Some More News - Smoke-ocalypse, Conservative Victimhood, and EVEN MORE Traveling Aggravators

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

Hi. Michael Swaim (@SWAIM_CORP) and Abe Epperson (@AbeTheMighty) are back to talk with Katy and Cody about Canadian wildfires, smoky cities, school board fights, and defending trans rights. Note: News of the federal indictment against Donald Trump broke after we finished recording. We will (probably) talk about it next week!   Plus, join Michael and Abe for the Papa Bear Telethon on Saturday, June 10 from 4pm PT to midnight at The Small Beans YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@smallbeans6720   And the Papa Bear crowdfunding page is still https://www.seedandspark.com/fund/papa-bear Support us on our PATREON: http://patreon.com/somemorenews  Check out our MERCH STORE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews?ref_id=9949  SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh    Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1  Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news   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  TUSHY is kicking off the summer with 40% off all bidets! The biggest sale of the year will be running May 31st thru June 9th. Go to HELLOTUSHY.com\MORENEWS and use promo code MORENEWS to get 40% off plus FREE shipping on your bidet order! That's HELLOTUSHY.com\MORENEWS for FORTY PERCENT OFF. So protect yourself with the VPN that I use and trust. Use my link EXPRESSVPN.com/MORENEWS today for an extra three months free on a one-year package. That's EXPRESSVPN.com/MORENEWS. Visit EXPRESSVPN.com/MORENEWS to learn more. If you want to take ownership of your health, try AG1 and get a FREE 1-yearsupply of Vitamin D AND 5 Free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkAG1.com/MORENEWS. That's drinkAG1.com/MORENEWS. Check it out.

Hello and welcome back to Even More News, the first and only news podcast. My name is Katie Stoll. That's correct. Hi, Katie Stoll. Correct. What's my name? Wait, what's going on? Hi.

What's your name again? Hi, I'm Cody. What? Hi, Cody. Hi. Johnston. That's my name? Wait, what's going on? Hi. What's your name again? Hi, I'm Cody. What? Hi, Cody. Hi. Johnston. That's right. Thank you.

And joining us again today, probably the first time we've had people return this quickly, but we're very much here for it. Michael Swayman, Abe Epperson. Back so fast. So fast. Oh, so many plugs. Who would have thought the old man would have so much plug in him our pull is strong apparently because we mean got you to agree to this so jokes on you thank you so much for having us back again it's really important at this particular time that

we're in everybody's ear holes. So thank you for the props. Well, you're good to have in our ear holes. We said yes, because we're friends in real life, AKA the Lawn Con. Yes, suckers. Got them. You've been building up to this moment for a long time. It's all paying off.

I moved to California for this? Yeah, Michael and Abe are in the last few weeks of their seed and spark crowdfunding campaign they're so close we're here to support them but we're also here to talk about news oh yeah you're just good time good time pals good time fellas indeed and uh you know we love to see you love to see you as much as possible this feels like it dovetails very nicely into the first of today's holidays which is national best friends day yeah that's a pretty good one yeah we got some dear friends here yeah i kind of shot my friend wide at the wedding. I know. Like all the feeling of fraternity is used up. You're all,

you're like, I had enough of you all. It still was true. It's just like when you use a drug and it's too much, then the withdraw peeler. Yeah. So like feeling very alienated. And then any sort of expression of that friendship now is going to be like,

it's not, it's not as good as it used to be. Here's the thing about friends, is they keep bringing you right back. They pull me back in. One last score. Just when I thought I'd hear for it. One last friendship,

then I'm out. For those of us who didn't get married two weeks ago this is your day to shout out all your best friends and say that you love them must here's what i'll have to say about best friends day i don't have one best friend cody is one of my best friends depends on them you know but depends on what i've done you know i've always bristled i'm like i i just say this is one of my best friends instead of this is my best friend one you know because i don't want i don't need to diss everybody at my all of my relationships are very important to me right yeah that it's

i hope we grow out of that being a thing that matters that much yeah. So that's why I, you know what I say about Best Friends Day? Big fucking deal. Dear Friends Day. Many dear friends. Dear, many dear friends whom are loved. I also,

so Jonathan noted in the document, the National Day Calendar says that Congress made this day their friends now. Oh, that's good. In in 1935 as he also notes they were kind of busy that year uh so maybe they didn't do this i also can't find any evidence of it every bit

of information that claims that congress made this day in 1935 is like national calendar.com and stuff like that like there's no like, here's the law, here's what it is. I feel like my brain is fudging in and it's probably a few years early to be FDR, but I'm just imagining like a day that will live

as Best Friends Day. I have a best friend. The real FDR. Let me tell you. Friends Day is real. Let me tell you. When we have bro time oh man

we be hanging out just me and him high fiving it's weird that it's not represented on the internet it's almost like no one cares it's almost like no one cares or this was the last great bipartisan act pal day is trending right now

at least for me. Pal Day? Pal Day. Which is not a, that's crazy that that's the version of saying it that caught on. Did it catch on? Enough to trend on Twitter. Enough to trend on Twitter. Which if you click through will sometimes mean like there's 800 tweets about it, which doesn't seem like a lot given the whole world or whatever no but it is a great observation about how twitter is not representative of the world

i love no tiny fraction yeah oh god yeah i need to look this up more because i love there's so on national today.com it says national best friends day uh was started by congress in 1935 those are the origins it's on a timeline they have a timeline on the website 1935 national best friends day established during a u.s congressional hearing jumps to 2007 back again mary's mary wisniewski revitalizes the holiday by writing about it in the chicago sun times i posit she made it up in 2007 in chicago sun times because that's almost a hundred year jump before anyone mentioned best friends day which was allegedly created by congress in 1935 i mean cody's on you sleuthing on you mary we have almost completely spent our holiday time talk, holiday talk time talking about

this one. I just want to throw out June 9th, National Sex Day. Oh, man. We buried the lead. We buried the lead, friends. This probably would have been more fun to mine. But Michael, you recently got married. Have you guys consummated your relationship yet's so weird good question news oriented i love it

matter of public record uh i also will just say that i love that i love it there's friends day right before sex day what a great time for losers to try and get over that hump just try and ramp yeah you bring them like a friend cheese danish and then you bring them like you know more on sex day hey you know how we said we were best friends yesterday you know what like really best friends do well you can't say oh go ahead abe i was just gonna say i was just gonna say with friends there's always the option oh yeah it's true best or not well then yeah it's true abe can answer the consummation question you're you know i was there i'm gonna tell the truth we got not covid which is great but we got really really sick because we went it because we were at a wedding hugging people.

Yeah. And if like if you listen to our pals Gamefully Unemployed, they also mentioned a recent episode. Tom and Dave were both really sick. I think we all got the same shit. Not COVID. Not COVID. So, yes, but it but not in a satisfying way. Yeah. So yes, but not in a satisfying way. Yeah, we're like... We did our due diligence, but we didn't feel great. I saved myself for this. Yeah, yeah. Before we move on, Jonathan, our amazing real-time fact checker, found...

I don't subscribe to the Washington Post, so I can't read the article. But the headline is that national best friends day was indeed a hoax it's it's about the birth of a hoax it was no such thing as this ago this is amazing mary is full of shit well mary was new ski didn't invent it but she saw it on earth calendar. net and then wrote about it it's like just a reverse it's just a memory Mary bullshit yeah wow this had a whole

arc that was amazing it was actually news podcast exactly this is everybody complaining that we haven't gotten to the news yet fuck you we just made the news and the like thousand word Washingtonhington post article doesn't mention congress at all so i don't know like one of those day calendars something made it up or

uh chat gpt gave it to them and they're all like let's update it yes jonathan yes okay we're gonna take a quick ad break and then we're gonna get to more news fuck you i should stop saying fuck you right before i like this new katie hey it's cody i mean katie you know how sometimes your holes gross and you have to clean your hole for some reason we use paper to clean our holes which which is weird. Papers for mailing letters to old rich people claiming to be their grandchild, not for our holes. So you should check out Hello Tushy Bidets. They're the hole cleaner of the future. They are. Hello Tushy Bidet cleans your bum two times better than wiping and prevents pool particles from spreading to your hands and everything you touch, so you won't smell weird when you meet new grandpa.

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Wow. ExpressVPN.com slash more news and you can get an extra three months free wow expressvpn.com slash more news we're back we're back yes we are still yeah that's the spirit that's how we like to set people up we do love you guys though you fucks fucks. Okay, first up today, New York City smoke. Smoke-a-la-ocalypse. Smoke-a-lips? Smoke-pocalypse? Smoke-a-lips. Smoke-a-lips?

Smoke-a-lips. A-puff-a-lips. Ooh. You know, when I write these notes, I sometimes put what I think are silly titles as to the content of them. But I don't necessarily mean, I'm like, I hope Katie reads this flawlessly. Right, right, right.

A smogalypse? Yeah. So you're not looking for us to live workshop this for you? Well, I guess I should think about them more before I put them in here like this is the header of the story i love i love the i love what you put in i'm either gonna run with it or struggle with it or call you out or like new york is doing yeah canada all right we should talk about the story um yes new york is currently covered in a thick blanket of smoke.

This is the result of, I think it's over 100 wildfires burning in Canada currently. Yeah, out of control in Ontario and Quebec. Local air quality was at the worst level on record. at the worst level on record actually i believe worst in the world worst major city in the world which makes me think worse in the world because i don't know why am i anyway it's not good you people are needing to wear n95s outdoors running air purifies they're not prepared for this in the same way that we have been over the last decade well maybe yeah we're no they haven't we're the west coast is more used to this than other places but not this bad it looks real bad it looks really bad yeah i remember like three of us actually should have some like first-hand

accounts of this kind of i've been in a haze again yeah we were all in san diego for the 2003 pendleton fires and i don't know how the these relate in terms of magnitude but the sky was red look deep red 2003 yeah yeah i tweeted about this i grew up in california and i know that there are wildfires i you know that the thing that were smoky the bear has had sides up for forever but it was never ever ever a thing that happened that was a guarantee to happen all the time uh i never experienced one until i was in san diego that was the first time and i didn't know when i went to bed that night that there was a fire and i woke up the next day and the sky was sepia all of my posters were curled in on themselves because i slept with the window open and it was terrifying and since then it's become more and more regular i mean i don't preaching to the choir here we've lived through

yeah the last 10 years and we're going to talk about how people are talking about it especially fox news and uh climate denialism and how these store these fires are absolutely linked to climate change i do want to point out that part of the problem is that we well for a long, outlawed burning indigenous practices of forest maintenance and how we, you know, used to care for the forest. And so there is that.

Yeah, controlled burns. And as one of the greatest presidents of all time has said, you got to sweep the floor. You got to sweep the floor of the fucking forest. We're currently where I live. There's we're in the middle of a month long controlled burn.

And the benefit to that is that it's not raging out of control. There are days that it's a little hazy, days that it's not. But it's not, you know, an apocalypse. I'm always in the controlled burn. yeah i'm always in the control burn you know there there is the reality of the fact that we have not been properly stewarding our forests and there is that but multiple things are true and so is climate change real yeah um yeah we should do stuff uh well instead of poorly i think my hot take uh we should take care of things and do them the way we're supposed to. So that disasters don't happen.

Is that, I don't know, controversial? Not controversial, but I think there's more hope there than people realize if you unpack it. To tie it all back to FDR, who, by the way, was president in 1935. Nice. Nailed it. Nice. Nailed it. Nice. And of course, helped get us out of the Depression with the New Deal, which people, younger people,

probably just no one can, like in comparison to AOC's Green New Deal. But it formed like the Tennessee Valley Authority and all these like job projects to make the roads good. And they already suck again. And like make infrastructure and dams and all this stuff

it seems to me that it's a real crisis to unity this miasma eclipse be that um where uh if i mean i'm not aoc thought of this already but yes my hope is that we can prepare for inclement yes natural weather. Like we have sophisticated technology, know how to do that. There are tremendous feats of engineering and climate change is making it. So all the problems are not only beefed up, but they move where they are. So all the places are not prepared for whatever they're getting now. So we have to do that. Like it's the equivalent of earthquake retrofitting.

We can create jobs. We can like do this. There's manpower p we can make everything work it's depressingly true what you're saying we gotta we don't and like you know like there's like all these return guys like you know uh yeah the mantra of like oh we don't make anything this country anymore there are many opportunities you just have to like believe in climate change and think it's okay there's solutions to the main existential crisis that's going on it's a huge opportunity to build time where like the there's this and like

obviously like institutions are flawed and like governments shouldn't like be like trusted like implicitly and all this sort of stuff but there's this sort of movement of like if you're telling me what to do and i'm an American, you can go fuck yourself. I'm not going to wear a mask in New York right now. I'm not going to do this. Any project is like communism. Any like collective action is sort of seen as like, well, they're trying to do like a new world order on us or something. Yeah, they're real Canadians.

So like that capability of just like we can make stuff. We could have these projects. We can do this. We can we could solve these problems. But there's this huge resistance to like AOC's Green New Deal. That's communism in a little bit. And they're like, I know we could solve it. I build shit all the time with my big truck. I choose not to for political reasons.

Yeah. All right. Then we'll all drown in shit or whatever. Yes. I agree with so much. Everything. But, you know, I have these conversations. You will all drown in shit. You fuck it.

The sentiment on the ground is that you will be drowning. The problem right now, whenever I talk about climate change, and I mean this, it's yes, I want to do whatever I can to invest in different technologies and green solutions, et cetera. At the same time right now, what I know we need is infrastructure.

What I, and, and inherently that shouldn't be at odds with what any, uh, people on the right want. You know, they want good jobs. They want opportunities. This is a prime example of how our nation should be looking at the facts of what's the reality of what's happening around us and able to use that as incentive and a reason to invest in our roads, in retrofitting, in solar, in whatever it is, all the different things that we need to be preparing for the next rest of humanity the problem is yeah it's all politicized and so you get hung up on whether or not climate change is even real and you get so dug in the other side gets so dug in on denying that it's existence that they're also denying themselves the opportunity to for jobs for xyz um and it's it's very frustrating well because all that

infrastructure needs to happen regardless of climate change like there's so many things that we don't we do poorly nowadays um and we don't have to do them poorly but with climate change it just adds this layer of like no we should be doing it now and then it also adds the layer of people like well then i'll never do it never underestimate the power of the feeling of status quo with humans i find that that seems to be a case did you guys see this tweet that was a photo of just a new york skyline with a huge billboard that's for diablo 4 welcome to hell new york unreal june 6th you also see that tweet from grimace the official grimace account or mcdonald's account being like i've got a surprise coming on 6 6 which was the day that yeah monk happened so who knows who knows what they're what

they're all up to and of course i'm seeing lots of screenshots of uh the blade runner 2049 vegas sequence yeah jonathan you have seen tweets of people being like petty west coast yeah there's been a lot of like you know you'll be like the bay area had this a couple years ago or let me know when your aqi is up to 640 then we'll talk this is so disgusting and i think michael hobbs tweeted something about this as well it's not like a competition i don't wish anybody to live experience the stressful circumstances that the West Coast lives under now. It's deeply unhealthy and alarming. And, you know, we all need to learn from this and prepare.

And yes, no to have air purifiers. You know, they also, New York citizens, East Coast people, I'm seeing weren't properly warned. There was a lot of talk about how they they could have been the news could have been covering it differently so that people were prepared when it actually happened and stuff like that but it's not a competition that's all i mean that's kind of like an element of that that now like american thing right it's a sort of rugged individualism competition focused american attitude that everything is that sort of competition and like i don't know it's like

it's not the same thing as like instantly against any sort of collective action or like infrastructure project but it seems like kind of a uniquely American thing just to not uniquely, but just more prominent in all all the spectrum of politics to just be like, well, fuck you. Like we we handled it fine. OK, other people aren't. And you can be worried about that. I don't know. I think it's opportunism fatigue that installs a little brain worm in your stupid brain where you go, yeah, the,

everything sucks. And I, I have it the worst. Uh, I think that kind of individualism that we've stressed where you're the hero of the story. Yeah. Yeah.

I was going to say, it really comes back to individualism being the core of our thing versus collectivism. It's a spectrum, but we're far on that end. And that's a defining trait, right? Cowboy culture. And fuck you. We do what we want manifest destiny. collectivism it's a spectrum but we're far on that end and that's a defining trait right cowboy

culture and buck you we do what we want manifest destiny god wants us to have this land that's pretty ballsy and um there's a bunch of good stuff about it like i like that i care about my own individual expression but you couple that with capitalism it's like it's hard to compare stuff without it like i wish we could have comparison without competition because i do believe to navigate a situation adroitly like you could compare whether amish people are more or less marginalized than like a trans black woman in america you can compare those things meaningfully and it might be helpful to do so but it's not a competition right that's a

specific kind of comparing with an agenda yeah with a winner and a zero-sum game assumption which i know we're so used to thinking america is the game everything is is that you're trying to win everything yeah hustle yeah well conservatives too there's also this feeling of competitive victimhood of like you know no matter what the left is talking about it's like no like they're just trying to be the victims and that's actually me you know i have to put forth my victimhood in that as well even even when we get whatever we want we're the real victims right they they definitely like they push this idea like of like the victimhood mindset is bad and everybody's faking

it except for me who's being oppressed for my whiteness for real right and it's a pretty common coping mechanism i think a lot of people develop with the world i definitely do see it on our side too but it is a matter of degree absolutely and i wouldn't be the person i am if i didn't feel that the people expressing victimhood on the political left often are actually being victimized and the right right are just concocting a particular story in their brain that's useful like yeah try to find out in the narrative who's being bullied because then you understand the basics of coercion and coercion must be stopped or who has like a mathematical history of 50 years of not getting as much money or respect or power you're like they're probably gonna win

this argument if it is an argument if it's an argument exactly yeah instead of again just sort of like comparing and assessing and moving forward together. Imagine that. Imagine that. Imagine the cost, the taxes, Cody. Ooh, I didn't think about the tax. Oh! The tax. You mean these here roads? I have to pay for these here roads?

I'll pay for roads, I'll pay for fucking train tracks. Yeah. This feels like a good place to take an ab break. It feels like a great place to take an ab break. It feels like a great place to take an ad break. And then we'll... Give that high-speed rail on sex day. Jeez, what a world. All that hustle, and don't forget the bustle as well.

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A skirmish broke out outside of a Glendale school board meeting on Tuesday night. on Tuesday night. The board was there just to vote on making pride, marking Pride Month officially within school, something that they already did, by the way. You know, most schools do recognize Pride Month, as do most people. But anti-LGBTQ, MAGA agitators showed up. Many, maybe all, all of them. I don't think any of them had children at the school board they just showed up at the school uh and fought counter protesters cops had to show up separate groups i believe there was a shelter in place for people that were there which is all incredibly terrifying i've had friends there that have children in a glenn the glendale school district and it was all pretty horrifying and terrifying scary and yes like i i said uh some

of these protesters are you know well they are they're proud boys oh yeah they're like they're known like aggravators agitators uh activists a lot of them just live in la glendale's a separate school district it's not like a part of la proper so they were there for the for the thing that we saw on video like they were there for that to do that that's like we talked about like pride month i don't know but the vibes are bad uh this month and um this is just sort of part of it but you, or I've been sort of tracking this as a thread between news stories, and I'm happy to find that, yeah,

it seems like by and large, the people who believe in hatred are like a roving band of people who go on tour doing this, and the protesters vary in each town because most people are not maniacs, but when they hear maniacs are coming to their town, they go in the street and stand there yeah uh which is great i love to hear that it's like uh the immune system it's like the white bring out your mania to the toxin as it circulates

around yeah well yeah that's the thing also that yeah a lot of these like events where it's like we're there because we know that like they're proud boys there are like people who are because they posted like i'm getting everyone in a van and we're driving 1200 miles to beat the shit out of people like oh okay we better prep for that we better make sure they don't do that exactly because the cops aren't gonna do anything and if they do it's gonna be to help them all right it's really hard to talk about this actually it's not it's pretty easy to for us to sit here and talk about it but it's incredibly frustrating we spent a whole episode last week saying we're worried about what's going to happen this pride month and a week later here we are and

you know there it wasn't the only one in the area too at north hollywood elementary school there was a protest and someone set a pride flag on fire and i have mentioned repeatedly that i have conversations up here with people that don't agree with me necessarily i appreciate that they're open to having the conversations and there is in general a true desire to get to the bottom of it and there's so much bullshit that's circulating and misinformation out of context videos this that or the other but it's tough and it feels like they or i would imagine a very normal human element on the individual level is uh it seems like culture's going that way. Right.

Like, I mean, target was forced to pull a bunch of their pride stuff, but, but they didn't even use to try to have trans flag and the, and, and I mean, products that they hope to make money on and their giant corporation. So it's like, they can see that, oh, culture largely agrees. The things that make billions of dollars are like, we're all cool. Like, this is how this is going to go. And I think part of it is even just the emotional idea of, so my kids are going to believe totally differently from me. Like, that's going to be such a disconnect between us.

Like, fighting for your children to stay the same as you. Just so you can have a relationship. I think that gets down at the heart of it. Yeah. There's not, like some critical race theory. There's so many things that we train in education. Don't groom our children. What is education?

You just aren't happy with the myths that you were told are now being replaced by more correct myths. Oh, yeah. The people who will show that there's a pride flag on the wall in a high school and tweet brainwashing or Wellian bullshit. And it's like, what about the 50 years of pictures of kids saluting the flag in attention? This is reality. In unison.

Get into the situation.'re like here's the moment of that yeah and so there's a lot of frustration on that and i just think that that the rage that is inspired by is what's fueling this that's why you get things like people like for example uh one of the things i was reading on like just the Twitter version of this news, so I can't really like cite exactly how like I wasn't there. But like for several, several of the protesters on the side of, you know, like the anti LGBT were protesting the Los Angeles Unified School District, when in reality, Glendale is its own separate entity. So they didn't even do the research to do that. It's a knee jerk reaction. Angelus Unified School District, when in reality, Glendale is its own separate entity. So they didn't even do the research to do that. It's a knee jerk reaction.

It's grab a protest board. Let's go. It's not. Let's actually think about what our ideals are. We're ideals first. We're principal first. We're not actually looking at the information that's there. And that that is a problem on any side because the second we start doing that we have essentially turned into a mob and so you can kind of see like they're

giving it up there they're showing their hand it's it's obvious to us yeah they're like yeah signs there where it's like you you just it's obvious it's a war of attrition at this point not and it's done by pride and it's done by tribalism and it's not done by actual, like, what are we doing here? Like, what are the facts? What are people actually caring about? And what are the details that we need to care about? That discussion's out the window. And just like a lot of people who are attracted to fascist themes or outlets or like the police forces inherent ability to exercise fashion i feel

like there's an element of people who are coming because it's an opportunity to wear their stupid vest with plates in it and yes spike apples and shit they never get to do that they're hoping breaks out yeah well yes lots of people are hoping for that. I believe that to be true. I know that to be true. Yeah, excuses for violence, like, even though, like, there's, like, the shoplifting stuff where it's like, oh, I can fucking beat this person up. Like, there's a sort of, like, we talked about this even, like, last week a little bit,

just, like, that sort of impulse of, like, oh, somebody's knocking on my door. I can shoot that person. Like, there's this sort of, like, urge. It's not the majority, but some people get excited about that shit for sure yeah yeah or like at least once in my life i want to get in a fight beat the shit out of someone yeah a pride flag in a school versus the american flag or photos that whole conversation i i don't know if i've mentioned that on the show here but that's something that I bring up in conversations that seems to take hold.

It's like, what's wrong with having a flag that represents who you are and what you believe in? And but so that other people who identify or we have Trump flags, we have different flags everywhere. So what are you talking about, about brainwashing or indoctrination in that? So what are you talking about, about brainwashing or indoctrination in that there is a lot of different stories about what teachers are teaching, quote unquote, but they aren't, you know, that are just blatantly false. But for the average person, that kind of narrative starts to take hold and they don't really know what it is that they are fighting against. And so when you take the time to get to the nitty gritty with people, sometimes you can make some headway. But yeah, I mean, there is a surprising amount of resilience. I think it comes mostly from religion. We are like I I think America is still very much religious. And there's a lot of people who and because I do think that there were parents in there's a lot of people who,

and cause I do think that there were parents in the protests. There were people who have been kind of soaked up into the myth of this, who don't have great views on like LGBTQ like rights and just seeing them as people. And this, this is so far entrenched that the only way forward i see is like doing what we essentially have been doing which is just screaming at the top of our lungs stop doing this because if you don't uh it won't stop so yeah people who are of the center I think ultimately they need they're the ones who need to be convinced so that there's mobilization to essentially. Or their children. Yeah.

I mean, that's. Well, right. That's the thing. There's a lot of these people where it's like you're doing this fight right now, but I don't know, maybe one of your kids is going to be gay and they're going to fucking hate you for this. This is why I like storytelling is I do actually believe if you put good stories out stories are programs for like self-domestication and and programming our future programming can be positive or negative so like i would tell those parents uh you can delay it and it would suck but the fact that like spider-man into the spider-verse has trans lives matter shit in it and the fact that target you know even if it's temporarily

stalled is has celebrates pride month so hard for financial reasons like you lose three generations from now we'll all be programmed to yeah be accepting and it's too late i love that the stories lead the way i really think that's essentially yeah and i just i know that lots of people have never met a trans person which is all the more reason to be like they're like is it a choice is it natural what is what junk do they actually have it doesn't matter it doesn't matter if you don't even have to understand its origins or like it has nothing to do with you yeah just so silly it never mattered to ask or not with you then good luck like figuring out those feelings yeah cool the only argument is god it makes me feel like god is somehow mad and it's like okay well there's a

bunch of 10 back there that's right exactly god is mad that's i'm not paid enough for that remember when westboro baptist church seemed like the worst most violent kind of anti-queer thing we would get yeah there's like mobs with gas natural violence yeah exactly yeah that's those were the days the goal the golden era god it's also like it's just that one crazy family then the racism will be all gone i think one of uh one of the daughters turned out to be gay i think and like left the church and then trying to get it's gonna happen way to reborn as woke but only got halfway and still said problematic shit she's got a complicated journey to be on for sure yeah yes you know start start there is a long way to go hey yeah i do want to get i'm i'm sure you haven't

had these conversations much katie but i'm curious where the um i guess the intersection of like stuff we've been talking about and the conservative media discourse of actually they're all pedophiles and they're trying to cut your kid's dick off or vice versa against their will exactly even like you know like tim pool we don't talk about that much because he's um i think they're kind of a stupid guy and a liar oh really but yeah incidentally that's what i think i didn't see your many two minute video on the topic he know he he know good yeah but like even about this he's like actually they're they're not like they're not proud boys or activists they're all just parents fed up with pedophiles coming for their kids like that's what he's saying and it's like you're not even engaging with reality at that point and you're helping other

people not engage with reality yeah that programming is very real yeah and i i i'm worried about that kind of stuff especially seeping in uh to the like the just the boilerplate bigotry that we expect from people yeah yeah that is definitely true and prevalent and when i talk about a lot of misconceptions out there things taken out of context or exaggerated or straight out lies circulating. I'm talking about that and from actors like that. And it is difficult to unpack. And I'll take it case by case. If somebody brings something up, I've been sent videos that are meant to be damning

and then I share it with you or I look it up. Yeah, here's the context. And it's very clearly... But also the fact that it's case by case and it has to be dealt with case by case kind of speaks to the fact that maybe it's not like this overarching problem with like an entire community of individuals right but it isn't over it does also speak to how difficult it is to push back on because most people aren't as engaged as we are. Most people, you know, their boyfriend has shared something or, you know, generally speaking, the community will say, I saw this thing.

Oh, I heard this and it takes hold. And then someone's going to share that story with their friend because they really trust this person who shared it. And, you know, it's when I say case by case, I mean, I'll look at something and push back on it. But it is difficult. I'm not giving up. I'm going to keep having these conversations and learning the best ways to have them and answering questions, you know, because a lot of people want to understand and actually genuinely don't care what people do as a grown up. But they do care very much about children and that's always though that's always how it goes there's a threat

to their children and there's a threat to their children after that everything they think and feel is pretty reasonable or understandable if they believe that if they believe that basically it's like it was a kind of a revelation for me to realize you know i never really could embrace the idea of the people who are like you can't have abortions i'll burn your fucking house down and i'm like and and you're a baby murderer and then i did meditate on if i just took that as a base thing that because the way i was raised i believed that they were murdering sentient little humans that we were like mass murdering humans i guess i would be very very upset i just don't think that's accurate right every fiber of my being but yeah but yeah there are a lot of starting points where it's like yeah

i believe that i would yeah yeah and and that is a a reality but let's all calm down now and i think that the more we avoid talking to people about it the firmer entrenched in those realities we become but it's not easy and especially when very emotional there's like a culture war and people feel cornered and then they're trying to they're trying to win back the space i mean everyone's talked about it but the new boldness of like oh you can say racist stuff in public you couldn't say eight years ago or whatever there's a guy with a truck in my neighborhood who has two bumper stickers and one is like uh keep tahoe green and the other one is

find a pedophile kill a pedophile save america like yeah what an interesting time. Yeah. That is a common thing. You're throwing Tahoe under the bus here. That's where they go. Yeah, they're going to clean up Tahoe. Look out, Tahoe pedophiles. I'm on board with no pedophiles. I think pedophiles are bad. I am very taken aback.

If you don't, fuck you, frankly. Yeah. Fuck you. pedophiles are bad i am very taken if you don't fuck you frankly yeah fuck you i'm very taken aback by how convinced people are that the democrat party is the party of pedophiles right secret pedophiles like systematic pedophiles and then i'll say did you look at the GOP? And it's hard to get people to engage with that. Look at the Speaker of the House. Yes. In the late 90s. Yes. A pedophile convicted of child molestation.

The specific one. I mean, that's never a good look. But I mean, it's also like get some Democrat friends like come to our meetings i i i don't know if i'm a i'm not a democrat but like the concept of just go to leftists go to see the people you disagree with what are what so what's the recordings of the audio of those events oh those things make sense you know like housing and food i see where people yeah it's uh it's it's weird that that that is still a thing that's being presented and more to kind of kurt the earlier point anytime that the presentation uh of like the facts is less than nuanced

and it's not saying and saying it's very clear this is what they all are, that itself is usually indicative of salesmanship. You're not a serious person. You're not a serious person. So Tim Pools and the people who are taking advantage of this and riling up, that is something that we can actually proactively start combating. And then we can also start thinking about

grooming children. God. I'm just imagining that. It trickles down from people like that who are like, actually, this is the narrative and this is the thing you've got to fear and this is the thing that, this is the group of people we hate. We have a few minutes left, but

I think that this is a good opportunity to transition to talking about the movie you're working on because it also it's a terrible transition thank you katie oh i didn't mean that i didn't mean that well i know you didn't mean that you're fine do the podcast no leave it in jonathan leave this in talk to us a little bit about your movie and plug it but I think that it's important this kind of work is important in pushing back against narratives is like you were saying you were talking about like stories and that yes um in a in a, this is the Breitbart version, uh, is that, uh, like, yeah, uh, politics is downstream from culture.

So we gotta like take control by the daily wire makes bad movies because they want to take control. But you also have to be a good storyteller and like be probably empathetic and understand people a little more to tell a good story. Yeah. We're, we're also propagandists, story sure but uh we our jokes are funny and you know we and we believe in the story that we want to tell and it wasn't it's not explicitly political acceptance so far as like it comes from a place of love and empathy and i don't i'm sorry

but like the fact that it doesn't bother me that gay people exist, I hardly even consider it political. It's just like an obvious fact of the world. Um, and that's really, so I, it preaches a strong message of tolerance, but we're trying to meet a lot of people where they're at. Meaning we hope that we bring them in. Cause it's about the time my dad came out as a gay furry. And then a lot, a lot of events that orbit around that.

And we're trying to get, bring people in. Cause they're like, I've heard a lot about free culture. I barely understand. I hear these outrageous things like they shit in litter boxes and stuff and fucking suits. Um, I'm interested in seeing a funny comedy.

It is very funny. We've had that validated by friends and, uh, professionals who hope to make money off it. So it's funny from an investment standpoint and and heartfelt and poignant. It's one of those. But we're hoping people come in just because they like our cracked work or think it'll be really funny and not leave disappointed.

But at the same time, go like cracked stuff did. I actually learned a lot about furry culture. I didn't know. And it turns out furry culture and all sexual things like that i mean furry culture is way less sexual than people even yeah it's part of it um although they're very welcoming of queer identity which is why my dad felt comfortable doing both and it's all about all of this they're not a monolith blah blah blah but the point being that the main thing you realize is that it's super mundane and they're not really bothering you. It doesn't matter. And it's not a movie

for furs by furs by any stretch. So it's more of like an ensemble piece where you get to know a lot of characters who are going through sort of the formation of their sexual identity. But the big takeaway message is like, they't bothering you relax let's all calm down now that is kind of the yeah and actually it's kind of neat how everyone's different and their sexual identity is actually not there's not like four sexual identities you can have obvious like you know tarantino in the foot there like everyone's sexual proclivities are a complex menu of things that they arrive at and become comfortable with over the course of a whole journey. So it's characters taking that journey.

Yeah, fundamentally, what Papa Bear is about is that it's a father and son story. And it's very, I think, kind of salient in these days and age and exactly what we're talking about in this episode. You know, like taking index of people around you what is the what is can we atomize what empathy is and like look at human beings uh in a way that allows us to see outside ourselves to we have a son who basically doesn't understand that his father is a gay furry and doesn't understand what that means to him in his own formation of you know sexual identity as well and then a father who's essentially like this is who i am now and maybe like less so being a father isn't necessarily my main priority in this stage so there's a conflict

that the you know very basic element of this movie that is about, oh, how do you see through that? Well, you're a father and a son. You are humans together. Allow yourselves to just be human together. And I think it's also about a community of fans, artists, gamers who like anthropomorphized animals. And there's a lot of shout outs to fursonas and just a community that is essentially been bullied by the online zeitgeist and people at large for decades. And we thought humans could be better. And so we're making this movie still managed to stay very positive. Yeah.

It's a really wholesome community. Yeah. Which I think is a testament to a lot of what you're talking about. We're like, you know, some online communities are bullied quite a bit and resort to other modes of being. And I think it speaks to it that it's still so yeah.

Wholesome and positive. Yeah. And spoilers are like the real important thing where we think the movie is kind of different than other movies that would tackle this subject. Or let's say not indie movies that have less freedom or need to address studio notes might would go the way where by the end the sun gets it we don't even require that which we think is the importance of how our message is different um spoilers like emotionally his arc is by the end he's like um i went on this long journey to try and understand why it appeals to

you to do this i still don't understand my resolution was not coming to understand it but realizing it's none of my business and i don't care if it makes you happy that's fine right it's okay which is the more realistic version of tolerance it's not that hard and you can learn that quickly like that's not that hard to get the hang of everyone listening to this it's more it's not that hard and you can learn that quickly like that's not that hard to get the hang of everyone listening to this it's more it's more realistic and attainable i think for a lot of people struggling with that we're like they just can't understand it like that's okay oh you could stop thinking about it that's fine they don't need your approval you don't need to be in your house thinking about everybody that you'll never meet and focus on other things that might. Yeah.

And also there's jokes there. And there's jokes. They have about a week left, little over a week left of their seed and spark campaign. I think you're getting pretty close. 10 K shy. We're 10 K shy of recording this. Use that as inspiration, motivation.

They're so close. Yeah motivation they're so close yeah we're so close and we should absolutely also say that we will wait when does this drop tomorrow tomorrow so you should mention the so yeah on national sex day it drops on national sex day nice so then tomorrow in your post-coital glow glowpocalypse uh join us over on the Small Beans YouTube channel, if you'd like, for a live stream that's going to be eight hours long from 4 p.m. PT to midnight, where we will be doing a retrospective chronologically

of like, not just our favorite work, but the golden age of internet sketch comedy, because we're encyclopedically knowledgeable about that because we were so into it at the time. And then proceeding through our years at Cracked and talking over it and there will be a bunch of special guests. Yeah, it's going to be

nuts. Yes, we will. Saturday, June 10th. When you're there, that's all we're going to watch, Cody. The space inventory will appear in this. I'll drop in when I can. I've got family visiting. I've got nothing going on on Saturday. The space inventory will appear Oh yeah we're gonna watch some of your old sketches I'll drop in when I can

I've got family visiting I got nothing going on on Saturday My brother and my nephew are in town this weekend But depending on when I'm free I'll be hopping on So to be clear not on sex day Not after you've had sex on sex day The day after

Like a good post Saturday June 10th Just the longest sex of your life Yeah you better get Phil on credit day after. Saturday. Like a good post-sex. Yeah, like the longest sex of your life and then wake up. So you need a 24-hour refractory. Yeah. No one has sex two days in a row, so you definitely won't have sex on

the 10th. Not the day we're recording it, not on Saturday. Alternately, start edging at midnight at the beginning of sex day. Oh, that would be ideal. The Blink-182 song? Go two days and at the end of the stream, you know what to do. You know what to do.

You know what to do. You know what we're all gonna do. I assume you guys are doing show notes, so we'll put both links to the telethon and links to our seed and spark crowdfunding page uh if you are so inclined and thanks uh for helping us out with that plug thank you for coming back for always being great is it for us today we'll be back next week uh what am i

forgetting cody well if we if i'm not mistaken we have some lockets to snap in half in exchange oh yeah we do we absolutely do we're gonna do some walk-ins oh right mike i have to tell you i get to tell you fuck you don't say it don't say it we love you very much