Some More News - Double Strike, Bill Maher, and EVEN MORE Burning Man Questions

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

Hi. Dani Fernandez (@msdanifernandez) joins Katy and Cody to discuss how the WGA and SAG may soon be victorious against the Hollywood studios, the conspiracy theories swirling around Burning Man, and Vivek Ramaswamy's eight favorite songs. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/somemorenews Check out our MERCH STORE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh Subscribe to the Some More News and Even More News audio podcasts: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1 Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews If you want to take ownership of your health, try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 Free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Go to https://drinkAG1.com/MORENEWS. Factor, America’s #1 Ready-To-Eat Meal Kit, can help you fuel up fast with chef-prepared, dietitian-approved ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. Head to https://factormeals.com/morenews50 and use code morenews50 to get 50% off. It’s always Labor Day for your butt — save 40% off ALL bidets and bundles by visiting https://hellotushy.com/morenews and using promo code MORENEWS. Sale ends September 11th.

Hello and welcome back to even more news the first and only news podcast my name is Katie Stoll. Hi Katie Stoll quick update on that we're actually the only podcast I just found out that's the news that's the news that's a really big news story i know breaking hi i'm cody johnson you heard it here first yeah i mean i listen to this podcast is the only one and it's only news podcast how i get my news and then there we go breaking news people love this thank you cody johnson joining us today again how many times has it been i don't know at least a few is danny fernandez not question mark i was okay i need to explain the way that

that happened danny was was holding up her hand and it was like had like a quizzical look and so i i don't know i added a question mark it. It's Danny Fernandez. I'm Ron Burgundy. Three times, right? Maybe three, four. Three times, I think. I think three sounds right. Yeah. Okay.

Three, Peter. Here I am. Wow. You're like family now. I am. I am in. Yeah, you're in the fam. We got to come up with a term for that.

I don't want to steal other podcast terms, but friend of the pod gets used a lot sure sure sure we're not doing that we don't do that enemy of the pod known mortal enemy of the pod okay holidays we've got them yes jonathan also who said do you know who sent us that holiday that video that wonderful find it was at razzy saldana on twitter pointed out that marketplace did a segment on the big business of wacky holidays and spoke to thomas roy of wellcat fame um of wellcat fame if you listen to this podcast every single week yeah this specific or i guess if you've watched that little video it is yeah you happen to catch this piece but he took he tells the story about the beginning of their creation of wacky holidays and how they've made not much a few thousand dollars off but yeah there is some big business anyway well that was fun thank you

what respond to your email you know what he didn't do? It's very interesting. Respond to your emails and questions, Jonathan. To the mainstream media, but to us, a little independent upstart podcast. Wishing to celebrate holidays for the joy of celebrating holidays, and that's it? And you won't even return our call. I only asked him to do a little bit of free work. That's it. And he decided not to respond anyway september 8th is national iguana awareness day the days observed is the

perfect chance to learn more about the good keeping of your pet iguana jonathan properly flagged if you have a pet iguana i hope you're aware that you have a pet iguana and know what to feed it. Yeah. You don't need a day to learn how to take care of your pet. You should do that on the day that you got your pet. There's no like how to take care of a dog awareness day. No, you get a dog and you learn how to take care of your dog. Counterpoint.

And I agree with you completely. But counterpoint. Maybe they just need to soften the language and be more inclusive in this holiday so that that it's not just for you know iguana pet owners but for all of us because i don't know very much about iguana and i iguanas and i should have more of an awareness i don't know how to keep a pet iguana i will never keep one but i don't iguana awareness day katie well right come on i'm not a part of this holiday so well you can be only if I get a pet Iguana only if you get a pet Iguana

I feel like no it's just like rare pet like they need more appreciation I appreciate that because dog and cat people we've ruled the world

forever rightfully so we always will I know we will I hope that dogs have edged out just a little bit more as I was a former cat person I am one of those stereotypical where I like did a PowerPoint

in fifth grade asking my parents, like, I deserve a cat. I should get a cat. I was obsessed with cats. Had like cat stuffed animals. Of course, I got an orange tabby when I was in fifth grade. Thought it was a girl. Wanted to name her Crystal, as you do in fifth grade. Turned out it was a boy, he turned into Snickers,

because he reminded me, I guess he looked like the inside of a, what am I thinking, like a Kit Kat? No, Butterfinger, he looked like he was a horse. He looked like the inside of a Butterfinger. So I had a cat named Snickers and Oreo. Then when I was like 18, I got my dog Molly, who I still have. Anyone that follows me, she pops up quite a bit.

And it was a game changer. I'm sorry. I've seen people convert to dogs. I've seen people. Over and over again. And, you know, you can learn to love cats. For sure. For sure. Oh, cats are wonderful. We love cats. But I don't think that you.

Why are you saying it like that? I love cats yeah i don't think that you i don't know that i love cats this is the first time i haven't had a cat in my whole life but i there's a freedom in it guys there just is in cats versus dogs you mean no no in in only having a dog but yes once we i would say there's more freedom in having a cat oh for sure but like dogs are so social they're just like oh you take them to the beach you like the dog can come with me yeah that is true dog is just like and he's a dog is definitely constant companions but yes a cat will ruin your couch and eat your plants and throw them up your plants throw them up and a cat will always shit in a box unless you want them to be outdoor cats and then not come home okay this took a turn anyway we've got another holiday here we go here we go september

8th is pardon day a day to give and seek forgiveness pardon me for my stance on cats i don't know also we just blew right past the iguana part real quick but um it's okay rare pets we appreciate them pardon day congratulations you're you're different than special we appreciate you by taking the whole combo over with cats and dogs exactly pardon day so this appears to be related to september 8th being the day that gerald ford pardoned richard nixon oh god so this is pardon day so we're celebrating that i don't know we're mentioning it at least i like having a full day dedicated to forgiving someone or yourself or like even reaching out for something that you've

been meaning to ask for forgiveness for it is mercury retrograde so please don't text your exes uh specifically me so you want to put that in the description to make sure everybody knows danny you're the best thing that ever happened to me um what happened what happened to us oh my god uh yeah but i like that like oh i've been i've been, I've been meaning to, uh, make amends with this person. So I'm going to use this day or I'm going to just forgive this person. It's clear that it's haunting them and I have all the power and control. I don't know. This is getting very specific. Okay. No, I like where you're going with this. This is Stani. This is what we love. I like that energy. I like that insight. I bet there is. I was going to say, there's got to be like Forgiveness day, gratitude day

Things like that Make amends day, there probably are specific days for that And the use of the word pardons Feels very official It's very like, yeah Mechanical It's sort of like Happy pardons day to you

What we do to criminal presidents Criminal people But I like where you're going, well. What we do to criminal presidents. Yeah. Criminal people. But I like where you're going with it, and I'm going to stick with that. We pardon whoever made this stupid holiday. I get Gerald Ford, I guess. We forgive you, Gerald. We forgive you. Hello, faithful consumer.

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Trust me, I've tried. Dani. Yes. Hi. We're so glad to have you here. We'll chit chat a little bit. You have a new film in the static. Yeah, it's my short film. Tell us a little bit about it. Yeah. So so this is so crazy. I actually filmed it last year. I actually filmed it, yeah, in September of last year. I got my EP, Ben Lopez, who's great. He's a great Latino mentor in the community. I was just, we met for lunch and I was telling him like, oh, I'm working on this show and I have this film and I blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I almost didn't mention it. I was like, I have this horror short. almost didn't mention it. I was like, I have this horror short. It's about a woman who she sees a traumatic experiment in her office's laboratory that she wasn't supposed to see. And then she has PTSD and we're meeting her in the film on her first day back at work. And she slowly starts to hear her coworkers talking about her and her electronics. And so she starts, it deals with gaslighting. And it stemmed from, well, what I was going to say is Ben was like, I kind of just want to help you make this. And we ended up funding it almost entirely on our own. It was me, Robert

Butler, the third, who's the director and Ben just put all of it. So it's like a true indie. We didn't even do a, even though Kickstarters are also indies, but like we didn't even do a Kickstarter for it. I just kind of was like, if you give me some money to make this, I will make this. And within like a month we made it. Like we got the location, we got the cast, we got the crew. We, I don't know, it was like on the ground, you know, just reminded me of that really hardcore indie filmmaking. So anyways, it stemmed from my grandparents leaving me a voicemail that kept going.

And I was like, should I keep listening to this? It's like that fear where you're like, you know, if you're in the bathroom stall and then people come in and they're talking about you and you're like, oh, I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't hear what they're saying about me. And I was like, what is the most heightened version of this? Her coworkers, she thinks are trying to kill her.

And so, yeah, who hasn't had that thought right um that my co-workers are trying to kill us every day all the time he does there's a lot of gaslighting there's a lot of gaslight especially in hollywood that i've dealt with and robert my director has as well so we bonded over that uh shot it you know edit it and then it premiered at la leaf uh i think in j, that's a Latino national film festival. We also got into Essence Fest. So we got to premiere it in New Orleans. Amazing. It was at, yeah, the Michaud Film Festival. So please follow us, follow me and Robert because we, as we're getting into more fests around the country and hopefully internationally

as well, we've been posting those, but it's, I'm just so happy. Cause it was like just this thing, this idea that I had that we ran and threw together. Um, cause we wanted to finish it in a deadline and then now it's getting into a bunch of festivals. So I congratulations. Thank you. Huge congratulations on so many levels. So many thoughts. Well, first off, it sounds very interesting and I can't wait to see it, but how nice to be. Well, first off, it sounds very interesting and I can't wait to see it, but how nice to be, well, first, yes. How quickly things can get done when you're not working with a big studio, when you don't have a bunch of people who are clouding the actual vision, when you get the opportunity and it's really reinvigorating personally, whenever I have that kind of an opportunity, when you're describing it, I was like, have that kind of an opportunity when you're describing

it i was like yeah that's the best when you're working so hard and you really believe in it and it's just magical but i am glad that like that must be a nice contrast to uh everything else other stuff we're going to talk about yeah we're transitioning into talking about right now um you know what i was going gonna say is it's so weird that it came out like so it premiered during the first month of wga's strike right i was on strike and so it just kind of felt very divine like divine timing of like wow i can't believe that like the like i actually have something that i can promote and can devote my energy to while everything else is shut down.

So I mean, in some ways I was like, damn, I can't believe I have to take it upon myself to create this. It's just, I feel like probably a lot of indie directors and people can relate to that of like, well, if they're not going to let me do it, I'm just going to allow myself to do it. So yeah. So I feel really, and I just want to say one other point about it that I, it has to do with, you know, being a woman and being a woman of color. And actually a lot of the cast is queer. I felt like

we have an innate intuition when it comes to danger that society is constantly trying to get us to ignore. And that's what I wanted to showcase. It's a woman who can sense that something is wrong. And I feel we can tell that and that, that safety, you know, that we've developed over centuries, like she's, they want her to ignore it to her detriment. And so I don't know. I just wanted that message, especially for women. Yeah. Oh, I mean, I got a little tiny chill when you were describing that just now i'm like yeah no that sounds powerful it sounds really great um but a really smart way of of approaching the topic too yeah and pivoting to the double strike and you are uh in both you are in both the wga

and in sag so i mean we were chit-chatting right before we start actually say it record but how many so you've been hundreds of days now like 10 000 years um let's see wga is probably day 128 i don't know when this comes out but yeah one one i think we're like 128 sag is 50 plus which went by real quick. I thought it was like, yeah, SAG has been on strike for like a month. No, it's been two months. It seems, yeah, that seems longer. Yeah.

I'm sure that there's more people out there too. I don't know. It is fun. I obviously am in the mountains, and so I haven't been in L.A. very much. But when I'm there, I've been there, and and it's very fun but it's also very exhausting and for everybody that has been doing and especially you know showing up in such leadership capacities and being really consistent and it's it's honestly it's hard to wrap my mind around the energy that it requires especially people need to pay rent you need to work you need to be paying your bills

still. I don't know. It just. Well, I will say, you know, that that article came out very famously about the anonymous exec that was like, you know, we're waiting for them to lose their homes or whatever. And everyone was kind of like, LOL, we don't own homes. And they already had made it a gig economy, to be honest. So I don't know anyone who wasn't used to going without work for long periods of time. And so you're used to picking up other gigs or having relationships that like, oh, this restaurant I used to work at or the movie theater I used to work at or whatever. Like they know I might book a job and be there for a little bit and then come back to it. So it just shows to me also how out of touch they are.

And I want to say that about some folks, some folks even in our guild who have said stuff like, oh, well, I see both sides. And I'm like, you're so out of touch with the working actor. I want to say we are a working class union. Very, you know, infamously our statistic that over 87% of SAG's membership doesn't qualify for healthcare. You have to make at least about 26 grand to qualify. So the majority of our membership doesn't even make 26 grand. So they are your average cashier, waiter, bartender, nanny, whatever.

I think people think that everybody in SAG is Meryl Streep, not, oh, the waiter who serves Meryl Streep in this, the stunt actor who gets punched out, you know, or whatever. Like those, we need all those jobs, which is also why we're fighting AI because they're trying to replace those with AI by scanning them and like, oh, well, you could be in the background

of all Gladiator 2 or whatever. We don't need you. But we need all those. We are working class. Well, yeah. And I've said this on this show before but i'm gonna say it again on a note on background actors one of the few ways that you can become a part of our union is through background work so what are we talking about in terms of the future of the industry if

you if we're eliminating one of the few avenues people have to get their foot in the door also like it's just like the idea of ai background actors like okay so you scan their face and then you use them in other movies in the future are they like then like are they act are they acting in the background are they doing a good job like can you use your ai as like part of your real like look at my really great ai acting in the background of gladiator 2 i wasn't really in it i wasn't on set but look how great i'm doing uh it's such a weird mess there's just it is and to this point i i it's so it's been frustrating we've talked about this before but like that sort of this misconception that seems to be on purpose like what you're talking about like yeah we're not talking about meryl streep we're talking about the person serving meryl

streep and we've it's so bizarre to see, especially on like Twitter, obviously, which is like a cesspool. But like, it seems like a purposeful misunderstanding. Anytime I see like Aaron Paul talks about how like, he doesn't get anything for Breaking Bad on Netflix. And I was like, whoa, you're a famous actor. Kevin Bacon came out.

There's a quote from Kevin Bacon yesterday. I'm just going to read it. It's really short and simple because the concept is simple. In terms of the rich actors, a very small percentage of our union is doing very well. Most people are living hand to mouth. Those are the people we are striking for. My situation is not the same as the majority of our union. It's so easy to understand that people who are famous actors and very wealthy are striking

so that people who aren't can get a fair deal. Like it all trickles down. The whole point of a union is to raise wages for everybody and be able to have this influence. If you're Kevin Bacon or whatever, it's frustrating to see people not get it. At this point, it's very disingenuous when people are making that argument or, you know, trying to,

um, I think there are some people that are not immersed in entertainment and, you know, pop culture and the way that we are and are somewhat confused or not aware of anything related to entertainment, what it takes or the fact that there are different actors on their screen you know that like how many people are involved with this commercial or that production it's not just the stars they might not think of in the same way this is not an excuse um it's just a very frustrating thing it's something that i've run up against you know conversations

up here too talking about the strike you know i've heard like well then don't be an actor don't and and i say just what what do you what do you mean by that though do you want there to be no entertainment because i know what you do is you come home and you watch tv we're in this bar right now that's wedding crashers on the screen everybody's saying wait i love this part so what are you talking about because what this matters for the development of culture you know i think it's a complete like disrespect of the arts as well because the goalposts constantly get moves whenever i say like oh 87 of us can't even afford health care um they'll be like well then don't sign up to be an actor don't sign up to be a writer. Don't sign up to be a writer

and then complain about how much you get paid. And then I'm like, okay, well, are you saying only rich people should pursue the arts? Because that's already what's going on. It's very skewed towards one demo, I will say for the history of cinema. And then there's this like, well, real hard workers are these people or whatever. I'm like, okay, well, even if I were to look at immigrant migrant workers, like so many folks came here to give their kids a better life. And now that we're able to actually pursue and have a better life, I'll just speak about my own community, the Latino community. Now that we actually have Mexican directors and stars, and I wish I could name some of the films that came out this summer, but had a Mexican star as a superhero, you know,

you're telling us, oh, no, no, no, no, you need to go back to being a worker. Like you need to go back to doing labor. You don't deserve to do this. And it's just like, you keep moving the goalposts, you know? And so it's like, are we not allowed to pursue the arts? Are we not allowed to dream? And then another thing I kept seeing, which actually, actually Francesca Ramsey has been great making a lot of videos. She was like, what do you want me to make my next video on? I said, you have to address that they keep saying teachers, it's teachers who should be the ones that are striking. I'm like, one teachers are striking. Oakland teachers were on strike. If you want to show up to their picket line, you can

to who taught us how to write, who taught us how to act? My lit teacher, oh my God, I was like the stereotypical English nerd. I was obsessed with my English teachers and growing up reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Pride and Prejudice. And that is what got me into pursuing to be a writer and later an actor. So you're spitting on them as well. All of the kids that are coming up after us, we're striking right now to allow them to even have a sustainable future to dream. But like the idea-

And it's still gonna be hard, even if it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be almost impossible, but you know. But it's one of those things that like, oh, you live in America, you should be able to be anything you want until you are actually that thing. And then it's like, shut the hell up, sit down.

And I'm like, the reason why we have a union and we can strike is because we have power in this. And so many folks are not even in our union. I'm like, why do you care? You're not paying us. You're not the studio. You're not the one, you know what I mean? So I don't know.

That definitely, I feel I've gotten it from every possible angle, every possible argument. And now I don't reply. Good plan. I did 150 or whatever. I stopped replying. What's the point at this point? Yeah.

It's weird also, all the things you just said. Obviously, it's very frustrating. But then you hear people who are actually in the guild say that. I think you alluded to, I think it might be Bill Maher maybe. Well, we're going to play that clip. Oh, good. Then I'll wait. Yeah.

This is a good time to talk about that clip. The strike is a perfect example. Those guys would never go back. This strike could go on until the 24th century. They would stay out. I feel for my writers. I love my writers. I'm one of my writers.

But there's a big other side to it. And a lot of people are being hurt besides them. A lot of people who don't make as much money as them. In this bipartisan world we have, where you're just in one camp or the other, there's no in between. You're either for the strike, like they're

fucking Che Guevara out there. You know, like this is Cesar Chavez lettuce picking strike, or you're with Trump. You know, there's no difference. Point of the strike. There's only two camps, and it's much more complicated than that. Initially, first, bipartisan is not the word there. This bipartisan world we live in bipartisan means like two parties like working together to get something done that is not what he's talking

about he's talking i think he's mean polarized whatever he's high in the clip probably it's fine you make it that way by saying that kind of shit because it doesn't have to be that way like you know that's the way you're perceiving it i don't know who he actually is talking about specifically who is getting hurt first time i watched it i assumed he meant you know all the people in the entertainment industry crew members or everybody else yeah and now i'm thinking he's talking about executives that don't. I think he's talking about producers and execs. I think he's talking about producers and execs. And we should shit all over what he's talking about.

I want to say, like, yeah, I do care very much about all the people that are out of work right now. People are struggling. It's a big deal. It's not the actors and the writers fault. Yeah. Every other day there's a new headline like yeah this fucking streaming service is valued at tens of billions of dollars but like we can't give you a little like it's an it's ridiculous and obvious how much they are holding on to when they do not

need to do that and hearing bill maher talk about it's so frustrating he's such a little weasel what do you mean you're either sheik ravaraara or for Trump? Why is he bringing up Donald Trump in this conversation at all? He has literally nothing to do with this. I feel like he's got these personal interactions he's had where someone's like, oh, you disagree with this, so you're Trump. It's like, why are you bringing that into this? One, everyone is affected. And I want to say that we're not asking for money. Like you just said, we're not asking for money that's not there. We're asking for what we're really talking about here, less than 2% of profits. That's what this whole thing is about. They make billions of

dollars. So it's not money that we haven't made them and it's not so if they posted a negative or they may they're like we don't make any money we act like we lot we would not get anything do you does that make sense yeah like the like we have tethered ourselves to this contract where it's like we're asking for less than two percent of profits and that's what this whole and they've lost more than that it's been documented what we asked for in the millions, they've already lost doing this process. That's how badly they don't. And it's not, going back to that famous article about us losing our homes or whatever, it's not that they can't give it to us. It's not that they don't think we deserve it. It's that they don't want anyone else asking for it. Because now that

SAG is, then IOTC is going to, the team start they see like oh i can ask that's why we called it hot strike summer right you see that strikes work and that's what and it's already i think who was it variety or somebody was like uh the the writers won like you've got to surrender yeah there's some also a few quotes from i think from executives literally saying that of like they're worried about it sort of trickling to these other industries and other areas of the world where like people feel like they can collectively bargain and exercise their power. And they know that that's what happens and they're worried about it. But I think like, too, just how much our unions bleed into each other for every one actor, right? You have the crew, you have the makeup person, you have their lighting person, you have their

driver, you have their... And so they have been really... Not only, obviously, have they been on the picket lines with us, but they've also been the danger of AI and thinking that you can replace the writer or the actor. And you're getting rid of 18 other jobs that are connected to that. So have we affected other unions by striking? Yes, of course. But also we are supportive in them striking and they will be completely affected if we

are wiped out. Right. It's kind of like Chris Kaiser, who's on the board of our W, I think he's our, is he our president? Sorry, Chris Kaiser. Sorry, Chris Kaiser. Chris Kaiser, famous WGA writer, he's very eloquent, was like, there's no point in rushing back to a job that might not be there in a year. And so that's why we're so holding out so strong.

It's just like truly when you look at the sustainability the next five to 10 years. And I want to say something that I'm sure everyone that listens to you is aware, but I just feel I have to say this. AI is not this like mysterious ethereal thing. It's stolen work. You're working off of stolen scripts. It can't just come up with something on its own. So you're feeding it Guillermo del Toro, Martin Scorsese or whatever. You're feeding it like these scripts to then come up with, Oh, I want a Martin Scorsese

esque style film. And I think, I mean, I think he would sue them, which I'm curious to see more of those. And then once you get that, uh, bad imitation of a Martin Scorsese script, then you feed that script into it and then you get a worse thing. Yeah. Yeah. But, but it's not, so it's, it's feeding off of stolen work it's not like it's coming up with it on its own it's taking our work without our credit it's very disappointing to see i mean some everybody suspects it and knows it but like seeing that like oh they just don't like art or movies or artists or shows like they don't care they don't like it they're not get into this for art they got into this to make it a big business yeah they don't care if anything's good this is about power and control it's not about exactly

it's not about it being good they don't give a shit about culture they don't they're probably aware of the implications who are we in 20 years if everything is a facsimile of itself and big picture, who are we? Yeah. How do people think critically? Are people inspired? Are people happy? Are there's, there's so much that gets lost,

but they did. That doesn't matter in any capacity because it's never been about art. Well, right. Cause they define them. They identify themselves and define themselves by the number in their bank account. And if it's going up,

then, then that's who they are. Right. Like, who are we? Well, I'm a rich guy, you know? Danny, before we started recording, you mentioned that you think it's going to be resolved sooner than later. Oh, yeah, I do. I do. I believe that article that was like, we've won. Yeah. It's very obvious we won the public opinion even as much as we deal with bs i mean it's it's also been insane to see people siding with billionaires that's so weird it's weird mentality and i'm like you i i know you're not being paid i love bob eicher what but yeah i think i think it will what i was going to say is in this time, in our downtime, I actually rewatched the BBC version, the British version of Pride and Prejudice.

You know, like, ooh, Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Like, ooh, those like, will they, won't they vibes. And I was sitting there and I was like, holy shit. They're trying to do this with like, I give a fuck if two robots fuck. Like, I don't care. You know what fuck if two robots fuck like i don't care you know what i mean why is like oh yeah i care i was like no these two actors it reminded me of christian stewart and robert pattinson when we knew that they were like hooking up behind the scenes at twilight and then they had the scene where they actually did first like and it was

like that tension that's just like do you think i care if you program a robot to do that i don't give a fuck but i do care about these two actors who look like they can't keep their hands off each other and so i was just watching that like wow that's like gonna be the state of cinema i don't care you know about that so that's just like the the jim and pam and the however how many yeah chemistry is real and like the reasons that we have real people doing these things or like real people writing about their experiences too like all these things are yeah funneled into art you know how things you can try to make a viral video you can try to do a thing that hits the cultural touchstones and catches but it doesn't work because it's not authentic. And you cannot bottle up that.

You cannot quantify it into a program or whatever and just fake it. That's what art always will be. It's kinetic. Okay. We have to take a real quick break, but then we're going to be back. Well, to finish listening to that Bill Mark. Oh, God. Hello, it's Katie.

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They have really morphed a long way from 2007 Strike, where they kind of believe that you're owed a living as a writer, and you're not. This is show business. This is a make or miss league. And not everybody— You don't think that, like, like they should that streamers should reveal numbers so that they can oh maybe sure so yeah there's something about this uh stuff at the end it's weird and gatekeepy and conflating a few things because he seems to be saying that like if you you you think that like you're owed a living as a writer, which yeah, you're owed a living as any job,

people who should be able to earn a living wage. But he seems to be framing it like, they're saying like everybody deserves to like get hired and be like in the club. Like it's this very sort of gatekeeping sort of approach to the whole industry where he seems to think that like the strike is to like, we need to be hired. It's like, be hired it's like no no if we're hired we need to get paid fairly it's just a weird sort of framing of the situation and i think it speaks to sort of like his weird like right-wing reactionary

uh viewpoints of like the way like hierarchy should work and like well i made it i'm in the club right and not everybody can be in the club because if there was in the club then like oh they're all sticky and gross and like i want to be in the special club does that make sense like that's sort of the vibe i get from him saying that like well there's no demand that the wga or sag is making that everyone gets hired to do a ton of work all the time it's still gonna be the entertainment industry and no one's making that argument right like make or break it's like yeah if you make it in the industry which means you get a job then you should be paid fairly that's what it's about yeah emmy award winning writers on food stamps or whatever this shouldn't be happening yeah it's very weird um and he's

keep everybody off of food stamps somehow but you know this is just part for the course for him though it's it's not surprising it's just like weird that like he seems to not understand it or is purposefully like framing it weird because even in like some of the stuff uh elsewhere in the clip he's like talking about like all these wacky things that they want done and gaffigan's like what and he's like ah the philosophy of you know everybody deserves it's like so you're saying you think that they're going too far with their specific demands because their specific demands are wacky but you can't name anything you just sort of say well the philosophy behind it is what i disagree with so you don't actually think they're going too far

it's just like when jim gaffigan brings up one specific he's like oh sure that's all that yeah right like his whole approach to i think it's his whole approach to everything honestly is mostly like vibes based like he doesn't like the vibes of the strike so he's like well surely their demands are wrong too well name one i want to defend bill maher just say it just say not at all i want to move on to other topics, actually. But how do I express this? Bill Maher is about his audience. Bill Maher, that's what's important to him.

So to answer the Trump question, all of it is right now. That's how that's how everything is. It's like I'm going to equate this to the left somehow i am going to equate this and relate it to what's going on at large so i can piggyback some of that because that's what my show is going to always be about we're talking about this well how can i make it fit this bill that's 100 what this is his vibes are we're annoyed at the left and boy a lot of the left is in hollywood and look at them they're out there pretending they're revolutionaries when he hasn't thought

this through in any any kind of a real way he's just talking yeah well right that's exactly he's a reactionary he's just gonna have this and like he'll get some points from that. And that will, it's, but it's so lazy. I'm good on Jim for trying. I would say that Jim Gaffigan is far too polite in this clip. He's being so, he's being so gentle with him. Oh, I know. But even, but even his like pushback is very gentle, which is fine. Be polite and stuff. You're on this show.

But I think he should have been a real piece of shit. It be it can be hard to to be that person um yes i think we should i mean i could talk this whole time about this with you guys but there's some other stuff that's been going on the big news of the week disaster at burning man well it started off with a climate protest which you know what i'm grateful for because I did learn a lot about the impacts of Burning Man that are definitely at odds with what Burning Man should be about. You know, like, yeah. Oh, I was just going to say I had no idea this wasn't a music festival. Like there's no music involved. No, no. I know other people on Twitter were learning that.

I was like, what? I've been aware of Burning Man. You just go out there, but I thought there was like, I don't know. I thought like Link 182 was going to play. I thought like MGMT was going to show up. Like what? Yeah. Well, there's like music in the air, right?

This is not like there's no concert aspect of it. I've never been to Burning Man. You're not going to hear electric feel. There's just an electric feel in here. You know, I've never been to Burning Man. I've always been a little put off by it, but I've known a lot of people over the years who swear by Burning Man and find it to be a really beautiful experience.

And it's about self-sustainability. And, you know, you build up an art and connection and community and self-reliance. But it's not really that. I mean, it's a party in the desert. Right. And I'm not going to judge people for wanting to go to a party in the desert, but I was very surprised at, where's the statistic, how many jets they take? Oh, God, what?

800 to 2,000 private jets every year. Just for, and I was like. Well, like most things like this, it's sort of, you know, maybe it starts a little low key. Maybe it's got like, you know, maybe it starts a little low key. Maybe it's got like, you know, a lot of the granola vibe going on. And then slowly it's like, oh, influencers go. Oh, tech people go. Oh, it becomes the place that you charter a private jet and you go to Burning Man.

I think that's sort of the point it's at right now, right? Yeah. But there's still a lot of... So my friend's husband is an architect and built the temple this year designed it and so my friends were there and seemed to have a ultimately have a nice time but you know they're very good people we should say that the reason we're talking about this is because there were very heavy rains and the entire area turned into a big mud hole and people were stuck there for days at a time. Yeah, this isn't like us just like,

let's piss on Burning Man for a while. No, no, no. I specifically wanted to bring this up because there was a very collective reaction. It was the news story of the weekend. And I'm sure people here made jokes. I don't know. I haven't seen anybody's Twitter.

I'm sure some of our listeners have made jokes and that's fun. We enjoy having fun. There are some things that I found. I don't know. I didn't like the immediate assumption that everybody is a tech bro. While that is a big part of it, they're just good people that are there as well. And I don't need to shame anybody for their version of having a good time, for their version of spirituality and community.

And so, you know, in the back of my mind there was that but also it's remarkable how quickly lies just spread and propagate online it is shocking funny it's shocking and funny and not great it's not great i guess it should, though. Wait, what exactly happened, though? I'll let Jonathan describe it. Well, I think you're referring to the host of True Anon, Brace Belden, who posted some satirical tweets joking about, you know, a hemorrhagic fever, i.e. Ebola spreading at Burning Man. But this got this took off really quickly and spread around to the point where the ap had to do a fact check saying no fema hasn't been sent in there's no

ebola at burning man they're going through a a bit of a mud it's just like you see these people sort of like grasp onto anything because they you know everybody is sort of um not everybody but many people are just like craving they like the government's doing a secret thing and we found out about it and they're trying to like lock us down or they're trying to hide like the information and so as soon as you have somebody i don't know if the truenon uh account has a blue check um but i like there's an element of like oh blue check shared some information so we gotta they're trying to cover it up and so there are a lot of tweets like yeah the government's like i've seen all these like army trucks come in um and they jump

on it and then they find out it's not real and i i saw a few uh quote unquote big blue check accounts be like uh you know i'm i think it's it's now more important than ever to start fact checking and like fact checking gets a bad name these days but i think it's important and it's like you're just learning now that you need to do fact checking because you didn't like like factcheck.org saying trump said something or whatever like five years ago better now for sure god it is the worst um you know i saw some a girlfriend of mine who i love and adore in case she listens to this but she posted something where she was like i think it was intentional i think she was like, I think it was intentional. I think she was like, do you guys think Burning Man, like the response, it was like to, it was like an experiment to see how we would survive

in like these climate crisis situations. And I wrote, I'm going to read it right now. I was like, I think you're giving folks way too much credit. I said, most humans will choose pleasure over preparation. Plus since our own hurricane tropical storm didn't do much in la they probably figured they'd take their chances and she said i do think it was intentional to let them suffer and i'm just like i really think you're like i don't know what that i just yeah but it was fascinating to see like even my friends were kind of like well it it's hard to there is so much happening all the time and different influences and different opinions and people and we have we all have access to it and

it is fascinating we are living through a time and will continue to and i think it's going to become more pervasive where you'll be really taken aback by things that people we very much respect and are good friends and be like where did you get that yeah or i think even they're like as we're living for the rest of our lives in unprecedented times um i think you'll because it was just like well why would they go if they knew i'm like baby they're there have you met a human it's perfect yeah like have you met most people like they went because they took their chances like yeah they probably saw like oh it's like have you met most people like they went because they took their chances like yeah they probably saw like oh it's forecasted for whatever i already got tickets i already got my rv i'm gonna go anyways right it's not even like have you met people it's like have you met burning man

people yeah have you met yeah they're gonna go to burning man but also it's you know but like you already said nine times out of ten the storms here aren't what you think they might be but also was this forecast as some huge i don't know i maybe wouldn't have expected this amount of mud yeah i'm curious and you you're not a mind reader you don't know your friend's uh exact theory but i'm curious because there's again there's a sort of urge to like i gotta something's going on right there's like some there's a sort of urge to like, I got to there's something's going on. Right. There's like some sort of plan. Right. Sinister thing behind it.

Right. But it also oftentimes comes up against like this, like a contradiction of like, well, what do you like to do what? So I guess my question is, like, do you think that they meant like, oh, they're testing this out to see how well people would survive in these conditions to see if they would survive or to see if like is it to see like if they would not survive and then people would like move on or like because like the how much how much do they think the government cares about our survival and if they were worried about it wouldn't they like try to like educate people on how to deal with these or like like implement like some sort of better infrastructure to deal with this i was in high school in texas during hurricane katrina and i can tell like we had so many implants that came that came in because of that so i can already tell you how the government feels about our right caring about our survival but i really i i don't know i also don't want to you know i don't want to be

your friend growing up i saw people going out when there would be like a tornado warning it was like well i'm gonna go to buffalo wild wings and it's just like you know look yeah people want their wings you know that's just how it is i don't know the human beings we're constantly asking ourselves why. They make some of the choices that they do. But I don't think it was some big conspiracy theory. Probably not. You know the biggest conspiracy theory? It didn't have music. It's not a music festival.

That is a Bernstein, Berenstein situation. Why are people even going? Blow this wide open. I had no idea. what are you doing all day there is that a bandana effect where some people believe that burning man used to have music yeah like 10 years ago they're like yeah wait a minute it's just you built you build the thing and you take the drugs and you walk around it's never had garbage was there i saw machine okay i'm so sorry it was 2019 um i also just found out my i'm millennial uh my friends that are gen z uh we were talking about i remember i messaged one of my girlfriends she's gen z i was

like you do you know who blink like tell me you know who blink 182 is and she was like of course i do um because i had talked to some guy who is a millennial i want to say he's right on the cusp of millennial gen z who said he never heard of them he was born born and raised bullshit your fans can write me too if they he was born and raised in america and i'm like there's no way you haven't heard the word blink with the numbers 182 connected even in passing even on the radio there's no way and so i asked my girlfriend and she was like of course i've heard him she was like nobody likes you when you're 23 i like posted that on my 23rd birthday and so i was like yeah of course and like travis barker with courtney kardashian and she was like wait travis barker was in blink 182 and i was like oh they know him

through machine gun kelly through courtney this is trippy she was like oh I thought he was made in the same factory that Machine Gun Kelly was and I was like no babe he was no he's been

so famous oh that's so funny fascinating I just think it's funny it's like the other day yeah that Woody Allen uh a bunch of people tweeting

about Woody Allen and like people like slowly realizing like his history and like just like that phenomenon. Like you're finding out about this thing. Like, well, I thought we all knew this about this person growing up is that there will as we get older, we'll see more generations connecting the dots and being like, oh. Speaking of out of touch millennials, I just have to mention this in passing.

Perfect transition. touch millennials i just have to mention this in passing uh perfect transition candidate vivek ramaswamy for the uh gop um released his top eight songs playlist um amongst a bunch of other candidates it was a bunch of candidates releasing and he participated and he released eight songs and two of them were by imagine dragons and you know, people got their music opinions. I don't want to, I don't want to poo-poo anybody's opinions about music, but I'm going to. I can't imagine being like,

because he's like 38. He's like, he's a millennial. And I can't imagine being a millennial and then hearing Imagine Dragons come out when you're like in your like mid twenties and being like, this shit's awesome. I like this it's like it's formative for me in my mind it's just like well no that's for like younger people who grew up with them not for people who had like developed musical taste and then after decades were like this imagine dragons like i i i

i love this so much i'm gonna include two of their songs with my top eight. And it's fine. Whatever. Yeah. When your musical tastes include Mozart and Woody Guthrie and then go to Imagine Dragons. Well, I think that the songs he probably likes Mozart. He probably likes Lose Yourself. I don't know about that. I don't know if he does.

And he probably genuinely loves Imagine Dragons because there's two of them. Yes. I think the rest were just songs that he picked for. This is my instinct based on nothing. Songs that he picked to just seem like. Oh, Woody Guthrie was chosen definitely because of that Rich Men North of Richmond song. Like in response to that song song people like started talking about woody guthrie more and then i think he's just it's just a cultural thing he's like well i'm

gonna do this like that maybe uh no he's no but like that's what the conversation sparked um and i feel like that's why it's there um we don't need to talk about this anymore i just no it was a that was a uh perfect way to wrap up this show thank you hey you're welcome thank you vivek thank you vivek oh by the way the song was radioactive it's a song called thunder oh my god i found like huge singles i don't know through that list i found out they had two other songs danny thank you so much for joining us today that was a really great conversation this is where I ask people to plug things

things that can be plugged one thing we didn't talk about up there I can't wait for this to be over I can't wait to shout my friends work from the rooftops it's so frustrating and it's hard to talk around things i don't want to reference what i'm watching i don't want to you know anyway but what can you share with us where

can people find you support you all the things i'm at ms danny fernandez it's ms d-a-n-i-f-e-r-n-a-n-d-e-z on twitter and instagram and then um and i am danny fernandez onandez on TikTok which I'm trying to use more but uh yeah my short film In the Static which is 100% indie uh like follow and it's not out on you can't catch it on streaming it'll probably do its festival circuit first before it goes online or goes to a streamer but if it's coming to a city near you you can follow me and find that out yeah and then you'll know when it is on a streamer too true i wanted to say um imagine dragons pro union known i know i made a snide remark when i saw that um that they were actually performing to break the strike um and i got to push back on that i apologize um i you

know i appreciate that support from them i just hate that we'll take support from any anyone that wants to show up on the picket lines and bring your guitar out cody yeah who else has performed um i see the videos once in a while of when a band shows up at least Lista, our Latina WGA group, we got a mariachi band to perform under Netflix. I saw that. On Cinco de Mayo. And it was so funny because the other writers were like, whoa, these guys just showed up to support us.

I'm like, that's because we paid them to do this. We have to be very loud, which is fine. But we have done little hits like that, I like to call. We had dancers at Universal. And then we had mariachis another day where we'll just like, hey, do you want to make some bucks? We like fundraise it ourselves and get them to play for like their trumpets underneath Netflix for like 30 minutes. That's really fun. So anyways, that was for Cinco de Mayo.

So, you know, and now we're in about to hit Latino Heritage Month. So you might see more of us. Maybe I'll bring it back around. We will. Bookends. It'll bookend the strike. See who else. Hopefully.

Perfect. All right, guys, that's it for us today. But this has been fun. Is this a song I'm making up? I don't know. We're going to keep working on it. We love you very much, though. Much, though. Have you ever heard that story that Napoleon used the Egyptian Sphinx for target practice

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