Lovett or Leave It - Murder Hornets, Inc.

Episode Date: May 9, 2020

Author Michael Lewis explains why America is like a good team with a bad coach. Whitney Cummings joins to judge the monologue. Brittany Packnett Cunningham discusses Ahmaud Arbery and why it took a gruesome video to spur action. Listeners face off in a topical spelling bee. And finally we're joined by a surprise special guest before we share what made listeners hopeful in this week's high note. 

Welcome to the ninth episode of Love It or Leave It, back in the closet. Where am I? You asked yourself. You are in a place that exists somewhere between the real and the imagined. A space both physical and metaphorical. Pushing past secrets, fedoras, moth-eaten sweaters, and that sport jacket you've been saving for just the perfect occasion. You see the light beneath the door up ahead. Will you trade the madness of daylight for the security of this dark chamber? Only time will tell that you are in fact.

Back in the closet. That Twilight Zone inspired intro song is by Spencer Thune. We want to use a new one each week. They've been so awesome. I'm so amazed by what everyone's been making.

If you want to send us one, you can send it to hey at crooked.com and maybe we'll use yours and tweet it at me because I'd like to see them too. Later in the show, we'll be joined by listeners,

author Michael Lewis, our friend Brittany Packnett Cunningham, and a surprise special guest. And when I say surprise, I mean it is genuinely a surprise. Travis and Elisa will not tell me who it is, but they do assure me it's someone I've been asking to have on for a while. So I'm excited about that. But first, she's a comedian, the author of I'm Fine and Other Lies, and the host of the Good For You podcast.

Please welcome back to the show my friend, Whitney Cummings. Oh, hello there. Thank you for doing this. It is my great pleasure. Thanks for asking me after someone canceled last minute. It was my pleasure. I also, by the way, I just want everyone to know that Whitney started out trying to do this from her kitchen table on her iPhone. And then we slowly were like, well, hold on a second.

Don't you have a podcast recording studio in your home? It's a nice place. You forgot you have a fucking podcast studio in it. You're like Barbra Streisand. Why don't you record from the mall? This is about your podcast. I didn't want to bring my brand into your pod. And Whitney has graciously agreed to join. She is going to hear these jokes. She's going to decide if they were good or not. She's going to really just adjudicate

this whole operation. Okay. Let's get into it. What a week. On Monday, Grimes and Elon Musk welcome their baby into the world, naming it X-A-12, but it's technically pronounced strong password. That's a great joke. Great joke. It's a great joke. It's a great joke. It's a great joke.

I thought you were going to say that it was like a Tesla license plate number. I didn't know where that was going. Surprised me. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized Tuesday night for a gallbladder infection. But don't worry, everybody. This 86-year-old woman who spends more time lurking around hospitals than one of those serial killer nurses is doing just fine. Ruth Bader Ginsburg's health is like your unanswered email, just this dull, constant twinge of dread. That's just a comment.

That's just, see, sometimes they're not even jokes. I just, I think that I'm so emotional about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I can't even think about her being in any kind of jeopardy. It's too upsetting for me. Here's my question. What is she still doing with a gallbladder? Get that? That is a, that is a is not a strictly necessary organ. Her heart should not be powering any extraneous organs. In other news. By the way, I do fully believe that if the day

ever comes where she does crossover, which will be a dark day for everyone. It will be like Weekend at Bernie's. You and Favreau will just be carrying her body around. She's fine. She's fine. She's fine. For years. Yeah, she's actually in a board meeting right now. In other news, in other news, for the first time, agent giant hornets, also called murder hornets, have appeared in the United States. have appeared in the United States, their target? Uh-oh. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. No!

No! Honestly, I know it's a good joke, but it's too upsetting. It's too upsetting. It's too upsetting. We've got to move on. We're moving on. That was the last one. I won't.

We're not going to talk about RBG for even one more second. I know you like to hurt me, John. I know you like to upset me. I know you like to break my heart, but I just... If a hornet comes anywhere close to RBG, I will be even crazier than I normally am about animals, humans touching

animals. New York subways had their first planned overnight shutdown since the system opened 115 years ago. By morning, the rats had set up barricades around most entrances. They'd been waiting for this moment for over a century. To the sounds of tiny war drums, the rats issued a series of demands, notably stipulating that Bill de Blasio be mayor for life. Due to the rat-human war, most subway lines remain closed. But for whatever reason, the G was not impacted and is running on time or close to schedule. I think the joke was good. I just think we got to work on the delivery. No, I think that's right. I think that's right. I think I just, I know that a joke about the G train only works for people familiar with the G train. But if you are, if you understand it,

I think it'll work for people. I think it'll work for people. You also just made it too elegant. It was too, it was, it was overwritten. It was overwritten. It's too highbrow, like more prosaic. Just say it. I agree. I agree. Less icing on the cake. I agree. I agree.

I agree. That's a great note. We get it. You used to write speeches for the president. We get it. Now just be a person. Say it. Twitter is testing a new feature that tells users if their tweet replies may be offensive.

This will come as a big shock to Twitter users who respond to Anderson Cooper's baby announcement with, ha ha ha, chug piss, my dude. Travis insisted on the phrase chug piss. I mean, I feel like that's the nicest thing I've seen written to Anderson Cooper in a while. So I just, I think that's where it lost me because it just, to Cooper in a while, so I just think that's where it lost me, because it just it felt a little broad in terms of how nice the comment was. I'm like, oh,

that's charming. J.Crew filed for bankruptcy this week, and you know what? I see a lot of people making fun of J.Crew, but it's not J.Crew's fault that every straight guy on earth bought the same gingham shirt. Shout out to the gay men who work at J.Crew and tried their best to steer these boring dressers into more exciting directions. J.Crew's phalanx of homosexual store clerks I know what you're waiting for is like some kind of a punchline, but that's just sort of a remark.

It just that, yeah, that felt more like reading a diary entry or like sort of like the beginning of a, a Ted talk. Um, no, I, I, I, I get the gist of it. I feel like if we can get it down to just a setup and a punchline, really good advice. I feel like we'd be in. Wow. Wow. Maybe we should leave the, the late night talk show rants to the real professionals like John Krasinski. show rants to the real professionals like John Krasinski. This week, a federal judge ruled that New York's primary will go forward as planned after the state attempted to cancel the primary. Now's your chance, Duvall. Yes, you're so not ready for punchlines because most of these jokes have not had them.

I just spit my drink out. That was a real spit take. That was good. But it was also like your Rodney Dangerfield like you've gone full Sam Kinison in quarantine. The hamminess that I am bringing

to telling people jokes over video. I like it because I can't tell if you're mocking a comedian or mocking yourself. Like, I'm not sure who you're criticizing with this delivery. I think that the truth is I am unironically embracing it and I'm liking the style. I think that like a Catskills style is very suited to a Zoom life.

All right, I'm going to do this next one in the full. I'll try to really ham it up. Here we go. Okay, yeah, I like it because you also lean forward. You lean in. It's very Shecky Green. I'm interested. Yeah, I know.

It's my ethos. Online retailers, including Amazon, have launched a campaign to save the postal service. A campaign to save the postal service? What is this? The trailer for Garden State? Here's my only issue with that, is I think we have to decide who your demo is. Anyone who uses the Postal Service

has not seen Garden State. And anyone who's heard Postal Service doesn't use the Postal Service. Correct! And doesn't... And the people that are in the Postal Service don't call it the Postal Service. They call it the mail.

So there's a lot of confusion going on. But yeah, I feel like that's a very hipster joke. Hipster punchline, mainstream setup. Good note. But since we straddle both worlds, we get it. I get it. We get it. We get it. We get it.

I can kill in Tampa or Echo Park. Try me. I can say that now that comedy's dead and I'll never have to actually prove it. We get it. We get it. We get it. I can kill in Tampa or Echo Park. Try me. I can say that now that comedy's dead and I'll never have to actually prove it. Just I kill in Tampa. Such a funny sentence. All right. This one's also a bit of a journey. Are you ready?

Yeah. ESPN will begin airing six live Korean baseball games a week, usually around four or five in the morning. So congrats to the Doosan Bears, Samsung Lions, and the Kia Tigers. You've got a bunch of new fans who just finished playing Fortnite for 10 hours straight

and need your help winding down as the monster energy drink wears off and they try to ignore that sickly feeling that comes with going to bed after the sun comes up for no fucking reason. Go Bears. I think I tuned out when you said ESPN. I went out of my body.

Uh-huh, sure. So I disassociated because it was like I had PTSD from being on a date with a straight man. So I got lost. But it's such a smart joke. It's very smart. I'm just not laughing. Do you know what I mean? No, I see it.

On paper, the elements are there. Can you put in like a fart noise or can you do like a Christopher Walken impression? Can you do it in like an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice, the whole thing again? Like, can you put your belly out and take your shirt off or just something? Make something happen. Make something happen. Make it more Tampa. Slide whistle, slide whistle.

You got to Tampa it up. It's too smart to be funny, frankly. Last weekend, after the stay-at-home orders were lifted, hundreds of people flocked to the exotic animal park where Netflix documentary Tiger King took place. Pictures showed dozens of people waiting in line to enter the zoo, the majority of them not wearing masks or socially distancing. I guess in the end, Carol Baskins wasn't the murderer. We all were.

I also just need you to know that I still haven't seen it. I have not seen it. I don't understand these references. Yeah, no, that's a great joke. I could tell you hadn't seen it when you were telling the joke. Okay, cool. I could feel that. I know you were watching The Leftovers again instead of watching Tiger King. That's a great joke. President Trump also announced that his administration will continue to press the Supreme Court to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would cause tens of millions to lose health coverage despite the ravages of the coronavirus.

A lot of people thought the coronavirus was crazy for donating so much money to the Trump inaugural, but now look at it. Just nothing. I'm sorry. I just, you know what's so fascinating? Every one of these jokes is constructed so differently that you might have to create some kind of signal to put people in a trance

to let them know when a punchline is coming, like what I do. That's what you say. All the great jokes require a signal, some kind of a signal to let people know it's time to laugh. And that's why he made me squirt. You got to let them know. No, I just like, I wasn't ready. Because you know what the problem is that I was actually learning something. So I was just trying to, I literally am just getting the news from you. All right. This next joke is very Tampa. All right, you're going to love it.

By the way, by the way, and I just want to be clear. All right, apologies to the people of Tampa. All right, for the shorthand being used in this recording. That's all I want to say about that. I mean, we're using you with reverence saying you're the only people to get comedy. So I don't see this as pejorative at all. Pensacola, on the other hand. Eat shit, Pensacola.

Yeah, I'm bombed in Pensacola. Kill in Tampa. Figure me out. The Department of Justice announced on Thursday it would be dropping all charges against General Michael Flynn, a former White House official who pled guilty to his crimes. This is a terrible moment in our history, as Attorney General Bill Barr destroys the barrier

that separated the White House and the Department of Justice. When asked about the move, Bill Barr replied, I'm the baby, gotta love me. You see, Whitney, he looks like the baby from the show Dinosaurs. Not the mama. Isn't that what he says? Honestly, not I'm the baby, gotta love me is all I've retained. See, I don't remember it. I just worked with someone that wrote on that show back when there was such a thing as television. But I think that's a great joke. Whitney, thank you for... We're done. I mean... Any of that usable? All of it's usable. That's the beauty of this. Here's the cool thing. It's a podcast. The stakes are so low. Now that this is the only business left, I disagree. It is true that Hollywood is resting on the shoulders of podcasts.

And you can catch Whitney on her podcast. You can also see her on The John Krasinski Show. Whitney Cummings, thank you so much for doing this. This was a delight. I love you. Love you, too. What a joy this was. Always.

Thanks to Whitney Cummings. There was a story this week that I really wanted to make sure we talked about and here to talk about it with us. She's an activist, MSNBC contributor, co-founder of Campaign Zero, and the co-host of Crooked Media's podcast, Pod Save the People, Brittany Packnett Cunningham. Hey, John. Brittany, thanks for taking the time to talk with me this morning. Hey, Jon. two months ago, but became national news this week only after the family released footage of the brutal killing. It took the family reliving the trauma of their son's murder, making this public to shake the system into action.

What was your reaction to that? If I'm totally honest in a way that I can't be on television, it was the same shit in a different day. I am never surprised but unendingly frustrated by the fact that it requires the widespread viewing of Black death for people to care. And people have been making the correct point that the arrests of the McMichaels were made not because the police and the DA saw the video, but because we saw the video. not because the police and the DA saw the video, but because we saw the video. So it is not enough, unfortunately, simply to have video footage, because there was video footage of Eric Garner being killed and his killer walked away free.

It is not enough for the police to see that footage, because there is plenty of body cam footage and cell phone footage that police have confiscated for their own uses that we have never seen. And it is barely enough for a video this gruesome to go viral just to get the bare minimum. And it's the bare minimum because, like you said, it took two months. It's been 74 days. And we are currently talking on the occasion of what would have been Ahmaud's 26th birthday. on the occasion of what would have been Ahmad's 26th birthday. And so I am just struck by the fact that in this moment, he is known across the country, if not across the globe, not for his smile, not for his kindness, not for his hobbies, not for the way he made other people feel, and not for celebrating his birthday, but because he was gunned down and we had to fight for somebody to do even a little bit about it. So this also happened, as many pointed out on Twitter,

that mostly white protesters were marching with assault weapons, menacing state houses, physically harassing police at protests. I know, I believe you've pointed this out that, you know, this is not something that black people are free to do. And it seems that what we go through over and over again is that, you know, the reason these white protesters feel safe is that they know that they can count on being seen as full-fledged people, that wherever, whatever, maybe they're going up against the cops because they're protesters or they're armed or they're in defiance of some order, but there's a presumption of their personhood, that they are more complex, that they're fully fledged people. That's right. But whether it's this killing, whether it's Sean Reed, whether it's countless others that we're seeing,

and regardless of even the race of the cops chasing them or involved, that in the moment, the personhood is gone. There's an objectification, a dehumanization. And this to me seems to be like the hardest thing to talk about and the hardest thing to change. How do you process that? How do you think about that deeper underlying problem?

I think that even though it is one of the most difficult parts of the conversation to have, it is the most necessary. Because the only way you can subjugate a people for generations is to dehumanize them. Because if you dehumanize them, then you don't have to feel a level of guilt over their incarceration. If you dehumanize them, you don't have to feel guilty that the essential workers are disproportionately people that look like me. to feel guilty that the essential workers are disproportionately people that look like me. You don't have to feel guilty about the fact that homeless students right now who have no access to virtual learning disproportionately are Black children. You don't have to feel badly about the fact that the system of white supremacy is something that all white people benefit from, even if they didn't ask for it, right?

And if you can dehumanize a people thoroughly, then you can continue to justify their death. You can continue to put them on trial for their own death. When we look at the letter that District Attorney Barnhill wrote, Barnhill, of course, being the second prosecutor to look at the case, and he recused himself. People keep talking about that recusal as if it was voluntary. No. Ahmaud's mother raised hell for weeks to get him to recuse himself because of a conflict of interest given his previous working relationships with the McMichaels. So he recuses himself, but knowing that he has to recuse himself, he writes a three-page letter to explain and attempt to influence a case that he now has no jurisdiction over. And what he says on the third page is that, quote, Arbery's mental health records and prior convictions help explain his apparent aggressive nature and his possible thought pattern to attack an armed man. So in the same sentence that you deem Ahmaud Arbery

not important, valuable, or human enough to be able to defend himself in this circumstance, you also identify the person that he's fighting as an armed man, which says to me that the only person who is engaged in self-defense was not the McMichaels. It was Ahmaud Arbery. And here we are actually having this conversation as if that is even a question. You can only have that conversation if you have dehumanized the person that you were talking about. If that person is nothing but a mental health statistic or a crime statistic and not an actual human being, literally fighting for his life, as unfortunately too many of us saw on video. literally fighting for his life, as unfortunately too many of us saw on video. So I am in this place where I am, again, never surprised, but deeply pained.

My friend earlier said to me, you'd think that as many times as this happens to our community, it wouldn't hurt as badly, but it still does. It still hurts just as badly, if not more, because we have been ringing the alarm on this for so long. So yeah, I am not floored, but I am hopeful that somebody finally, truly gets that this is not just a matter of bad apples, that this is not just a matter of bad people, that this is not just a matter of bad circumstances. This is systemic, it is perpetual, and it is enough. So I want to ask one last question about this. So, you know, because this video is so unequivocal, I think you've seen some of the voices that traditionally have been the most offensive of police, most skeptical of the Black Lives Matter movement,

put on their white gloves and write tweets saying that it's correct that there be a prosecution in this case, that in this case, they've seen the facts. It is so egregious that it's clear that this young man was murdered, that this is a murder and it should be prosecuted. But so often, these conversations end up forcing activists like you, many others, to become fact experts, to dive into every piece of fact that you can muster, to build your case, to make a larger argument. And oftentimes you don't have the video that you have here, or you have people kind of use the ambiguity to argue on behalf of the system as it currently exists. What can people listening do?

What are you doing to help make sure the conversation stays focused on the larger changes that have to take place, not just in laws, but in our culture, in the way we think about these issues? You know, you bring up such an important point about the twisting that people will do just to create a narrative that somehow supports their beliefs. And, you know, we are sitting here talking just a couple of hours after Donald Trump got on Fox News and said, well, we didn't see the whole video. As if there is some justification that could have just occurred 30 seconds before or 30 seconds after. And I just want us to remember, right, that whatever you think happened, if you really do believe that there were a series of burglaries happening in this neighborhood and that Ahmaud Arbery was the proper suspect to chase in a citizen's arrest about that burglary. Burglary does not carry a death

sentence in this country. And nobody appointed McMichaels the father or McMichael the son judge and jury. But to your point, these are the kind of parsing, detailed conversations we have to have with people who frankly are never going to be satisfied by the truth of living in black skin in America. To your question about what we need to do, what I am doing, I am not spending my time, my energy, my very, very precious energy in this moment on convincing people that it is raining outside who want to blame me for the rain. Like I'm not doing that, right? I'm not going to argue with you that the sky is blue if you keep wanting to tell me, no, it's red, white, and blue and screw you. No, we're not doing that. There's not a good use of my time and I don't owe you that investment. What I am doing is trying to make sure, A, that people think more critically about how they re-traumatize others.

The hard truth at this moment is that it both took the video going viral to actually ensure that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations actually reopened the case. But at a certain point, once we hit a peak of momentum, it is time for all of us to say, okay, now turn it off, right? Like delete the tweet, delete the post, stop posting it, don't email it, don't text it, because it is the reopening of a very deep 400-year-old wound. Every single time we see that video, especially when we are scrolling, minding our own business, and seeing it on autoplay. So one of the first things we have to do is think much more critically about how we lift up the name of Ahmaud Arbery and any and all of the victims of violence who come from marginalized backgrounds, that we need to be more obsessed with

the healing, we need to be more obsessed with accountability, we need to be more obsessed with the healing. We need to be more obsessed with accountability. We need to be more obsessed with prevention than we are the trauma. That's the first thing that we have to do. The second thing that we have to do is recognize the places where each of us exert influence and push there. So instead of coming to me, not you, but I'm just saying people in general, instead of coming to me and saying, can you explain this to Uncle So-and-so because he really doesn't get it, why don't you explain it to Uncle So-and-so? You're his nephew. You're his niece. that straight cisgender folks need to be talking to other straight cisgender folks about what it means to truly be a co-conspirator and accomplice of the LGBT community based on

the things that they learn from the folks in that community themselves. It is also the responsibility of people with racial privilege, i.e. white people, to go and gather and talk to other white people, i.e. white people, to go and gather and talk to other white people, period. Our energy in the black community is being spent on healing ourselves, protecting our children, loving on one another. I hugged my husband so tight yesterday. It is being spent on trying to deal with crises within crises within crises because while this is happening, we are also dying from coronavirus at the highest rates. And so we are spending our time on things that take all of our

energy, that absolutely exhaust us. The very least you can do, if you benefit from the same system that killed Ahmaud Arbery and left his family without an arrest for 74 days, the very least you can do is go and gather your folks and make sure that they actually understand the injustices that are at play here and that they get that these are not one-offs, that this is deeply systemic and they have a role to play in ending it. Brittany Packnett Cunningham, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your thoughts on a very difficult subject. When we come back, we'll be joined by listeners. Hey, don't go anywhere.

There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. Normally every May, bars are packed with loud NBA playoff fans cheering on the Golden State Wagoneers and the Utah Jizz. But while this is happening, the Juan and Be Spectacled Among Us, the Scrabble Scrappers and Crossword Warriors gather to watch the real sporting event, the Scripps National Spelling Bee. But this year, because of the pandemic, the Spelling Bee is canceled. The meanest development for the contestants outside of what happens to them in gym class when Mrs. Friedlander's back is turned.

So to help fill the void left by the Scripps Spelling Bee, we decided to have one of our own in a segment we're calling There's No I in Team, But There Is One in Camaraderie, But Where? We asked for viewers to prove they've won some sort of spelling contest before they entered. And let's just say, you nerds. First, let's meet our nerd contestants. Let's start with you, Megan. Thanks for joining us. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

What qualifies you for this spelling bee? So my name is Megan. I'm from Missouri. And in eighth grade, I was one word away from the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The word ironically was fortuitous. I put some U's in the wrong place. That'll happen. That'll happen. And then in college, I got, again, second in a philanthropy spelling bee. So I'm just destined to be second. So I expect this to go about the same. Our next contestant is Carly. Carly, can you tell us a bit about yourself and what qualifies you for this spelling bee? Yeah, I'm Carly. I live in New York. And in 10th grade, I was Logan Schwartz in Grubenier in the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

I don't act anymore, and I'm not that great at spelling. So your qualifications are that you played someone who is good at spelling. Correct. Great, great, great. In a student-produced play, yes. Awesome. All right, Ellen, you're up. Who are you, and why are you here?

My name is Ellen. I'm from Rhode Island, which is where I'm currently quarantining, but I usually live in the D.C. area. And I qualified for the spelling bee because in eighth grade, a full 10 years ago, I competed in the National Spelling Bee. Wow. How'd you do? Not very well.

But the point is that I made it there. That is the point. That is the point. I will tell you that I have never been a particularly good speller and that in fourth grade, I made it to the school-wide spelling bee from Mrs. Burfuss' class on the spelling of the word, I believe, anchor. And I was so confident I knew how to spell it. I spelled it really quickly.

And someone else in the class raised their hand and said, he didn't say H, he said A-N-C-O-R. I think deep down, I know he's right. But in the moment, I wasn't going to have my victory taken from me. But then I panicked on the word boundary. I just got lost inside of it, ironically. All right. So I'm going to start. We have three rounds. There's an easy round, a medium round, and a hard round. Let's see how we do. Megan, I'm just going to start. We have we're going to we have three rounds. There's an easy round, a medium round and a hard round. Let's see how we do. Megan, I'm just going to start with you. Your first word is Fauci. If I ever have a child, I will name them Fauci. Or child. And oh, wait, one more thing. One more thing. Everybody's hands up. I want to see hands. I do not want to see cheating.

There's typing that could happen. All right, Megan, you're up. All right, Fauci. S-A-U-C-I. Fauci. You got it. Next word is for Carly. Stimulus. When I am having a hard day, I turn to OnlyFans for stimulus.

God damn it. S-T-I-M-U-L-U-S. Stimulus. Correct. Ellen, up to you. I need to see. You don't have your hands up when you're not spelling. I think that that's crazy. Ellen, the word is recession. Movement of integrity, John. The word is recession. Reopening businesses will not stop the recession and Andrew Yang presidency will. Recession. R-E-C-E-S-S-I-O-N, recession. You've got it. We're moving on to round two. Ellen, I'll start with you. The word is furlough.

Enjoy your furlough. Please ignore the stock buybacks we use to line our pockets. Furlough. F-U-R-L-O-U-G-H, furlough. You've got it. Carly, your word is oximeter. Only true hypochondriacs went out and purchased an oximeter. Oximeter. O-C-T-S-I-M-I-T-O-R. Carly, that is incorrect. Megan, I'm going to throw it to you. The word is oximeter.

The sentence is only true hypochondri to you. The word is oximeter. The sentence is only true hypochondriacs went out and purchased an oximeter. Oximeter. O-X-I-M-E-T-E-R. Oximeter. You've got it. I don't know what happens now. I think you have another chance, Carly. You're not out yet. All right. Double elimination. Double elimination. We're moving on. The next word is for Megan. Inoculation. Before bed, it's nice to take an Ativan as an inoculation from the terrible news we read every day. Familiar situation, John. Inoculation. I-N-O-C-U-L-A-T-I-O-N. Inoculation.

You got it. And you built in some real suspense. That was so exciting. We're moving on. Now we're in it. Now we're in the toughest of tough words. Carly, it goes to you first. Your word is remdesivir.

Sentence, I hope a pharmaceutical company gets to overcharge for remdesivir. That's not fair for her. It's tough. These are all tough. Thank you, Megan. Thank you. Remdesivir. R-E-M-I-D-E-Z-I-T-I-O-N.

I don't know Carly You didn't get it And honestly I've never judged a spelling bee before And I hate it I hate it Because

Here I am watching this unfold And there's nothing I can do to help you And you got it wrong But Carly You know You're out But I think you should just hang Don't leave

I'll hang You know Just hang You did such a great job I don't have to be in a work meeting For another 20 minutes Carly, you know, you're out, but I think you should just hang. Don't leave. I'll hang. You know, just hang. You did such a great job. I don't have to be in a work meeting for another 20 minutes. Fantastic. Ellen, over to you. The word is remdesivir.

Can I have the language of origin? No. The language of origin is capitalism. All right. That really helps me. Remdesivir. Capitalism. All right. That really helps me.

Remdesivir. R-E-M-D-E-Z-I-V-I-R. Remdesivir. No, that is incorrect. Megan, over to you. The word is remdesivir. Remdesivir. Okay.

R-E-M-D-E-Z-I-V-E-R-E? No. It's R-E-M-D-E-S-I-V-I-R. Megan, Ellen, you now have both gotten one question wrong. Remdesivir left a terrible wreckage behind itself. The next word we will start with. Who's up? Who just went? I just went.

Megan went, but it's back to Megan because we're sneaking, you know, we're going one, two, two, one, you know? All right. Your word is epidemiology. The sentence, Jared Kushner is a world-renowned expert in epidemiology. So I actually have a degree in public health and I took an epi class when I was in college. So if I get this wrong, how do you spell bragging? So if I get this wrong, I am sorry, Dr. Dailymore. Epidemiology, E-P-I-D-E-M-I-O-L-O-G-Y, epidemiology. You got it. You got it. Ellen, over to you. The word is hydroxychloroquine. Sentence, I can't believe I had to learn how to pronounce hydroxychloroquine.

Hydroxychloroquine. This feels harder than epidemiology, but that's okay. Would agree. Okay. That's live. All right. That's life. All right.

H-Y-D-R-O-X-Y-C-H-L-O-R-O-Q-U-I-N-E. Hydroxychloroquine. You got it. You got it. Carly, we're impressed. I am so impressed. I think you should just join me in judging now. You should just join me in judging. I'm there.

Sure. The next, we're now, Ellen, you go again. The word is manukin. Sentence, Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnookin was an executive producer of the film Suicide Squad. All right, Mnookin. M-N-U-C-H-I-N, Mnookin. You got it. You got it. Over to you, Megan. Diphthong, sentence. Grimes and Elon Musk named their baby using a diphthong. Diphthong.

D-I-P-H-T-H-O-N-G, diphthong. You got it. Megan, next one for you. The word is zoonotic. Sentence. A disease that spreads from animals to people is called zoonotic. Blue liquor that makes you puke is called hypnotic. Zoonotic. Z-O-O-N-O-T-I-C.

Zoonotic. You got it. You got it. Although I have to say, I keep forgetting to pay attention during the spelling. But I'm sure you got it. Well, you've got to back judge, so it's okay. Carly, is she doing okay? I think. Well, you've got it. All right. We do have Carly. Is she doing okay? I think so. That sounds like a word. You create a short. Look, look,

here's the thing, Carly. Here's the thing. You only played a speller on television. You know what I mean? Right. I love Sandra. Oh, but I'm not going to her for surgery. You know what I'm saying? I'd probably still go to Sandra for surgery. I would too. I would too. I would too. All right. Now it is time for our final two words. Okay. And we may end up with a tie. We'll see what happens. Who's up? I can't even remember. I think we should go with Ellen. Ellen. Okay. Ellen, the word is Vespa mandarinia. Sentence, the scientific name for murder hornets is Vespa mandarinia. Sentence, the scientific name for murder hornets is Vespa mandarinia. Okay, if it's two words, do I have to specify that there's a space? Let's say no.

Okay, good. Vespa mandarinia. V-E-S-P-A-M-A-N-D-A-R-I-N-I-A Vespa, Mandarinia. You got it. You got it. You got it. All right.

Next is for Megan. Big moment. This is a... Now, this is going to be challenging. And that's all I'll say about it. Your word is Elon Musk and Grimes baby name. Oh, God. Sentence.

I have no idea how to pronounce Elon Musk and Grimes baby name. Okay. If I can remember this. I believe it is X, the A.E. Elvin thing. Mm-hmm. S-17, which should be 71, apparently. Is that not the end? That's not the end.

Is that the end? You got it wrong. Oh, the day 12? Carly, what kind of judge are you? What? Did you not even? I forgot that she was going to. You know what, Ellen?

We're going over to you. All right. Yeah. Your word is Elon Musk and Grimes' baby name. Let's see how you do. I'd like to say I would get this even without Carly's assistance here. I'm going to go with X, A-E, diphthong, A-12. You got it.

You got it. You got it. However, due to the 2002 Olympic level corruption offered by Carly Shiner, the Russian judge, we'll never be able... Sorry. But here's what I will say. That was impossible. I am declaring Ellen and Megan the winners of this game. You've done an incredible job spelling today. Carly, I can only wish I had been in the audience for your performance in the Putnam County Spelling Bee. What I'll say is only that I imagine it was a wonderful performance and left people just on their feet applauding, even if some of the words weren't spelled correctly. You know what I mean? How are you all doing during this work at home, corona at home time? As bad as well as anybody can be.

Okay. Carly, how are you? I'm fine enough. Thankfully, my partner and I are both still employed for the time being. So we're lucky. And Megan, how are you? Are you putting that public health degree to work? My current job has nothing to do with anything with coronavirus. I'm an adolescent health educator, so all of my sex ed programs are on hold for right now. But yeah, I'm glad that all of my family is safe and healthy. My sister just took her last college finals today and my moms are safe, so I'm doing okay.

You're doing great. And I just want to point out that the reason you got the name of Elon Musk and Grimes' baby spelled wrong is because you did correctly note that Grimes herself tweeted reference to the secret airplane at issue and had reversed the number, the whatever, SR, whatever it was. And you are so deep into this issue, so deep into this story that you are actually too expert for the spelling of the name. So for that, I believe you should be applauded. Thank you. Thank you to all three of you for joining the first annual Love It or Leave It spelling bee.

You're all winners in my book. This really did make up for the canceled national spelling bee. Thank you. I think this is basically just as good. When we come back, we'll be joined by the author of Against the Rules and the Big Short, Michael Lewis. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. He's the host of the podcast Against the Rules and author of The Fifth Risk, Moneyball, and The Big Short, to name a few. Please welcome Michael Lewis. Hello, John. Thanks for doing this.

So you're currently hosting the second season of your podcast Against the Rules. This season, you take a look at coaches and the role they play inside and outside of the game. You know, I could tell you so much about so many of my favorite coaches. Steve Kerr, that's it. What are some of the lessons you've learned about what makes for a good coach? Trust is at the center of it. And it's a tricky process getting the trust, though we don't really, you know, it's funny, we never, except in the final episode, when I get myself coached in something I'm really uncomfortable doing. We don't really even approach that question except indirectly. The whole thing starts with a story that I wrote some years ago about a high school baseball coach I had. It was a period where his former players

were raising the money to name the school gym for him. And like money was coming out of everywhere because people said, look, he changed my life. He taught me how to work. He, you know, he made me who I am kind of thing. And at the same time, the parents of his current players were trying to get him fired and were succeeding. It looked like he was about to be fired. And it was that kind of question about why a coach who could work such magic was no longer sort of allowed to work his magic, which got me interested in the subject in the first place. And part of what had happened to him was that his methods were a little tough. You know, it wasn't, he was one of those people who was, it wasn't easy to play for him all the time. And he put you through a lot. But he came from a place of caring and you sense that. And people who let him coach them sense that.

But the trust that required to put up with it had gone somewhere in the inner room. I mean, it just vanished. And so it was like the beginning of the story for me is why does that emotion, why is it so hard now to get there? But when you get there there what amazing things happen and that's the sort of other side of the podcast that i mean it sort of surprised me was just how widespread coaching has become and there's so many people call themselves coaches now used to be the sports people right yeah and now you're looking at like life coaches and death coaches and performance coaches and i mean it's like everywhere you turn, there are these coaches.

The role has really proliferated. At the same time, it is in some ways like threatened. So that's another thing that sort of runs through the story. Do you think something has changed that has meant people are less interested in the kind of coaching that requires sacrifice, that pushes people in some way that they're told they're not supposed to be pushed anymore? I think especially with kids, the parents have gotten involved in ways they didn't used to be involved. The life has gotten more front end loaded, that the idea of failure when you're young is a more threatening thing. It's sort of like you don't make the varsity or you don't get an A, all of a

sudden, you're not going to get into the good college and you're not going to, you know, it's like there's these knock on effects that people are imagining. And the parents are so highly strung about their kids fortunes. That's what's interfered with the coaching model is that the parents don't let it happen. Do you do you see any lessons in what you're seeing in what you're learning about what makes a coach a good coach? For politics? Do you see any lessons in what you're seeing, in what you're learning about what makes a coach a good coach for politics? Do you see some of the skills carry over in certain politicians or any other kind of lessons you take from that? God, it's so funny you say that because I think one way to frame the United States right now is a really shittily coached team. No, really.

I mean, it's sort of like, it's not like we don't have the players, right? Like we have the players. There's all this talent here. I mean, the pandemic has just exposed this. It's so mismanaged. I think if Donald Trump is like, he's sort of like the worst of the old coach without the best. He's like Bobby Knight, who doesn't know anything about basketball. So it's sort of like the abusive coach who doesn't take you anywhere good, who just kind of beats you down. So the first season of the podcast was about referees. And I kind of thought that season had a spirit animal in Elizabeth Warren. And I'm almost thinking that this season has a spirit animal in Joe Biden.

That the way to frame Biden's candidacy should be like, I'm the good coach, that this team needs help. That's why I've never thought of Elizabeth Warren as a referee. I do see Trump as a very, very bad coach. But, you know, your other book, your most recent book, Fifth Risk, you talk about the helter-skelter transition into the Trump administration. And just for people who haven't, who aren't familiar with it, you know, you talk to the chief risk officer at the Department

of Energy, and he lays out what he sees as the biggest risks facing his department. And four of them are what you might expect. They are a lost or stolen nuclear weapon, North Korea, Iran, a cyber attack on our energy grid. And then he says that the fifth risk is program management, basically just the mismanagement of the quotidian role of the department, of people we never hear about civil servants doing their job every single day. Why did you find that so important? What about that conversation led you to frame basically an entire book around it? There were two things there. One was the fact when I got the fifth risk to me wasn't just program management.

It took him a long time to get to that. And he was sort of thinking the risks that when you asked me that question, the risks that popped to mind, they're very vivid risks. He realized and I realized that the risk that was dangerous was sort of the non-vivid one you weren't thinking about, or the one that hasn't happened in a long time, you know, the one that isn't being discussed, because that's not the one being managed. But the mere sort of like existence of these risk officers alerted me to this idea that what is this federal government?

I mean, it's a bunch of things at once. But among other things, it is a manager of a portfolio of existential risks. There's so many of them, you can't list them all. But once you frame it that way, and then you're sort of framing one of the jobs of the president as to manage these risks. And then all of a sudden you look at the way Donald Trump is approaching those risks. It's a natural way to think of the story. And the question I had once I started to frame it that way was sort of like, how's this guy going to kill me? There's so many different options.

You know, there's so many different ways this could go wrong. Well, what it seems is one of the options you mentioned is a pandemic. Absolutely true. Absolutely true. That one of the roles of the federal government is to be putting in place the processes and the people to be ready for a crisis of this magnitude. Right. I guess the question then is Donald Trump, a top of this big apparatus, terrible coach, throwing chairs like Bobby Knight. I do know two coaches. I do know two coaches. You know who Bobby Knight is. I know who Bobby Knight is. I know who Bobby Knight is. Throws chairs, gets kicked out of game. People like that at the time. Right. Don't really understand why, because not an athlete. Right. But so obviously Donald Trump is a terrible coach. But this clearly

runs deeper than that, right? That he may be the proximate cause for a lot of what's gone wrong in the response to this pandemic. But it seems, though, put Trump aside, there is a kind of sclerotic change in the way that our government functions right now, that our inability to provide tests for the Senate, the fact that infrastructure projects have incredible cost overruns. What lessons did you learn or what surprised you about the ways in which our government now seems unable to prepare for the fifth risk? You know, what surprised me was the indifference of the society to the risk management. That's the big thing. It surprised me that, like, for example,

when Donald, it is, Donald Trump is, I agree, more symptom than cause, but he's also now cause. But when the man is elected and he fires his entire transition team so that there is no, he's not acknowledging even the possibility of a transfer of knowledge and experience from the previous administration to his administration. That that is greeted by the public with a shrug. That's just so telling.

So the essence of the problem is that the American public doesn't appreciate anymore what his government is supposed to be doing for it. government is supposed to be doing for it. I think maybe that's changing right now. But that's what enables a guy who like that to assume the office in the spirit in which he assumed the office, right? I mean, I think. I don't know. I think it's interesting, because I do think, you know, you see a lot of people direct ire at the media. And I'm happy to criticize the media. I do it all the time. It's one of my great passions. But you see a lot of people being saying, you know, the headline needs to refer to what Trump said as a lie. And this story isn't honest about just how bad Donald Trump is. And you feel in the kind of observer of political news baked into the idea of criticizing the media is the notion that I don't understand

why Americans don't care about this as much as I do. And I'm looking for ways to get people to care. That my problem is ordinary Americans, people watching the news less closely than me, don't seem to get what I get. Right. And it seems like that extends to what you're describing, that there's this disconnect between citizens and the gears and functions of the government. And so the question is, why is that? Yes. I can think of a few obvious reasons. And one is it's all gotten more complicated.

The government is now so complicated, it's incomprehensible to an ordinary citizen. Now, it should be made comprehensible. I mean, I would argue that one of the jobs of the political leaders is to do just that, to sort of explain in simple terms what it is, say, a government could and should be doing during a pandemic. That's one example. So the complexity of the thing is part of the problem. But the other part of the problem is when you have in a two-party system, one party

that has built its whole marketing campaign around attacking the federal enterprise, you're never going to get a clean transmission of information about this enterprise to the public. I think a lot of the blame of it has to be laid at the foot of the Republican Party. And I mean, we're paying a big price for 40 years of rhetoric. How you use this tool as it should be used when half the people in charge of funding the tool, evaluating the tool, explaining the tool to the public, have to at least pretend to be hostile to the tool, it's a problem. The question is, at what point does the fever break? Like, at what point does there a market open up where a politician, likely a Democrat, can actually sell the federal government in a positive way. And it just seemed to me like this is, if this doesn't do it, like what will? I mean,

it's like the thing where you can show people dying every day because of this thing we've got over here isn't being used properly, or is not even engaging in the battle. A lot of it is framing. A lot of it, it's not like, I know you say that there's some disconnect between the media and the public, in that the people who are writing the articles are trying to get the public to care more about something they don't naturally care about. But I could tell you my experience with the book, that when you frame it as like, this is going to kill you, and let me explain why, you don't have any trouble getting people's attention. All of a sudden, that problem starts to go away.

Yeah, yeah. So it's not like people don't want to know. It's more like this, the way it's presented to them, I think, is the big deal. I mean, look, people have been talking about the fever breaking in the Republican Party for a long time. It's almost, it's a joke because, you know, Barack Obama said it. Here we are all these years later. Joe Biden said he thought Republicans were going to wake up one day because Donald Trump was gone. And yet in the last two and a half months, you know, we just had a

whole long democratic primary about how infeasible a universal basic income could be or Medicare for all because they cost a trillion dollars. We just spent $2 trillion. Nobody even spell checked the fucking thing. So Republicans don't have a problem with Republicans governing. They seem to only have a problem with Democrats governing. Do you expect this to have any shift in Republican politics as we move forward? Hard to know. But the one way you do get the shift is if they lose. They win? No. But if they, well, let's just say they lose the Senate and the White House. Well, that's a crisis for them. And so in that case, I can imagine the party fracturing. Absolutely. There's obviously already a lot of dissent in the middle of it. So yes, if they lose, it's fine. They can keep being ineffective. If they lose, it's fine. They can keep being ineffective. And can I imagine a change of sort of like the music that's coming out of the Republican Party if they lost? Like, yeah, we do understand that these problems need to be solved. There are problems that absolutely need to be solved at the federal level. And we can't keep kicking this thing around. Yeah, I can imagine that. But that wouldn't be the first thing that happened. That's down the road a long way after many, many electoral defeats. It's this other road, right? Because had James Comey not written a letter, had things gone a slightly different direction, had Hillary Clinton won the election in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, flipped 30,000

votes here and there, the Republican Party would have lost three presidentials in a row. They would have followed the advice of Reince Priebus on their autopsy and their need to be more cosmopolitan and diverse. And Marco Rubio would be reigning supreme. We'd be in a completely different politics. In a different world. All of which is saying, this stuff is unpredictable.

It's totally unpredictable, right? So you can imagine it happening. You can imagine good things happening too. I would say this though, that when I was working on the book, I thought something bad is going to happen and he's going to screw it up. Then we'll see how people feel. And something bad's happened and he screwed it up. And everybody kind of understands he screwed it up. Now he's going to try to tell a different story about it, but it's going to be a very, very hard story to tell because this isn't a hurricane hitting New Orleans. This is like something that's going to go on and on and on for many, many, many, many months. And so you're not going to be able to like bury it in the same

way, put it behind you in the same way. If there was ever a hope of like America bouncing in a different direction and probably the direction you and I would both like it to bounce, this is it. This is like, this is the thing that would happen that would cause it to bounce in that direction. For America to wake up. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. It's not something that's just happening to someone else now. It's happening to everybody. And yeah, it's hurting the poor more than the rich, but nobody can get away from it. And I think that's sort of the essential quality of the crisis, that and the duration of it, that will sort of make some big changes possible. And I'm telling you, the way to frame it is,

this is a shitty coach. We're a very talented team with a very shitty coach. I love that. And America will respond. All we need is a good coach, someone who knows how to organize the team, call the plays. Right now, this looks like an uncoached team.

Yeah. And look, maybe the coach we're interviewing for replacing this coach is a little bit older. And maybe he's not even the coach we wanted. But he's much fucking better than the current coach. Yeah, he knows how the game's played, just for starters. Which is a great place to start. Michael Lewis, thank you so much. It was such a great conversation. I'm so honored that

you do the show. I hope you're staying safe. Thanks for having me. When we come back, a surprise guest. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. All week, Travis and Elisa and the team have been promising me a surprise guest.

They've insisted on keeping it from me. But saying it's someone I've been begging to have on for a while. There are so few names that I can imagine will be on that list. I have to be honest, I'm pretty nervous, pretty excited. So go ahead, Elisa. I'm ready to see who the surprise guest is. Invite them to the Zoom. It's Emily's Garden Show.

Oh, come on. No. No. I know that song. Yeah. Everyone in America knows that song. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do a gardening segment.

I don't think it's a good idea for a podcast. Welcome to Emily's Garden Show. The Emily Garden Show remix was sent in by Jacob Bloom. If you want to send in an Emily's Garden remix, please send it to hey at crooked.com. Hey, everybody. It's our friend Emily Heller. Yes. Hello.

Thank you so much for having me back. Don't thank me. I think that was. Don't thank me. Well, I was actually just being, I was actually just being really gracious. I don't actually want to thank you. I'd like to thank the public for the outpouring of demand for this segment. Okay.

I think the elephant in the room here is just how insanely popular this segment has become. I think you didn't want me to do this segment because you think you know more than I do. So I figured this time I'm going to put your knowledge to the test. Great. With a quiz, a gardening quiz. Okay. I am going to say a gardening term. Okay. And you have to tell me what you think it means. I will. All right. And I will tell you. I love a quiz. Yeah. And I'll tell you if you're right or wrong. And I'm not even going to look it up because I'm that confident that I know more than you even without looking. Great.

That's great. I'm glad that, that glad that gardening has given you this boost of confidence. The one thing we could all say about Emily is that she lacked for fucking confidence. Yeah. I've definitely been told that that's my biggest issue. Okay. Gardening quiz. Let's find out if you're a seed or a weed. What do I want to be?

Do I want to be a seed or a weed? You want to be a seed. Okay. I guess technically weeds have seeds, so that could be bad. I don't know. Oh my God, you're already ruining this. Okay, heirloom. What does heirloom mean? So I know that when someone says heirloom tomato, it means you're getting a kind of oddly shaped tomato of variable color. But I don't understand why it's an heirloom.

Okay, here's what I think it means. I think it means that, like, when you take the seeds from it and you plant it, it'll grow the same plant. Isn't that true of all plants? No! What? Because we genetically modify them and we breed them so that the seeds grow something else, I guess? I don't really know. Okay, that's one point for me, I guess. I don't really know. Okay.

That's one point for me, I think. Okay. Oh, my gosh. Number two, hardening off. Hardening off? Yeah. What do you think that means? Is that when you've left food out too long and it hardens off, develops a bit of a crust? No.

it hardens off, it develops a bit of a crust. No. It's when you take a plant out of a greenhouse environment and you let it be exposed to the elements so that it gets tough, basically. Oh, so it's like what you would do to a hothouse flower. Yeah, exactly.

So, in that movie that Tim Allen and Kirstie Alley made where they had to go pretend to be Amish? Yeah, where they go into witness protection, which is actually not a very realistic depiction of witness protection. But go ahead. But that they got to get toughened up, you know, or like, yeah, you could have gone to something way less obscure for an example of someone toughening up then. Isn't that strange? That's the first thing that occurred to me. The failed 90s vehicle for Tim Allen and Kirstie Alley.

That you don't even remember the name of. Question number three, bolting. What does bolting mean? When you attach a vine to the house. No. No? Bolting is when a plant, like a vegetable or something, it shoots up to give off seeds and it starts to flower

like before it's supposed to. I just can't. And then you can't eat it anymore because it tastes bad. I don't care about gardening at all. I just feel like you're really humiliating yourself here and I think it's obvious

that you're lashing out because you talked a big game about how much you know about gardening. Never said that. Don't remember ever saying that. Don't remember any moment where I claimed to be some sort of an expert on gardening. I feel like I, I mean, it's a podcast. We can just

go listen to the transcripts. I feel like Travis, will you find some clip of him saying that? Um, I feel like we can at least edit one together. I'm an expert on gardening. I'm an expert on gardening. I'm an expert on gardening. I'm an expert on gardening. Okay, what is overwintering? Overwintering? That is when Jews stay longer in Florida than they intended. None of the answers have the word Jews in them. Well, okay, fine. I mean, I guess if it was time for a hint. Well, okay, fine. I mean, I guess if it was time for a hint. Okay, that's okay. Here's your final question. Identify what the meaning is of this gardening term, water.

Water? Yeah. Like what is water? Let's just sort of have a freewheeling discussion about it. Well, it's two hydrogen molecules, one oxygen molecule. It can be steam, it can be liquid, it can be ice, it can be the other one. I have to admit, I didn't think you were going to be able to describe water because it just feels like something that's hard to describe without also using the word water, but you did an actually pretty good job on that one. Yes! Thank you. Thank you, Emily Heller. I've won the game. I'm a seed.

You didn't win the game. You got most of them wrong. I think you're a weed. My show, no one's ever lost a game on my show, and I've won. I am a gardening expert. I am one of Heller's Hellions. Technically, this isn't your show.

This is my show within your show. Now, obviously, if I have my druthers, this segment will never happen again. This will be the last gardening segment. I'm against it. Let's just say, thank God you rarely get your druthers. Yeah, I don't. I rarely get my. That's the challenge. I'm always.

I'm constantly in search of my druthers. Yeah. I'm always. I'm always saying, where are my druthers? And how, why can't I have them? If this is the last time we do this segment, I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't answer some of the listener questions that we got last time. I cannot believe it. Yeah, okay.

I don't understand how you're getting any questions, but okay. I got a lot of listener questions after the last time I did my show. I also got sent some free stuff, which is strongly encouraged. People sent me free gardening material. Not your show. Segment on my show. Okay, but the theme song says Emily's Gardening Show, so I just feel like we're getting bogged down in semantics here. Emily's Gardening Show is brought to you by Earthbox.

There are no fucking, we're not, there are no, hey, hey, we're not, what's going on? What kind of drug deal is this? We got inset, we got sponsors on sponsors. Let's take some questions. Okay, this is a question from Jen on Twitter. Neat to get Emily's gardening show trending. Love it. Needs more grow bag content.

Okay, that actually wasn't a question. It was more of a comment. Not a question. You're just reading praise. You're just reading praise. You're just reading praise. Here's another one. This one's from Kathy. I loved your Emily's Gardening Show segment on Leavitt or Leave It.

Please tell John Leavitt that we want to hear more about those spring veggies and their progress. Still not a question. That's just, again, you're just reading compliments. I'm really sorry I told my intern to collect some questions and it turns out that there was just only praise at John Lovett I just want you to know that I really enjoyed the garden segment

by Emily Heller on Lovett or Leave It this week and I look forward to hearing it again soon so I guess one question would be why not I'm going to sort of interpret some questions in here. Any parting thoughts on gardening? Any wisdom you want to pass along?

This episode of Emily's Garden Show is more about exposing your ignorance. I feel it. And humiliating you. I feel it. And next time will be sort of just in terms of the narrative arc of this, the way this segment goes, the next time is going to be the time when I give wisdom. But I do, I do, I would like to sing the goodbye song for Emily's Garden Show.

I didn't realize we were following Joseph Campbell's journey, the hero's journey. I had no idea. And I only discovered it when I found out that this was part of some sort of a story arc where now I've been humili part of some sort of a story arc where now I've been humiliated. Some sort of a narrative arc. Now I've been humiliated. Yeah.

I've been laid low by you. Well, that presumes that you're the protagonist, which we have not established to be the case. I was hoping you wouldn't have noticed that. I was hoping you weren't going to notice that I was making myself the protagonist, and yet I did. And yet I did. And yet it's such an obvious heel turn to assign your employees the task of editing this show to make you sound smarter.

What a Herculean task. Very clearly it would be their hero's journey if they had to do that. Damn it. Listen, for those of you listening at home, did I have to look up Joseph Campbell so that it could be edited in? Maybe. of you listening at home, did I have to look up Joseph Campbell so that it could be edited in? Maybe. Did Emily Heller call out the game because the one thing she likes gardening more than plants is my humiliation? Yeah, that's true. That is true. Well, let's hear the song, Emily. Let's hear the goodbye song. Okay. And you can remix this one too if you want. We were listening to emily's garden show dirt and worms and plants and germs growing plants is fun for kids it takes a while but then you'll smile and the only source for information is

emily's garden show i forgot to talk about my worms this time. Can we talk about it next time? They're still alive. Yep, I guess. Hey, leave the people wanting more. I am sure that against my better judgment and my wishes, I will once again be forced to take a journey into Emily's garden. But it's always such a lovely.

Yes. As much as I hate to visit, I always love who I get to see. Emily, hello, everybody. And worms. I hate to visit, I always love who I get to see. Emily Heller, everybody. And worms. I'm going to send you pictures of my worms and you're going to hate it. Text me pictures of worms, Emily. When we come back, I don't know, something. Don't go anywhere.

This is Love It or Leave It and there's more on the way. And we're back. Throughout the Back in the Closet closet episodes we've been asking you our listeners to send us your high notes things that made you hopeful this week so for those of you who may have had a hard week here it is this week's high note submitted by our listeners hi love it my name is sophie and my high note for the week is well since i am away at college i kind of had accepted the fact before that i would never be able to see the tree in my backyard bloom again. It's this great big crabapple tree that blooms with hundreds of beautiful pink flowers.

And this week, it is about to bloom, and I'll get to see it for the first time since I've been away at school. And thank you for everything you do. I love the show. Bye-bye. Cool. And thank you for everything you do. I love the show. Bye-bye. Hi, Love It. This is Stacey from Lansing, Michigan. And my highlight of the week is that my Nana, who is 86 years old, I successfully walked her through how to FaceTime, how to flip her camera so I could do tech support to help her join her first Zoom meeting so she could participate in her garden club online. And it just made her so happy, and it shared the happiness with me and gave me hope that, you know, older people can still communicate

and participate in all of their activities during those stressful times. Thanks for all you do. Bye. I love it. This is Margaret in Seattle. I'm on the board of a non-profit theater company, and we excel on the not-for-profit side of that. But our incredible executive director was able to secure a PPP loan so we can pay the artists and staff a full-time wage for the eight weeks allowed.

It makes an incredible difference as we've had to shut programming down completely. I would also like to thank you for your consistent enthusiasm and your hopefulness as we move towards Election Day. Keep up the good work. Thanks a lot. Hi, Limit. This is Hannah from Boise, Idaho. My piece of good news for this week is that I am graduating with my master's in political science. I am 29. I have two kids, and my goal was to graduate before I turned 30. I might not get to have a graduation, but I still got the degree.

Thanks, and go Broncos. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at 424-341-4193. And thanks to everybody who sent those. It is 178 days until the election. You can sign up for Vote Save America right now to defeat Donald Trump, keep the House, and win back the Senate. Thank you so much to Michael Lewis, Emily Heller, Brittany Packnett Cunningham. Thank you to our grocery workers, truck drivers, and delivery people.

Thank you to our doctors and nurses. Thank you to everybody who's working right now. And thank you to our whole staff at Crooked Media working to keep this show going out and our company going strong. Hope everybody stays safe out there and have a great weekend. Thank you.