Lovett or Leave It - No, no, no your boat

Episode Date: March 27, 2021

Biden faces the press. The press forget the pandemic. And the Suez Canal is RED on my map and google is telling me to go around? Comedian Danielle Perez joins to talk news and snacks. Jason Concepcion and Renee Montgomery are here for our version of the Elite 8. And it’s infrastructure week with transit researcher Alon Levy. Oh and Justice League is good.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/lovettorleaveit. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Love It or Leave It, Vaxxed to the Future. is gone President Reality TV star Time to clean up this failing vaccination lab so we can interact with people again Please wear your mask and stay six feet away

from me Avoid large crowds. And when you can, go get the vaccine. Now it's time for Vaxxed to the Future. I'll love it or leave it. Now it's time for Vaxxed to the Future. I'll love it or leave it. That incredible theme song was sent in by Steven Garza.

If you want to make a Vaxxed to the Future theme song, please send it to us at leaveit at crooked.com. Before we get to the show, in case you haven't heard me talk about this already, Jason Concepcion has officially joined Crooked and launched his podcast, Take Line. Head over to the Take Line YouTube channel to watch full videos along with Jason's digital video series,

All Caps NBA, which is so much fun for any NBA fan. Search Take Line on YouTube and smash that subscribe button for excellent new content every week. Jason and Renee Montgomery, who is his co-host for the podcast, will be on later, and they are fantastic. Also, we have brand new Emily's Garden Show merch, which we just can't keep in stock. It just goes.

Get your Friend of the Peapod shirt now while they're still available. Obviously, I reluctantly go along with this, but you people can't seem to get enough of it. Cricket.com slash store. On the show this week, I'm joined by the host of Take Line, as I said, Jason and Renee for a little March Madness. And I had a great conversation with transit researcher Alon Levy about the cost of infrastructure project in the U.S. It's infrastructure week at a podcast I'm on, apparently. But first, she's a stand-up actress and writer. Please welcome Danielle Perez.

Danielle, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Thanks for being here. Let's get into it. What a week. On Thursday, President Biden held his first solo news conference after a great deal of consternation from the press. And finally, it was here, a chance for reporters to ask tough questions like this. Do you believe you'll be running against former President Trump?

Oh, come on. I have no idea. I have no idea whether it'll be a Republican Party. Do you? That's right. There were more questions about the election in 2024 than the pandemic in 2021 because there were zero questions asked about COVID-19. Danielle, they forgot. Nobody asked about the pandemic. They forgot that we're in a pandemic. That literally like the reason I flew with two masks on and a face shield and rubber gloves and didn't drink a single thing. The reason I'm dehydrated while traveling now, they forgot to mention that. I'm sorry.

I'm trying to hydrate. No, you have to hydrate. I'm a lady of a certain age. I need to stay moisturized. The body is 70% water. I have a daily intake I need to stick to. Can I tell you something? I recently had a similar experience. And I will tell you, I need to stick to. Can I tell you something? I recently had a similar experience.

And I will tell you, I made this decision, which was I drank a ton of water and a big Diet Coke, probably a mistake, like before I got to the airport. And then because I was like, you know what? I need my caffeine. I need my water. I'm going to because I believe in hydration. All right. We're two people that believe in hydration.

And I said, all right, I'm going to try to make it. It's like a two hour flight. And I was like, I'm going to, I'm not, once I, once this mask goes on, it stays on. I'm not touching it again. And then I like halfway through the plane ride, I was like, oh no, I'm thirsty. I'm real thirsty. And so then I took a little mini bottle of water and I went into the bathroom and I drank it in the bathroom. How do you feel about that?

I don't feel like the bathroom is more sanitary than the rest of the cabin. I mean. We all make our own risk calculations, our own security theater. But there was what was was interesting is there was a couple that got on the plane super late i think because they wanted to get on as late as possible they both had double masks they had the face shield they wiped everything down they were wiping like crazy the pilot had to ask the like they had to make an announcement to say like please sit down we can't leave until these wipers sit down and they finally finished and they were like so careful, clearly so worried.

They sat down. And then I looked over like halfway through the flight and they were just, they were going, they took their masks off to eat chips. And I was like. All of that, all of that, just that performance art of like, we care. We are on the right side of this.

And then they're going to risk it all for some chips. That's what's shocking to me is that people get on planes. A lot of people talk a lot of shit, how not me. I'm going to keep my mask on. And then they're going to risk it all for a Sun chip. Arguably one of the worst kinds of chips. We can talk about it. We can talk about it.

I think there's a place. There's a place. I think the problem is a Sun chip. It is its own category. It's definitely worse than a potato chip. And it's worse than a pretzel. It's worse than a tortilla chip. It's worse.

I mean, you're just saying three kinds of snacks that are chips that it is worse than. Yes, totally. Sounds like it's a strong argument. You're making my argument for me. And I'm glad you are. Look, I agree that I've not done the best job making a case for the Sun chip, but here's the point. I obviously, like no, potato chips are better than

pretzels. That's just how it is. They're better. But every once in a while you want a pretzel because it's its own thing. Once in a while you're like, you know what? This pretzel is what I'm looking for. I don't know who pretzels are for. They're salty and they're hard. Sometimes they're for me. The only kind of pretzel

I fuck with is a soft pretzel. You know? Okay. Right? Like a German pretzel. I can get behind that. I like that. Okay. I don't disagree. We don't have to be... We don't need conflict between us. We don't. We don't. Literally, we just started.

But what I was trying to say, we have to, I'm like halfway through. I have to get a circle back. But what I was going to say is, and yet once in a while, I say to myself, I want a sun chip. I'm going for it. It's a sun chip day. Once in a long while, once in a long while, I go past the salt and vinegar potato chip. I go past the normal, the regular, the classic potato chip.

And I say, it's a sun chip day. It's a sun chip day. They have whole wheat in them, it says. It says it has whole wheat. Eat a Triscuit. Get a Triscuit, you know? Love a Triscuit. Love a Triscuit.

We love a Triscuit. Now, when they got to the end of the press conference and nobody had remembered to ask about COVID, it really reminded me of this. The annual Quahog Star Trek convention, where once a year, sci-fi buffs take their lips off the barrel of a loaded gun and spend half a day adjusting their eyes to sunlight.

Now, the cast and I would be happy to answer a few questions. Oh, yes, so many questions. Me, me, Mr. Stewart, Stu, Stu, Stu. Yes, you there. Yes, I have a question. Oftentimes my household sponges accumulate an awful amount of buildup. What can I do to prevent this?

That's an excellent question. It's very important to thoroughly wring out your sponges after every usage. This will prevent the accumulation of grime and bacteria. A dry sponge is a happy sponge. That's not a Star Trek question. What the hell? This is all shit. In fairness, while there weren't any questions about the ongoing global pandemic,

they did cover a lot of substantive issues on Afghanistan, North Korea, immigration, the border, voting rights, the filibuster. About the filibuster, Biden said this. With regard to the filibuster, I believe we should go back to a position of the filibuster that existed just when I came to the United States Senate 120 years ago. And that is that it used to be required for the filibuster. And I had a card on this. I was going to give you the statistics, but you probably know them.

That it used to be that from between 1917 and 1971, the filibuster existed. There were a total of 58 motions to, the filibuster existed. There were a total of 58 motions to break a filibuster that whole time. Last year alone, there were five times that many. So it's being abused in a gigantic way. And for example, it used to be you had to stand there and talk and talk and talk and talk until you collapsed. And guess what? People got tired of talking and tired of collapsing. Joe Biden is like, that's funny, because in our marriage, he talks until I collapse. But seriously, I love him. We have a great marriage. That's what she said.

That's what she said about it. He talks until I collapse. I'm sorry, Danielle. Danielle, I'm so sorry. I was wondering when we were going to get to Joe Biden falling. Yeah, it was tough. Three times. We haven't covered it. We haven't covered it.

We haven't covered it. But I bet Joe Biden's a fan of Cardi B. You know, get knocked down nine times, but you get up 10. That's right. He's so close. That's right. That's right. Biden also had a very strong answer when asked about Republican attacks on voting rights across the country. Deciding in some states that you cannot bring water to people standing in line,

waiting to vote, deciding that you're going to end voting at 5 o'clock when working people are just getting off work, deciding that there will be no absentee ballots under the most rigid circumstances. It's all designed, and I'm going to spend my time doing three things. One, trying to figure out how to pass the legislation passed by the House, number one. how to pass the legislation passed by the House, number one. Number two, educating the American public. The Republican voters I know find this despicable. Republican voters.

Folks outside this White House. I'm not talking about the elected officials. I'm talking about voters. Voters. That was a great answer. It was a great answer. Yes. Really fits with some of the polling we've seen from Data for Progress and with Change Research emphasizing this is nonpartisan. It was a great answer, Joe. Here we go. You've flown all the way home. Now land that plane. And so I'm convinced that we'll be able to stop this because it is the most pernicious thing. This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle. Yeah. What? What does that mean? This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle? I don't. Who is? What does it mean? So now, Danielle,

it's time for a segment we call Joking with Joe. This is a new segment where we break down a soundbite by President Joseph Robinette Biden. So, all right, let's break it down. Obviously, Joe Biden thinks vote suppression is bad. So in context, he must mean that these suppression measures are worse than Jim Crow. When I first heard this, I assumed that must be a person. Jim Eagle must be a person that I've never heard of named Jim Eagle. But quick Google, no luck there. No Jim Eagle.

And then, yeah, you think it's going to be a real person. It's not. And then my reaction is. Is it because an eagle is more predatory than a crow? Well, that's what I thought. It's like higher up the bird chain. Yes. But that's not right, obviously, because that's what I thought. That's literally what I thought.

I was like, eagle rules would be worse than crow rules because eagles are bigger and more dangerous but no not correct because in context danielle jim eagle is clearly better than jim crow then it's about a kind of like aesthetic judgment or moral judgment about the birds themselves that eagles are in some way better than crows and eagles are majestic creatures soaring above and crows are little fucking dicks running around on the ground that's what he must mean that's what he means it's anti-crow and it really reminds me of how in the lion king like the hyenas are the villains which is really bringing a lot of like human energy and judgment to that world. Because if you're a zebra, it doesn't really matter if you get killed by a hyena or a lion.

The lion are just monarchs who want to retain power. They're not inherently better. And I'm realizing as I say this, Danielle, that not only have I made this point before, I think I've made it recently on this podcast. You just love the Lion King. It's okay. It's Hamlet. It makes sense in our in our day and age, you know, monarchies are tumbling because of zebras because of Meghan Markle. So yeah, I just want for I would just like to see a Lion King story that centers the zebra or that at least ends in an election. Like what? Simba's in charge? He doesn't even live here anymore. He moved away. He doesn't know what things have been like. He just can't wait to be king. Oh, he's a lion, though. He gets to be in charge. He had the right parents.

He sure did. Anyway. Also, during the press conference, Biden made news when he said he trusts fate, but he expects to run for a second term. I would be proud to be the president's running mate yet again, said Vice President Kamala Harris, as she placed several bolts in her pocket that may have come from a railing. It's not clear where those bolts were from. She's loosening a railing, you know? Yeah, yeah. She also trusts fate, but she's, you know a railing you know yeah yeah she also trusts fate but she's you know also making moves yeah well as you know as we all learned from linda hamilton

in terminator uh to quote colon judgment day uh no fate but what we make i've never seen terminator is it good gasping for air because you haven't seen too much. You're just like flames, flames, flames on the side of my face. Here's what I would say. Flames on the side of my face. Here's what I think. I've just learned something, which is you have this wonderful thing. I'm being very vulnerable right now.

But when I hear that somebody, now now obviously my first instinct is to lunch but then i realize what a gift what a gift you've not seen terminator or terminator part two colon judgment day that's so fun you get to watch terminator then you get to watch terminator part two one of the greatest action movies ever made and just l just Linda Hamilton just crushes it. It's so good. That's so fun. Do you not? Do you like action movies? I sure I like when things blow up. You know what? Big fan of the Fast and the Furious franchise. I love that. I love it. Because it's about family. And it's about cars. And it weirdly turned into a superhero franchise. I love it.

It's really barely about family. It is, though. Is it? Is it? It's all about that little house in Echo Park, and they just want to sit Coronas in front of it while they work on cars. That's all it's about. Shaws and Hob, all about family helen

oh now i saw shaw's and hobbs that was not a movie about family they got the sister the mom a whole family that loves crime okay they love crime and you got the rock He got not only his whole family, his whole homeland band together to create an analog system of rigs and pulleys and fire and oil. I, until this moment, I realized that I

have completely blocked out the memory of the fact that they arranged the movie so that the guns turn off at the end of the movie so the only thing that they have is wits and history and they've got their you know historical weapons okay they've got their knowledge their know-how yeah they know no one knows this island like they know this island. Speaking of whatever we were talking about a while ago. Speaking of vice president.

Speaking of Kamala Harris, who also loves family. Maybe not Joe Biden so much since she's holding around those nuts and bolts from railing. Speaking of Vice President Kamala Harris, she walked past members of the military without saluting. And the clip went viral in a very specific corner of the internet as conservative grifters pretended to be outraged. She hates the troops, they say. She hates the troops. But then the military news site Task and Purpose and many others were quick to point out that there's no regulation that says the president or vice president should salute the troops.

And it was never something the vice president did because the vice president isn't even in the chain of command. Pence just started doing it because he's a schmuck. And for presidents, the practice is just something Ronald Reagan decided to start doing one day. This is also why Kamala Harris isn't required to eat two pounds of jelly beans, call Doug Mother, or illegally trade arms for hostages to fund military operations in Nicaragua. We don'tagua we don't

they don't have to do it she's not required to but boy is it fun yeah don't trade arms for hostages because you have to do it because you want to do it for the love of the game in other news this week doordash has started offering covid tests but if you want free delivery you have to throw in like a milkshake or something just to get to that amount. Over the $10 limit? $10, $12, whatever it is in your area, in your region. It's sad when you're ordering just for yourself and they put a bunch of tests in because they can't believe all that food is for one person. It's like, I know this is pizza and wings and a salad.

The salad is pretend. but I didn't need to COVID test it's just me here it's just me eating this I just can't wait to have like a drawer filled with like just jammed with COVID tests that I'm never gonna throw away because one day I just feel like I'm gonna need need it, you know? No, I totally. That's so funny. No, I totally hear you. It's like, this is the drawer where I keep, you know, it's like Taco Bell packets, COVID tests, chopsticks. Because, you know, if there aren't chopsticks in the bag, you're fucked.

Yeah. Yeah. Chopsticks, COVID tests, spoons. Also, some hand sanitizers that filled the gap during the pandemic have been found to have contained carcinogens. See, this is the problem when you end up buying off-brand items because the brand names have run out. You have no idea what's in there. I like to know when I'm using a chemical I bought on the Internet that it went through rigorous safety testing

until the agency responsible was eviscerated during a Republican administration. And it turns out the enforcement systems are based around the honor code and once a decade inspections by an agency run by a future lobbyist who will be employed by that company. This is America and there are rules. I'm going to be real. I don't know if that was pro Amazon or against Amazon,

but I was able to get tampons delivered to my house within 90 minutes. So I'm going to I'm going to say pro. Gavin Newsom announced today that Californians over the age of 16 will be eligible for the vaccine by April 15th. Unless you're one of the two million people who signed the recall petition. No vaccines for you. Those are the rules. You sign the petition.

You don't get vaccinated. I don't know why it's allowed, but it's allowed. I don't think it's right. I don't think it's right. I don't think that's fair. It feels like something's wrong, but oh well. You know, he's the governor. Gavin Newsom. Oh, man.

I remember when he cheated with his campaign manager's wife. I love him. Sounds familiar. Yeah, yeah. He goes for it. He's fun. He's a, yeah. He goes for it. He's fun. He's a fun guy. He's a party.

BuzzFeed News reports that Facebook is working on a version of Instagram for kids under the age of 13. It's going to be great for children. All children will use it, said the cartoon villain. villain imagine looking at what instagram and facebook has done to our brains and deciding that the problem is it needs to be for 10 year olds oh my god i'm so thankful i don't have a child i don't even want to be on instagram i'm just like a slave to instagram i don't even like children but i don't even want that. I don't want that for them. You know what I mean? Like, that's sad.

Think of the children. Jesus. I just can't wait for them to, like, activate the child army, like, through Instagram. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's gonna happen. Yeah, no, I know.

It's just gonna be, like, a bunch of Chucky dolls. Like, children are just gonna start animating, like, a bunch of fucking chucky dolls with knives and jump robes and start attacking us all they're agile they're small they're small they can fit into little places i think sometimes that tiktok is actually where that um war will begin because it seems like part of what TikTok does is it gets trending, doing something terrible to someone you love. And like, how far could they take that? You know, like, all right, it starts by throwing a slice of cheese at somebody's face.

Next thing you know, it's worse. Next thing you know, you just have the whole block of Jarlsberg over your parents' head and you're holding it down and they're screaming until they aren't anymore. And now you're being tried as an adult. And you're like, I am literally a 10-year-old who was doing the TikTok cheese challenge. Can I live? And then you're going to go to prison with over millions of followers? That's not right. That isn't right. That millions of followers? That's not right. That isn't right.

That's not right. That's not right. How can something be wrong if a million people liked it? Doesn't make any sense. Oh, my God. That's not fair. On Tuesday, one of the world's largest container ships got stuck sideways in the Suez Canal in Egypt, blocking traffic on the crucial trade passage. A local plumber was hurt to remark, there's your problem.

I love the exit work. I love the plumber. I love the characters. Thank you for saying that. Anyway, seeing that ship stuck there in that passage did remind me if you are doing a keto diet don't forget to eat fiber you need those leafy greens you know what i'm saying oh you gotta you gotta it gets to has to it just has to has to pass has to go through my roommates are keto are they i still love them i want to just put that out there but it is hard no i didn't know that i could learn to like hate everything that i love like meat and cheese everything is covered in oil in my kitchen it is a shame that one aspect of going keto is that part of the way you lose weight is by burning calories talking about it a lot that is

one of the part of it part of it is like losing weight by losing friends and losing people close to you and that's also part of it yeah really just hanging around by a thread here i love you pat and g yeah i mean yeah yeah you'll mend You'll mend fences. You'll mend fences when this is done. I can't stop thinking about the moment they realized that they weren't just gonna potentially get this ship stuck. Things weren't going bad. But there was definitely a moment

where a couple people are in, I don't know what you call it on a ship. You're a passenger? The bridge. No, no no i'm talking about the pilots the captains oh the captains the point is there was a moment where all of a sudden the person driving this ship realized that they had just blocked the suez canal and the panic sweats the i blocked the suez Canal. Oh, wait. Put it in reverse.

It's not working. It's not working. Let me try going forward again. Can't go forward. Can't go back. Can't go sideways. We are fucking stuck. I have blocked the Suez Canal.

I'm so fucked. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. And then it never ends. It's not like a couple. It's still there. We're having this conversation on Thursday. You're just sitting there being like, I, it it's so that is such a fuck up at work that is such a fuck up at work you can never like you are the person who blocked the suez canal if you go to the wikipedia for suez canal which i have now done it starts with napoleon and then it's like napoleon it's conflicts between israel and egypt it's a

long history the soviet union the cold war and then right there at the bottom it's and then some schmuck blocked it with a boat it's such a it's like people fought over this space to have this access you blocked it with a fucking ship. That's so embarrassing. That's the most embarrassing thing. Look, but he's on that page. You know, he made it. By hook or by crook.

You know, he made it. He made it. He made it. I do love that you're giving him this credit of like panic sweats and he feels really bad about it. But I've been in New York for a week, and people block traffic here all the time, and they don't feel bad at all. He could just be like, go around.

Wait, what are you going to do? You know? What are you going to do? Literally, the first day I got here, there was an ambulance blocking the road. The ambulance went in the building, got out a dude, then goes to the car behind him and is like, hey, you see there's an ambulance here? What? Go around. Go to the next street. You know this is going to be a while. And then he got in the ambulance and left. You know? That's your

bad. Okay? You saw that big shift. You knew it was going to happen. It's your fault. Take another route. Finding another way. Hey, it's called, it's called the Cape of good hope. All right. Not the Cape of bad hope. Go around.

Go around. Go the fuck around. This is the Suez Canal. I'm using it. Go the fuck around. Right. Sorry. In use.

No vacancy. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte received a warning from wildlife officials after killing a radio-collared wolf near yellowstone national park without first taking a mandated education course you know who else could have really used the warning that fucking wolf i like how he only gets a warning for killing a wolf it feels like there should be a stronger punishment a warning i mean the wolf's already dead yeah it was tagged that poor wolf yeah he killed a wolf i follow a lot of foxes on instagram they're not wolves but similar vibes similar vibes i like their furs and even though i follow them on instagram i still do want one yeah no i i definitely i feel like i watched a documentary about an attempt to domesticate foxes out of russia they've done that yeah russia will sell you um domesticated foxes you can buy them

yeah but i think it's probably worse than a dog in a lot of ways oh for sure worse than a dog you need to like definitely live on acreage this one woman lives with her fox and she's always talking about like this is the reality of living with a fox and when they get happy like you know when a dog greets you and it's like happy to meet you foxes will pee like and that doesn't never stop no matter how old the fox is because you think it's like maybe a puppy behavior. It's like, no. And like fox pee, think about dog pee. Okay, coyote pee, you use that to keep away animals.

Like fox pee, gotta be 10 times worse than that. Even if it's just as worse, I don't want it in my house. They're cute, I admit. Prince Harry has taken a job as an executive at a Silicon Valley startup. A spokesperson for Prince Harry told reporters

he built up a ton of goodwill from that Oprah interview. If there's any left over after this, he might try rap. Oh my God, Prince Harry. I love that Prince Harry is like a good fit for like this Silicon Valley like culture, you know, just like he's fitting right in. Right in with the tech bros.

Yeah, just what is it like if you get to work and your boss is fucking Prince Harry? You know, like I got to explain him how everything works how like money works how like going to the store like how out of touch a bot like what do you what do you how do you say how do you prince harry is gonna tell me what to do now i do what prince harry says i love random kid maybe rich kid harry has a he's really good in the Imagination department And like dreaming up like concepts Because he's like what if Everyone just did things for you

And he's like Wait people don't live like that Like you don't live like that I've lived like that Why don't we just make an app Called Buckingham Palace And literally it's just people doing shit for you. It's just Buckingham, but no vowels.

That's what the app is. It's just called Buckingham. And as you say that, it's sort of hitting me. Lowercase b. Lowercase b. And as you say that, I'm realizing that it is the goal of many apps to make like the gig economy treat you like royalty you know like percent yeah shake shack please yeah oh five dollars yeah take these to kinkos and like fax them and copy them for me thanks hang this television test scrub it

yeah does he do you think prince harry does? The kind of double clap from cinema? Maybe that's like the sound that the app makes like once your order's been processed, that like someone's on their way. And finally, Jay Leno issued an apology on Wednesday for his long history of racist jokes that targeted Asians. I'm sorry that this has distracted from the great passion of my life, he said, vilifying Monica Lewinsky.

Thank God. Jay Leno. I'm just glad that so many white people are taking this as a time to center themselves, you know, when Asians are being murdered and attacked daily. And white people are like, but me, remember me? The Tonight Show.

J-Lynne. Danielle Perez, it has been so lovely to talk to you. This was great. It was so much fun. When we come back, Jason and Renee. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

And we're back. He is an Emmy Award winner and host of Crooked's newest podcast, Take Line. Please welcome Jason Concepcion. Wonderful to be here. Delighted. And she is a W NBA champion, co-owner of the Atlanta Dream, and the other host of Take Line.

Please welcome Renee Montgomery. Listen, I love Jason's answer. I can't top that, but I'm happy to be here. Let's go. So good to have you both on the show. It's so exciting that Take Line has launched. It's my favorite sports podcast. It's the only one I listen to, but I love it. I love it. I'll take it yeah definitely I have two topics I just want to touch on all right one sports related one less sports related Renee you know this is something you've been talking about on the show uh but it's been something that's in the news a fair amount can you just talk a little little bit about what it's been like having

to argue against these anti-trans bigots who are pretending to be advocates for women in sports? Well, I feel like a lot of people are trying to fight a fight for women's sports and the women in women's sports are like, nah, we're good. Like we don't need you to fight this battle. Like we're good. And what i mean by we're good is that no one in women's sports is concerned about a trans person playing in women's sports everybody must have seen the movie joanna man and thought it was a real life thing nothing has ever happened in real life like joanna man but people are taking this fictional story and be like well what if a guy decides he wants to just dominate and and and then wants to be trans and now playing the women's game and he's

gonna be the best ever and ruin the women's game like that's silly I don't even know how else to say it other than it's silly if we're not concerned about it then why should you be and and that's that's real and and we have our first trans person in the WNBA and Alaysia Clarendon and for us to know her be close to her and understand her her plight it blows our mind you know and so I just think that people need to not if we're not concerned about it I keep saying that because we come out and say no we're not concerned we're good and people are like no you're not good this is gonna be a big problem and and it's not a problem it's a problem that people are trying to make a problem. And you said it.

They're trying to attack a certain group. And yeah, not on our watch. I also sometimes like I had to leave a sports camp because some of the kids figured out I was gay first. And they but I did the musicals. You know, they would let me do the musicals. But like what I sometimes think is like a soft lib is like, oh, but it's about competition. It's about like, who's going to be the best and who's going to be the toughest and who's going to be the strongest.

And sometimes I just think that like some athletes are incredible and go on to be professionals, but for a lot of kids, it's just like, it's just a fun thing to do after school. Am I giving into this at all to be like, why are you so focused on the competitive aspect and not focused at all on just like, this is a way for the vast majority of kids who play sports to like have fun after school and make friends. Like it doesn't matter if they get a trophy.

Am I a soft lib? I guess I am. I can answer that easily in a sense of people want something to attack about trans people. And this is the only place where they feel like they have some type of substance there's no substance there i think jason's the one that told me like there's zero cases that prove what people are trying to say like it doesn't happen it's not it's not realistic but if you can't just outright attack trans people you're going to find ways to attack trans people. And that's what you see happening.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think that there's two levels to it as well. On the top level, just as Renee pointed out, there's actually zero cases of the kind of thing that Republicans are worried about. It's never happened. It's legitimately never happened. Ever. legitimately never happened ever so on a on a hardcore like meritocracy who's the best who's the fastest who's jumping the highest it's just literally not a not an issue like it's never happened it's like voter fraud like there's nothing there um and and then to your point john

like sports is such a powerful force for teamwork and for integrating people into a cultural structure, into mainstream society. Sports has been a major motor in mainstream society of bringing people formally outside of the mainstream into the mainstream. And it does the same thing when you're a kid. It's so important. Being accepted is the most powerful thing that you could imagine when you are a child and so sports are just tremendously important in that regard speaking of people striving to be

accepted this won't work there's a lot of fans out there who wanted to accept justice league i want to talk about justice I don't know. Oh my gosh. I love the transition. Thank you. Justice League, the Snyder Cut. Yes. I can't believe it.

It's good. Jason, it's good. Renee, have you seen it? I have not. I was about to say, you guys got it. Because I know what you're talking about, but I don't know what you're talking about. It is good. It's good against all odds.

Here's how I feel about it. On the one hand, I'm glad. Listen, I love a fun movie. I love to watch movies. I'm glad that this movie exists. This is a movie that is an improvement over the previous iteration of Justice League. In the main, elevates and fleshes out the backstory of Cyborg. As a kind of aside, one of the main kind of like controversies around the production of this movie was the actor Ray Fisher's allegations against Joss Whedon, the director who took over from Zack Snyder on the first Snyder Cut, that he had fostered a toxic workplace and i think it's not a great look for joss that in the context of those allegations that the main most substantive difference between the two movies is

that like all of ray fisher's parts were cut out and have been uh put back in the movie and now it's actually like a quite powerful story that sets up his stakes also the you know the only main black character in the movie that's pretty huge so i feel i'm glad that exists i also feel that the way that it came about which was like from a social media driven campaign by some of you know the most toxic parts of fandom it's not great i don't think that those forces should necessarily be rewarded when they like flat out attack people and demand that a cut be released. I don't think that that's positive, a positive force for our world. But listen, the movie was good and I'm glad that it exists. And I am, listen, as a mostly a Marvel guy, I am shocked to be sitting before you saying the Snyder cut was good.

The Snyder, it was so shocking. It was, I can't believe it. What I liked about it too, is that because people watched it over the course of the week, there was such defiance that, and then it would like, no, you were right. It is good. It's crazy. I am shocked that it is good. And look, it has a lot of like Zack Snyder bullshit, you know?

Yes. And I'm- 20% of the movie is in slow motion, like legitimately 20% of the movie is in slow motion. And like it brings over some of the like masculinity stuff from Batman versus Superman Ultimate Edition. And again, I will say the Ultimate Edition also better than theatrical. I'm sorry. It's just the case.

And it made me realize, though, that like, OK, so here's what we've realized. 60% of Zack Snyder is the worst amount. We either got to have 0% or a hundred percent. And I've decided that conversationally, I would like to introduce a concept. Like if someone tells you a story and like, you can't follow it and it's a little like, it's like, hold on a second, hold on a second. Give me the Snyder cut. And what that means is that means take your fucking time. Right. Really go through all the details. Four hours.

In your worst tendencies. At the end of it. $70 million in reshoots. Just give me, look, I can't follow this. I know. Just give me the Snyder cut.

Just waste my time. I'm okay with it. Jason and Renee. Yes. Before I let you go, it is March madness. This is a period of time in which things are happening. They really are.

They're taking place all the time all around us. Apparently, the Elite Eight begins on Monday, as we all know. In honor of that, of the Elite Eight, and proud of them we are for reaching such a place in competitive sport. We're going to build our own bracket, but it's going to be about snacks. Oh, snacks. I see what's going on now. I love it. Oh, man.

I think that I have a low bracket. I already know. They didn't tell me beforehand that we were going to tournament up. I'm going to say right now I might have some low seeds in the tournament. I'm just. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. If there's one thing I've learned from being adjacent to American society when it comes to sports, sometimes schools are called Bucknell and they do quite well.

You know, like I'm aware of that. I don't I don't know what's happening with a school called Gonzaga. I have no idea, but I know the name. And sometimes they, sometimes the unexpected things. Oral Roberts. Oral Roberts. Oral Roberts. I always hear about Oral Roberts around this time of year.

All right. So let's throw it up on the big board. It's time for Starch Madness. Wow. Starch Madness. Starch Madness. This is the bracket. Some sort of committee was involved in creating it. Some of your teams are on

there. We have some things I don't even know what they are. I'm excited to learn about them. Here's what we've got on the board. Nachos, spoonfuls of peanut butter that come with you to the couch. That's important. It's not just a spoonful of peanut butter. It has to come with you. Take the spoonful, you take it all the way

to the couch. We have kettle corn. We have double-stop Oreos. We have, what is this? Lumpia Shanghai. Lumpia Shanghai. It's basically like a spring roll, like an egg roll. Like an egg roll. We have mango smoothies. We have wings. And really, honestly,

truly the underdog, the fan favorite. Nobody thought they would get this far. We have apples. Apples with an Oral Roberts-like run. Small school, small school. Lot of heart.

Not a lot of money. Not a lot of money. Got apples. They defeated baby carrots to make it this far. All right. All right. First up,

who's going to win? We got nachos versus spoonfuls of peanut butter. A spoonful of peanut butter that comes with you to the couch. What do we think? Wow. I'm going nachos.

Yeah, I'm going nachos too. That said, I want to just get a little clarification. Only the spoon is coming with you, not the jar. The jar is staying on the counter. Because you're showing discipline. You take the spoon, you leave the jar. It's a snack in your hand. A little discipline.

It's a peanut butter popsicle. Nachos. I see. I'm still going nachos. Nachos wins. I wanted to get that clarification. No,. I'm still going nachos. Nachos wins. But I just wanted to get that clarification. No, but you were right. You were right. You were right to dig in. Next, we have kettle corn versus double stuffed Oreos. This one, we can all weigh in, but to me, it's not

particularly close. Oh, which one is it? Ow, because no one wants it double stuffed, right? That's just way too much filling. That tells me that you have the discipline of a professional athlete. That tells me everything. That's why you're you, all right? And that's why I'm me, all right? That's why they didn't let me go on the varsity tennis team. And you, all right, are you're you. Oh, my goodness.

Jason, what do you think? You got to break the tie. I'm going to go, you know, my apologies to you, John gotta break the tie i'm gonna go uh you know my apologies to you john but i am also gonna go kettle corn i think it's too much material inside of a double stuff just too much it's just too much like the you know the uh the balance of the original oreo is perfect and kettle corn also a little bit healthy don't mess with the originals wow okay next up we have lumpia Shanghai and mango smoothie. Let me quickly explain. It's a fried spring roll, like an egg roll. And it's got like,

usually like a meat filling, some pork, sesame oil, carrots. Delicious. It's one of those things you can only eat. If you eat one, you're going to eat a hundred. Oh my goodness. And this is a disgrace because I'm going with the Shanghai and I was a movie. I was the smoothie. Yeah. I don't, I don't think mangoes, mangoes, look, mango smoothie is just proud to have gotten this far. Mango smoothie is taking pictures. Mango smoothie is taking pictures. Mango smoothie great in the morning. It's not even, it's a snacky. Like, you know, you're watching something good. You want a cool drink, but it's flavored and it's like a milkshake but not i'm going shanghai all right we have the winner we have the winner uh next up

it's wings versus uh again first in our hearts apples that's right i'm mad that wings got matched up with apples actually it was It was a very tough bracket. Tough bracket. I don't even think they're going to put this one on TV. That's the one verse 16 right there. Like, come on. Listen, you know what they say? An apple a day makes you wonder where the wings are.

I'm going to go with wings. Wings. Wings takes it. Wings takes it. Wings takes it. Wings takes it. Wings takes it. Oh, my gosh. It's time for the final four. The final four.

We have nachos, kettle corn, lumpia shanghai, and wings. Okay. First up, nachos versus kettle corn. What do we think? I'm going kettle corn again, for real. Wow. Wow. I'm going nachos this time.

I think it's one of the more perfect snack foods. It comes with its own container. I'm going to go with nachos. All that cheese? You know, a lot of the BlackRock community, we're usually lactose intolerant. Okay, so I'm just saying all that cheese? I just think if you say it the way I would say it, all that cheese.

Nachos wins, Anne. The more cheese, the better. Yeah, one of us has won two championships, and it's not the one who's speaking or the other one. It's the one who wants to have the healthy snack. Well, looks like my time in the tournament has passed me by here's the thing here's the thing all right what i'm gathering from this is uh well while you have many trophies uh there are food champions on this on this zoom uh and um that's something that i think jason and i are

gonna have to claim that i understand look i understand my strengths and my weaknesses and I are going to have to claim. I understand. Look, I understand my strengths and my weaknesses. Food, I've had to eat so disciplined my whole life that I think my brain has made me think that those are the good snacks, like mango smoothie, apples. My brain loves those snacks, so I understand

that's my weakness. That is so cool. I think that's a strength. I envy and admire you greatly. Next up, Lumpia Shanghai versus Wings. This is really tough. This is like a one I envy and admire you greatly. Next up, Lumpia Shanghai versus Wings. Ooh. Man, this is really tough. This is like a one versus one scene.

Yeah, it's really tough. Shanghai. Yeah, I'm going to go with Shanghai. It's making me want them. Part of the reason I put them on this is because I really miss having them. I haven't had them in a while. They're delicious.

I'm going to go with the Shanghais. Lumpia Shanghai takes it. I think that would be considered an upset. I think that's an upset too. I think it's an upset too, but that's what happens. That's what happens. That's what happens sometimes. March Madness. Sometimes that happens. It's the wildness. All right. Final, finally, Lumpia Shanghai versus nachos. We have East versus West. I don't know. You know, I'm going to go with nachos here. I think that it's just a thing that many people can agree on.

People see a plate of nachos. They like it. It's simple, but it's hard to do. Again, it comes with its own little spoon, little plate. You can dip it the way you want. Too much cheese on it, you shake some of it off. You can dip it in salsa. I'm going to go with the nachos. Okay, I have a question.

This is the championship bracket, so I need more details. Are these nachos that have meat with it? Are these loaded nachos or are these just the nasty, all-that-cheese nachos? Loaded. I think we've got to call them loaded. Yeah, they're loaded.

Okay, that changes things. Maybe it's not all that cheese. Maybe it's all that cheese and sour cream and ground turkey and all of that. Is that what we're saying? You heard that right, Jason, that she put ground turkey. I did hear it. Ground turkey, I once again went for the healthiest option available. That's why Renee Montgomery is a two-time WNBA champion.

You're trying to pig out, and all of a sudden there's ground turkey coming on these nachos. I know my weaknesses. Okay, so. I just, on your worst day, that is my best day. That's what we're discovering. Your cheat day is my being as good as I can be. Only when it comes to food i'm like you know blame it on the sports i love it that was so exciting um what are y'all's answers

though what nachos wins nachos nachos wins okay whose whose pick was nachos whose snacky was that i think i think that's Jason's. Was it Jason versus Jason in the championship? It was. I didn't want to bring that up because I have so much respect for my competitors. I'm a complete competitor, so I had to know whose food won. Oh, my God. Listen, Renee, obviously, let's face it.

You brought apples, mangoes to a snack competition. While that means you clearly lost this, it does mean you're winning in every other way possible. Yes, winning life. Renee and Jason, this was so much fun. Thank you so much for being here. Renee, the competitive spirit in your eyes. You're so mad.

I can see it. I love it. I could have made up snacks if I knew this was the case. Okay. No, this is better. I like it. I think it's better. I think the truth is better.

I think the truth is better. Everybody, check out Take Line. It is an incredible show. You will love it. And Renee and Jason, thank you so much. When we come back. I had a great conversation about infrastructure and one of the most important aspects of infrastructure we never talk about with a mathematician and expert, Alon Levy.

Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. They are a globetrotting mathematician turned mass transit expert. Please welcome Alon Levy. Good to see you. Great to see you too. Thanks for having me here.

Okay, so on Thursday in a press conference, President Biden took questions on a host of issues, but he talked about infrastructure. He said it's the next major initiative of the administration. There is a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure plan in the works. As an expert, as a researcher, does this excite you? Does this get your blood pumping? Are you pumped? Yeah, I'm actually pretty excited to see what useful spending can be had on this,

especially when people are talking about, I guess in the United States you say Green New Deal. Here in Europe we say Green Deal, about using infrastructure to invest in things that are not just pipelines and more highways, but also in things that enable a prosperous green transition. Pete Buttigieg, who's now Secretary of Transportation, he's been saying good things in terms of moving away from the primacy of cars and how we think about infrastructure investments. One thing that you've written about that I think is really important, we talk a lot about the need to invest in infrastructure, but not a lot about how we do it. Can you talk a little bit about this core problem that the United States has of the price of the projects

when we do finally invest in them? Yeah, there's this big and unfortunately growing problem in the United States. So I'm familiar predominantly with public transportation infrastructure. The cost of that in the United States is very high by global standards. So the example that kind of started all of this was when I was living in New York, and I was kind of curious about the idea of expanding the subway system so they would be able to get to more places, so there would be better connections. At the time, they started building Second Avenue subway phase one. And the cost of that project, about $1.6, $1.7 billion per kilometer. I think it's $2.7 billion per mile. And I thought, okay, it's expensive. New York is an expensive city. It's a big, expensive city. And then I started poking around other cities, and I realized, no, actually, if you look at, for example, Paris.

Okay, so also a large, expensive city, very high wage. It has a lot of older infrastructure. Actually, the lines that they've been building recently are more complicated than Second Avenue subway. Same thing with London, Tokyo, Madrid, Milan, Berlin, Seoul. And I noticed that nothing costs as much as in New York. So this turned 10 years later into the transit infrastructure project. And it's on www.transit costs.com, where we have this database of hundreds of subways. It's almost every subway built in the world since 2000. And the five most expensive lines in the database are exactly the five that are in New York. Hardly anyone goes

over a billion per kilometer. The global median for subways, not elevated lines, is about 250. So we're at seven times roughly, or eight times roughly. Yeah, New York is. The rest of the United States, and I thought, okay, that's just a New York problem because maybe in the 2000s, it looked like Los Angeles was not such a bad thing, but it is. The costs in Los Angeles have exploded in the last 10 years. California high-speed rail, which in 2008 seemed pretty reasonable, costs more per kilometer of line than the average French high-speed train. But yeah, California has mountains to cross. That seemed reasonable. the average French high-speed train,

but yeah, California has mountains to cross. That seemed reasonable. Since then, the cost overruns have led to much higher unit costs. And even the supposedly easier parts of California and the Central Valley cost a lot more than they should. I think maybe 1.5 or two times as much. We claim we want to build this high-speed rail line between Northern California and Southern California, connect San Francisco to Los Angeles, San Diego,

and then it spends a decade not happening. And then the plan gets restricted. And now what we're left with is a train that connects Bakersfield and Merced to basically a tiny portion of what they had planned to build. And you can't, there are many issues around infrastructure where you can blame partisan politics, Democrats versus Republicans, Republicans underfunding thing.

But that's not what's going on here, right? Like this isn't exclusively an issue about Democrats versus Republicans. Yeah, exactly. Maybe if we have time for this later, there is a part where you can blame Republicans. Oh, I'm excited about that. Yeah, we can get to that. But it's a very subtle thing. It's not like, let's say, oh, Bush is full of cronies or trump is full of corners it's something

a lot it's something a lot subtler than that but i don't even think that they had this in california in california it's just the agency didn't really look very hard about how to build high-speed rail they were the sort of people who visit europe for a couple days or visit japan for a couple days and say oh we like these drains let's have them at home, which is completely valid. It's just that the follow through was something very different. The planning was not done based on any kind of global best practices. And the result is that the costs ended up being really high. And this kind of killed high speed rail in America. I mean, not forever. I mean, they can do a restart right now. I hope they do. But it says a lot that they're talking about restarting in Texas between Dallas and

Houston. Now, Dallas and Houston are both enormous cities, but kind of like the most important high-speed rail line in America is not Dallas to Houston. It's Boston to New York to Washington. And that's just not happening so far, unfortunately. You look at some of these distances, right? Like, you know, Madrid and Barcelona can be connected, serves far fewer people than, say, San Francisco to Los Angeles, far fewer people than New York to Boston or DC to Boston. It gets to be a technical question, even just about how we bid out these contracts. And in other countries, they have standards that are different than just cost, right? It's like you don't just give a contract to the person who says, I'll build you a train

for the cheapest price. You say they have to have a good plan. They have to have a good time frame to have to do it. They have to have real oversight. And ironically, in our projects get extremely overpriced in part because somebody just submits a low bid that they'll never be able to ever fulfill. There's nobody who catches that early.

They get the contract and then lo and behold, they can't meet any of their deadlines. They can't do any of the things they said they would do. The weight is generally higher in lower cost countries. Again, it is not exclusive and sometimes contracts are done low bid, but it's more common to do maybe 50-50. I've heard even 60-40 where the technical score is 60%. There's something that I think is exclusive to Madrid, which is that they do 50% technical, 30% price, 20% speed, so how fast you can build it. In Madrid, they believe that you should work fast. This is not universal to the low-cost world. So,

for example, France is a medium-cost world. So for example, France is a medium-cost country. Early on when we were building the database, the median project in cost per kilometer was actually the Grand Paris Express project. They're building a 200 kilometer automated suburban metro system, which they're capable of doing, first of all, because Paris is an enormous city. So this is the right scale for Paris. And second, because their costs are not so high. So some of this is like differences in the systems. We have an adversarial system. There's lawsuits that slows things down. There are these kind of built-in hurdles that we have that are hard to mount, even with really expert, professional, hard-charging public servants who

take this on and want to solve this problem. But like, part of it is about rewarding, investing, celebrating, having a culture of excellence amongst the kinds of people that don't often get attention. Public planners, people inside the government, the person who oversees the private contract, the person who's excited about this and goes to Rome and is like, how the fuck did you build a subway next to the Colosseum? Or like goes to France and is like, how did you manage to build a new subway line when there are so many historic buildings right above you? Like how much of this is that problem of just having years of drained public agencies, years of underfunded these things? Yeah, exactly.

How do we address that piece of it? So I promised that there would be a slight slag on Republicans. Good, great. In Massachusetts, there's this kind of privatization of the state trend that began in the United Kingdom and in the United States.

In the United Kingdom, they had a more intact civil service to privatize. In the United States, in many ways, it never did the kind of civil service building that was done in Europe in the post-war era.

And mind you, even then, American costs were elevated. It was, in the 1930s already, New York was building at a factor of four premium relative to London and Paris. Then things exploded. So they would kind of privatize government contracts to PPPs, to public-private partnerships, on the idea that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector, which, by the way, in the United States, it's very clearly true that the public sector is less efficient. The private sector is more efficient.

The problem is privatization is a government program. If you can't do government programs, you cannot privatize. Something they call prudence theater, where you say, oh, we can't give you this, this is too much, let's make this program smaller. So because of this mentality, which again, in Massachusetts, you can kind of see where Charlie Baker did this, and then it continued when the governor was a Democrat, when it was Devil Patrick.

There was kind of reticence to fund the head office correctly. It gets to the point that at the head office, public sector workers are underpaid relative to market wages. The salary of a project manager in the Boston private sector in transportation is 140 something thousand dollars a year. Boston is a very wealthy city. Project manager is a senior title. Yes, this is how much senior people get paid in such cities, but the MBTA does not pay 140 something. The MBTA pays, I think, 106 or 108, I forget which. Right. So what you're saying, right, is that like, okay, you want a private company to bid and

build something. Yeah. But if you're going to do that, then you need to measure twice, cut once, invest in the people, have talented, smart. Yeah, exactly. Proactive leaders in the government who are rewarded for being creative, being innovative, figuring out problem solving. Yeah, exactly.

To oversee the projects from inside the government. And we don't have that. So, for example, when you do various ways of doing contracting, I recently talked to someone handling procurement on some of the pieces of the subway expansion in Stockholm. Sweden is one of the lowest cost countries in the world to build things in, which you might not expect because Sweden is a very expensive country in general. And just sorry to interrupt, but they have environmental standards. They have labor standards.

They have stronger unions. Stronger unions. Yeah. So my understanding is that it's much less adversarial. But the point I'm making is that in Stockholm, I was asking, OK, how do you handle design and construction? And I was told that design is mostly done in-house. Sometimes they supplement it with consultants, but it is done in-house, so they contract out the construction.

Now, the construction will also include some design modifications. This is always really important. The thing that murders California is the change order, because if you ask the former CEO of Madrid Metro, Manuel Males Mainar, again, Madrid is probably the lowest cost city in the world for this. I believe that he said that there is no such thing as 100% design underground. There are always tiny geotechnical surprises. There's always something that delays the project by a week. That's fine. It's a week.

It's not a big thing. You just need to make sure it's priced in so that it's not going to reopen negotiations and lead to a lot of contention. What does it look like to see President Biden, to see our country take this seriously? So Bill Clinton said something in the 1990s that is incorrect. He said that there is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what is right in America. And that's the problem. Americans understand the United States functions decently well about many things. And this includes people who maybe exaggerate the extent to which Europe works in general, that they think that maybe because Europe has better health care, it's better at everything. Even people like that understand that the United States is a very strong private sector,

and they try to maybe bring it in. But the private sector does different things than infrastructure. There's this kind of curiosity that is still unfortunately kind of lacking, where there's this idea that, no, the United States really is not the frontier of this. The United States needs to understand how to import and implement foreign expertise. And you don't do this by privatizing the state, even to a foreign corporation. So you don't privatize the state. You need to have this expertise in the public sector. This is something that Spain did. Spain self-flagellates

all the time. People in Spain understand that people in Germany and France live better than they do. So what does Spain do in the 1980s as it joins the European Union? It goes to France because they see, oh, France has these really cool high-speed trains. Let's import that. They go to Germany because certain systems within Germany, they understand even then, work better than in France. So they figure out how to combine these systems, and that's how they build Spanish high-speed rail. They're constantly curious about what goes on elsewhere in Europe. I might even add that places in Europe that have nationally connected high-speed rail networks tend to be the ones that look up to France, like Spain and Italy, whereas Germany, which looks down on France, never built that. Germany has very good intercity rail, but it's not high-speed rail.

Germany has kind of, let's call it medium-speed rail, maybe a few high-speed bypasses, but it's very different. And even the things that France does better than Germany, Germany... They can't see it. Emotionally, they can't allow it. Yeah, Germans can't think, oh, let's learn from Italy. Germans think that Italy is for pizza and vacations, and Spain is good for vacations. There's no idea that they should learn from Southern European engineering.

Infrastructure is a failure of the United States, and you need to understand that you're not at the frontier, and you need to imitate and not say, oh, let's just give it to Elon Musk. Elon Musk, I mean, he's not an American, but he's lived in America since like age 20. His business culture is American. That's what I was going to ask. So you don't think the Hyperloop is going to get it done? You don't think that that's the solution?

I mean, if we're talking about VAC trains in general, like Hyperloop or similar things, in 100 years, sure. In 50 years, maybe. In 10 years, no, forget about it. It's not a mature technology. When you're at the frontier, progress is incredibly difficult. I want a train from Los Angeles to San Francisco. That's what I want.

It seems like it makes a ton of sense. It makes a ton of sense. It makes a ton of sense. It's just the California High Superior Authority, they need to understand how it's being done elsewhere. And even little things, especially in the Bay Area, were done without understanding how these standards work. For example, in Europe, they had agency turf battles

that led to proposals to put tracks underground in the suburbs of San Francisco when there's plenty of room for everything. It would require cutting BART,, it would require cutting BART, so it would require cutting the subway. They said half a billion dollars, but Sam, I'm not sure what they think, a billion and a half.

Now, a billion and a half is not most of the cost of it, but a lot of it is little things like this, or they had oversized viaducts in the Central Valley for no good reason. I like the level of detail that you have on every single project that you have brought up. I like that. But I mean, actually, it's actually something that I think is good right now is that a lot of urban transit agencies,

the technical teams for anything that interfaces with apps seem to be very solid. A lot of front-end stuff, like communicating information to passengers about where the trains go, that seems rather solid in New York. You have these dynamic maps. Terrific. We have apps to tell people that we don't have enough trains going to nearly enough places, and we never will. I know, that is a problem.

Yeah, you need reliable trains, you need reliable buses. Let's not neglect buses, please. You need systems to connect. It's not just physical infrastructure is the frustrating thing, it's not neglect buses, please. You need systems to connect. It's not just physical infrastructure is the frustrating thing. It's everything surrounding it. So for example, it's the timetable. So you've built your rail network. How are you going to timetable so that people can connect between two cities that are maybe not on the same line? How are you going to make it so that people can connect between the buses and the trains? The buses and the trains

are not generally planned in coordination except within central cities. So if you're trying to get between, let's say, a point within Worcester and Boston, if you're in downtown Worcester, there's a train. If you're not in downtown Worcester, there's a bus that takes you to downtown Worcester. But that bus is going to be on a separate fare system from the train.

It's going to be on a separate timet from the train. It's going to be on a separate timetable. You can't connect. All right. Look, here's what we've learned today. We've got a lot of problems we've got to work on, and we've got to send some city planners and some public officials. They've got to go to Spain. They've got to go to France. They've got to go to Italy. They have to take notes. They have to come back, and we have to pay them more. Yeah, and they've got to go to Sweden, and it cannot be just a three-day docket trip in which you only talk to the managers. It has to be a longer thing.

They've got to get in the weeds. Yeah, it has to be. I mean, there are exchange programs between railroads. I don't know if the United States participates in them, but I know that there are between various European ones and also between Europe and Japan. All right, yeah, let's get some of those. Let's get some of these French and Spanish and Italian and Swiss and German and Swedish experts. Let's get them in here. Yeah, you can hire them.

Alon Levy, thank you so much. It was great to talk to you. And I hope we can find ways to get people interested in this topic because like, you know, we're going to talk about this big infrastructure package. But if we don't figure out how to do this better, it doesn't matter what we spend. We will we will not be able to have the trains, planes, and automobiles we want. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much to Alon Levy for joining us. When we come back, we'll end on a high note. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back because we need it this week. Here it is, the high note. I love it. My name is Jack. And my high note for this week is that I am

financially secure. After not receiving unemployment for seven months, I was very nervous that I was about to return to homelessness. And finally, the government came through. I've been able to pay off the end of my lease and put down money on my new apartment, get out of debt and still have a little nest egg to make sure that I'll be secure for the near future. I couldn't be more relieved. Have a great day, folks. Hey there. My high note is all about my wife's clarity because not only did she just

get her first vaccine and not only are we celebrating our 10-year anniversary, both of which are high notes, the thing that really gives me hope is that she also just thought her eighth student passed the citizenship exam and become a U.S. citizen. She's been working with an amazing program in West Liberty, Iowa, for five years, teaching English and civics, and helping folks navigate this absurd system. And I'm so proud of her for continuing to do it. Even when classes had to be canceled by COVID, she found ways to keep connecting with her students so that they could continue their process. And then she expanded her mission, walking Spanish speakers through the registration and absentee voting process

and just making sure that any new citizens could vote in November. So I just want to shout her out for giving many of us hope here, and thanks so much for everything you do. Hey, John, this is Josh calling from my car in Lakewood, Colorado. It's really hard to have a high note this week after the tragedy our community suffered yesterday, but I do want to celebrate my wife. This fall we welcomed our first child, and since then my wife's been working from home to finish her dissertation in hydrology while trying to wrangle a six-month-old baby.

She's about to defend her Ph.D. in about an hour. I'm so proud of her, and I know she's going to pass. So I'm walking into my King Soopers right now to buy her some flowers, and today we're going to celebrate her. But tomorrow we're going to use the energy we have and get back to protesting, to donating, organizing, and doing what we can to make sure that our daughter grows up in a world safe from gun violence. I hope you and yours are well, and you have a great week. Hi, I love it. This is Tim from Buffalo, New York. Our high note for the week, my wife and I, we are celebrating the one-year anniversary of adopting our pandemic puppy.

He's a lovely little ball of fluff, a half Pyrenees mix. And my wife got her first vaccine shot, and I am getting mine today. So that's what we got. Love the show. Thanks. Thanks to everybody who called in. The high notes have been incredible. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, call 213-262-4427. Thank you to Danielle Perez, Jason Concepcion, Renee Montgomery, Alon Levy, and everybody who called in. There are 591 days until the 2022 midterm election, and we got elections in 2021, all right?

We got a lot of elections coming up. So, you know, focus on that too, and have a great weekend. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, Lee Eisenberg, Jocelyn Kaufman, Pallavi Gunalan, and Peter Miller are the writers. Our assistant producer is Sydney Rapp. Bill Lance is our editor, and Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.

Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McClain and Jamie Skeel, for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast, and to our digital producers, Nar Melkonian and Milo Kim, Thank you.