Lovett or Leave It - Ye Olde Abortion Ban

Episode Date: April 13, 2024

Lovett or Leave It dims the lights and slips into something more comfortable for a late show at LA's Lyric Hyperion! Paula Poundstone joins for What A Week to help us process a hideous abortion ban and a gay bug fungus. Hari Kondabolu stops by to put the petty in pet peeves, and James III shares his appreciation for cinematic masterpiece Bad Boys II in a round of Ok, Stop. And we could keep going! We're not even sleepy!Tour dates & cities: crooked.com/events For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Hello Los Angeles! Alright, I can muscle you into being enthusiastic. I've done it before, I'll do it again. Welcome to Love It or Leave It, we're in a new theater today, so if anyone at home hears more boos than usual, it's not that we've gotten less funny, it's that the audience is just much closer to the mics. Paula Poundstone is here. And she's agreed to come out here and assess how the monologue is going

while the monologue is going. Hari Khandabalu is back with some tiny, tiny complaints. And James III will join us to savor the best of the bad boys. Before we get started, I'd like to invite my first guest out here to join me for the monologue and either shower me with praise or roast me beyond recognition. You know her, you love her.

It's the incredible Paula Poundstone. John, how are you? Hi, Paula. Hey, how are you? Hi, Paula. Hey, how are you? Paula Poundstone. Okay, I live in Santa Monica, California, and it'll be so good to get back to California. Oh, right. We've done the show before in another location, right?

Is this your first time in this? That's right. We've never been to the Lyric Forum. This is our first time here. Are there people here that have been to the other, the typewriter place? So we've brought three people. That's your base. That's your core.

Yeah, and that's where we build from. Yeah, you don't want to piss them off. You want to say and do whatever your base, your core enjoys. And where do you all live? West Hollywood. West Hollywood. Nowhere fucking near where we are. Right. Yeah. So what did you do?

Do you have like a Winnebago? Did you head out? Did you stay the night nearby last night? OK, we're in. We're not in Bakersfield. No, we are a long goddamn way. If... no, I left two days ago. I left. If the wagons... what's the... who are the people that ate the people in the wagons? Oh, the um... Donner Party. Donner Party. If the Donner Party were here, they would have said, we're so close. Let's just wait.

I know we're hungry, but let's keep going. That's how close we are to the ocean. To the ocean? Yeah. We're cool. That's where you live, the ocean. And I'm saying we're very close to the ocean. We are not close to the ocean. By any standard, by any standard in America, we are close to the ocean. Absolutely not. For most people, this is close to the ocean. No, it's a really long drive. How long was it for you to get here? About an hour. An hour? But that's the way Betsy drives. So you know your base? You know the names? Yeah, I know Betsy. Here's the thing. Listen,

I know Betsy. In fact, I was, I believe on an electric scooter and I passed Betsy on the street. Did you have a helmet? I happen to not have a helmet. Oh, you know what? This is driving me crazy. You got to wear a helmet. OK. You know what? Next time I ride one of those scooters five years ago, I'm going to wear a helmet. Yeah. But but I went by Betsy and Betsy said, John, John. And I just waved and I did not stop. And you knew it from being part of your base that you did. You guys meet because you come to his shows.

Five years, five years, which is weird, because he's been doing the show for about two. So what do you how do two. So which was better, the first three years or the last two, would you say? Don't put her on the spot. They're all great. Yeah. God damn it, Paula. No. Let's get into it.

What a week. Have you ever wanted to cede medical decisions about your body to a bunch of frontier maniacs writing laws before genetics or viruses were discovered? Boy do Arizona Republicans have a treat for you. The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a near total abortion ban from 1864 in a ruling that said that the 160 year old law is now enforceable. So saddle up women folk. We're going down the pass

to get a potion from a little trading post called CVS or the border with New Mexico. That's good. No, you know you've got a good joke on your hands when Paula Poundstone isn't sure it's over before she compliments it. No, no, no, I was just thinking about the future for Arizona. Yeah, yeah.

It's going to be great. You know, their new license plate says, our women are hot. Yeah, that one's over. That was it. The law, which was on the books before Arizona became a state and before women had the right to vote, outlaws abortion from the moment of conception except when necessary to save the woman's life and it includes no exceptions for rape or incest. Rape and incest didn't really exist as concepts at the time when this law was written.

Both were simply called sex frontier style. Yeah, that's what we felt before and we discussed cutting it and we decided not to. It originally had said sex Arizona style and then we decided that that was more of a Florida joke and then we decided even that was too much so we made it frontier style. So you had meetings about that? Arizona had already had a perfectly cruel 15. You know how you would do like, you know, you would hand a paper in in school and the teacher would say, well, how much time did you spend on this? Uh, wow. Huh? I, listen, the whole frontier

sex thing. I want you, I want you to know that there is a rigorous multi hour long meeting where we go line by line through everything that you're hearing right now. I know I make it look. Oh, you do. Easy. Oh my God. You make it look easy and thrown away. No, I everybody in this room right now thinks, well, I could fucking do that. This is, this is what I wanted. This is good. Arizona. All right. This is what I wanted. This is good. Arizona, this is honestly being- There are dominatrix, what do they call them? Dens, what are they? Don't act like you never heard of this. Dungeons, oh wait, I didn't even know

there was a section over there, how are ya? Yeah, there are dominatrix- What about them? Dungeons in downtown LA that you could, cause when you said this was what you wanted- No, no, no, I agree. Your point being that being mocked and criticized is my kink. Yeah.

But only on a stage while being also lauded. Oh, I see. I need a little bit of both. Arizona had a perfectly cruel 15 week ban that lawmakers enacted in 2022, but they went ahead and reached back 160 years to enforce something even more fucked. You didn't need this abortion ban, Arizona. You had abortion banned at home. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs had this to say about the ruling. It is a dark day in Arizona.

Let me be clear. Arizona's 2022 abortion ban is extreme and hurts women. And the near total Civil War era ban that continues to hang over our heads only serves to create more chaos for women and doctors in our state. Continued Hobbes, and God help us if they dig up that 1799 law that says you can drown any woman in a well for making eye contact with a man she is not married to or ignoring an eligible man's attempt to make eye contact. Oh God, I shouldn't even have mentioned that one.

Forget I said anything. Arizona's Democratic Attorney General, Chris Mays, said in a statement that she would not enforce the ban, which she called unconscionable, writing, Today's decision to reimpose a law from a time when Arizona wasn't a state, the Civil War was raging,

and women couldn't even vote will go down in history as a stain on our state. Chris Mays has single-handedly changed my assumptions about women named Chris spelled with a K. Whatever Chris Jenner did to my brain, Chris Mays has reversed it in a fraction of the time. Continued Mays, let me be completely clear, as long as I am attorney general,

no woman or doctor will be prosecuted under this draconian law, and that's really what you want these things to hinge on. One elected official holding their finger in the dike like the little Dutch boy. Paula, have you ever held your finger in the dike like the little Dutch boy. Paula, have you ever held your finger in the dike like a little Dutch boy? No. Anyway, if you're ever on the fence about whether or not to bother voting, Mays won her election by just 280 votes out of

more than 2.5 million votes cast. That's 0.01%. Also, if you're on the fence about voting, how did you end up here? Listening to this. Did you think I was on SNL in the 90s and had somehow become younger and hotter? But equally Jewish? Meanwhile, MAGA Senate candidate Carrie Lake

arranged her face into her best human impression and said in a statement, I oppose today's ruling and I am calling on Katie Homs and the state legislature to come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support. But Lake praised the very same near total ban in 2022 when she said this. I'm incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a great law that's already on the books. So it will prohibit abortion in Arizona. And I think we're going to be paving the way and setting course for other states to follow. But you have to understand, Paula, this was from

all the way back in 2022. It was a completely different time. The Cybertruck wasn't even out yet. We'd only seen pictures. Yeah, yeah, no, this, you know, they also, Arizona has been really ahead of the curve on a lot of the spit tune laws. Yeah, right. You know, it's where they should be, how often to be emptied. Yeah, and how many per... If you have a factory, there has to be a certain amount of spit tunes per factory worker. Because that's basically, that's OSHA. That's OSHA. Yeah.

You know, when Charles Dickens came to the country, he said that, because people used to spit on the ground, and he said it was disgusting, and that it looked like a carpet. Yeah. Yeah. I think as a good rule of thumb, I don't think laws about human anatomy should be made by people who are spitting on the ground. That's a good point right there. We have Paul Pounce on here and there's no spittoon.

I gotta have a spittoon. Where's her spittoon? I, okay, well I didn't literally bump into Carrie Lake, but I think I was in, I guess it was the Phoenix Airport one morning and I did see her. And she was, you know, she was like holding court with a bunch of people around her. I assume she was just traveling somewhere and people gathered around her. But she had a fake background.

Yeah. Like a Gazi step and repeat back there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Who's running against her? Ruben Gallego? Ruben Gallego, yeah. Ruben Gallego. He always says, he always sends out tweets going, this is not the tweet I wanted to send. Do you get that one?

I've seen it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I wish someone could help him find the tweet that he does want to send because I've gotten several of the ones that he didn't want to send. There's a certain, there's a larger issue. It's not, not, not to criticize anything about Ruben Gallego's tweets. I do see often posts on social media where someone says something like, I really didn't want to make this video or I really tried to avoid having to tell you all this.

And it's like, not hard enough. Yeah, exactly. You'd be amazed how easy it is to not share this personal anecdote about someone who wronged you. You'd be amazed. Yeah, no, they're not responsible in any way. You know, once you've given money to any candidate, your feed just fills with emails

from the candidates asking for money. And I try to support them. In fact, just today, I sent a donation to, I'm gonna say it wrong, VoteSave America. VoteSave America. I sent a donation to VoteSave America today because you guys figure out where the money can be best used.

Yes, we do. With candidates around the country. Absolutely. Go to votesaveamerica.com. I so, again. And go to vote save America dot com. I so again. And we'll help you find the best ways to donate when there are so many people asking. Go to vote save America and they'll tell you

the best ways to donate. You can donate to our Senate fund, which sends it to the Senate races where we got the best shot. You'll send it to the, to the, to the anxiety relief fund, which is where you can donate to local organizations that are on the ground doing really good work. And once a month you get an update about where your money's doing the most good. It's a great

resource because you know, we're getting all these taxes too much. It is too. And it's, but I love that I can turn to people who know what they're doing because I don't, I don't know the races all around the country. How could you, how could any of us? But you guys all together there, you have that collective wisdom. And I assume that you hire people to help with that as well. And I have to be clear but if I start getting emails from John Levitz and you know I didn't want to have to send this email. All right.

Yeah. So go ahead. Sorry. But to your point all of these Republicans spent their careers fighting for this exact outcome. Ran election after election promising to achieve abortion bans, keeping anti abortion laws in place for when Roe would be overturned, only to discover that as many predicted it's of course deeply unpopular and terrifying to take away

basic human rights in a democracy. You can't buy a ticket to Avenue Q and then be mad when it's puppets. Also on Wednesday, Arizona Republicans in both houses of the legislature blocked Democratic efforts to repeal the 1864 ban. Republican leaders said there was no need to rush as the law probably wouldn't take effect for a few weeks. Oh, no worries then, said a 16 year old who doesn't know she's pregnant yet. Speaking of freaks trying to return us

to the good old days of the 19th century when phones couldn't even transmit pornography, House Speaker Mike Johnson spent the week scrambling to protect his job from Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who renewed her threat to oust him over his intention to send more aid to Ukraine. Whether it's Mike Johnson's job or Hunter Biden's hog, no one's safe from MTG. You know, okay, I just want to say a little something. It's not timely, but about Marjorie Taylor Greene. At Thanksgiving, she kept sort of goading the PETA organization, because PETA makes a, you know, it's a good time of year to make a plea to people not to eat turkey.

And the truth is turkeys are very nice. I mean, some might say it's the absolute worst time of year to try to get people to not eat turkeys when you think about it. Because getting someone to not eat turkeys in April, no big lifts. But that's the one time we were all pretty committed to it. Yeah.

It's actually the stupidest day to argue against turkeys. No, the truth is people don't really eat turkey any time, other time of year, maybe at like Subway or something. But maybe if they convince us to not have turkeys in June and August, Right, but people don't eat turkeys in June and August. They eat a little. A little sliced, a thin sliced turkey at the Subway. I'm just saying, like if you're going to argue to tell people not to have trees in their home,

you'll be more successful if you do it in October than if you do it in December. OK, but the tree is in front of you in December. It's a good time of year to bring people's attention to the problem. And so Peter does so. And so Marjorie Taylor Green was trying to goad them. And so she made this post where she showed like her turkey in the pan and it had like some foil around it. Cause and I looked at it and I said, look,

she had it's wearing her hat. You know, it's a joke that, you know, there's only a few days you can tell it usually, right around Thanksgiving. Well, it's a very specific joke. It requires Marjorie Taylor Greene to post food with tin foil. Otherwise, you can't really do it. No, no. There's no good time to bring it up. There just isn't.

So, you know, you were talking about... But you did, honestly, but it killed here. Which is amazing. Don't you wish you you were talking about honestly, but it killed here. Yeah. Which is amazing. Don't you wish you could time travel? Oh, all the time. Mostly to go back in time and do, do sick tweets and kill Hitler, kill Hitler as an adult, obviously. Yeah. Why would you do it as a baby? You just could get in trouble for killing a baby. Yeah. If you knew what the Democrats do, you know, right up. Yeah. Yeah, the Democrats have been every fucking time. Somebody says something as stupid as the Democrats.

Well, you know, the pro-abortion people, they want to make it. They they they've been they kill the babies all the way up until birth. I would like some names. You know, you need to cite a specific because that's just absurd and no one ever did that. That's just absurd. It's absurd. I think it would be amazing if Vice President Kamala Harris went because she's going to Arizona and gave a speech about how important it is to protect abortion rights and how disgusting it is that Donald Trump is saying this, that Democrats want to kill

babies after they're born and then just comes out and says there's's only one baby I would kill and that's Hitler. And just let it just not just totally serious. Just leave it out there. Just get it out there. You know? Yeah. I'm so glad you're not her consultant. No, no. That's why I do this now. Yeah. Anyway, said Mike Johnson about his, his attempts to woo Marjorie Taylor Greene, I'm going to try reasoning with her as he strapped on a flak jacket and doused his sensitive areas and wolf urine. Greene released a five page rant on Tuesday on why she filed a motion to vacate accusing Johnson of working with Democrats to advance Biden's agenda. Remember, Paula, when politicians used to brag about reaching across the aisle to serve our common interests? I don't because I'm extremely young.

Well, they did. They used to reach across the aisle to serve our common interest. Yeah, they did. Yeah. There was some reasonable, I remember watching the, um, Iran country hearings and, uh, I'm going to screw up on the names. It was Daniel Inouye, uh, was the, cause it was co-chaired. It was Daniel Inouye and then it was co-chaired. It was Daniel Inouye. And then it was a guy from New Hampshire, whose name I can never remember, but he was a Republican. And I mean, I don't know about his voting record,

but in terms of how they ran those hearings, he was a straight shooter and a good guy. It was very possible for that to be done back then. And then John Levert was born into the world. You're always a hell of a handbasket. Daniel Inouye was a member of the Senate then, and it was always one of the great names to hear. It would always be like, Akaka, I, Inouye, I.

It just sounded nice. Akaka, I. I don't remember Akaka, and that's why I went first hearing it from you. You don't remember Akaka? I don't. There was a guy named Akaka? Yeah.

Oh my God. Imagine how rough the second grade had to be for that guy. Yeah, no. I remember Representative Dudu had. One of the best to ever do it. If all about some. I would say House Republicans blocked Johnson's attempt to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which lets the U.S. government spy on the communications of non-Americans located outside the country for intelligence purposes. Far-right Republicans tanked the bill shortly after Donald Trump directed them to kill it

because he said it was used against him, even though the part of the FISA law used in the Russia investigation Trump is referencing was a different section. He was just wrong. At last texted a terrorist to another terrorist he's secretly in love with. We're alone. As Johnson tried to get back in Greens good graces, he also made plans to visit Mar-a-Lago on Friday to join Trump for a major announcement on election integrity and good luck to him. Mike Johnson does not look like someone who would thrive in Florida. He looks like someone whose top half will be third degree sunburned and whose bottom half will be inside of an alligator before he's left the airport. He's not

made for Florida that guy. There are alligators everywhere there too. Any body of water in Florida, there's a fucking alligator in there and they are gross. Yeah, for sure. I'm an animal lover, but you know what? I draw the line at alligators. They're horrible, awful creatures. Big old mouths and ugly eyes and big teeth and just rah rah rah. I mean, I know it's a radio show, but for you guys, rah rah rah. No, they're horrible. They're horrible. And you know, I used to live in Orlando, briefly.

I lived in Orlando. I didn't fit in. I wasn't weird enough. And about five o'clock every day, it poured rain. And because on the sides of the highway, there's like gullies so that the water drains off. And all the alligators from one side of the gully would cross the street to the other side of the gully.

And there's tons of them. Tons of them. You can't go anywhere near water there. You ever go to Florida? Yeah, yeah. My parents live there. Oh, Jesus, call them. Nah, they're all right.

Do they have a pool? Yeah, no alligators in there, though. Yeah. They have a little dog. Yeah. So they don't walk close to the edge. They did have a little dog. They had two. I bet they used to have a pool? Yeah, no alligators in there though. Yeah. They have, they have a little dog. Yeah. So they don't walk close to the edge. They did have a little dog.

They had two. I bet they used to have three. But you don't have to tell them twice. Johnson has also offered Green a seat on his kitchen cabinet of top advisors he plans to put together. You know, speaking of kitchen cabinets, I remember, I remember watching the news one time and there was a lady in Florida

and she was up on her kitchen counter because a fucking alligator had come in the kitchen. It had come from outside into the kitchen and she had climbed up on the counter to get away from the alligator until somebody could come rescue her. Did you ever see that? No, but it is making me feel this,

which is, how do do alligators? Sure, they're very scary, but you're always as long as there is something about two feet off the ground, you've cut, you're kind of invincible. They they're very, obviously they're scary, but they can't go up. You don't know that. You don't know that. They don't been like that. Yeah.

No, they don't. You've never seen, you've never seen an alligator do like an up dog. Yeah. No, you know, they don't know that. They don't bend like that. Yeah, no. You've never seen an alligator do like an up dog. Yeah, no. They don't go up. Let's just call your parents right now. I am so worried. It's 1 AM in Florida. I can't.

I'm not going to call my mother at 1 in the morning. She might be on the kitchen counter. She'll think someone's dead. I'll call her. She'll pick up. Then she'll die of a heart attack. Then my father will die of a heart attack. And then I gotta find out what their fucking passwords are. They'll be dead and I don't know how to get in anything.

CNN reported this week that one of RFK Jr.'s campaign officials, Rita Palmer, attended the Stop the Steal rally in DC on January 6th and told a meeting of New York Republicans that getting Kennedy on the ballot would help get rid of Biden, which she said was her top priority. Of course, her strategy to peel away Biden voters is to make Kennedy as much like Trump as possible. We continue to luck out Paula that many of our most evil people would also take the most time to solve a Monday crossword.

The New York Times crossword, the Monday is the easiest. Oh, I had no idea. After that video circulated, RFK Jr.'s campaign manager and daughter-in-law announced that... That is such like a Mensa inside thing. You know, that's a little overachiever. That's a child prodigy joke right there. That's what that is. Oh, the Monday crossword puzzle is the easiest.

Yeah. Saturday's hardest. Oh, Saturday's... Sunday's big, but not as hard as Saturday. It's just more. And Thursday's cheeky. Thursday will trick you. Thursday's got bits.

Thursday's like, oh, you wanna do a crossword? Some of these boxes, there's six boxes. They call it a rebus. Okay, I'm not familiar with any of what you're talking about right now, other than the New York Times. I've heard of the New York Times. I read too slow to read the New York Times. Here's the thing about the New York Times, I've heard of the New York Times. I read too slow to read the New York Times. Here's the thing about the New York Times,

which a lot of people don't realize, is that New York Times is a thriving game company with a newspaper that occasionally makes news along the side of this game app that is the core of their fucking business. Like it's just, the whole New York Times, that big building, all those reporters traveling around the world, getting all their little scoops

Gathering their scoops together all that work all that effort the editing the fact checking the traveling the digging deep the meeting with sources in the back of scary buildings all of that is secondary to the project of the New York Times financially, which is the crossword, the wordle, and now more important to them than their international section, connections. Like in terms of like what people do on the New York Times, they go and they play games,

and if you're lucky, one of their eyes will accidentally catch a story about the economy, and that's a win. That's a win for the New York Times. It is a crossword app with a little news operation attached to it. Okay, do you remember, was it the Washington Times that had the guy that counted Trump's lies? Yeah. Yeah.

The New York Times has a guy who counts the days in Biden's life. You could automate it. Yeah, no, not at the New York Times. They, they need, you know, boots on the ground. Anyway, they fired that RFK junior person I was talking about a few minutes ago, said the campaign manager. She failed to stick to our very basic campaign message, which is that Tylenol causes fibromyalgia. While speaking at Georgetown University on Tuesday, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

blamed Matt Gaetz for his ouster from the speakership. I'll give you the truth why I'm not speaker. It's because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17 year old. Did he do it or not? I don't know. McCarthy went on to say, he showed me photos on his phone, but that could have been anyone's micropenis. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha don't keep a diary. You never know when James O'Keefe might get his slimy little hands on it. At the end of the day, I take all my swirling thoughts and feelings and experiences and I crush them down like a trash

compactor. Got to get them real deep. Got to really push them down in here. Got to get them fucking down. Got to push them all the way. Fucking get them deep. Get them. Just crunch them.

Crunch them. You just keep working. Diaries are from a time before smartphones. Diaries are from a time before phones. Diaries are from a time before phones. You don't need a diary. Everybody should have one friend they treat like a diary. And that friend treats you like a diary. That's the deal.

You need one friend who you call on the way home from work and basically trauma dump on them. Everything that happened that day. And then they do it to you. You need that. And sure, you can have a friend like that and then eventually she says, Hey, I have kids now. Maybe you could tell this to a therapist. Where was I? The judge who sentenced the diary thief, Harris, called her theft and the sale of the diary despicable.

Continue the judge. Why, this must be the worst thing that's ever happened to someone with a diary. Speak... The judge said that? Yeah, the judge said that. He said this must be the worst thing that's ever happened to someone with a diary? Yeah. Huh. Was it an Anne Frank reference?

Well, it was sort of an oblique one until this very moment. I think it was sort of like out there but not out there. Then it was sort of, you know, sort of like letting everyone kind of enjoy the thought of that without ever saying the name. Yeah, it took me a minute to come around to that. Okay, wait, I have to tell you something about... I have to tell you something about Diaries.

Okay, it's a very long story, but I'm gonna shorten it. Oh, wow. You know, because I understand that there are some other guests. So years ago, I was in a restaurant in New York and Alan Rickman came in and I went over and spoke with him and I was not was, I was not good. I shouldn't have, it was wrong. I shouldn't have done it. But, okay, the worst thing that I did was I said,

you know, I'm at a table with other people and we all know all these movies that you're in, but no one can remember your name. Oh. Yeah, okay. It's good. All right. No, no, hey, hey. It was bad. I shouldn't remember your name. Yeah, okay, all right. It was bad, I shouldn't have done it. And he went like this, Alan Rickman.

And I was like, okay, but by then I really knew that I had messed up and I was like, okay, thanks, okay. And I was, okay, so there's more to the story, but I don't want to tell you. So Alan Rickman's diaries got published. And I had told this story on my podcast, and some people wrote to me and said, you're in Alan Rickman's diary.

And he said that I think it was that I was unspeakably rude. And he said that I think it was that I was unspeakably rude, I think is what he said. Well that's an oxymor- Well maybe it wasn't unspeakably, maybe it was something else. Because he certainly wrote it down. He felt that I was very rude. He gave voice to it for sure. Well I just picture him sitting on the edge of his bed, you know, with the little diary and the little lock and the key that he hold, you know, and just, you know, dear diary. Right. How soon after? Paul Pemster was so rude to me. I don't, I don't want to actually, I don't want to, I don't want to insinuate anything, but how soon after you're

running with Alan Rickman, did he die? Uh, I was nowhere near Alan Rickman in many years. Okay. The EPA on Wednesday finalized the nation's first ever rule requiring water utilities to remove toxic forever chemicals from drinking water, which officials say will help prevent thousands of illnesses, including cancer. Wait, when did they decide to do that? Today, I guess.

Or this week, this week they decided. To take forever chemicals? Out of the water. Did they say toxic or just forever? They're toxic forever chemicals. And they just decided today to take them out? I think they decided they've been trying to get to the point where they could issue this rule. Who decided to put them in? That would be my first question. I think kind of, well, sure, I think we can get it just sort of the ways in which...

So anyway, Arizona can take us back to toxic forever chemicals in our water, we hope against hope. My fingers are crossed. It's just weird that today they decided to take out the toxic forever chemicals. Well, I think we've been learning more and more about how dangerous these chemicals are and the way in which they last forever. I guess forever doesn't mean what it used to, said a molecule of perfluoro-octane sulfonic acid that entered your bloodstream when you played blocks on a carpet protected by Scotch

Garden in 1993. And in other poison news, Consumer Reports has called on the USDA to remove Lunchables from the National School Lunch Program, citing a test of the snack kits that found relatively high levels of cadmium, sodium, and lead. I love a warning about lead and sodium in the same breath. These children's meals have poison in them, toxic brain-damaging poison. Also too salty. You know what?

I read that last night and I texted my daughter. I said, look up Lunchables right now. I said, I'm so... Because I dropped the hammer up Lunchables right now. I said, I'm so, cause I dropped the hammers, the hammer on Lunchables. I think I might've let my kids have them twice. And then I'm just like, no, and they would beg me. And I'm like, no.

There was the siren song of the fucking Lunchable. Those ads, those boxes, there's something about the idea of a fully contained meal that you can carry in a box that it was intoxicating to the child's mind. And then they came out with the ones that also had a Capri Sun in them, and you're like, my God, it's all there. It's all there.

They've cracked it. Everything you could need. Cracker, meat, cheese, brownie, Capri Sun. It's all fucking there. They did it. They did it. Those bastards at's all fucking there. They did it. They did it. Those bastards at Oscar Mayer, they fucking did it. And you try to get it in that cart, and what happens?

All but the worst moms get it right out of there. Some moms are busy. Please don't stay out of the comments. I'm just kidding. Good moms buy Lunchables, except now they can't. Now they have lead. And they had like a separate little, because I did like compartments when I was a kid.

You do. You love a compartment. I loved camping dishes that had compartments. For sure. But the Lunchables had a different section. Like, you're right, it had the meats, it had the crackers, it had the cheese, it had a whole divot in there, a whole section just for rival flavor. Yeah, to dip for those who wanted to dip.

Speaking of brain damage, on Thursday, the Tennessee House passed a bill that makes it illegal to marry your first cousin in the interest of public health. The bill doesn't say I can't fuck her though, said one of the members of the House who didn't realize his mic was on. That's just a joke, no one actually said that. Republican Representative Gino Bolso,

whose grandparents were first cousins, fought against the bill, arguing that incest should be okay if a genetic counselor approved. Said Mr. Bolso, and that is especially clear if you glance here at my family tree. Oh, I'm sorry. My family tangle of spaghetti. See, personally, and maybe this is just me, if my grandparents were first cousins, not only would I not announce it, I would go out of my way to avoid suspicion. I'd be the one standing up during the incest bill debate

saying not only should marrying your first cousin be illegal, it should be against the law to marry anyone who looks like, even a bit like you. Marrying someone who shares zero genes was good enough for my unrelated grandparents and it's good enough for me, Gino Bulso. Bulso also argued that this bill could violate same-sex marriage rights saying is there a public health issue with a male marrying a male first cousin? Obviously I think the answer is no. Hey thanks for the help Gino but speaking

for the gay community that's not our culture. Marrying your cousin is one of the straightest things a person can do. It's right out there with four couples going out to dinner and even though it's one table for eight, really it's four women having dinner and four men having another dinner. Not comfortable with that because you do that. And then the interesting thing, Paula, when you see four couples, four straight couples going out to dinner at a restaurant and they're at the table for eight, and it's basically two women on each side here and two men on this side here, what's interesting is which couples get to sit together, right?

Because there's always two couples are separated and two couples get to sit with their spouses. And it's always interesting to see which spouses sit together and which ones are like, see you later, honey, I'm going to sit on the other side of the table, get the fuck away from you for two hours did you get this from the New York Times look it's like one of those puzzles it's one of those puzzles you were talking about which sure sits and there's two women on one side two men I'm not good at math jokes I'm sorry no so no that was a lot I was trying to five trying like hell to follow.

Speaking of bad relationships, former NFL player, broadcaster, and friend of the show, OJ Simpson, died Wednesday at age 76. Ask not for whom the glove fits. Paula, we have so many OJJ. jokes. More like no J. Simpson. Uh, Paula, it is with a heavy heart we announce that the juice is loose. Dance like no one's watching, love like you've never been hurt, and stab like you won't be convicted. Live, laugh, glove, Paula Poundstone. I'm so sorry. We'd like to take this moment to acknowledge the victims of OJ Simpson's crimes, which legally speaking were sports collectors. It's a tough break for Trump. Now he'll need a new running mate. TMZ has obtained

a video of OJ's death and warning the footage is graphic. Oh no. Yeah, he falls out the fucking boat after. And I just want to say, obviously, given this OJ news, it's like, fuck cancer. Is that what he died from? Yeah. Cancer? Yeah. Uh? Yeah. Uh-huh.

That's why that book's coming out by cancer called, If I Did It. Before he died at an Arctic prison, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny wrote a memoir titled Patriot, which will be published in the US in October. This is a personal attack on anyone who's ever said, I can't write under these conditions in regards to somebody using a leaf blower outside. The Vatican released a new document on Monday which says that any sex change intervention is a grave violation of human dignity.

And we're the experts in dignity, said the pope from beneath a giant gilded hat while sitting in a glass enclosed throne on the back of a pickup truck. The document states that gender theory intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings, sexual difference. And here I thought the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings, sexual difference, and here I thought the greatest possible difference that exists between

living beings is being an uptight, overworked female executive in the big city who travels to her rural hometown to finally sell her family's decrepit old house before Christmas Eve versus being a hunky but disheveled contractor sent to fix a leaky roof of a decrepit old house who hates coastal elites, chugs beer, and swears no woman could ever tame him. Anyway, Mr. Pope, we've got cousins marrying over here. If you care to focus on that. Speaking of gross emanations from Europe, the Paris 2024 Olympics may have to cancel or postpone the swimming portion of the triathlon if France can't clean up the filthy river Seine, after a non-profit warned that the river had higher than permitted levels of bacteria, including pollution

of fecal origin. Wow, well well they can't just use tap water. The French public are against cleaning up the river because they are afraid it will lose its perfect flavor. Said French officials, we were doing so well, it had been so clean until that Dave Matthews band Thor bus drove across the bridge. The plan to fix the river involves placing signs that read, welcome to the Arras 2024 Olympics. Notice there's no P in it. Please keep it that way.

Italy's Mount Etna has been puffing a record number of perfectly circular smoke rings into the air for the last week or so. Volcanologists believe this may be an indication that the volcano is trying to impress a girl volcano. If you listen closely, Paula, Poundstone, you can hear a faint noise coming out of the volcano that says, I make of the smoke. And finally, State Farm canceled 30,000 home insurance policies in California to reduce their financial risk in areas prone to wildfires, including Tony areas like Bel Air, the Palisades, and Beverly Hills.

So when it comes time to eat the rich, at least they'll be served well done. Doesn't really make sense because, just because your house doesn't have fire insurance doesn't mean you're more likely to die in a conflagration. Well, that's, yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Paula Poundstone.

You can see Paula at Town Hall in New York on April 19th. Up next, we're getting Petty with Hari Kondabalu. Oh, boy. Paula Poundstone. That was so nice meeting you. That was so fun. That was so much fun. Hey, don't go anywhere.

There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. Hey. And we're back! The world is full of big important problems. Democratic backsliding, wars, that fungus that's turning all the cicadas gay, probably some other stuff. But if you only ever think about our biggest problems, eventually you start looking like shit and stop getting invited to parties where people are doing cool drugs.

So here to go deep on some problems so tiny we feel silly even bringing them up, it's Harry Kondobalu. Hello. Hello. Hi. Oh, thank you. Oh, what a full applause that was. That was.

Yes, and just purely earned off their excitement and expectation for your comedy. Yeah. For the thing they know you'll bring, which are the laughs. Not guilted in any way. Not at all. Not at all.

Clapping harder. What's the smallest thing that guilted in any way. Not at all. Not at all. Clapping harder. What's the smallest thing that bothered you today? Mine was that the coldest Diet Cokes weren't at the front of the office fridge because someone didn't move up the cold cans before they loaded in more Diet Cokes. But don't worry, I fired them. Well, this is an ongoing thing, but why do we have to sign the receipt when we use credit

cards? I mean, the government has our eyes and they have our fingerprints just so we can avoid a line kind of because now everybody has clear and like You're telling me with all that security technology. We still gotta sign the receipts Who's checking the receipts? Who's checking the receipts? It also, I've been just, this is, I'm just going to say it. We're just going to deal with what I'm about to say. Okay. And I'm putting enough ironic distance on it to make us all feel comfortable and not

hate me after I say the sentence. I've been signing a lot of books lately and I told you, did I tell you? I told you. And so one thing that we've noticed, the three of us have been just signing these pages is My signature is completely different every single time. It's a new one every fucking time. I don't have a one signature I have five thousand signatures and we're doing voter signature verification. Everybody's danger looks fucking different every goddamn time Especially when you sign the receipt fuck off. Yeah, you sign it fuck off That's a lot of time I think it it just just just put a squiggle. Yeah just a squiggle. But nobody's checking why are we doing it? Why are we

doing it? Why are we doing it? Like when is the last time someone looked turned over your credit card said no signature where's your ID sir? Doesn't happen. No not in this economy. All right now we're gonna pet peeve for the gold. In a game we're calling I think you should peeve. Sssss. That's a cicada sound. Oh, well there we are, a Statler and Waldorf. Look at that. In each round, I'm gonna tell Harry

about one of my tiny grievances. Harry will tell us about one of his and we'll decide once and for all who's the pettiest, peeviest bitch on this stage. It's a peeve off. Are you ready, Harry? Yes. All right, why don't you kick us off with a peeve?

Okay. The true crime genre. It's not true crime. It's just crime. It's just crime. Why? Because there's already a crime genre. Why are we saying that it's true crime and crime? It should be crime and that should be fake crime because it be fake crime. Because it's fake crime. What do you mean? Like all crime films, like Larn or all that stuff, it's fake crime. If you're gonna have a true, there is no truth. It should be crime and fake crime,

not crime and true crime. The default is crime is reality. The default is reality. It's like fiction and non-fiction. Non-fiction? Fuck you, fiction. Like, it's fiction and nonfiction. Nonfiction? Fuck you, fiction. Like, it's fiction and reality. Reality is the baseline we should be using.

Right, fiction is one section. It's a kind of thing. Everything else should just be true, right? There's history and geography and several other different kinds of... Yeah, other genres. ...of ways people get read by. Listen, you know, we all know all the kinds of books.

All right. I think that's a good one. I'm going to go. Taking your cart to the self checkout at the grocery store. I agree that there's no sign that says this is not for carts, but it spiritually runs counter to the philosophy of the self-checkout. The self-checkout should be for baskets or nothing. It should be for moving quick.

If you've got a cart with all different shaped items, if you're at the cart level at the grocery store, you go to a cashier who's a professional at finding the fucking codes. You're not a professional at finding the codes. You're a moron. I agree, the system we've built where we check out our own groceries in order to save Albertsons a tiny bit of money that we're all participating in because we all could choose to wait in line

for the cashier, but instead we choose the robots so that we do the job for Albertsons and subsidize Albertsons in their efforts to, I don't know, eke out another fucking dirty penny. So sorry. But if we're gonna live in that world, you've got a cart full of shit, you go to the cashier. If you have a basket and you're gonna have five items,

okay, you're gonna find one on the can, one on the thing, one on the thing, and you're gonna get out of there. That's my pet peeve. Also, why are the shopping carts not controlled by remotes? Well, I think we should, should we, all right, audience, whose peeve was bitchier? Can I give him another peeve?

Well, we're gonna go back and forth. We're gonna do a couple. Okay, okay, gotcha, gotcha. Shopping carts are for the main lines, not the self check out, Can I give them another piece? Well, we're going to go back and forth. We're going to do a couple. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Shopping carts are for the main lines, not the self-checkout, or true crime should just be called crime. Shopping carts. Wow.

Crime. Not even close. Thanks. I didn't have them. I didn't have them. Wow. They don't know. They don't go to the grocery store.

They're personal shoppers. Go to the grocery store. they're personal shoppers. Go to the grocery store. Let's hear one. Okay. I hate when you're having a conversation with somebody like at a party and then someone they recognize shows up and interrupts your conversation and then those two people start talking and neither of them acknowledge you like the person you were originally talking to doesn't introduce you, hey this is, Harry. And the other one's like,

hey, my name is Sohan. So sorry for interrupting. And you're just standing there like a fucking asshole with your dick in your hand. And you're like just waiting to get included. And you're not. So do I go back and get some snacks? Do I, is it rude to leave?

And then finally, the person we interrupted leaves. And then it's just the, you and the other guy. And the other guy is like, well, where do we leave off? It's like you just assume I'll come back to you You assume after you dump me all of a sudden. Yeah, I don't know anybody else at the party. Yes This is I am coming back, but it's bullshit Well, usually I find that that is often because no one having that interaction knows the right name They don't know the names.

You should jump in. So, my rule is if somebody is a come, if I'm talking to a friend and someone comes up and says to the friend, oh, hi friend, it's great to see you. And they don't immediately introduce me. I think that you have to have a baked in assumption that your friend is desperate for you to be their friend and jump in before anyone could suspect that they didn't know the new person's name and say, Hi, I'm John. So that your then your friend gets to do the performance of a lifetime, which is this move. Oh my God, I'm being crazy. Because by the time you finish the Oh my God, I'm being crazy. That new person has already said their name and you get to

do what I think is one of the most disgusting things we all do, which is just say the name Fred on the count of three. One, two, three. Fred. This is Fred. Hey. I don't know, John. That's a little victim blamey. Here's mine.

I don't know what happened to this society where we decided it was acceptable at restaurants for the first interaction you have at that restaurant for someone to come up the table and say, would you like free water or would you like to buy expensive water for no reason? It is absolutely fucking bananas. It is so insulting because you're like, what? There's no other point in the restaurant experience

where someone comes up to you and says, hey, do you want something or do you want something good and expensive? Like if you, or if you go, if you like order like, I'd like, um, I'd like a chicken salad and they're like, oh, you like the chicken salad, but would you also like a lobster tail on top or something that I didn't land it? You kind of did some, yeah, I got it back. But you know what I mean? The water thing is fucking crazy. It's a crazy thing that we've all accepted. Like, hi, look, we're trying to get seven extra dollars onto every bill that we can. That's the nature of this business. And I think the restaurant business is terrible. Wouldn't do it. Wouldn't want to be a part of it.

Don't want to be in the restaurant business. Wouldn't want to be a college professor. Neither job appeals to me at all. Why not a college professor? Oh, summer vacations. Once you get tenure, fuck it all. Well, that's the whole thing. Sure. You got tenure, but you got to get tenure. Oh, yeah, you got to get tenure. You know, being a tenured professor would be nice, but I'm starting to fucking zero here, Hari. I'm not anything now. I don't even have an advanced degree. You don't have an advanced degree? I mean, I have a college degree, but I don't have an advanced degree.

Oh, okay. I think my peeve was better. I don't want to know what they think. All right. Was it the thing about the names or was it the thing about the water? Names? Water? Thai. Thai. Thai. Yeah. All right. Let's do another one. I hate when people refer to me as Southeast Asian. I'm South Asian. All right. Those are two very different places. South Asia is India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, so forth.

Southeast Asia is Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos. Like, South Asia has, like, a fourth of the world's population. So, technically, you're all minorities in this room. And it's fucking ridiculous. And also, secondly, like, Americans know who you bombed. Like you need to know where you bombed, right? Like you bombed Vietnam, you bombed Lhasa, you haven't bombed India yet, okay?

You need to know, you gotta know the victim's name. Otherwise it's just more disrespectful. That's right. I think that's right. I agree. I agree. That went into a deeper and larger kind of geopolitical peeve. Yeah. So I but so I could have pressing up against the boundaries of the rules of the game but you're safe. You're inside the boundaries. It's been ruled. It just seems ridiculous. Imagine if someone came up to me like hey are you Vietnamese? I'm like that's a bit of a

jump but you know it's in the world of Asian but he's like, hey, are you Vietnamese? I'm like, that's a bit of a jump, but you know, it's in the world of Asian, but it's in, why are you asking me if I'm Vietnamese? Are you Vietnamese? Why are we having this, just I'm Indian or South Asian. Why is this complicated? Yeah, why is it complicated? Oh God, damn it. I was born in the wrong fucking country.

Here's what I, here's something that bugs me. It's not the legacy of 50 years of American hegemony, but it bugs me. And it's the phrase non comedogenic on skin products, which is a phrase that should mean won't clog your pores, but actually is not FDA anything. It's just a phrase you get to put on there and it means absolutely fucking nothing. And as somebody whose skin kind of breaks out, if you just think about putting it anywhere near something that could clog up where if you just think to yourself, I touched my face yesterday.

If you just think it pimples popped up terrible skin, but also very dry, Harry, very dry skin. Very, very dry. Very, very dry skin. So it must be moisturized. But the second moisturized even, the smell of it touches my face. Pimple, pimple, pimple. So non-comedogenic says it won't clog pores, but it will, Hari. It will every goddamn fucking time. It clogs every pore it can get to. Non-comedogenic. They also put it on there because it's like a fancy sounding time. It clogs every pore it can get to. Non-commodogenic. They also put it on there because it's like a fancy sounding tone, but it sounds medical.

It sounds rigorous. It sounds like it proves something, like it's based in something. It's not. It's simply not. You know what? Fuck them. I give you the round right now.

Oh, stop it. Stop it. That was petty. Non-commodogenic. Petty and irrelevant. Yeah. Can I tell you something? I've been using a bunch of very fancy skincare products. Yeah.

And I love it. And I'm going to buy more and I'm going to use this brand for the rest of my life. And the brand, which I will not say here because... It's a jargon. Because pay me. But they will never know that the reason I am a lifelong customer is because some PR team tried to get a lip balm to Vanessa Hudgens three years ago. And then they mailed it to where Vanessa Hudgens used to live, which is where I live.

And after sending package after package after package of PR box of nonsense to her assistant would come by in a Mini Cooper, fill it all the way to the roof with free garbage and drive away. And eventually that stopped happening. And so now literally I can't stop it. I send every package that comes back to sender, but then people literally just drive by my house and throw free shit over the fence for Vanessa Hudgens. Like invitations, a box of cupcakes.

Hey, pop up West Hollywood restaurant trying to get Vanessa Hudgens to come. Throwing a box of cupcakes over a fence does not result in the enticing advertisement you would have hoped it would. What it results in is a bag of chocolate fucking garbage I have to throw away. Not a big problem, a little peeve.

That's a really good humble brag. I used to live in Vanessa Hudgens old place. I used to live in Suzanne Zhang's old place. She writes for the Atlantic. Wanna do one more peeve? Can we do one last peeve? Yeah, hey, do one more peeve. All right, fucking, I don't know if this even counts as a peeve, but fucking Oppenheimer

was overrated and it's absurd because they had the big kaboom two-thirds into the film and then the last there was just them talking. We've seen the explosion. I don't care, and I don't care about Oppenheimer's sex life. Most people didn't know who Oppenheimer was in this country until the film came out and then the film came out and the only reason I feel that people cared is like, oh Albert Einstein makes a cameo. Oh, this must be a real guy because Albert Einstein made a cameo in the film. And then, spoiler alert, and then there's a big explosion. And then the last third is just them talking and feeling bad about the explosion, even though Oppenheimer had ample time to think this through.

What I agree with is specifically that the whole movie, the first two hours, very interesting. I agree. Yeah. And then all of a sudden it becomes the story about Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Downey Jr. wins the Oscar, like, okay for that performance, but the movie would be better if he just cut Robert Downey Jr. out of the film completely. He has no relevance to the core story. He's not involved in the making of the bomb really. He, his, his, the whole hinge of like why, what was Einstein saying was kind of just like, had nothing to do with Robert Downey Jr. He had an, like, Robert Downey Jr. was like, Einstein was mad at me and one day I'll find out why.

Robert Einstein wasn't even thinking about him. He was thinking deeper thoughts about Robert Oppenheimer's guilt. But this movie also suffers from a problem of movies that we all have to deal with right now, which is, audience, we don't trust each other at all on any level as human beings. We don't let each other in traffic.

We don't believe we understand each other. We don't believe anyone else is smart. Everyone thinks this way. And so, every movie has some point in the movie where someone turns to camera and says, here is the thesis of this film. Like, you know, there's a moment in Barbie where someone has to turn to camera and say, this is what Barbie's about. This moment in Oppenheimer

where someone has to turn to camera and say the bomb, boy, maybe it was worth it, but probably not. I guess we'll be, I guess we'll be haunted by what we did forever. And no matter what awards we get, we'll always remember that what we did maybe wasn't the right thing to do. Isn't that right, Albert Einstein? Boy, isn't it, J. Robin Oppenheimer, you Jewish man, played by a very not Jewish man, the least Jewish mannerisms I've ever seen in the history of film. The dude from Peaky Blinders is very good in that. Well that's the, I mean sure.

That's another thing. I'm a Paul Giamatti man. I'm a Paul Giamatti Oscar man in a Peaky Blinders Oscar world. You know? His father banned Pete Rose. Who's father? Paul Giamatti. Paul Giamatti's father is the guy that banned Pete Rose for gambling? Yeah. And then the idea was he was going to ban Pete Rose in a few years, probably reinstate him, but then he died. And then that was that. And then Paul Giamatti made sideways at some point. Presumably the authority to allow Pete Rose back in would have invested to a new person.

It wasn't like they didn't bury Pete Rose in Giamatti's dad's sarcophagus. No, but after that, nobody wanted to bring him back. They kind of, like, Giamatti had a plan, but the plan was never executed, because he died. Thank you, Hari! Okay. Yeah.

That's good. That's good. That's good. Catch Hari's next few shows on May 23rd at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City and May 25th at Off Cabot in Beverly, Massachusetts. We come back to Good Boys Talk About Bad Boys. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It and there's more on the way.

And we're back! There's one important date on all of our minds in 2024, one pivotal square on the calendar when for better or worse America and her future will be changed forever. That's right, I'm talking about June 7th, the release date of Bad Boys 4 Ride or Die. Here to help us prepare for what is again the single most important thing happening 2024, it's the wonderful James the Third. Hello. Hello. How are you? James, you are the host of the excellent podcast black man can't jump in Hollywood. The excellent podcast. Yes, I am. And at the end of the episode where you review the original 1995 bad boys, you personally gave the movie to

raise black fists. Yes, we did. And that's good. That is good. Well, so it's interesting because it's not so much about good or bad, but I guess positive in that it promotes black actors in Hollywood. So that's what the fist is about. So two, I guess out of three black fists. Oh, unless only two of us reviewed it, which I don't remember Bad boys to is a rating of 23% of rotten tomatoes. Does that feel about right to you? Yes, it does

23% 23% Potentially high here's my item. I have a problem with these kinds of radio systems because they're a little bit like percentage chance of rain Does that mean the percentage of chance it's going to rain everywhere or the percentage of change change, the amount of place, the percentage of the areas it's going to rain at any one time? Like, will it rain 23% of the time or is it going to be raining 23% of the places? Yeah. What is 23% of this movie or like what does 100% of the reviewers think it was

23% good or did 23 reviewers think it was good and and 77% found it was a hundred percent terrible, right? Yeah, I don't know. I do not know. I don't like these rating systems I don't like the algorithm. I don't like this society. We're building no In the 17 years between bad boys to and 2020 bad boys for life The debate on the depiction of copaganda and media has shifted so much that people were using the word copaganda. Has that affected the way you watch these movies? Has it changed how you watch them? I think absolutely. I as a kid, particularly when that first Bad Boyz came out, Martin Lawrence and Will Smith could do no wrong. They were my heroes.

And then between Bad Boys 2 and Bad Boys 3, I was like, oh, are they the villains of the movie? Because in the first and second movie, they have a bunch of informants that they just beat the shit out of. These people that are giving them information about, letting them know the things that are going wrong in society and they go up to them and they pull guns on them and they beat just all kinds of they commit

all kinds of crime I think crimes as cops. So yeah like I don't I don't you know it makes it hard to watch in the film face off starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage Yes Nicolas Cage as John Travolta. Mm-hmm He's the Nicolas Cage Wait, no John Travolta as Nicolas Cage. Sure. Sorry John Travolta wearing Nicolas Cage's face has to escape from a maximum security prison That's right, and he shoots his way out of that prison He's a he's a law enforcement he shoots his way out of that prison. He's a law enforcement official shooting his way out of a prison.

But all those prison guards are just at work. Just people going to do their job. They don't know they've got the face-off technology. They're just like, hey, one of the worst terrorists in the country is trying to escape. Let's stop him. And then this federal law enforcement figure, dressed up as a bad guy, just kills everyone he can to escape.

It is so infuriating in these movies when story is supposed to matter more than like real people's lives. Like well but he has to get out of that prison doesn't he? It's like well sure but but that every single person we saw needs to go home to their families or just or just their lot or just their empty apartments like they need to go home after this. Yeah and a lot of them didn't know because they got killed like in one of the Mission Impossible movies uh Tom Cruise's plan is to basically like his involvement in the plan means a nuclear weapon basically almost destroys, I think, Moscow? Yeah. The Kremlin, and it's like,

phew, we did it again. Okay, cool, it worked out, but a little close for comfort. If you hadn't been involved at all, this risk probably would have been lessened. I think it's actually within seconds. It was in seconds, right? Literal seconds.

That's the one where he goes, mission accomplished, you know, when he like hits the thing. It's a good movie, I like that movie. Did you know that the producers of Bad Boys 2 had to go to then Florida Governor Jeb Bush to get an emergency stay of Florida's manatee protection law so that they could film high speed boat chases

in the Miami River? I did not know that. I think that's cool. Do you know that over 375 manatees were killed during the making of Bad Boys boys? You cannot tell me this You can't you can't tell me any number of manatee any number of manatee was killed. Let alone. What was the number 375? No way. I can't accept I won't accept it. Well, you shouldn't I made it up. Okay, just this moment Are the bad boys still bad boys if they both start taking therapy seriously?

So I would say yes. I would say they're maybe even the baddest boys. Also considering how the movies are sort of rendered, it's like therapy is bad. Like to do therapy is bad and we don't do that because we're bad boys. So then in turn, it's like, as bad boys to do therapy, they're perhaps the baddest of boys, you know? Right, right, right. Like, ooh, I'm going to my hour.

Bad enough work therapy. Exactly. And I'm perhaps listening to the things that I'm being told and I'm perhaps exercising some of the things that have come up in that. Like,'m, I'm more bad than anyone. Right. Sometimes, right. It takes the, it takes a lot of badness to realize you need help. I think the most, yeah, exactly. The down, the more down you are, you have to hit rock bottom before you know anything is wrong. all. Now it's time for a classic Levator Levy game called, Okay, stop.

Here's how it works. We're going to get ourselves back in the bad boys state of mind by watching a few choice clips from Bad Boys 2 directed by America's sweetheart, Michael Bay. When either of us want to pause and comment on it, we'll say, okay, stop. I want to point out that one of the reasons we're doing this is we were talking about this and Kendra asked me like have you seen bad boys 2 and I said of course I have when did you see it the last time I saw it was when it came out okay I have not seen a frame of this since it was in the theaters very interested in your reaction so I don't

I and and there we are in in the. We look great. We look great. Look at us. Look at us. All right. Let's see the clip. Hey, why don't you tell me there's a rally tonight? Who's looking? That shit. I'm out of here. Okay. Stop. Okay, stop. Can we stop? Okay, stop. Okay, this is, this is... This only has a 23%? This movie is awesome. That's so cool.

What are you talking about? I have to say, no look, I I have to say the first Bad Boys, at least my understanding of it, I don't know what happened to the script once these men were cast, but my understanding of the first Bad Boys movie is that it was like written and they were like, you know what, Dana Carvey is going to be great in this and another, and John Lovitz is going to be great in this. These white actors are going to be great in this. And then they were, and then somehow it got to Martin Lawrence and Will Smith and the movie is fantastic. Not about the fact that they are black. Bad Boys 2 essentially opens with, you know what, a Ku Klux Klan. Black Cops, well we got to show them that Ku Klux Klan. That is an infuriating reality. It is fun to see.

Look at this shot. Look at what we've caught. It's classic. That is fun as hell, but I don't need to ever see that, I think. But it's like, I think what I appreciated about this is that like Michael Bay brings the same nuance and understanding to race in America as he does to like Michael, Michael Bay brings the same nuance

and understanding to race in America as he does to there's an asteroid headed towards the earth. And he's like, oh, they're black cops. They're gonna be in a clan suit and they're gonna reveal themselves. And that's the, they're the ultimate undercover cops because they're black. They're not, yeah, exactly. They shouldn't be there.

There's nothing about them that should be there. Right. Like it wouldn't it wouldn't be interesting if they were white cops. Yeah, it's like I don't even know if police would actually be on there written on their vest. They put it there just to make sure, you know, not only are they black, they are cops. Blue power, motherfuckers, Miami PD. Oh, damn.

It's the niggas. Casper, drop the bag. Alpharita, bring them in. Bad boys, bad boys. What you gonna do? What you gonna do when we come for you? And that's the best. And that's the next misnows.

Hey, dude, you got to learn the words. We usually only do the chorus. I love this. I have to say. I mean, the thing is, it's like they're so charming. They're they're they're holding this whole thing up on their shoulders. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, and also like, you know, I I can imagine that this sort of also comes from a situation of like,

if we're going to do it again, if we're gonna do it again, if we're gonna come back, if we're gonna suit up, we gotta go as hard as possible. Right? And so that's why we're here. I also just like, this is a moment where Martin Lawrence was one of the biggest stars in the country. Absolutely. He was fucking huge.

Absolutely. Next clip, should we do the next clip? You trying to get my daughter high? You smoking shit? Nigga, who the hell is this, y'all? Reggie! Who the fuck is Reggie? Can't have taken Megan out.

What you want, nigga? I'm here to take your... You throw that out. What's your name? Reggie. Well, I heard the motherfucker say your name, Reggie. You want me to take Megan out? How old is you?

I just like this scene. Shit, nigga, you're at least 30. This is me. Can you fight? You can fight? Oh, yeah. I'm a big fan of Reggie. I'm a big fan of Reggie. I'm a big fan of Reggie. I'm say your name, Reggie. You want me to take a Megan out? How old is you? I just like this scene. Shit, nigga, you're at least 30. This is me.

Can you fight? You can fight? Oh, you motherfucking, you can't even fight. Look at you. No, I wanna know if the nigga, I wanna know. Somebody gonna take my niggas out. Okay, so I just, is Will Smith playing this drunk? Okay, yes, so he's...

So yes, if I remember correctly, because I have seen this since it came out, is that they knew that Reggie was coming over and he has now become a character. This is not how he was acting moments ago. He's now become a character in order to scare the bullies. Oh, and this is to me, okay, so I feel like this is Michael Bay. So we did, Michael Bay was like, wow, two black cops infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan, that's the coolest idea I've ever heard.

Absolutely, sure. Now we're in a different kind of Michael Bay thing, which is imagine if your dad was a cop. I bet he would use all of his cool cop skills to scare boys in a gendered way around what women Need to be protected from absolutely absolutely and and I think if I remember correctly speaking of in a gendered way if I remember correctly they

Play with that even it Where the yeah They play with that in a way that yeah, the guy can fight. Somebody might come say something. Nigga can't fight. She can go make his godfather. OK, he just got off the joint. Why are you putting on my business industry?

Why are you calling him? OK, wait a minute. Actually, OK, OK. Pause here. First of all, why is the gun out? Why is the gun out? Move is awesome. You don't need to pull your gun on just a kid. This is a kid. This is a, what is he? He's 15. He's 15 years old. Just tall. Pull out the gun. The reason I didn't even realize the gun was coming out. The reason I pause here is actually a thing that has bothered me about this movie. This is just my time to say this. None of you care. But the thing that bothers me about this part of this movie

is they are clearly improvising. Martin is saying, this man, they got him from out the pen. They call him, they call him, we never hear what they call him. We never hear the joke that Martin had. It never comes. We never hear that he goes, they call him. They call him.

And it never is revealed what the nickname was that was on the tip of Martin's tongue. And it has this has infuriated me since, since 2002, 2002. So, so they're, so they're loosely following something, some kind of, something like a script. Yeah. And he's doing a bit about Will Smith's nickname and Will Smith interrupts with his own bit

and they never went back and got anything usable. We never hear who he is. We never hear his prison nickname. And it's, and that's it. And never hear who he is. We never hear his prison nickname. And that's it. And that's not even the part that I was talking about before, but I've just never been able to scream about how much this has bothered me for decades. No, really, I'm glad you told us.

It's because it opens a loop that it glad you, I'm glad you told us it, it's because it like, it opens a loop that it never closes. And like that happens in real life. Like somebody will like, like that's why it's sad. That's why when there's always somebody that's very good at this in a dinner, that's like, well, they'll be up, they'll be back and forth, back and forth. And someone be like, Jennifer, you were, you were in the middle of something and it feels so good for Jennifer.

Jennifer fucking like, I was. Thank you. My mother is a bitch. And like, whatever. But whatever it is. God bless whoever it was that remembered that Jennifer was talking. And then everybody gets the relief of that closed loop. Absolutely. But this is just an open loop.

Nope, we never know. And Bad Boys 3, I'll tell you, they don't talk about it. We don't know what it is. They don't talk about it. Just gonna set this up. They're at Guantanamo, man. We don't talk about it. They don't talk about it Okay, just setting this up they're at Guantanamo fucking bay because that's where they had to go I'm gonna toss it right at your feet next to the mine Right next to the mine to mine there in a mine field. in a minefield, but... Oh, a mine!

Jesus! I'm just gonna shine the the head. Why is this midriff exposed? You must be because of what happens next. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! From now on, that's how you shoot, okay? And this is a callback to two things, the end of the first movie. That's how you're supposed to drive from now on, that's how you drive for those of you that don't remember. And how dare you? It's how you, honestly. But it is also a callback to earlier in the movie,

another frustrating thing about these, that sort of underlines how these guys are villain cops, which is earlier in the movie, Martin Lawrence is in the passenger seat of like a car chase and Will is driving. And Martin is, instead of shooting, he's like, is pulling out his badge on people, trying to get them to stop.

And he's like, that guy has a gun, you're supposed to shoot him. And then later Will shoots a guy and says, now show him your badge. Like shoot, kill, kill, then show your badge, okay? These guys were my heroes. They were my heroes. And now it's like, oh my God, have you been,

are you Lex Luthor? Like, what have you? It's something, you now it's like, oh my God, have you been, are you Lex Luthor? Like what have you? It's, I, I sometimes, you know, when people, you know, the long arc of history is been sort of justice. It's like, okay, sometimes, but the, the, I always think that like, oh, things get better. Could you make Serpico now? I don't think so.

I don't think you make Serpico now. Why is Serpico better about like, you know, like the, the dangers of, of unaccountable police. And then we just never, you can't, you can't make a Serpico again. No, I mean, it is boring Serpico. This is way more fun. Nobody blows up by landing on a landmine at Quantana Mobe and Serpico. They just have a hearing at the end.

Sorry. Spoiler alert for Serpico. The end of the movie is a hearing. What in it? But fucking Serpico. I hope they never make Serpico again. Serpico sucks, what a downer, all the cops are corrupt. I don't need to see that, I need to see them dirty,

but in a positive way for their daughters. But I would even say if it was, I would even say if the movie was more the positive for their daughter's dirty way for two hours, I would appreciate that more than like, than like them having carte blanche to do whatever they want, you know. Bad boys for life. I'm excited about that.

I'm excited to see them back. I'm in, I'm in. I'm gonna see it. I'm a thousand percent gonna see it. I'm nervous about it. I'm nervous to see them back. I'm in, I'm in. I'm gonna see it. I'm 1000% gonna see it. I'm nervous about it. I'm nervous about the new Bad Boys for two reasons. One is they announced that they were gonna do

three and four back to back, but then when three came out, they called that one Bad Boys for life, and I was like, ooh, this, I'm already, they are not excited about whatever the fourth one could be if you're gonna name your third one Bad Boys for life. You know what I'm saying? Right, because that sounds like fourth one could be. If you're going to name your third one, bad boys for life. That sounds like the end. That's the one you could, you could, you could also, but you could also do the thing for life. Like two bad boys, two bad boys for life. Exactly. Right. Two bad, two bad, two lives,

two lives equals four, fourth movie title. And this is what you get on James' podcast? This is, yes. Exactly this kind of deep dive on films is what you get on our podcast. James, thank you so much for being here. We come back, we're gonna end on a high note. And now because we all need it, here it is, the high note.

And now because we all need it, here it is the high note. Hi, John. I am a teacher in Phoenix, Arizona, and I attended your live show. And my high note this week is that I am working with my advanced ESL students on writing an argument essay on a topic of their choice. And they had some different choices to pick from. And about 12 of my, let's say 60 students decided to research, write, and argue on the topic of abortion access in Arizona. And I had conferences this week with them on like where they ended up with their perspectives. I tried to stay really neutral. I presented lots of information for them in their research.

And I'm happy to say that all of my students that selected abortion as their topic are staunchly arguing the importance of remaining on the side of access for abortion in the state of Arizona. So shout out to you, shout out to teachers, shout out to Gen Z. They give me hope. I love it. My sister Leland and I love listening to your show and sending cryptic texts to the other, referencing lines from the show before the other has had a chance to listen.

She and I were both born with the BRCA2 gene, giving us a very high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer like our mom did at age 40. As of a week ago, my sister completed her fourth and hopefully final surgery to eliminate her risk of breast cancer. This is on top of the eight surgeries I've had through which my sister has been my primary caretaker.

So hooray for sisters, hooray for preventative care and genetic testing, and hooray for comedic relief which we so dearly needed during that process. Get your mammograms, know your risk. Thanks so much. Thanks to everybody who sent in a high note tonight. If you want to send us a message about something that gave you hope, send us a voice memo to

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