? The best thing we can do

for people who are in that circumstance is help them to get through circumstance is help them to get through today, help them to get through tomorrow, and see what resources we have to help them. Do they need money to pay rent? Do they need food? Can you order takeout for them? If they're trying to get unemployment benefits and they keep getting hung up on or, you know, the thing keeps ringing, can you take over for a few hours and make some of those calls

for them? The biggest things we can do there is just solve immediate problems to help them get through the next day. We don't function well when we're under this high level of stress with this high level of uncertainty and no real way out of this, no plan or anything like that. We don't think clearly in those situations. So if you have someone in your life who's going through that, then you need to kind of step in and help them solve those immediate problems that they have to get through the day. And if you are in that situation right now, the best thing to do is ask for help, like ask for help from your local community. Who can you go to? Who do you feel comfortable asking for help? Because we kind of have to help each other out because our federal government is not, it's not, it's not. And we sort of need to step in and support each other as much as we can

until there is a bit more clarity, until we have some way forward. Because we're having this collective experience, are you seeing a different understanding around mental health? Like, do you believe the conversation about mental health may shift as we come out of this? Given how hard a time this has been for a lot of people who didn't realize they were prone to depression, anxiety, and a host of other conditions?

I 100% think so. I've been having so many conversations with so many people about mental health these past few weeks who I thought would never really reach out to me about mental health. And I think it's completely hard to avoid. I was just texting with a good friend of mine who I love, I love, I love, but he never talks to me about mental health. And he's like, I don't understand why I'm so tired. I'm just home all day. I'm eating fine. I'm on these Zoom meetings. My job is kind of stable right now, but I'm exhausted. My appetite is gone. I'm not sleeping well. It's hard for me to focus. And I said, Jamie, you are describing all these symptoms of depression. And it makes so much

sense. You're not going outside. You're not getting natural sunlight that helps us to wake up. You're not getting contact with people you love and care about. You're sitting in one spot, isolated. Zoom is exhausting because we're not really, it's not a good proxy

for what human interaction actually is like. Can I ask you something about that actually? Yeah. So here's my theory. I've been thinking about this. So I've seen a lot of theories and here's my theory. If you're in a room with a bunch of people, you have a lot of instinctive knowledge about when your face is being watched and when it's not. So that if you're in a meeting with like, if you're in a meeting

with five or six people and one person's talking, you know, most people are looking at that person and that, and if somebody looks over at you, you kind of pick it up. You pick it up, somebody looking at you. But when you're on Zoom, you are looked at. You are fully being examined for the whole time. That's my theory. That is my theory, too. That is my theory, too.

So I'm giving you a little high five here on this horrible interface that we've got. But it's great. But it's great. Look, this is so much better. It's it's great but it's great look this is so much better it's better than nothing it's better than nothing and if this happened 10 years ago it would have been horrible like everyone having those like giant eyesight cameras on their macs that like have horrible resolution and all that um it's a principle called objective self-awareness when you were made aware of being observed, of being a social object,

you're more on guard. You aren't as comfortable. And we experience this when we go into banks and the cameras on us and we're like, oh, I better like straighten up. They're like watching me. And in those kind of situations, they want to trigger that because they want you to know that you are being watched. But here with Zoom, you're 100% right.

You don't know when you can take a break and kind of scratch yourself or you can shift around. Like you have absolutely no idea if someone's pinned your window and they're the creeper who's sort of spying on you completely, right? I didn't even think about people just choosing someone to pin and be creeps. Oh, I've done it. Oh, no. I've done it a little bit. Oh a little bit i'm like what what's in their background what is that over there oh yeah you'll take a look you'll take a look but just to leave it on so aggro oh no i don't leave it on the whole time like maybe a few minutes here

and there okay um but and then i'm like wait can do they know i'm doing it no my god they don't they don't know i'm doing but. But yeah, it's very exhausting to have that level of observation and not getting any break from it. And that's what every Zoom meeting is. You're just on guard there the whole time. It's tough. And I mean,

the other thing here too that a lot of people are talking about is just grief. Like every Zoom meeting you're on is a reminder of how different this world is so yeah they're they're your friends they're your co-workers they're your partners people you make podcasts with all all this sort of stuff and now it's completely changed and it's a reminder of that and it's a reminder of all the ways in which the world has changed all the things we've lost

and um that's hard we got to make time and space to have that grief. And everyone grieves in different ways. You know, when you're when you're talking to people who are struggling, when you're thinking about your own struggles, what's a exercise or a pattern or a way you can kind of reset yourself to just sort of give yourself a boost to kind of keep going in a hard day? Wow, that's a really, really good question. One thing that I've been doing is getting some context. So a lot of people feel helpless, like they're stuck, they're not doing anything. But the thing that we are doing right now, you and me and everyone listening, is an incredible optimistic act. We are all united. We're not helpless. We're taking an action that says, you virus, you don't move if we don't move. So we're going to just stay put here. We're going to stop you by staying put. This is an act

of immense altruism, of global cooperation, the kind of which I've never seen. And I thought maybe climate change would trigger at some point. But this has triggered it. And we're all relatively united in stopping this thing. So remembering that by staying put, you are taking an action to stop this virus and save other lives. That's what we're doing here. taking an action to stop this virus and save other lives. That's what we're doing here. So that's something I remind myself, that I'm not helpless. I'm not alone. I'm united with everyone in taking this act to stop this virus.

Yeah. Staying home, not going about our lives is not a lack of action. It is an action. It is an action. Absolutely. Absolutely. Dr. Ali Mattu, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for having this conversation. Dr. Ali Mattu, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having this conversation. Yeah. You can check out Dr. Ali Mattu's work at his YouTube channel, The Psych Show. You should check it out. You have a new fan in me. Thank you so much. When we come back, we're going to hear some of your high notes. Don't go anywhere. Love it or leave it, there's more on the way. And we're back. Let's end on a high note. As the worst of the surge begins to slow in cities across the country, it does feel like there might be some light at the end of the tunnel, but still far away. So for those of you who had a hard week, here it is, this week's high note submitted by you, the listener. Hi, my name is Azhar. I run a public hospital here in Los Angeles, and my COVID

positivity for the week is the amazing outpouring of support by the community for our hospital. It's a public hospital, and so people don't usually think about us or our patients, or they figure that the government will just take care of everything. But over the past six weeks, we've received hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment and supplies to support our staff and patients. Local restaurants and other groups are providing meals every week for our staff so that they get a nice little break. And kids are putting up signs on our fence thanking our hospital heroes for taking care of patients. It's been amazing and awe-inspiring to see the community support for people who take care of sick patients during this epidemic. Thanks. Hello, my name is Ashley and I'm calling from St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.

One of the things that gave me hope was that I was still able to get married during the pandemic to my love, Dave. It went from 85 people drinking and partying in a local brewery to five people, including us, spaced at least six feet apart in my bedroom, live streaming to my friends and family over the internet. We did a ceremonial disinfecting of the hands before and after signing the documents and got to show our older parents how to use technology. So there is hope. I love listening.

Thanks for your show during these times. Bye. I love it. My name is Abby, and I'm a domestic violence advocate at a hospital in Boston. And one thing that has given me hope in the past several weeks has been the outpouring of support from our local community. We have hotels reaching out to offer shelter to our survivors.

We have people who've been donating things like electronics to help families who don't have any for kids that are now homeschooling. We've had to find creative ways to get resources and food to the survivors we work with, but the community has been really committed to helping us out. So thank you for being my Saturday morning comedic relief during this super scary time. Thank you so much.

Bye. I love it. My name is Carly. I'm calling from Michigan. My highlight right now is that I sent a life-size cardboard cutout of myself to my family, my parents and sisters, and they have been taking snapshots of it and sending them back to me, which makes me laugh every single time. Hey, love it. This

is Sarah in Madison, Wisconsin. I'm walking the dog this morning, looking at the state Capitol. A high note here is that democracy prevailed in Wisconsin this week, and it was the election. Sign up for Vote Save America right now to help us defeat Donald Trump, keep the House, and win back the Senate. Thank you to Megan Rapinoe, Dr. Ali Matu, everyone who called in, and everybody from Portland. Thank you to our grocery workers, truck drivers, and delivery people. Thank you. Thank you to our doctors and nurses. And thank you to the whole team at Crooked

who are working so hard from home to keep this show going out and to keep Crooked going engineer. Sydney Rapp is our assistant producer, and August Dichter is our intern. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McLean 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, Nar Malconian and Yale Freed, for filming and editing video each week so you can.