Red Scare - Summer Dress Sadness

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

The ladies discuss likes going private, the EU elections, the Hunter Biden verdict, the sundress discourse, and the latest age gap memoir....

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 We're back. Hello, we're back. Hello, we're back. Hannah. How's the ambient noise? It's pretty loud in here. It's fine. We're doing a new thing called podcasting during the day in the living room versus at night in the office.
Starting point is 00:00:41 Well, it's an old thing that we used to do before the baby came. When I was the only baby on this podcast. Yeah, it's interesting. It's nice to see you in the daytime. In a different light, yeah. It'll be nice not to have to take a shower from all the cigs we blast. Happy Flag Day.
Starting point is 00:01:10 Happy Trump's birthday. Happy birthday, Donald. Happy birthday, our Fuhrer. Mr. President. What is Flag Day? Good question. We were kind of talking about this last night. Yeah, neither. We didn't get a satisfactory answer.
Starting point is 00:01:25 No one really knew. Yeah. And we all just kind of saying fag day and laughing like Beavis and butthead. It's obviously not like a bank holiday. I think it's just some kind of, you know, Betsy Ross. To design the flag today. Oh, oh yeah. She was quilting that flag. Or good, I mean, interesting question. No one knows.
Starting point is 00:01:54 Well, you know, by the time this episode comes out, it won't matter anyway. Exactly. It'll be Juneteenth. That's a great attitude to have. Oh yeah, Juneteenth's coming up. It's coming up, yeah. Is that a federal holiday?
Starting point is 00:02:06 It is because the baby's school is closed. Oh, interesting. It's nice for the Chinese to recognize it considering they love slavery so much. Well, you know, people love taking the day off and will take any opportunity they get. Yeah. I don't blame them.
Starting point is 00:02:31 Let's see what the deal with Flag Day is. I've been kind of, I've had a radical, I don't know, I'm entering kind of a new phase. Of what? Of my life. Okay. It commemorates the adoption of the flag by the resolution of the Second Continental Congress. The flag resolution stated that the flag
Starting point is 00:02:56 of the 13 United States be 13 stripes, alternate red and white, that the union be 13 stars. Yeah, it's just, you know, we love the flag. It's a good flag. One of the better ones I'd say. It's dynamic as fuck. I definitely feel roused when I see it due to nationalistic attachments I have for it as well.
Starting point is 00:03:22 I like when you're like driving through a quaint little small town and all the houses have the flag in the front yard. I like when the cranes like put up the flags, there's no pole and then it's just like billowing, you know, like when there's like crane operators when you're driving. Also love like a gigantic flag. I love to fantasize about what would happen if the flag fell on you. Could be pleasant.
Starting point is 00:03:52 Kind of fun, yeah, like a big autism blanket. Yeah, remember that thing they did in elementary school where they would have that like parachute quilt thing that you went under? Oh my God, that was so fun. Yeah. So clearly it's some kind of like repressed fantasy about going back to childhood and being in gym class and doing that activity.
Starting point is 00:04:11 That is kind of what I associated too. Yeah. Yeah, being like enveloped by a big piece of fabric. Oh, but yeah, my new thing is, yeah, instead of lying in bed all day and feeling guilty, I lie in bed all day and don't feel guilty. I'm moving past it. I've decided it's valid to lie down all day long.
Starting point is 00:04:38 It's Proustian. It's aristocratic. It's like, I don't see why I should feel shame for rotting in my bed. When, as we all know, I spent a lot of money on it. And frankly, I feel like it would be bizarre for me to enjoy your time. Well, for me to go sit or stand in another part of my apartment like a weird sim like Like has to go like be in another part of I have a bed right and I have a computer and I have a cell phone and I can what percentage of you of your day would you say you spend in
Starting point is 00:05:19 And around your bed well depends on the day But on average, I'd say, if you average it out. I mean, not counting, obviously, the night when you're asleep. Right, the day, like the waking day. Yeah. Like most of it. Yeah, same.
Starting point is 00:05:41 I mean, okay, here's, we were just talking about low self-esteem. In the summer, I feel more more well, summer and winter. I guess that, yeah, every season is good for life. Yeah, there's and there's different reasons, like in the winter, it's it's cold and your bones ache and you just want to. And in the summer, it's the days too long and it's hot outside. And you want to cool off in your dark room. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:06:04 You're really picking up what I'm putting down. I took a power nap moments before you got here. Oh wow. Which is always risky because I feel like I'm gonna like sleep past the alarm, whatever, but yes. In life, when you don't like something about yourself such as a trait or a behavior, you have two options.
Starting point is 00:06:24 One, you can either change that thing, which is quite difficult and involves some level of compromise or sacrifice, or you can just accept that facet of your character instead of trying to master it and not beat yourself up about it. Well, yeah, like why do people associate productivity with getting out of bed?
Starting point is 00:06:48 Like who? I don't see why, you know, like I get everything, you know, I did all my pod research today. Yeah, you answer your emails, you do your online shopping. And I was like, actually, like, I love this. I'm not depressed. And I was like, actually, I love this. I'm not depressed. And I'm enjoying my symptom. And I'm- You go girl.
Starting point is 00:07:10 You reframed that narrative. And this is like, fine. What am I gonna do? Lie on my couch? Sit at a table? Like, at a desk? Yeah. I can't think like at a desk. I can't think like this.
Starting point is 00:07:26 No, I can't live like this. I just wanna get, yeah, like if I'm out of bed, I basically wanna lie back down. So I'm not gonna fight it anymore. So yeah, that's what's been happening. But someday, yeah, and like there are, you know, I would say at least on average 3.5 days of the week, I do get out of bed and have like things to do.
Starting point is 00:07:54 I mean, I had to go to the real world yesterday that clock was ticking, that return window. I had to return a dress. If I didn't make it in time, just the L I would have taken psychologically. Because it was expensive? It was expensive. Or fugly. It sucked so bad.
Starting point is 00:08:12 It was just such a bad purchase. And I was like, you have to return this. Absolutely do not reconcine this. Sometimes it's really hard to drum up the enthusiasm to make those returns. But you really can't live with yourself. That's when I really hit rock bottom, when I have some like, a fugly and expensive garment in my closet that's like, weighs down my soul.
Starting point is 00:08:33 Yeah, I was feeling the psychological pressure of that yesterday. So today I was just decompressing. And also, well, you have a kid. You don't want your kid to really see you like, being bedridden. Mommy's depressed again. So, mommy has suicidal ideation.
Starting point is 00:08:59 A new book for children by the Red Scare girls. But yeah, assuming, you know, knocking on wood, I will have a family at some point, you know. You have to get your energy stores up by spending most of your adult life in bed. Exactly, I'm saving it up like a battery. And yeah, and I'm like, you know, really have to kind of go have a family pretty soon-ish, you know?
Starting point is 00:09:27 So like, I really wanna take advantage of like, you know, my single life by like lying in bed as much as possible. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.
Starting point is 00:09:41 Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Do you hear the Charlie Xsacks song inspired by me? I propose that we review the album back to back with that new Hulu documentary about the Brat Pack called Bratz. There's a lot of Bratz-centric content.
Starting point is 00:10:03 I'm excited to listen to the Charlie album, but I don't think we're gonna have anything bad to say. Yeah, or meaningfully critical. And it's not gonna be particularly riveting. Yeah. I know a lot of girls and gays are dying to hear the review. Well, here it is. I'm too depressed to listen to it.
Starting point is 00:10:26 I'm gonna. I'm gonna get around to it. It's just, yeah, I'm not really like, I'm not, brat summer hasn't hit for me yet. More of a bed summer for me. It's gonna be bad for me. I go to the gym twice a week. A lesbian bed death summer. You know, that's pretty good.
Starting point is 00:10:55 What do I need to get out of bed for? No, take advantage, yeah. But yeah, the Charlie song is kind of like a party girl anthem that, you know, actually it's a, it's a great song. She sent it to me a couple months ago and told me about it. So I was like, you know, but I'm, you know, it's not really, it doesn't totally, it speaks to like an idea people maybe have about me.
Starting point is 00:11:26 It's like a naughty downtown and noisy party girl. Yeah. But actually. When you're actually a bedridden recluse. Yeah, more of a kind of like a squirrely loser. With very low energy reserves for some reason, some kind of hormonal imbalance or we're not sure what the issue is, but happy to be a muse.
Starting point is 00:11:58 Yeah. Whenevs, you know, and if she did want to write a song about lying in bed, I'd probably listen to that one too. Well, I loved her COVID album because that one was a little, it was still kind of like pop music, but with like the, you know. I just love her voice. Depressive edge. Yeah. I mean, she's a knockout. Yeah. Charlie, can you write a song about me next? About how I'm not actually a single mom y'all. I think nobody wants to listen to me. A song about being a parent. Well, yeah, technically out of wedlock. That's what the song could be called. Could be called out of wedlock.
Starting point is 00:12:50 Girls. Old girls. Yeah, I hear she got the guy, gay guy, or actually, sorry, I don't know if he's gay. She got the Fontana 10. What's that? He's like a music reviewer. I also was like, what? He was like, John Fontana.
Starting point is 00:13:18 He's a famous music critic. He never gives 10s and Brad is, you know, got a 10, I guess. I'm into, so I'm into the cover art of the album that's become a meme. Yeah. And I love the memes that are like, Brat font, is anyone hiring? Yeah, I like the one that said Lori Lightfoot. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:13:43 Yeah, there's, it got tired quick, the meme I'd say, but a fun, always good to have a fun variation on a theme. Elon Musk took the Twitter likes away. Oh yeah, which created an avalanche of takes and outrage. Yeah, I've kind of been in my luteal phase, so you know, being a bitch, and yeah, have been publicly declaring my like how I don't care. But clearly I really- You're all of my Charlie XCX luteal phase. I have been being kind of a contrarian bitch and broadcasting how much I don't care.
Starting point is 00:14:33 But obviously I do kind of care and am sort of interested to see like I don't actually care that you can't see the likes anymore that that much really, though it did cause me to notice the people whose likes I was lurking. What do you mean it caused you to notice them? Well, because I do it almost reflexively. The thing, part of the, this is a creepy part of looking at people's likes that I personally partook in was like to see if they're like awake or online or like when's the last time they had online activity.
Starting point is 00:15:12 It's like I use it as a way of like keeping track of people. Yeah, it's like sharing your location. Yeah, no, I actually have never thought about that. That's not a healthy impulse. Yeah, it's weird and bad and maladjusted. And should tripwire your normal and healthy shame instinct totally, and we're all guilty of it.
Starting point is 00:15:33 I've never even thought about likes because this made me think about how I use the likes. Exactly. And it's literally like, I look at your likes sometimes, I look at Leia's likes sometimes, I look at your likes sometimes, I look at Leia's likes sometimes, I look at some of my other girlfriends' likes sometimes
Starting point is 00:15:49 because when I wanna have a chuckle, I can pretty much count on the fact that you hoes are liking something funny. But there's never been a time where I've looked at a politically or ideologically motivated tweet to see who was liking it to like make my mind up about some hot button issue because I'm a normal healthy, maybe not so healthy, but mature adult
Starting point is 00:16:14 who can do their own research. That's crazy, yeah, I have a free, my mind is free. And yeah, when people are kind of invoking this argument about like corporate fraud and like how this will cause likes to be inflated to like over represent whatever. Like bots and democratic operatives, which are one in the same already. I'm like, why would you believe any number you saw on the internet anyway? That's already, it's all gobbledygook to me. It's already super weird.
Starting point is 00:16:44 Like I remember when Elon first acquired Twitter, there would be weird moments where on your own or somebody else's tweets, the like or retweet count would be higher than the view count, which is impossible. Impossible. So it's already, I mean, yeah. Like I just assume everything I see is fake. Yeah, people were saying that it's bad because it removes the transparency from the manufacturing
Starting point is 00:17:12 of consent. Oh, please. It was the other thing. It chips away at consensus reality. Get real. That guy, West Bester, had that tweet that was like, if some toady journalist posts viral regime propaganda, you now have no way of knowing whether the likes come from people or bots. And it's like, well, people who like viral regime propaganda
Starting point is 00:17:31 are effectively bots anyway. So, and then I think Amy Therese was like, oh, it seems like ripe for manipulation, especially during an election year, which like, I'll grant, I believe that, but also who cares. I think it's over determining how politically instrumental Twitter is now that it has become basically like a hotbed for like fringe online activity post deal on most.
Starting point is 00:17:53 Like it's not like whatever back in like the censorious age of like at Jack's Twitter rain or whatever, it had the app had issues, but the fact that there were a blue check cast of establishment made Twitter a more discursively legitimate place. And now I think no one holds it in any esteem at all, what even people are saying on there. I don't know if that's true because I think people like us don't hold it in esteem any longer but there are a lot of like blue check and NPC types who do take it very seriously. I guess that was the thesis of the whole Will Stancil profile was like that Twitter
Starting point is 00:18:38 does matter. Yeah I mean it I think it does more meaningfully than we would like to admit even though we know it's gay and retarded. The other take I saw a lot was that it's going to become a porn site. Well, I mean, it already is a porn site. I think and that's I think the main reason why Elon did it was because it's going to help him to like monetize pornography on it, which is like clearly his biggest his best bet in terms of making money. Yeah, which is, I guess also as somebody pointed out, this move is good for big accounts
Starting point is 00:19:11 and bad for small accounts. But also the basic gist as I understand it is that the more data they can get off of users, the better it is for their business model, like whether in terms of like optimizing the algorithm. Retaining you as a user or converting you to a paid subscriber or serving you ads.
Starting point is 00:19:33 Have you been more liberal with your likes? I will get to that because I was thinking about that, but also public likes are an impediment to that because people like obviously self monitor. Exactly. Due to social and political pressures. And I guess this opens the floodgates for more liberal liking.
Starting point is 00:19:55 Yeah. I get all that. And I think also, as I understand it, Elon's main goal is to eventually turn Twitter into an AI product that's competitive with OpenAI and Gemini, and which is partly why he bought it in the first place because it is like this vast growing captive trove
Starting point is 00:20:17 of user data. Exactly. So in that sense, it seems like a perfectly reasonable business decision on his end that probably does have a lot of political implications, especially during an election year. But I think it will there will be unforeseen consequences. Yeah, that will be intriguing. I definitely, not that I self-censor probably to the degree that I even should, but post the privatizing of likes, I have definitely smashed the like on just,
Starting point is 00:21:01 just like someone's, literally people tweeting the word Hitler, I've been like, hee hee hee. I can like secretly like, thrilled and naughty. But that's like the body holders for yeah, but I just never that never I could I didn't want to kind of compromise my you know, like that's like, I understand.
Starting point is 00:21:22 I just want to smash things that you know, are like, like, I just want to smash things that, you know, are like, basically, like you asked, like a monkey and liking stuff more liberally. And I think the answer is no, like I'm going to I'm going to quote something Steve Saylor said way back when on X when he was like, well, a lot of people assume that because I get into like IQ differentials and FBI and CDC crime stats in public that I must be saying much more vitriolic and beyond the pale stuff in private,
Starting point is 00:21:54 like lunches and dinners. And with me, the fact is what you see is what you get. And I don't really go deeper than that surface stuff that I'm talking about and that I make totally public. So my likes were heretofore totally public. I mean, I tweeted about this, but like after six years of being called an ugly and disgusting person on the internet,
Starting point is 00:22:19 I'm pretty a nerd to it. But one thing that I can never get over is like that practice that people do with me, especially where they comb through my likes to post on the subreddit about how racist and sexist I am, because realistically my likes are pretty mild and anodyne. I like some racist memes more because they're funny than they're racist.
Starting point is 00:22:38 And I like some misogynistic content or whatever, but also for the lulz. And I like some misogynistic content or whatever, but also for the lulz. But I would never like a tweet that was like black people are inferior and women should be stripped of the vote because it's just not funny or cool and not a thing. It's more like, well, like grimes got in trouble even for liking tweets from some like, you
Starting point is 00:23:08 know, I think it was like Spangler, whatever, on autism account or something. Oh my God. Yeah. And there was like another one of these. So yeah, I have mindfulness of that for sure is like, how will this look, blah, blah, people see it, you know, I do think about that more because I've seen it happen to you it's crazy like my philosophy is like you should give people the benefit of the doubt people like stuff for all sorts of different reasons sometimes I
Starting point is 00:23:37 like tweets because they're informative and I don't know what I think about them and I want to go back to them later. Yeah, exactly. I like it. It's not an endorsement. Yeah. Yeah. It'll, I think it's, it'll change things actually in an interesting way when people don't. Um, and in that way I'm pro private likes because I think it's more conducive to like free thought. Because when people can see who's something, they can do this social policing thing of generating-
Starting point is 00:24:17 Yeah, but the other thing to keep in mind about that is that, yes, you will be at least temporarily freed from social policing and like pure censorship. But not just that even in like on God's still watching God sees all your likes. Amen, sis. For that's for sure. And probably like whatever the NSA and the FBI and whoever else has you on those watch lists. I mean, I'm also such a, I'm never, I'm, you know, I, why wouldn't Elon just like, it's still data, right? Like you're saying exactly. There's receipts for everything you do. All of your activity on the internet is essentially recorded.
Starting point is 00:24:58 And let's say- And if they really wanna pull it up because- Of course. You get nabbed as like a wrong thing criminal, you're fucked anyway. Exactly. But no, I don't see myself getting into liking even more bigoted content. I'll probably like some more. I'll probably definitely engage with, I don't know, it just kind of, it's more mindless. It feels more like. Yeah, it's more low stakes, less high pressure.
Starting point is 00:25:33 Yeah. And since like the person who made the post can see that I liked it and not anyone else, it feels like a private way of like signaling, like communication, which was also, I don't know. I'm like, yeah, I just don't care. I'm like along for the... Yeah, I like, well, I saw that exchange that you had
Starting point is 00:25:56 with ex-user and friend of the podcofee, Fianon. I was like in the car coming from home from our queer art house cinema event. Yeah. And like drunk out of my mind. So I was like, what the fuck are these retards on about? I'm not reading this gibberish. But then I went back to it and I was like, oh yeah,
Starting point is 00:26:15 that's actually like so true what you said that like the ship has already sailed on consensus reality. And what we call quote common knowledge is already so deformed by various algorithmic processes, like bot activity and shadow banning and whatever. Yeah, like literally what you think is the consensus. And I was thinking, I would add to that, that it's also like a cumulative process. Because once the algorithm exerts its influence, something that originally had a basis in reality
Starting point is 00:26:51 or had a grain of truth to it becomes warped beyond recognition as it strays further and further from the truth and becomes more of a meme. And eventually like memes come to define the reality versus reality defining the memes. The funniest memes have some semblance of like a truth claim to them. Sure.
Starting point is 00:27:16 Like they're instantly recognizable as being observably true. Like the Charlie XCX album cover. Yeah. But with a different word or phrase. Yes Now that's that's a meme but when you look at like race discourse or dating discourse on my god Twitter You see how like truly far it has Strayed from the reality on the ground. I've made this point before That like my feed literally is so much because I engage with so much obnoxious autistic religious squabble content that luckily I have the presence
Starting point is 00:27:57 of mind and understand this about my experience of using the internet. Yeah. But if I thought that my feed was a reflection of reality, This is about my experience of using the internet. Yeah. But if I thought that my feed was a reflection of reality, I literally would be like, wow. Even more bedridden. Even more. But yeah, that these, the filioque and the East West schism
Starting point is 00:28:21 and these papal documents are some of the most important things that people are like, I'm like, everyone's talking about Vatican II. I mean, but the reality is like no one is, and I just like happened to engage with a certain, you know, kind of content that then is like reaffirmed and fed to me. But literally people in the street would look at me
Starting point is 00:28:44 like I was crazy if I started talking about like the new people encyclical and how that's why they're trying to change Vatican one. These dissident right people who are oftentimes very very intelligent. Let's face it. And more or less correct in their assessment of the world, they start to get a very perverted and deformed vision of reality that coincides with like,
Starting point is 00:29:19 it's like a confirmation bias, the worst aspects of reality. And I think that that's a fundamentally like really bad and corrupting process. You wanna stay like 20% libtarded. And the streets are tough out there on x.com. Yeah, it's hard to stay grounded when you're on the worldwide web. Having a ball posting and then... But then you get like a Dunning-Kruger effect type thing or whatever it's called where like
Starting point is 00:30:00 people I guess like overestimate their level of expertise. I'll say. As they become... That's for fucking sure. people I guess like overestimate their level of expertise. I'll say. As they become. That's for fucking sure. Less and less tethered to like what Sailor calls anekdata. Right, right.
Starting point is 00:30:18 So yeah, I don't know. I mean, yeah, we're not. I mean just like information that's self-selected to already confirm biases that you have about. I mean, people like information that's self-selected to already confirm biases that you have about. I mean, people were talking about echo chambers in like 2016 and I feel like that process has just like been amplified and like now people are so locked in that they can't even really just talk about
Starting point is 00:30:41 how fragmented reality is. Oh my God. You gotta take that red pill, y'all. And see that these twisted, Elon Musk, he's just playing games with you, man. He's honeypotting you until liking more liberally so then he can throw you in a fucking gulag. So don't fall for it.
Starting point is 00:31:04 Stay vigilant, okay? But in a way, I think this could be good. Yeah, I think it might have good unforeseen consequences. It'll help people understand that they can and should distance themselves from online echo chambers. You think? You think it'll help? I hope so.
Starting point is 00:31:30 Because they won't have the social satisfaction of the liking mechanism? Yeah, of coming through people's likes. Remember when you could see what people were liking on Instagram? It must've been years and years ago. Yeah, I remember that, yeah, there was some feature there. And there was also a feature that with the green light
Starting point is 00:31:48 that told you when someone was online. They still have that, cause they have like a chat function now, but you can turn it off. But some people don't have the wherewithal too. Yeah. Like my boyfriend. I can see that you've been online.
Starting point is 00:32:04 I just like personally don't. Why don't you respond to my text? He's a saint. Oh my God. I'm like a spur you talking to. Why were you liking Hitler Greiper for 20 sweet? And not text. Why were you liking Hitler Griper for 20 sweets? And not texting me back. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:32:31 I've quoted this many times on the pod, but Felix Biederman had the best take on this. He was like, yeah, tweeting and texting are different energies. Yeah. I mean, it's so true, Yeah. Look at me sounding like a good little left to live. It's true. No one seriously texts me back. I'm gonna do something really bad. Oh man.
Starting point is 00:33:08 Crazy situation in France, huh? You hear about this? Great segue. I didn't. I didn't either. Well, you mentioned it yesterday and so I looked it up. Pretty interesting. Maybe we could have a few takes. It is interesting because I was reading up on how so okay so my
Starting point is 00:33:26 crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my crown my about this before, beating off a dead horse, whatever. Yeah, I do. My wires get so crossed because I always think that Le Pen is Macron's wife. Yeah, because they look, I literally have to write down Le Pen is not Macron's wife. She's a different political candidate. Racist mommy milky fantasy. She looked like they're the same type of weird old bitch. Old French crone. Yeah. I think he should get married to Marie Le Pen.
Starting point is 00:34:17 Yeah. And heal the schism in French politics. Yeah. So what happened was he called for a snap. It's called a snap election. Another term I just learned yesterday. Snap election. Oh snap. Snap. But it doesn't mean that he won't be the prize anymore if he loses. No because he's on track to be president until 2017.
Starting point is 00:34:44 Exactly. But it's like because there was this like EU vote. This is not a supranational vote. This would be a domestic vote. Right, but there was a supranational vote where Le Pen crushed, apparently, or whatever party she represents. The national rally, formerly the National Front,
Starting point is 00:35:04 I think that's a bad name. These have such fake Euro, I hate to see all the Euro political parties with their fake, weird, phony, not to be a Holden Caulfield about it, but they're all so phony and fake and weird. The People's Party is the main one. I love how all the right wing parties
Starting point is 00:35:21 have to have front in the name. Yeah. Cause it sounds like Hitler stormtroopers. Yeah. Like moving to the national front. Yeah. The war front. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:32 Yeah. So she won blah, blah, blah. I guess I was reading that these elections happen every five years. The last one was in 2019. We know what happened since then. There was a pandemic, there was a war, there was more immigration. There was a pandemic, there was a war, there was more immigration,
Starting point is 00:35:52 there was more economic stagnation, more hits to the cost of living and the quality of life, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, they have like a bunch of parties in the EU system, but the two major ones in most countries are basically like a center right party and a center left party. And so you can make an analogy with US politics and Democrats and Republicans. But a friend of mine was explaining that that's not a really optimal analogy because those parties tend to skew more leftward anyway. In Europe? In Europe, yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:21 Yeah, it's all- Because they're all like democratic socialists or social Democrats. Yeah, it doesn't seem like, yeah. Yeah, it's all- Because they're all like democratic socialists or social democrats. Yeah, it doesn't seem like, yeah, when people just talk about like the quote far right in Europe, I just assume that basically means like center left. Yeah, but then to the right of that,
Starting point is 00:36:37 there are these like nationalists, even secessionists, like Euro skeptic parties, which are basically like, fuck Islam, close the borders. France is for the French. Yeah. Like immigration is their marquee cause. Well, yeah. So I heard, yeah, that this is like the snap election after this like loss in on a European scale,
Starting point is 00:37:09 then having like a national French snap election seems really ill-advised for Macron because he's not as popular as the Le Pen and could lose. But I- The Pope vote? Yeah, but I... Yeah, but he said that he wants to have the vote for clarity and sort of, I guess the word he used was clarity to sort of see where he stands
Starting point is 00:37:37 and he's already pretty unpopular. But the idea that I heard kind of floated that I thought was compelling was that basically by having the snap election now, if Le Pen wins, he'll remain the president, but he'll sort of have to share power with a prime minister that he appoints from Le Pen's party. Yes.
Starting point is 00:38:03 And that that might actually potentially be a politically savvy move for him because when the 2027 election rolls around, he's basically giving Le Pen like three years of rope to hang herself with and like to fumble the back by giving them like a little bit of power. He's basically forcing the issue, forcing them to govern. Yeah, and then like it's won't go well.
Starting point is 00:38:24 Yeah, he's forcing them to like walk the walk because forcing them to govern. Yeah. And then it won't go well. He's forcing them to walk the walk, essentially testing them. Yeah, he's testing them, and Europeans are retarded. And he's trying to see if they'll hit the ground running or collapse upon arrival, whatever. I don't foresee it going well on a legislative level. If the right did see some semblance of power, it seems like
Starting point is 00:38:46 there would be a lot of gridlock that he could that you know it's not like they would be truly empowered to enact meaningful change anyway and then they would just sort of they would fumble the bag essentially and I mean that's the impression I kind of yeah I got I guess you don't know anything about this I watched a YouTube video that explained it like it was like had this really nice Asian Canadian man who was talking as if he was talking to a child and I was like, yes, okay. I was like, I'm understanding geopolitics. I'm doing it. I'm lying down. I'm watching these videos. And I'm lying my white ass down and listening. And I think in Germany a similar thing happened
Starting point is 00:39:26 where actually the Merkel's party did win the majority of seats, but then the second best showing was from alternative for Deutschland, which is like the hard right party. Right, I heard about this from people. I don't know if I, from art people.
Starting point is 00:39:44 Art people. Yeah, cause they all live in Berlin. Because they love to live in Berlin. And the texts, they could say, whatever. And obviously, the Israel-Palestine conflict has been really messy in Berlin because you're not even allowed to talk about Jews stuff there because they're so, there's such a complex. They're being besieged by mozzies.
Starting point is 00:40:08 Yeah, it's really messy, messy, messy. This probably comes as no surprise. Obviously the right-wing parties gaining a foothold looks like a response to unlimited immigration. I don't necessarily know that that's the case. I think it's probably more directly a response to just the economic contraction and stagnation that all of these European countries are experiencing. Germany, for example, is like on track to see a contraction of the economy for the first time ever in years because they can no longer
Starting point is 00:40:48 rely on cheap Russian oil. I mean, Europe's people messed up, dude. And well, the EU, I think that's my take is it's like the European Union. Yeah. That there is just like basic conflict between nationalism, right wing impulse and globalism, kind of left impulse. And so there's just like this like oscillating and like tension between those that like basically is gonna happen. Yeah, and in this way, I hate to disappoint people, but I'm kind of a neolib when it comes to this
Starting point is 00:41:21 because I really, yeah, well, because I really like the idea of independent nations with national sovereignty and veto power who get to preserve their cultures and values and norms. I love that idea. And in that way, I was like, why does that make you a lib?
Starting point is 00:41:42 Well, okay, I'm getting there. Okay, sorry. I'm following. Yeah. Originally when bregs that happened to me, it was like, possibly a welcome development. Like it wasn't necessarily a bad thing because it was like the people revolting against the rootless cosmopolitans or whatever. Um, and then, cool it with the antisemitic or my chuds and racists and whatever. Yeah. That all went a bit over my head.
Starting point is 00:42:06 But I think just the ship has sailed on that era too. You think? The era of like nationalism. Yeah. Why? If anyone can do it, it's the French. It's us. No, I think yeah, I would love for France. I mean, their culture is so valuable.
Starting point is 00:42:24 Yeah, I mean, I'm like spiritually totally on board with it. Fuck Spain, fuck all these other countries. But like functionally, I don't think it'll work. It's just like a rational calculation that I'm making in my bedridden impaired mind. Yeah, I mean, I have no idea. And I think like the real problem is that people can no longer make a living
Starting point is 00:42:43 or support a family in their own city and in their own country and Immigration is a big part of the problem But it becomes like the only talking point and the only focal point because of course when people when people's dollar Doesn't stretch as far as it used to. When they're franc, you mean? When they're franc? Yeah. Or I guess euro, they don't even have francs anymore. When they're euro, it doesn't go as far as like-
Starting point is 00:43:13 I really thought I got you too, and then I said the wrong currency anyway. I was like, they don't have dollars in Europe, Anna. I'm using it as a metaphor. I know, I know. Their shackles. Yeah. But people become obviously resentful and angry.
Starting point is 00:43:33 Yeah, no, of course. And take it out on the Muslims. But then the right wing also bongos things and then people, I don't know how people. I'm actually on board with all these right wing parties, basically anti-immigration closed border stance, but they don't have an alternate model. They can't offer the people anything.
Starting point is 00:43:54 And like the fact that- Well, didn't Maloney really like, people are really bummed about her? Yeah, yeah. Or she's Italian? Yeah, immigration is like the insult to injury, you know? And I forgot who said this, but another friend of mine put it really well
Starting point is 00:44:12 that basically like a protectionist, isolationist economic policy only works in if you're an economic power, if you're like a Switzerland or a Norway, if you impose, implement that kind of policy. Well, that was the idea with the EU, right? But then like they bankrupted Greece and shit. Yeah, but if you implement that sort of policy in an economically like stagnant and struggling country,
Starting point is 00:44:43 you just hobble it more. I mean, it seems to like, that's how it seems to work. That's what happened in Greece was that they joined the EU and then had to pay these like weird debts. This happened, this was like 10 years ago or whatever. I remember being kind of like not really knowing, knowing even less about geopolitics than I know now, if you can believe it and being, but being kind of like not really knowing knowing even less about geopolitics than I know now if you can believe it and being but being kind of like disturbed and like not totally knowing why
Starting point is 00:45:11 I mean I think Greece was just like proffered by the EU overlords in the guise of like resuscitating it But like I really couldn't understand like why yeah like how that all of that came to pass I guess yeah but we're not gonna get to the bottom of it on here on this, on this, not today. Leftist and liberals love to hate parties like the former national front and the ADF and whatever, because they're racist and Islamophobic.
Starting point is 00:45:41 Yeah. But the real reason to hate them is that they're economically reactionary. They don't really offer like a right. I mean, I really don't know what they're all like an economic path forward. I mean, I'm sure they do. If you look at their fine print and their websites and stuff, I'm sure they have something to say but I don't know like I don't know how breaking up the EU is gonna work well yeah I don't it's just seems just practically yeah if there's a compelling case for it I would love to hear it yeah I mean it'd be yeah
Starting point is 00:46:22 I'd like feel compelled by the idea, but for no real reason, like I have no idea. And it's not really that I have a dog in the fight actually. Yeah, just like have this like, basically reactionary hostility towards the EU. So I'd love to see it, you know, just like, yeah. Wait, the other day, let me show you, I saw these guys outside my apartment who are from, I like, me and my, yeah, I saw these guys who are all carrying like weird flags
Starting point is 00:46:56 and had masks on and looked like Nazis. And I was like, what? I was like, huh? Not like, you know, World War II historical Nazis, but like Wignots. And then I kind of approached them and saw that they had, yeah, their shirts had blood and soil. And they were partaking in a political demonstration,
Starting point is 00:47:24 which is common in my neighborhood though not. And they were from an organization called the New Jersey European Heritage Association. And yeah, they all had like ski masks on, on the back of their shirts, it said reclaim your nation, reclaim your heritage was like a Spartan. This guy was really cool.
Starting point is 00:47:41 He was like clearly autistic. He has a big Gatorade in his pocket. And yeah, they were wearing these like you rad scare merch Like reclaim your nation of New Jersey of New Jersey Europeans, we don't call it then Jerusalem for nothing and then they unfurled this banner that said Israel Israeli attack on USA Liberty killed 34 Americans. It wasn't a mistake. Ngeha.com was their website.
Starting point is 00:48:08 And then when you go, I like went on their website right away and yeah, there's like a pregnant blonde woman in a field. There's no blonde people in New Jersey. The descendants of the European founders are in a struggle for survival. Don't sit idly by as we fight for our existence. And then you press this take action button
Starting point is 00:48:24 and it's literally like, give us all your contact information. Like, are you of European non-Semitic descent? How can you help? It's like, ask. I'm sorry, that does not exist in New Jersey. There were probably like polls in Slovak, because their banner said, Dasha Nikrusova, will you marry me?
Starting point is 00:48:39 Well, they just seem, it was so, they so clearly seem like feds because I happen to know because a couple weeks ago, there was a bunch of anti Zionist Hasid's demonstrating on my street in that same zone and I was having a depressive episode that day and was like they were like wailing. They were being so annoying and like wailing and screaming.
Starting point is 00:49:07 And so I like went down there and was trying to ask them when they like were planning to wrap things up with like my tears in my face and like ugly boots, mentally ill woman. And, um, they were all ignoring me cause they're like not allowed to talk to women. And then some cop was like, they got a permit till 6.30 or whatever. And I was like, oh, thank God. So yeah, so it's like on this part of New York, I know that you have to get like a permit
Starting point is 00:49:33 from the government to demonstrate there's no like organic, real like grassroots demonstrating happening. They literally give you like real estate basically. And yeah, to like advertise your weird neo-nazi affiliations that then take you to a website where you put in all of your identifying information and offer them like interesting facts about how you can information about yourself and how you can help them and they're like racist quest i was like these people are fed i've never seen sold i've never seen more like fed-ass people in my life.
Starting point is 00:50:06 This is nuts. They might not even know that they're feds. Some of them might, but some of them definitely know that they are. Some like John Voight, John Walken ass motherfuckers from the Tri-State area. There was not even like a dozen of them. You know, it was like such a small, it seemed so sketchy.
Starting point is 00:50:25 And the shirts just seemed kind of silly, honestly. such a small, it seemed so sketchy. And the shirts just seemed kind of silly, honestly. I mean, yeah, you typically don't see like right-wing white supremacist organizations being allowed to demonstrate unless they are fans. Yeah, so you're on notice, New Jersey European Heritage Association. Michael Tracy should get embedded in the New Jersey European Heritage Association. They have an Instagram and stuff like get real.
Starting point is 00:50:52 That's how we're gonna meet guys. You can buy stickers. You can get isn't it time you took your own side sticker with like a QR code? Oh yeah, look at that. Isn't it time you did that 23 and Mianom? Ha ha ha. Western man.
Starting point is 00:51:15 Which way, Western man. Isn't it time you took your own, these are stickers you can print out. Black crimes matter. Uh oh, uh oh. Look, this is organic grassroots stuff that I saw. Their collateral is baller at bangs. Tired of the anti-white propaganda.
Starting point is 00:51:34 Yeah, it's- We need to get you boys consulting for Supreme. Whoa, cool. These are actually interesting. Nationalism could have prevented this. Migrants accepted. Now we are infected. Open border prevented this. Migrants accepted. Now we are infected. Open border spread disease. Closed borders. The best vaccine. That's so poetic.
Starting point is 00:51:56 Me Chinese. Me play joke. Me ruin Boston because I'm woke. Did you just come up with that? To hell no, please. I'm not that much of a comedic genius. No, it was a really great tweet. I saw that had like eight likes and then I retweeted it and it went viral and had like 8,000 by the end of the day. It was about the Boston mayor, Brianna Wu, who's like...
Starting point is 00:52:18 Trans? No, Brianna. Oh my God. I'm so mentally ill. That no, that is the boop. I actually don't know who. Her name is like Brenda Wu or something. And there's a, I'm so retarded.
Starting point is 00:52:30 That's it, you've just sealed your, yeah. There's a Chinese female Boston mayor who's on the stop Asian hate train. She's full of beans. She's totally privileged. She's a fraud. And has never experienced racism in her life. And of course.
Starting point is 00:52:47 Well, stopping to hate in hindsight was actually so insanely, I mean, we probably said this on the show at the time even, but it was like, I can't believe anyone fell for that crap. I know, I know. But she's a subversive wrecker who's like single-handedly ruining the racist legacy of Boston.
Starting point is 00:53:08 It's a damn shame. I'm sure they have some grassroots, not very federal informant seeming organizations one can join if they're looking to. The Mark Wahlberg Association. Hehehehehehe. For Eurocentrism. They did not look, they were all pretty scrawny.
Starting point is 00:53:28 Like none of them looked so healthy either. Like I wasn't like- That's a thing with the Wignats. I think they should be allowed to protest. Well they are. That's the, that's, it turns out they just are allowed by the city. That's them, gives them a permit to stand on the street.
Starting point is 00:53:47 They tell you everything you need to know about them. So true. Yeah. They're all like 120 pounds. They look like logo. Yeah, and either really tall or really short, but they're all 120 pounds. And either really tall or really short, but they're all 120 pounds. They all look like that white rapper slash DJ who was like a teen star in the early 2000s, DJ Qualls.
Starting point is 00:54:15 Remember that guy? It's before your time. I know Aaron Carter. Yeah. Did he die? Yeah. Fuck. Didn't he? I think he did, yeah. Yeah. I think I remember.
Starting point is 00:54:27 Yeah. Nick Carter is the brother who still lives. Yeah. Yeah. No, Aaron was troubled. Yeah. He was the Hunter Biden of that family. He got emlusted. Um, anyway. Oh, Hunter Biden. HUNTY. Guilty of three counts of. Also, honestly, and this is how you know I'm nonpartisan. Though I am a MAGA Republican. When I say nonpartisan, I mean I'm a MAGA Republican, but I am, you know, nonbiased, I guess.
Starting point is 00:55:02 Non-binary. I mean nonbinary. Also kind of a sham trial, not really something a lot of people get brought to trial for, something that seems really like, he got in trouble for buying a gun legally, but lying about his drug use because he was a crack head at the time.
Starting point is 00:55:22 And a bad ranch hook, yeah. Is that a felony? Can we fact check this? I think so. Because yeah. There's three counts of some shit. First impression, a lot of people are saying that the Biden guilty verdict like gives the lie
Starting point is 00:55:40 to Trump's persecution narrative around his own guilty verdict. Gives the what? Like it calls into question. Oh yeah, felony gun conviction. Yeah. So, okay, what Hunter Biden did off the bat sounds a lot more felonious than what Trump did.
Starting point is 00:55:57 A thousand percent. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is. Yeah. but it is, yeah. But it seems like a flaw sort of in our system where you expect crack heads to self-report. If it's a crime to buy a gun while smoking crack, like we should drug test people who are trying,
Starting point is 00:56:21 and you know I love the Second Amendment, I would never, but we should drug test people who are buying guns because uh why would a crackhead tell you that they're not high on crack they are how was it found out that he falsified his background check uh well no they there was a lot of tests like he was visibly high no there was testimony from people who knew him at the time you know corrobor. And what was he doing buying it? Why does Hunter Biden need a gun?
Starting point is 00:56:47 And why can't he buy a gun? Well, I know why I tweeted this, but you know, he could have bought a gun illegally, probably easily the same way he was buying drugs, but he wants to get in trouble for attention because he's like the troubled bad boy of the Brandon family. You know, he wanted to put the gun in his mouth and look at
Starting point is 00:57:06 himself in the mirror. Yeah, he wanted to take some dick pics. In his box. Well, there was a photo of him. I subscribed to the New York Post finally, which has really been fantastic. I love the news. So I've been they've been reporting a lot on the Biden trial,
Starting point is 00:57:29 though I wouldn't say I'm particularly more informed about it, because it's all pretty salacious, kind of yellow journalism. But I do know that the gun he bought is different from the gun that he is holding in a nude mirror selfie, which is actually an airsoft handgun that might also be vaguely criminal to have. But the one he bought was like some kind of revolver and a friend of the pod, Weedslip420,
Starting point is 00:57:57 testified along with his ex-wife and his brother's widow who he had an affair with. All these women came and sort of said that he had corroborated this widow who he had an affair with. Yeah, all these women came and sort of said that, oh, he had corroborated this story that he had been a drug user in that era when he got the gun. I remember how hard it was keeping that secret when we had Zoe on. Honestly, kudos to us,
Starting point is 00:58:26 because we've been knowing about Zoe and Hunter Brandon since 2019. Yeah. We're such ride or die hoes. I know. How dare you comb through my legs? How dare you? We probably said something
Starting point is 00:58:44 that can purge us or illegal or definitely incriminating. Yeah, we're gonna be on trial next. They're gonna play the audio from that episode where she talks about she likes the pile the pile driver is her favorite sex position. That's all I remember because we were smoking a ton of weed on that episode and she told told us that I asked her a favor. And actually that episode was recorded right here in this living room and not in the home office. Because we used to do the pot out here back in the day.
Starting point is 00:59:16 Where history was made. So he actually, everybody was like, Anna, are you gonna defend Hunter the way that you defended Trump out of principle? But it does sound like what he did was again, more felonious. But no one got a misdemeanor that was with an expired statute of limitations that was a bespoke charge that was then also enhanced. But, you know, I will defend Hunter, not to the extent that, you know, I will defend Hunter not to the extent that, you know, I did Trump,
Starting point is 00:59:47 but it is not. It is an unusual thing to be charged for that typically is kind of it's like it's akin to kind of like when the doctor asking, you know, it's like asking if you smoke and you say no or whatever. It's like obviously when you're buying a gun and they ask you if you smoke crack, you just say no, because you're you're buying a gun and they ask you if you smoke crack you just say no I would not be surprised if this this is clearly a fully political gambit to I Joe Biden he said that he was gonna accept the outcome of the trial and not try to interfere with or influence the process You know in a clear-cut dig at Donald Trump. He said he would not pardon his son That's a typical Democrat L where they think
Starting point is 01:00:26 that not pardoning your own son will work in their favor. Right, because then they get to say, then they get to reaffirm the kind of no one is above the law refrain that like, and it also is like a huge distraction from Hunter's real crimes would probably have to do with like all the political corruption and stuff he was doing in Ukraine. Yes. Which like now no one's talking about because there's all this like salacious crack smoking dick pic stuff that's obviously way more interesting. But his real crimes are definitely far worse than buying a gun and being a drug addict. Yeah and involve like foreign corruption and influence peddling. But here from CNN, the Hunter Biden verdict also contradicted the central rationale
Starting point is 01:01:08 of Trump's multiple legal defenses in his four criminal cases, several civil matters, and his entire presidential campaign. This is the false notion that he is a victim of a weaponized legal system by a justice department that exclusively targets Republicans. I mean, he is the victim of a weaponized legal process. It doesn't have to exclusively targets Republicans. I mean, he is the victim of a weaponized legal process. It doesn't have to exclusively target Republicans
Starting point is 01:01:28 and you don't have to like target your own family. The Democrats are also fully capable of like sacrificing one of their own, especially a flunky and fail son like Hunter Biden, who no one will go to bat for at this point. And it may or may not be like a game of 40 chess. Yeah, in a way he's like, you know, I think the, you know, people do feel sympathetic towards Hunter Biden.
Starting point is 01:01:59 He's like a humanizing kind of like PR influence for the Brandon family. And so he's like serving his function also in his like black sheepiness of being like, you know, like, oh, and but like Joe loves him, loves his son. And Papa Joe gets to look principled and noble. Yeah, but also like, you know. In his long suffering struggle to save his son,
Starting point is 01:02:27 but his unwillingness to budge on the principles undergirding the American legal system and political process or whatever. What a fucking sham, dude. And also besides, plenty of Republicans wanna see Trump go down. Oh yeah. And hate him.
Starting point is 01:02:42 Of course, yeah. And he's not being targeted because he's a Republican and no one has ever claimed that. typical liberal consensus reality. Exactly. I do like that meme. That's like two of the dumbest bitches you've ever seen saying exactly.
Starting point is 01:03:07 That's what we do here. Oh, do you wanna talk about sundresses? Yeah, we sure can. We can pivot to that. But before we do, a friend of mine asked me today, like, do you hate Hunter Biden and do you think he's a bad person? No. And I was like, the fuck do I care?
Starting point is 01:03:32 We're one of the never even thought of that. We're one of the only people who read his mem quote memoir. You people might recall troubled person and an amoral person. But yeah, I wouldn't. and an amoral person. But. Yeah, I wouldn't, I don't think he's like, ha ha, so cool, like the way that like, kind of like, DSA leftards valorize him in this like, memeified way, you know, where they're like, actually it's too dope
Starting point is 01:04:02 to be a fucking crackhead and like, hang out with sex workers or whatever. But it's like, no, I think he's definitely probably like a pretty bad guy, but like he's part of this like really broke ass political quote dynasty that is like. Sensitive old man. We get the Hunter, Brandon we deserve, you know. This part was funny.
Starting point is 01:04:25 Some of the GOP reaction to Biden becoming a convicted felon was bizarre. One of Trump's most fervent supporters, Georgia rep Marjorie Taylor Green, baselessly suggested on X that a verdict produced by a jury of his peers with some kind of elaborate plot, quote, Hunter Biden just became the Deep State sacrificial lamb to show that justice is balanced while the other Biden crimes remain ignored. She wrote on X I mean of all the things that she said, yeah, that's not that's not the craziest thing. That one's like low-key kind of true. Yeah Anyway, sundresses The moment sort of passed, but I feel like I'll kind of ever, you know, still the season
Starting point is 01:05:11 for sure. Just when I thought I was out another even more retarded discourse. Yeah, pops off. So this was sort of like, can you explain this to me because I don't know how it started. I don't know how it started I don't know how it started I know at some point EV magazine a right-leaning women's magazine that viper's nest of trad larping prostitutes yeah I hate to drag other women down as we we all know. I would never do something like that, but I don't really fuck with the vision of Evie Mag and find them to be really like, ugh, you know, a drag. And so yeah, they, not even, like literally is dumb.
Starting point is 01:05:56 I'm actually giving them too much credit. No, it's like something dumber than that. I did hear that they were getting the Teal bucks. But I can't imagine Peter Teal funding women. I know, I know, I know. I can't imagine Peter Teal funding women. He doesn't care about women. No.
Starting point is 01:06:13 He's a fag. Except his surrogates. Exactly, for his butt babies. And even then he doesn't care about them that much. He definitely doesn't give a fuck. I mean, anything's possible, like maybe through some like, if he is funding it, he might not even know it, then it could be some kind of like arm of his whatever.
Starting point is 01:06:40 But yeah, I'm not really a reader of EVMag. I'm not really quite the- I'm not really a reader. I don't, you know, I'm not really a reader of Evie Mag. I'm not really quite the... I'm not really a reader. I don't read much. So I don't know. No, I... But I feel like the sundress discourse was sort of happening maybe even before that.
Starting point is 01:06:58 There was like a lot of confusion, it seemed about what a sundress was initially. A sundress is like porn or being a wigger. Yeah. You know it when you see it. My Matt Walsh, what is a sundress special? You know when you see it. I agree basically with that. I do associate for some reason though,
Starting point is 01:07:20 I know this is not necessarily true, but to me yeah like okay uh like let's talk platonic ideal of a sundress right to me white yeah okay white white white white and like gauzy white gauzy dress like muslin or linen or sheer diaphanous cotton. Yeah, Ray, I mean, people are, so then EV Magazine drops the sundress, the $179 Rayon yellow floral sundress with the built-in bra. Yes. Which, I don't know.
Starting point is 01:08:00 He thought our merch was bad. Ha ha ha! And it's the fuggliest fucking dress you've ever seen. It's not even Aritzia level. It's She-En grade, like god damn trash. It's a horrible dress. It's carcinogenic. I mean, rayon whatever.
Starting point is 01:08:20 Online? Unlined. Okay, so. This piece of shit fucking Okay, so. This piece of shit fucking dress, man. Okay. Yeah. So I guess, okay. I wear guizzo, okay?
Starting point is 01:08:35 I buy guizzo garments that are, I buy stuff that's advertised to me on Instagram all the time, because I'm a whore and I have no taste and I'm like, I'm a mindless. That's where, even though I use Instagram less than Twitter, that's where my money is really like they have tapped into like- Me too. I copped those um, Isamaya lip balms. Oh yeah. Yep. I'm buying always-
Starting point is 01:08:58 That have like the little penis- I did not buy those- Engravings because it offends me. It offends me, but they're so good. Are they? They're amazing. Wow. I can't do it. I can't, it would feel me was such,
Starting point is 01:09:11 I can't rub the penis thing on my lips. That's crazy. No, they come, so they come in like a standard tube and then there's like the penis one. It's like a cool sculptural item that you can have in your home that looks beautiful at a distance. I'm a prude, I'm sorry. I'm an E.B. Mad Girl myself, so I don't care.
Starting point is 01:09:29 But I did buy the Sofia Coppola, a Gustin Bauderer capsule collection with bombs. And like, I almost, yeah, yeah, I do, yeah, of course. And I buy all sorts of truck and garbage clothing that I like basically have to donate or throw in the trash immediately. One woman African landfill. So I'm not above a cheap shitty dress, God knows.
Starting point is 01:09:54 No, but so basically the idea is that men like sundresses because they make women look more sexually attractive. Breedable. And sexually available, yeah, breedable. And then women allegedly fall into one of two camps. Either you also like sundresses as a woman because you want to directly aggressively attract attention by mogging other women or you hate sundresses because the sisterhood is a cartel, quote, cartel that keeps its
Starting point is 01:10:25 members in line and prevents them from outmogging one another. This was like a take I saw from my buddy season. I see. I saw this. Let me say one thing, OK, because there is, I think, a vast spectrum of a sundress. There is like the slutty sundress, the breedable, like the sundress you wear when you want, when you're in your Lana Del Rey moment playing video games. Yeah. I mean, his favorite sundress, the breedable, like the sundress you wear when you want, when you're in your Lana Del Rey moment, playing video games. I mean, his favorite sundress,
Starting point is 01:10:49 watch me get undressed, you know? You're like actually are, both are pornographic. One is more like slutty, fun, summer kind of vibe. And then the other is like kind of a puff sleeve or like a more trad. There's definitely like a variety of like sundress that I think people refer to when they mean more of a church dress. Both of which I'm kind of in the market for because I contain, you know, multitudes.
Starting point is 01:11:22 No, but I think it just just I hear what he's saying. I get it. But I think it's like simpler than that. Sun dresses. I too subscribe to your platonic ideal of a sun dress, which is simple, minimal white. Yeah. Kind of like my ideal society. No, but it just like in practice.
Starting point is 01:11:45 Maybe a floral, but still a white floral. Yeah, like a ditzy mini floral. Yeah, yeah. But like in practice, I find sundresses to be foggy, flimsy, unflattering. They add 10 pounds unless you already have a perfect body. I understand this one has a built-in bra, but a built-in bra is like simply not the real thing.
Starting point is 01:12:04 Who was asking who was like the issue with sundresses? They're kind of expensive for how cheap they are. I mean, I love the brandy wrap dress. It's extremely flimsy, but it is like in the, you know, and the peak to end of summer, like you kind of do need to just put on a dress that's basically disposable. No, I agree with you.
Starting point is 01:12:27 But then you don't want a high price point, exactly. Yeah, you want like a $20 brandy or Target dress. A tankini. Yeah, and I'm familiar with the cut and construction of the EV sun dress. Heart on the Bar. And it, yeah, because it's like a style that I've seen for decades now. I think like
Starting point is 01:12:46 Delia's did it. Easy Pickens did it all the stores of like the free course it had ways with the like winter garage. I mean, I don't I'm not looking at a photo of it. But I in my memory, right? It has like kind of like ruffled spaghetti straps Last night when Glenn Belvario, new friend of the pod, said that Barbara Kruger's art gives him migraines. Bright colors and loud prints give me migraines. I'm not a fucking barnyard animal. I'm not gonna wear your sundress.
Starting point is 01:13:20 I mean, I came apparently in a white floral as well, but the yellow one was, it's hideous. I would never, it does not speak to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's horrible, cheap, ugly. I don't know a single man who would respond to this type of garment. I mean men are so stupid. They really are.
Starting point is 01:13:51 But if you want to appeal to men while appeasing women, there are so many different types of dresses to choose from. Like an LVD or like one of those Chong Sam dresses. Really hot. Men don't even, I think men don't even register those necessarily as. Men register, they just register skirts. but men don't even register those necessarily as. Men register, they just register skirts. That's why the slang for women is skirts.
Starting point is 01:14:10 Oh, I know. They don't care as long as you're showing leg and there's easy access to your pussy area. I know. And they literally like any woman who's like relatively thin, wearing a dress and like has done basic maintenance. Yeah, you don't need to wear like a fugly almost $200 sun dress.
Starting point is 01:14:37 Well, right. And then the kind of like because it's like being hawked by this like vaguely politically motivated lifestyle magazine, I guess also the idea behind their marketing of the dress was that it would also like signal not only like your femininity, but that you are kind of like, you know, inclined and trad and based, but it's like, why the fuck would you wear something
Starting point is 01:15:04 to signal that you read this, like, I wouldn't have dropped one, like if I was gonna foray into fashion as the masterminds at EV Magazine, you know, I would have maybe done a collection of like different, you know, rather than having like one distinct garment that everyone can look, it's like high. That also happens to be like super hideous.
Starting point is 01:15:27 That's super hideous, but then also, yeah, so you're like an idiot with no taste and you're like highly conformist, but think you are special because you are like associated with like some vaguely subcultural activity. Yeah, you're an ideologically possessed NPC. Exactly. Yeah. Who thinks they're like a radical free thinker.
Starting point is 01:15:49 It's a massive red flag. The red flag dress really. They should call it. It's like fucking scary. Yeah. I'd be so frightened if I saw a woman wearing that dress. I would avoid her like the flag. I want to sell those EV magazine hoes.
Starting point is 01:16:03 I want to human traffic them into sexual bondage to those like New Jersey Eurocentric wig nets. That's the fate they deserve. I mean, it is. Yeah, they are like, yeah, it's terrorism what they're doing over there. It's so awful. Yeah, I hate to see them like they also hawk like weird It's terrorism what they're doing over there. It's so awful. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:16:25 I hate to see them like, they also hawk like weird, like a birth control detox package, which like I'm all for, I guess, you know, like, you know, getting off hormonal contraception and do think it's, oh. God is not happy with you, Evie. Yeah, there's a storm brewing. You can't stop what's coming.
Starting point is 01:16:50 But yeah, maybe stick to supplements. And then the woman who is there, I don't know, I see her. I don't know her name. She's like model. Oh, Brittany Martinez. Yeah, she's like a quote model. She's a low fashion model. And she's like, I have friends that work for Zimmerman.
Starting point is 01:17:08 And it's like, you know, she has the stuff she's saying, it's so also fucking crazy, you know. Like, what are you bitches yammering on about? And like, yeah, she's like wanting her. Oh my God, I can already see the comments on this episode. Sorry, I'm sorry. They're just jealous.
Starting point is 01:17:24 I'm not, I don't. No, I jealous. I'm not, I don't, I'm really not. Brittany Martinez is, I've seen her posting before about how happily married she is and stuff too. Yeah, she's the one that had the, marry someone that you're absolutely over the moon attracted to and you can't keep your eyes off of.
Starting point is 01:17:40 And it's like weird hostage photos of her and her husband like on a beach. If you yeah marry someone who like won't like won't indulge your like creepy attention whoring desire to post pics of them on the internet and he's like a circus seal. Yeah, yeah. Wow, it's really coming down out there. Yeah, yeah. Wow, it's really coming down out there. The heavens are unloading in misogynistic hatred. Oh, wow.
Starting point is 01:18:14 Oh, no, I'm going to get sweepy like a baby. The rain makes me so tired. I have to go back to bed. Well, I have to lie down because it's raining. I got to go back to bed. Well, I have to lie down because it's raining. Looks like it's about time for me to hit this. It's like 6 PM. I was wondering why it got so dark.
Starting point is 01:18:42 I know, storm cloud came over as we discussed some. The red scare ASMR. Sunshine yellow dress. That is so gross, yeah, really bad. I mean, mm-hmm. My favorite sundress that I own, actually I got a new, it's not, it's really kind of a nightgown.
Starting point is 01:19:06 It was sort of more sold as like a beach cover up. I won't gatekeep, you know what? There's this French lingerie brand I like called Fifi Chachnil. And she makes this like kind of like, it's looks like totally just like a nightgown. It's not even, it's a very unstructured dress, but it's made out of very nice, very light,
Starting point is 01:19:25 like French cotton. And it has like a string, like a nice ribbon and it's so cute. And like, yeah, it's kind of like a baby doll nightgown that you- I wanna look a little like Jane Birkin or Francois Hardy, RIP. Yeah, RIP, RIP.
Starting point is 01:19:39 R.S. girl for the ages, had anxiety. Huh? I read on her Wikipedia that she had anxiety. She just like me for real, beautiful anxiety. I don't know. Not really a big sundress wearer, Francois Hardy, kind of more of a. No, no, she was like a. More of a tomboyish.
Starting point is 01:19:56 A batonac. Which by the way, okay, can I just say. Blue jeans, kind of galia. Obviously men like a sundress. a tomboyish. Beto neck. Which by the way, okay, can I just say. Blue jeans, kind of galia. Obviously men like a sundress that signals a sexual availability, blah, blah. But speaking from experience, I think men really honestly fuck with like,
Starting point is 01:20:19 and this is also a loaded term, but like a tomboy. Like actually the move is kind of dressing like a weird slob in the summer. And I find men kind of respond to that also weirdly. If you were like track, like kind of like track shorts and like a tank top. Yeah. They'll like that too.
Starting point is 01:20:41 Beautiful. They don't really need. Good morning. Yeah. Mm. Show Bob's don't really need. Good morning. Yeah. Mm. Mm. Show bobs and vaginas. Yeah, men, there's.
Starting point is 01:20:50 Men really just don't, it's not, it's not for them, the son, the. Men really, you know when men love you the most? When you're feeling yourself? No, when you're, when you're recovering from the flu and you have like a low grade fever No, when you're recovering from the flu and you have like a low grade fever and are walking around with like snot leaking
Starting point is 01:21:10 out of your nose and you look ill. Yeah. And like you're about to fall down and die. You really think? Yeah, men love when women look weak and debilitated. Sure. Because it's all about rape. I hate when my boyfriend points out
Starting point is 01:21:36 that I've drawn freckles on. He's always like, oh, did you put your dots on? And I'm like, I had some sun. I'm like, that is so rude for you to remark on the fact that I have drawn dots on my face. Can we not, can you not play along and just tell me that I got some sun and I'm looking good? Wow, you got a lot of sun from lying down all day in your dark room, babe.
Starting point is 01:22:02 Did you go sunbathing? They're so stupid. They're so stupid, I love them. And have no sense of aesthetics or style. And they should be so lucky that they don't own the consensus reality on. Oh, I know, I know. How women should dress and present themselves
Starting point is 01:22:26 and that they get some pushback from girls and gays. Yeah, thank God. Because we're true Chopin-Hauerians and we're not clouded by horniness. Yeah, exactly. And we can actually see through to the true aesthetic value of something. Well, style is just really the sexiest thing. It's not really about
Starting point is 01:22:47 like the garment. Yeah. It's like what is sexy about a woman whether she's wearing a sundress or like doing a sportier look in the summertime. A straight jacket. That's one of the hottest things a woman can wear. Yeah, men love when you menstruate through your white pajama pants. And are kind of, yeah, look like you got bonked on the head and can't function so good. And you start drinking Robitussin to improve your mood. No, but a sense of style is what I'm saying,
Starting point is 01:23:24 is like anyone can saying is like, anyone can kind of like. Damn. And the EV Magazine sundress is like an antithesis of it's like a void of style. And there's so many bad decisions that were made in its production. And I mean, I'm not convinced it's not just a shein dress
Starting point is 01:23:46 that they like slapped another. Isn't that? Probably it's like, yeah, they, you can probably find it on Alibaba. Yeah. Where I've gotten some very nice stretchy kind of like, well, there's that Australian brand Daisy that makes this white kind of like milk matey dress
Starting point is 01:24:05 that Bella Hadid's worn in the past that I have one of that I love. But I've gotten some nice dupes of Daisy stuff on AliExpress actually. If you just want like a shitty stretchy dress to get fucked. If you want a shitty stretchy dress to get fucked on AliExpress.
Starting point is 01:24:23 Jesus Christ. Sorry, I'm having a hard time hearing you because it's coming down so hard. Because the Lord is not pleased. The Lord finds our discussion disagreeable. OK, should we pivot? I think maybe. No, wait, fuck. I was going to say something, but now I don't remember. And I really want to say grab, but like there's nowhere to run.
Starting point is 01:24:43 Fuck, what was I going to say? Something about women in fashion. Men really like it when you're effortlessly friendly and agreeable and smile a lot and laugh at their jokes and don't bust their balls or chisel away at their masculinity or like peck their spleens. bust their balls or chisel away at their masculinity or like peck their spleens.
Starting point is 01:25:08 It doesn't really matter what you're wearing. Yeah. And I would bet that men are on the whole pretty repelled by the idea of a woman trying to intellectually and politically compete with them by making a weird political statement through like a fashion garment. Through their base sundress. Yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, people were really, yeah, I saw, uh, Brittany Martinez defending her choice of using rayon, saying that it was not a synthetic fabric, like bamboo. I'm not, I don't want to split hairs here,
Starting point is 01:25:56 but like, you know what you did, bitch, you know, you know, it's a rayon ass flimsy for a built in, also built in the built in bra for me is really like what I know like I don't know sorry I I don't know I mean I obviously don't need a built-in bra because I have aristocratic small breasts I love when people make online are talking to talk about how things are how it's aristocrat like they like just make these like really like baby brain like it's a risk as small as aristocratic like the way people have used and abused the term aristocratic well not at all knowing what it means it's amazing yeah they just think it means like small or like something they saw on Tumblr or like not even like you know on some like image account.
Starting point is 01:26:50 They think it's when you have espresso. That tweet that was going around and it was like your aristocratic French girlfriend who wears a Chanel suit and sips a cappuccino and votes Marine Le Pen. Yeah, and it's like an American girl wearing like, Maget, like Sandro. Men are so fucking stupid. They're so stupid.
Starting point is 01:27:22 They're so stupid. They don't know any, they don't know what's going on. It is literally like a an American girl who plays volleyball who got the major Sandro on clearance at Bloomingdale's and it's possibly even aqua. And also those fucking tweet and she's a sock. I hate them. I mean, yeah, not, you know, I can't really Yeah, not, you know, I can't really, not my thing. Not my thing, really, unfortunately. Though I've seen them, some people can pull it off. There's an exception that proves the rule. I don't have anyone in mind even when I'm saying this. I just know I've seen it and been like, ooh, maybe, maybe.
Starting point is 01:28:00 Maddie has a nice like actual Chanel jacket that looks very like kind of like militaristic and charming on her. Yeah. It's not giving quite that. It's like just black. It's not even tweed. But yeah, but then she's at this like very like
Starting point is 01:28:15 touristy cafe. The table's very overcrowded. Yes. Which is a weird detail that I noticed in the photo. There's many like liquid receptacles on, like why is she drinking, what's going on? She's just like us for real, she has so many different types of liquids.
Starting point is 01:28:33 And you can't even really tell if she's pretty or not because she's holding a coffee mug obscuring her face. Yeah. You can see her voluminous hair. She's pretty enough. She'll do. But men just don't care. No, they literally don't.
Starting point is 01:28:48 They just don't care. They're happy to have a whole, hold the coffee cup over your face, who cares? And the eternal war between men and women is that they don't find us emotionally neutral and intellectually capable enough to weigh in on a topic as fraught as aesthetics, but actually we truly do have the upper hand,
Starting point is 01:29:09 which is something that they'll never cop to or understand because they're simply incapable. I know. And it's just like a painful truth that we have to live with in private. I tried to, sorry, I keep bragging about having a boyfriend, but I was like, do you like, you know, cause I do, you know, I was like,
Starting point is 01:29:36 I was like, do you like, what do you like for me? You know, what would you, what do you like when I wear? You know? And he was, he was like, I don't know, like a skirt. I was like, okay, so. He was like, yeah, he had no like strong aesthetic preference for what I wore. You know, I'm like, trying to dress cute.
Starting point is 01:30:01 Couldn't make a difference at all. Play around with different styles and different days. Totally, yeah. On the days you managed to get out of bed. Exactly, I switched over to my summer, because I had my summer stuff in storage, and at some point a couple weeks ago, I had enough willpower to make the switch.
Starting point is 01:30:20 And I was like, I'm wearing some of my summer clothes. I was like, I'm wearing some of my summer clothes. I was like, I just do not care. Why do you keep eating packages every day? What's wrong with you? What are you buying? Men really hate it and are freaked out by the amount of packages we get. I know.
Starting point is 01:30:46 I think that it's a form of mental illness and guess what they're right, that they're right about. I know, I know. I've been bad. Me too. I have so many returns that I have to accomplish before the week is out. You got to do it. I felt so it was so easy to I just walked into the real
Starting point is 01:31:08 roll, you know, and then it just really alleviated a lot of. Yeah, these days you don't even have to pull out your card. It automatically goes back. They scan your thing. It's so nice. It's so easy. They make it as easy as possible. And I still am like, I have to have to reconsider some fucking stupid thing I bought.
Starting point is 01:31:28 I don't know where anyway, I wear the same things. Yeah. I just wear like pajamas every day anyway, because I don't get out of bed. So why am I shopping? Why do women be shopping? I don't know, it's like that Lacanian, you know better than I do, that Lekhanian thing,
Starting point is 01:31:47 the object. The design, yeah. The petite objet a. Yeah. I went shopping, I went to that mall in Chinatown. Which one? The Book Broadway, kind of, it has like, the Ech House Lada and the boutique, Shope's. Like the two bridges mall?
Starting point is 01:32:03 Yeah, yeah. Me and Allison, when she said something really smart, where she was like, Eckhaus Lada and the boutique show. Like the two bridges mall. Yeah, yeah. Me and Alison, when she said something really smart, where she was like, enough online shopping, she was like, you have to get out in the world and see what's real. And I was like, that is so true. So true. And I actually did buy some very cute things
Starting point is 01:32:19 at some shops there. Yeah, because I was engaging with them in a tactile way. I was trying on things I maybe wouldn't be drawn to online. And I had a very fruitful time. Just like likes being private now. Exactly. You got to get out in the world and really, you got to make your own decisions about what's real and what's good and what you really like. Instead of just liking something because everyone else liked it. It's, yeah, you got to really ask
Starting point is 01:32:44 yourself, what do I like? It's true. It's hard to know thyself. One day at a time here on Elon Musk's ex, formerly Twitter, we're learning a lot about the human condition and ourselves. Should we talk about this? How long have we been going?
Starting point is 01:33:11 We did an hour and a half. Oh, okay. Yeah, we can talk about this. We've got like a nice docket today, I think. This old bitch. Jill Simmonds? I feel so crazy and adult because I can't hear anything. Because of the rain. And it feels so, You are, Anna's't hear anything. Cause of the rain.
Starting point is 01:33:25 And it feels so. You are, Anna's having an autism attack. Oh my God, Anna's stimming you guys. I don't even know what stimming is. It's when you get overstimulated as an autistic person. The rain, do you wanna move somewhere where you're less. No, no, no, it's okay, I'm just gonna honestly. Do you wanna put the headphones on?
Starting point is 01:33:41 Cause that's. How do you. I'm, I think they's... I'm not as... I'm not hearing it as much as you are. It's very loud, yeah. The rain. Yeah, but it'll come. I was just surprised for how long. Feel the rain on your skin.
Starting point is 01:33:55 No one else can feel it for you. Only you can let it in. No one else can see the words on you. I'm gonna ask the homeless kids to go to the bathroom. Um, yeah, I need one of those like weighted anxiety blankets or something. No, I'm fine. Yeah, you need a thunder jacket. I'm gonna pee actually. Okay, that sounds good.
Starting point is 01:34:16 Whatever, yeah. Helps you gather your thoughts. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm fine now. Because you had to pee, the rain was also probably not. So true. Some weird like Proustian, Freudian, Lacanian intersection of energies. Something's going on, yeah. Okay, Jill Cement. but do not know how to pronounce this American name. Jill Seament is a, yeah, wrote a memoir a long time ago. Two memoirs.
Starting point is 01:34:54 Yes, first one, the 90s? 96. 96, called Half a Life, about her, I'll admit it, pretty steep age gap relationship with her husband who she met as a teenager when she was an art student of him. He is an artist I guess of some repute. His name is Arnold Menchus.
Starting point is 01:35:19 Yeah, I guess. Kind of hard to pronounce names, it was meant to be. You know, yeah. He was married at the time that they met and kind of like a, yeah, philanderous artsy type. He had two teenage children. Yeah, and she was his young student who in this first memoir, Half a Life,
Starting point is 01:35:42 yeah, she's sort of revised and updated into a new memoir that is forthcoming called Consent that sort of after his death reevaluates the, I guess, power dynamics between them. Yeah, of course end of his life. He was her husband. So people really frown upon age gap relationships in this day and age, but one benefit of entering into an age gap relationship with a much older man is that he will probably die before you and then you can quote, reframe the, take back the narrative and throw him and his memory under the bus to sell copies of your book.
Starting point is 01:36:43 Okay, well here's my, okay. This article disturbed me greatly. Yes, it was like truly evil. And my most charitable read, right, is like. She's trying to sell books. Well, okay, so she's still, he's, he's 30 years older than her. She's in her 60s, I guess he died in his 90s Okay, she's 71 and then he died. I don't know a decade ago of leukemia when he was 93. Okay. All right
Starting point is 01:37:14 so she all day F and maybe I Guess like does she need the money? Possibly, okay if she needs the money the money? Possibly. Okay, if she needs the money to cook maybe slightly cynical book deal, I'm willing to concede also like that the New York crimes kind of like editorialized maybe this interview that they did with her and maybe the book itself is I'm not going to read it. Don't care. But it's like it's possible it's a little more nuanced than they make it seem because they're like, you know, trying to frame it in a certain way and maybe she just needed the money.
Starting point is 01:37:46 That's like, also like, that gets clicks. Yeah, exactly. Drives traffic. But that's my most, yeah, that's like my most charitable read on it. The like tragic thing about it. Yeah, I just kind of like feel bad for her because her husband is dead and her memories are poisoned by this like new paradigm. Well it's very clear reading the article that she and her husband actually had a pretty good and long lasting relationship. Yeah, no.
Starting point is 01:38:25 And were married for many years in spite of his history of philandering and womanizing. And that she doesn't actually object to age gap relationships and that she doesn't actually have a problem with the relationship as it transpired. And she's merely like reframing the narrative to suit kind of the trendy new moral standards of the age.
Starting point is 01:38:54 Right. Because she needs money as you say. Yeah, if she doesn't need the money, this is like truly beyond the pale. Like I don't know why the fuck you would do this. Yeah. Ever. truly be on the pale. Like, I don't know why the fuck you would do this ever. And not that even like, you know, the money is a great excuse, but that's at least something I can like wrap my mind around is kind of making them. Well, I think that's something that her dead husband would certainly forgive her for. While she was writing Consent, Cement occasionally
Starting point is 01:39:21 wondered what meshies would make of it if he were still alive. The thing that would trouble him the most, she said, is that I wrote about his failures and how he had given up as an artist. That is the worst. That is horrible. Yeah. Oh my God. That makes me sick, dude. And honestly, I would fucking hate that so much.
Starting point is 01:39:41 I just want to throw some shit about me after I'm done. That's like that's someone that, well, that's like what, the real thing that I kept thinking was like, you know, they spent a lot, you know, they were married. And she like, that you can be married to someone for decades, you can like care for them as they die. You can like watch them. I just kept thinking, like I kept imagining her like
Starting point is 01:40:08 caring for him as he was dying. And like even maybe, I don't know what transpired but like him passing, like even seeing someone you love passing into another realm, like having like this really insane like experience as someone of their like life and death and then they pass away and then you're like, actually I've been thinking about the power to do it. I know.
Starting point is 01:40:33 It was like, what kind of sick fuck? I know. Like, why? Have you ever tried not narrativizing or mythologizing your marriage? Actually since we're talking a lot about your boyfriend on this episode, he said something last night that I really liked that was not his idea, but that he repeated very faithfully and articulately, which is like in Christianity, the whole concept of marriage
Starting point is 01:40:58 is that it becomes a church of its own, like a church in miniature. It's a sacred thing. It's a sacred bond that you have with someone that you don't, that transcends death. It's like. So I really, really hope that you are right and that she really needs the money
Starting point is 01:41:16 and he's looking down on her in heaven and being like, get the bad girl. There was a point where she talks about she's a novelist and she's written a lot of books that basically make use of autobiographical material in a fictional manner and like I would be offended by the part where she like repurposes some of their deathbed conversations into fictional dialogue for her previous novel. I mean, that at least, that I have more,
Starting point is 01:41:53 I don't know. I think you can take creative liberties and even if your work is like as auto-fictional as it gets, at least you have like the dignity of fiction. You have an outlet. To actually take- A plausible deniability. It's just, that's valid, whatever.
Starting point is 01:42:11 You're an artist, you can express, you can draw from your life experiences, but to pen a full ass memoir, giving your account of re-narrativizing the power dynamic of your memory. And the interesting part is also how like, again, we haven't read either of these memoirs, but how seemingly lazy and low effort the second memoir is because she basically says in the article that she copy pasted entire sections of the previous memoir in order to like recontextualize and revise them according to her suddenly
Starting point is 01:42:58 like newly unearthed memories and like the pivotal scene she writes, I unbutton the top three buttons of my peasant blouse, my sundress. Yeah, my Eevee sundress. Cross the ink splatter floor. I detached the bra from my Eevee sundress. And said, you're so baste. And said, hey, Anon, come over here and give me a kiss.
Starting point is 01:43:23 Oh. Yeah, yeah, and then. Across the ink splattered, Florin kissed him. Cimet, now an acclaimed novelist, wrote in her 1996 memoir, Half a Life. But notice the pivotal detail that she came onto him. Yeah. Which would seem to complicate matters a little, but like in the era of Me Too,
Starting point is 01:43:46 every gray area becomes like a black and white thing. Because he was her teacher, because he was older, because blah, blah. When Samantha wrote Half a Life, she and Meshe's had been together for more than 20 years. He was the first reader on everything she wrote. After reading the scene, he had quibbled with a few phrases but agreed on the key fact, she instigated the kiss.
Starting point is 01:44:14 Yeah, I mean, that's like, here's another complicating detail that comes toward the end. If I can even find it. Samantha dropped out of high school to become an artist and after taking Meshe's class, she moved to New York to pursue her dream, but instead ended up working as a nude model at a peep show near Times Square.
Starting point is 01:44:32 When she returned home after four months, broke and defeated, she went to see Meshe's and they resumed their affair. And this comes like after the obligatory sob story of how she had like a troubled and turbulent upbringing. story of how she had like a troubled and turbulent upbringing. Right. So yeah. Yeah, I mean, highly fraught. Relitigating your age gap relationship. Yeah, and she dishonored the memory of your late husband is basically as low as it gets. Like, I mean, even if you need the money, like how much could that book do even have been, you know?
Starting point is 01:45:09 Yeah, like who's actually going to read this book? And she she talks about how her objective with the first memoir was not so much to protect him from accusations of being a predator, but to protect her from herself, from accusations of being a predator, but to protect herself from accusations of being labeled as a victim or prey, which is bullshit because clearly at the time it didn't occur to her. Yeah, and like in her career as a writer,
Starting point is 01:45:39 that it seems like a remarkable fact of her life that her husband was 30 years her senior that was of some interest from a memoir perspective. That is what probably made that. I mean, I bet that book's probably in Deith. It's like, that is something that I would be intrigued to read about kind of in honest way honest way about like an age cap relationship like that I think there is something inherently interesting about it sure
Starting point is 01:46:14 and then yeah there's quotes from like her random friends being like she wouldn't I knew she would she would knock this one out of the park she's not that kind of girl would girl. Would he have been upset if I had written that he had kissed me? No, he wouldn't have been. She said, I wanted to show my own empowerment more than to hide from his faults. But it's not about empowerment, obviously. Like I said, at the time, it didn't occur to people
Starting point is 01:46:39 that age gap relationships were problematic. It's about vanity and pride. And I don't mean that in a mean or shady way. But as Laura Kipnis put it in one of her best essays on rape and campus culture, it's like you young women back then derived a sense of power from seducing older prominent men and stealing them from their wives. Yeah, which is kind of exactly what you did. Yeah, and in this day and age, all of your power comes from playing the victim. Well, it's interesting even that she would invoke the kind of like predator, the
Starting point is 01:47:26 dichotomy of predator and prey rather than like the way more like nuanced and complicated like webs of hurt and power that are intrinsic in human relationships that are just not so like you know like she also was like a woman who home wrecked someone's like life. Yeah. And, you know, she talks about how at the time when she met him, he was married. He had these two kids. He was also carrying on an affair with another woman who she later became friends with. Oh, my God. Well, something I've noticed,
Starting point is 01:48:04 though in this case, it's not so novel because of the age gap, but in couples closer to age, I feel like when the wife dies, the man will often die soon after. Yeah, or immediately remarry. Oh, yeah, yeah. Um, but if a husband dies, I just see like women be outliving men.
Starting point is 01:48:32 Well, yeah. And like part of that is due to life expectancy. Or all of it is, I guess, is what I'm talking about. But the life expectancy disparity, I really see having I don't know, I feel like women just have more friends, they have more reason to go on after their husband dies. And when a man's wife dies, they kind of just like- Like volunteering and donating to charity. Or just hanging out with their girl,
Starting point is 01:48:54 like they go golden girls mode and just like, you know, women can kind of endure in this way that like, I find it's often the case that a man's wife dies and he just withers on the vine, dies, perishes completely, can't go on. I can just suck the life out of him and kept him from having friends. Well, I'm kidding. It's his own damn fault, but yeah,
Starting point is 01:49:18 we're just like a woman becomes something for a man that is so much more intrinsic to his life than I feel like men almost are for women. Though it would seem to be the, you know, conventional knowledge would kind of tell us the opposite, but I feel like- Meaning what? Well, that women are so preoccupied with their relationships and the men in their life and blah blah and like, you know, so devoted.
Starting point is 01:49:40 I mean, one thing that I've anecdotally noticed is that when women I know are plunged into a deep depression, it's usually over interpersonal, primarily romantic problems. And when men are plunged into deep depression, it's usually over career issues, yeah. And there's like a longstanding right wing debate on whether men or women are the hopeless romantics.
Starting point is 01:50:10 And the idea is that women are actually much more pragmatic and utilitarian, which is partly why they go on living after their husbands die. I don't think that that contradicts the idea that women can be hopeless romantics and very often are, it's just like they have no other choice. They have to go on because very often, at least in the past, they had children and their lives were about like resource accumulation, resource learning.
Starting point is 01:50:37 And maybe, no, I was about to say that women are better at lying to themselves, but I actually don't think that's true. But I think like Yeah, like women's romanticism Has a pragmatic element that they are not even necessarily mindful of like because of the biological kind of realities of their needs is sort of You know procreate and secure their safety. There's like this the mechanism mechanism or whatever that like causes them to pair bond or to feel, you know,
Starting point is 01:51:14 to use sort of like a cynical red-pilled language around it. Like, yeah, that the men, women choose to sort of procreate or spend their lives with make them feel safe in a pragmatic way that like helps to facilitate an experience of loving them. But that's, I don't think you can just like uncouple necessarily like romantic attachment from pragmatic decisions that women make about their lives either. pragmatic decisions that women make about their lives either. You know?
Starting point is 01:51:45 Yeah, and very often when you make these like pragmatic functional decisions, it comes at great emotional and spiritual cost to yourself. It comes at your own like existential expense, which nobody talks about because they only see the kind of surface outward effects or consequences of such an action. Like putting on your sun dress.
Starting point is 01:52:15 But either way, it's like a very sad story because I'm not going to light up your apartment. There's basically two alternatives. Either she's like a craven opportunist who never really loved her husband or anyone. I just find that so hard to believe. Or she's really fallen on hard times and she's desperate to make a buck and has been reduced to this by the evil New York crimes
Starting point is 01:52:46 via Complex. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's just no, I, yeah, it's very hard for me to imagine a reality where she felt some kind of like, because it's so foreign to me, where she felt like some deep sense of like personal conviction of like writing yet again another memoir about her marriage. I don't like in general but like people
Starting point is 01:53:15 combing through likes I still have a very hard time wrapping my brain around people who primarily write memoirs about their personal romantic lives. Yeah. I'll grant that I can be horribly wrong and I'll grant that there are also exceptions to the rule. It seems like a very easy and opportunistic way of making art. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:53:38 And also this woman does have a prolific body of work that she really only got underway when she was in her 40s, which is impressive. And she is primarily known as a fiction novelist. So maybe there's more to her. I'm sure, yeah. No, I think, yeah. I don't want to like discount her whole creative career
Starting point is 01:53:54 because she's, I mean, also like boomer, you know, like, I don't necessarily associate old age with like wisdom. Unfortunately, I think like people get old and they get like stupid and adult. And like, yeah, like can lie to themselves. And like, maybe she's really lonely and wants to have like a book. She like needs some kind of validation from her writing.
Starting point is 01:54:25 And she's no longer young and hot, so she has to derive value from elsewhere. Well, she hasn't been young and hot for decades at this point, like I'm sure she's, but like maybe she is not just down bad financially, but maybe she just wants like, you know, like she knows that this is sort of a way to selling books and like actually likes maybe the prestige of moving merchandise. Though I yeah, I just
Starting point is 01:54:55 wouldn't like, I mean, me and you both are such lazy, mentally ill, maladjusted people. Exactly. So like, it would take so much for me to write a book, you know? That the thought of doing one that like disgraces the memory of my late husband is like, that wouldn't be what I would write the book about. Like, you know, like I can't even write a fucking, I can barely write a story.
Starting point is 01:55:27 Like I can't write, you know, I can't, the words are not flowing out of me. Like I'm not, I don't have a writing practice in the way that this woman might. No, come on, I'm gonna put you on blast because as I told you already, and as I will now tell the listeners, the story that you read it the Tao Lin reading was
Starting point is 01:55:46 Impeccable and brilliant. Thank you. It was very well written It was pay it was painful to write and I felt ashamed for writing it I could tell I could tell and I was like you shouldn't feel ashamed because it's like awesome, but But yeah, no that wasn't easy and that's literally something I had to force myself You should feel ashamed as an artist. Exactly. Anytime you put something out. Like you should.
Starting point is 01:56:08 Like why did you do this? Yeah. You have to really... What am I seeking? What am I looking for? Exactly. Why did I do this? Yeah, I agreed to do the reading in part because it would force me to have a deadline to produce
Starting point is 01:56:20 something. So I was like, okay, I'm trying to undertake some form of a writing practice, and this is a way of generating something. But then once I wrote it, I was like, why is this? It's a story you wrote. What's wrong with you? Oh! Why did you write this?
Starting point is 01:56:39 Do you think Wellbeck is like, why did I fucking write this book? Fuck! He's like, this book's gross. You think he ever thinks that? I mean, I'm sure all the time he seems like a person who's overcome with shame and regret and remorse. Yeah. Or maybe not, maybe I'm giving him too much credit.
Starting point is 01:56:58 I don't know. I'd like to think, yeah. I mean, I think I've been coming around lately to this idea that like, the artist or like someone who pursues like an artistic path is actually like a shameful person. Who like, who shouldn't be like valorized, you know, like, they're an art or artistes, they're a writer there, you know, like, I think that's been a wrong, the wrong approach, kind of, I think that we should have more of like a, yeah, like a So in some ways and that they fall under a bell curve and the vast majority of them are mid. Well, really, yeah. Some are very good, some are very bad, and the very bad ones, by virtue of being very
Starting point is 01:57:55 bad, almost become very good. Well, that's why I think, yeah, if there was like more shame associated with like pursuing that, there would be less people doing it, which would be a net positive, because the people who would undertake kind of artistic projects would feel very called to do it in spite of all of the shame and stigma associated with it. But instead people do it because they want
Starting point is 01:58:21 the book deals and the valor and the prestige and the blah blah, like that just ends up producing inevitably like really like crummy stuff more often than not. Yeah at some point she says in a marriage you have the shared mythology and you have to share the mythology while your partner's still alive but once your partner dies the story becomes yours. I feel like that sentence alone tells you everything you need to know about this woman, that she's like the chief architect and mastermind of all these mythologies and stories. Which is, you know, in a way corrupt because she's inflicting a she's inflicting a narrative onto a reality
Starting point is 01:59:14 that's much more complicated and ambiguous. Yeah, which it seems like her first book might reflect. I mean, I do wanna actually do an out. I love when we come up with fun little ideas that we follow through on. But I am interested in reading that Didion Eve Babbitt's correspondence book. That's like the it girl literary book. That I am curious about. What's the author's name? It's is there an author? I thought it was literally like it's a girl who apparently is a fan of the pod. Oh, Lily and Tolick.
Starting point is 01:59:57 OK, I don't know. And. The way that that I'm very I'm also very interested in that book and even possibly having this girl on the pod because I suspect that there's more to the book than the way it's been marketed, which is like two different types of it girls in the literary world. One had big tits and one had small tits.
Starting point is 02:00:22 One had a eating disorder and they're chopping it up. And one was a sex addict. One employed Harrison Ford and the other one fucked Harrison Ford. So true. And I really hated that framing that one of the girls who was a publicist or promoter of the book had that was like, it girls get your copy.
Starting point is 02:00:46 Because it's actually so I hate when like woke leftist types invoke the violence and harm of language, but it really is violent and harmful to portray Joan Didion and Eve Babbitts as literary it girls. Eve Babbitts was of socialite whose writing was not as nearly as strong as Didion and Eve Babbitts as literary it girls. Eve Babbitts was of social age, whose writing was not nearly as strong as Didion's and was kind of a fraud and hack. Yes, totally agree.
Starting point is 02:01:12 And you know, basically, I think it's fair to say that about Eve Babbitts. She was like taking her tits out and being a fucking disreputable skank. But Joan Didion, yeah, it was like a staunchly conservative, like, spur. Openly racist. Yeah. Autist. Female one of the best female autists to ever do it.
Starting point is 02:01:34 Whose chief virtue is her basically conservative constitution. Yeah, that's what gives her the immac pros and not again the way that she wore like Exactly that's a woman you would never see in a sundress absolutely not no way. Yeah Yeah, there's nothing it girl about Joan Didion No besides like I guess her being cool in the classic definition of the word meaning cold. And I and I love her. And we love her. I really do. I like and like, I'm looking at Oh my god. And like I'm looking at oh my god. What female Capricorn did in what's Babbitz makes sense. Let's see. Um, do you have a guess?
Starting point is 02:02:42 Pisces Aquarius May 13th Taurus. Yeah, makes sense. Love the finer things. Like her big, huge tits. Her supple mommy milkers. Yeah, I guess that's a Taurus, yeah. But even Babbitt's, who's writing- Whatever, I don't mean to hate on Babbitt's. I'm not trying to hate, yeah, but she was writing in a more honest way at a time where the moral standards
Starting point is 02:03:05 were less annoying and like mimetic. She was good at what she was great at what she did, which is being like a big titty party girl like with some vague literary aspirations that she didn't really need. Joan Deedin was a real writer, E. Babbitts was a socialite with like a writing practice. I don't think she would disagree with that.
Starting point is 02:03:28 No, no, probably not. I like, yeah, which is also fun. Like I'm interested in reading writing from those people too. I don't need you to be like a, you know, like Joan Didion was a novel, like a journalist. True, like, you know, She was interested in like a reportage and had fiction as well,
Starting point is 02:03:49 but I think her strongest writing is probably her nonfiction because she had the moral clarity. Through lines that come through in Joan Didion's writing is her active contempt for her own feminine folly and vanity. Yeah. And it's actually very weird and thorny and complicated
Starting point is 02:04:13 because you can tell that she leans into it a lot but is also trying to distance herself from it. Well, did you ever read the year of magical thinking? That's her like grief memoir after her husband died. I have, yeah. I haven't. But that be part in part because Didion's kind of like constitutional coldness.
Starting point is 02:04:33 Yeah. Though people like rape about it and obviously it's like, you know, a canonical text of like, you know, grief. I was never so drawn to it, I guess, because I felt like she wasn't going to be radically vulnerable in it. She would still kind of use the trappings of style and sentence structure to like narrativize, yeah, this experience that she had, but that there wasn't going to be. And part of that is because she never acknowledged that she had an eating disorder. She just was like
Starting point is 02:05:03 never, that was never ever anything like. Well now it's fashionable to acknowledge that you have an eating disorder because it's like radically honest and you get to kind of backhandedly humble brag. And back in the day it was a point of pride to be like effortlessly thin while never acknowledging that you actually had anorexia and possibly bulimia.
Starting point is 02:05:23 never acknowledging that you actually had anorexia and possibly bulimia. I read that book when I got out of the hospital. I talked about this on the pod. I got out of the hospital after my COVID situation and was reading that book and people always overwhelmingly say that it's her worst book. And I don't know, maybe because I was weakened
Starting point is 02:05:45 and debilitated. And you're an earth sign. And what? Yeah, and it brought something out in me because as I said, many, many episodes ago, reading her memoir of grief about the loss of her husband and then foreshadowing the subsequent loss of her daughter was the first time in my life where I fully broke down
Starting point is 02:06:10 and properly mourned the death of my father. Wow. And he was like in the room with me. And only Joan Didion, who I've historically and wrongfully dismissed on the strength of her supporters, brought that out of me. Well, that's amazing. I mean, it was like an amazing psychedelic epiphany.
Starting point is 02:06:39 And I think that there are probably many flaws in that book. I mean, I don't read books looking for flaws either. I'm not hypercritical in that way. In a book, I'm really basically, if it has a compelling voice, I'm willing to forgive a lot of things, which I'm sure it does. And I'm sure she's being as authentic as she can to her experience. Well, there are a lot of parts in the book where she basically...
Starting point is 02:07:09 To her credit, she's a very discreet person. So memoir doesn't feel like... But no, that's the central conflict of Joan Didion is that she's actually a very domineering and formidable person who has no discretion at all, but because she's so classy and sophisticated as a pro stylist, not as like a style icon, she's able to kind of smuggle it under everyone's noses.
Starting point is 02:07:32 And she has a very strong will to power that comes across. Like even in, I forgot whether it was in Slouching Toward Bethlehem or the White Album where she talks about her, or maybe it's in one of those essays, she talks about how her kind of feminine frailty and diminutive stature allowed her access into all these spaces. Underestimated her and disclosed things to her
Starting point is 02:07:59 because she was like an anorexic female. Yeah, and they couldn't, they didn't refer to them and she might be a fed or a dox or whatever. Even in that there's this late and very hostile humblebrag, look how small and pretty I am. I don't know if she was making a, I think in that same portion she says like, she says like you should be,
Starting point is 02:08:23 people forget that like a writer or a journalist is like always looking for someone to betray or something. She doesn't say that, but there's something like to that effect of like, people forget that about her because of her like, not her prettiness. Knowing and noble.
Starting point is 02:08:40 Yeah. But her self criticism, which is actually kind of a backhanded self flattery, which in the hands of a skilled writer and high level intellectuals such as Joan Didion is not only forgivable, but incredibly endearing. Right. Well, yeah, and I bet not untrue
Starting point is 02:09:02 that there was something about her that she did probably have a quality about her that made people disclose things to her that they wouldn't otherwise, which is what made her a good journalist, which is something that not everybody has. Some people really freak people out and they don't wanna talk to them.
Starting point is 02:09:19 And to be elegant and demure and I guess disarming And to be elegant and demure and I guess disarming is, yeah, for her line of work was absolutely a strength. She's kind of a ruthless and calculating reporter who is distancing herself from her dainty femininity. Interesting. who is distancing herself from her dainty femininity. Interesting. While somehow back-handedly enhancing it as they enhanced Trump's misdemeanor with his felonies. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:10:02 For sure. But that's why I hated Didion for a long time. But it's also her truth. Like she's like when you are, okay, like she was just a tight, she was. No, it's true, but in the hands of a formidable storyteller like Didion, it is awesome. In the hands of her lackeys and pretenders,
Starting point is 02:10:22 it's mundane and pathetic. I know, I know. Because who the fuck are you? Totally. But yeah, like I do think you can't like ignore yourself. Yeah. I guess, you know, and if you're like, I don't know. That's something I think about a lot is that like,
Starting point is 02:10:43 your people, the way in which people's souls are embodied and form is the way in which they experience themselves in the world and being petite. So I don't know. It's like, yeah, I don't know. If you are small, you have a different, the way that I asked Sailor about, if I thought his tallness gave him
Starting point is 02:11:07 kind of this benevolent perspective. I think Didion's smallness gave her a kind of like, you know, mouse. Critical perspective? Mouse, like, you know, like it gave her something, you know. Chip on her shoulder. Chip on her shoulder, sure. Contempt for humanity.
Starting point is 02:11:25 But also like a way of like, yeah, also like granted her access under the guise of like, she couldn't have been some like Amazonian, you know. She couldn't have been Eve Babitz. Voluptuous beauty. Exactly, she could have never. With her tigle bitties. Eve Babitz could have never done what Joan Didion did.
Starting point is 02:11:40 Eve Babitz is the girl who logs other women in her sundress and Joan Didion is the gatekeeper of the female cartel who disapproves of Eve Babbitt. And I guess they famously had kind of a vaguely contentious relationship. I guess that's what that book is about. Like Poglia and Sontag. Curious about reading, yeah.
Starting point is 02:11:59 I'm very curious about the book because there's another book that I read years ago that I truly love and highly recommend called Sontag and Kale by a guy called Craig Seligman, who's like a gay guy of arts and letters. For sure. And it was a very- Too crotchety ass book.
Starting point is 02:12:20 Super arbitrary and random because like Sontag and Kale were of the same era, but had virtually nothing to do with one another. But somehow it works. Yeah. And it's an amazing piece of biography. It would be so, I was just, it made me that way. Well, it's great.
Starting point is 02:12:42 We have the pod so we can really, you know, tell our own tales, our own narrative, but like our last name is being so like complicated, unpronounceable, it really guards us from them being like a catchy and necrous. So far, like that does not, that is not rolling off the tongue. And no one's trying to, yeah. This anorexic actress from succession
Starting point is 02:13:12 and this other anorexic stay at home mom. Just one season. And they were so different yet so alike. Primarily because they both stayed in bed all day. And were haunted by ancestral trauma. God, I could go on about these broads forever. Well, we should do an app, we should save it. Because we did two, we're coming up on 217.
Starting point is 02:13:50 Jesus, you bloopies, you call me a misogynist, but I love women so much. We should do, yeah, let's take ourselves to task on that one. Wait, we should do what? I'll text Caitlin, do you wanna, I'll text Caitlin Phillips and get a copy of that book. I'm sure she's pulling this straight.
Starting point is 02:14:07 I think we should just have Lily on. Oh yeah, I'm down. I know, but what if we don't like the book and then we wanna- Okay, we should read the book first. She's scribbling it in her notebook. I'm writing it in my planner. Cause I forget, cause of my brain damage.
Starting point is 02:14:24 All right. Well, see you. See you in hell. See you in hell. You

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