Sunday Papers - Sunday Papers w/ Greg and Mike Ep: 48 1/31/21

Episode Date: January 31, 2021

Mike is livid about the GameStop stock scandal. Greg’s not happy about Polish abortions. Both are a little disappointed in this week's Family Circus. Follow Mike Gibbons on Twitter @GibbonsTime

Sunday Papers Read all about it! No! Read it! Live it! Think about it! Discuss it! It's the Sunday Papers! Holy fuck. I mean, that's what it used to be. Think about it. Discuss it. It's the Sunday papers. Holy fuck. I mean, that's what it used to be in the old days. You got up in the morning, you read the Sunday paper, and then you talked about it all day. You talked about what was going on in the world.

And what do kids do today? TikTok and masturbate. Wait, I think you brought yourself into this once again. Oh shit, sorry. How are you, man? It's not me, it's you. How are you doing? I know it's a big day for you. So a little frazzled, so we'll just be totally transparent up top. So I have a hard out at noon. That's 49 minutes from now, sadly. We would have been earlier. But how about this? You guys all know it all with corrections.

Someone write in, my audio on my brand new MacBook Pro is, I plug headphones in, will not recognize them. I restarted. I went to preferences, sound. I checked. It says it's the, you know, and then I gave up on them and it's delayed the whole podcast today. Uh, Oh, I keep looking up there. I should look down here. Um, and I'm doing it on my phone because I can, I also can't now

control my audio on my laptop, regardless of headphones. I'll talk for 50 more minutes about this. Anyway, couldn't turn the volume down. Can't mute it. So there's a lot of audio issues with feedback when you're trying to do a zoom and you're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, uh, Mike, you're avoiding, you're avoiding. The reason I have a hard out is because, uh, we, my stepmother died, uh, two weeks ago, you know know my stepmother, Cynthia. Of course. I'm very sorry.

Yeah, 41 years, married to my dad. And so there's a memorial service today, East Coast, pretty big. And then the family voted that I emcee it. So anyway, so there's- Not only emcee it, it but you basically you had to figure out all the technological stuff too which we just established you're not good at right got a a very famous boston comedian that you know jimmy tingle i asked the i asked someone out here i have to do this i go have you been to any big zooms or memorials that like impressed you like, or anything? I just randomly. And like, it's so funny you ask. And anyway,

the short version is her husband's dad died. He saw a memorial for a comic in Boston, 28 performers, and it ran flawlessly this zoom. So he hired him for his dad's memorial and they knocked it out of the park. So, uh, Jimmy tingles company, which started just to do comedy shows over zoom is now helping people do these types of things. That's amazing. So how many people are on the, on the call? It's about like, you know, between two 75 and 300. It's not a small affair. Yeah. And we're coordinating a bunch, you know, like of live people. We have four videos playing back at different times. It's very much like producing a show.

Like I had a rundown with the item numbers and the whole thing. How is your dad doing? He's doing okay. You know, that's the whole thing is like, you know, weddings and funerals are very much giant distractions from what's really going on. Right. We talked about that before. Yeah. So this isn't exactly hosting a party like a wedding or even a funeral. But there are a lot of logistics.

And my dad is bad at like group emails to people and then dealing. Did you get the link and all that stuff? Yeah. Anyway, one quick note. You know my stepbrother Jeff very well. Jeff Nichols, comedian extraordinaire. Is he retired or is he still doing it? I think he's kind of retired.

He lives in Montauk. He's generally known as the best striped bass fisherman. He's a captain out in Montauk he's he's he's generally known as the best striped bass fisherman he's a captain out in montauk uh not great not great with boats uh if you haven't listened to the show he sank mike's dad's boat mike's oh he mike's dad's stepson sank his boat and burned his house down he also yeah not at the same, but that would have been a tear, man. He's amazing. You have amazing standup stories about him. And he would like sometimes do, he would like have a gig wherever in South Carolina.

And when he got down there, all he'd padding, he would start doing a tells material. And he comes back once and he goes to a tie. He's like, uh, your stuff really didn't play in South Carolina. And it told us goes,

Oh, sorry, man. And the best is, this is Jeff's defense, which actually was pretty good. He's like, these poor people have paid good money, and they're seeing my shit act. He's like, I give them then the great Dave Attell's material. He's like, isn't that a gift? And it's like, that is true.

If you're like a shitty band, like at least play a cover. That's right. If you're a local playhouse, you don't come up with some fucking local script. You bring in Les Mis. Yeah. Yeah. So I look at this. I've been Zooming.

Thankfully, this is something I've never said before. I've been Zooming with 80-year-old women all week because we've pre-recorded their comments for this. There's going to be about 13 speakers. Wow. So I even wrote up a card that said, press the mute button, like a cue card, Cause I would have to hold that up to them. Right. Thank God they're not going live. Some of them, but it is deadly boring. Like I first met Cynthia when we were in Palmby, blah, blah, blah. So I go to Jeff, I'm like, Cynthia of all people, Cynthia would like, so they love the movie stepbrothers to their credit, my dad and Cynthia

and always thought of Jeff and I, and they would, Cindy would make us repeat stories that we were sick of telling, but she just loved laughing at, I mean, her son is Jeff Nichols. So anyway, I go, Jeff, this is, we got to shake this up a little. I go, can I call you back? Which also will give it more of a less produced feel and looser. which also will give it more of a less produced feel and looser. Do you have any stories? I was like, Oh,

I have, he goes, I have one from like the last few weeks of her being alive. I'm like, Oh, what's that? And he goes, he goes,

um, she, one morning when I got there, whatever, and she woke up, she's like, read me what the night nurse logged, logged in. So the night nurse,

she was on hospice essentially. And they would have a night nurse come in for the for the last two weeks and she they would have a log and the log was very important like about this is what information this is what um medication the last hour i gave her this so wait till 11 before any more the morphine or whatever and just generally how the night was and all that and cynthia kind of had a rough night, so she wanted to know. And she also was dying from more painkillers. She's like, read me exactly what the night nurse logged in. And Jeff's like, I don't think we have to do that, Mom. She's like, do it.

And she got very kind of bothered. So Jeff picked up the log and read the first line and goes, Mom, we don't have to do this. She's like, Jeff, read it to me or hand it to me. And Jeff goes, okay. And Jeff reads the first line. It won't be long now. If someone out there doesn't steal that for a movie scene or why aren't i you give me a million years to write that i'm not coming up with it

and cynthia to her credit started dying laughing so i tell this to jeff and jenny and they're both i mean jenny his sister, my stepsister and Laura, basically it's four kids. We're stepbrothers and steps. But, and the girls are like, no way. Like that's too dark. And I'm like, you're, you're crazy. Yeah.

I go, especially, I guess you have to add that Cynthia died laughing. And then that was their joke for like two weeks. Yeah. Hey mom, won't be long now. Like it was already done a running joke. Yeah. And then that was their joke for like two weeks. Yeah. Hey mom, won't be long now. Like it was done a running joke. Yeah. I think that's one of the best stories ever. Fantastic.

That's great. And people are expecting something like that from Jeff. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I go, listen, Jeff.

And then that's how I couched it. I go here, I go to remove all like that. You're the bad guy. Tell him, sorry, I will make you tell it. In other words, I go to remove all like that. You're the bad guy. Tell him, sorry, I will make you tell it. In other words, put, you can put it, I'll take the brunt. I go, but it lessens it. Even no one's really going to blame me. And I've heard the story from you, but so we both do better if I kind of force you to tell the story. So anyway, that's happening today. And then you got, uh, you got some stories of your own as the emcee?

Yeah, I have a couple of stories. Well, one is their wedding night was 1979, and I met Jeff, my stepbrother, at the wedding. So apparently there were no books on good parenting back then, but that is not how you blend families. not how you blend families. Uh, so anyway, I met Jeff and they got rooms at the Plaza hotel, uh, for their wedding night. It's separate. And you know, the kids were in one room and then they were in whatever room. So Jeff takes me down to the basement of, uh, the Plaza hotel to the very, very world famous restaurant, Trader Vic's. So we go to Trader Vic's and he orders drinks and we drink and we get very buzzed. And then we wrestle in the hallway and get in trouble at the Plaza hotel. Now here's the context. This was May, 1979,

Four weeks earlier, I turned 12. And Jeff was 13, and he was turning 14 the next month. So another way of wording that is four weeks earlier, I was 11. And we go into Trader Vic's, which is known for their Mai Tais and all their Polynesian drinks. Warren's Yvonne. I got a pina colada at Trader Vic's. Exactly. We didn't even order the fruity drinks. Jeff ordered two gin and tonics.

And Trader Vic's was the most famous restaurant easily in the country. They would serve, clearly, anybody. Wow. That's hilarious. The drinking age at that time in New York was 18. But yeah. So you were drunkenly wrestling at 12 years old. And the parents, I mean, up in their honeymoon suite, no idea.

So funny. That's great. Yeah. Well, no, my best memory of her is the the uh saint patrick's day parade where your dad was the grand marshal which was one of the biggest honors somebody from new york city can have and it was great and so uh they had a friends and family of the grand marshal banner and then everybody you and i flew in to march with them. And then your sister flew in and George and everybody. And so we're all behind the banner walking.

Cynthia is in front of the banner walking. And she's waving to people like she's the Grand Marshal, shaking hands, leading the charge. But she was so proud of your dad. That's what was nice about it. And keep in mind how much she hated Irish people most of her life. That's the crazy. She was a wasp, right? Hardcore St. Louis of all things.

Like Chris. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's trying to bring down Wall Street currently. And thank God he's gotten over to new chat rooms. And so she's old money from St. Louis uh look down their nose very much at the irish yeah right as they should yeah right exactly in fact they try to get into this elitist club that they should be ashamed of which is exactly as you know across the street from mar-a-lago yeah it's it's

it's on a rotary and they're on the other side of the rotary. And boy, do they look down their nose, even though most of those, you know, whatever. We're not going to get, but even though most of them voted for Trump, they hated the traffic he caused. But anyway, one of the reasons they couldn't get in that club for a while was because my dad was Irish. And like, Cynthia was like, please, come on. Like, it's like, kind of, we're going to diversify a little.

Irish. And like Cynthia was like, please, come on. Like, it's like kind of, we're going to diversify a little, like, please let this, like imagine what everyone else, what everyone else is up against with this incredibly racist club. Right. Right. Uh, well, I won't, I won't tell that story at the service. Well, she was, Cynthia was your dad's ticket to, uh, the upper social echelons. She was from that world. And your dad is, you know, growing up shoveling coal into a furnace in the Bronx. It was like, you know, it was, you know, rarefied air for him to be in places like that. Yeah.

And, you know, the dirty little secret is those old school money wasps will rival any Irish family in terms of alcoholics. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like actually clobber them. Yeah. Most likely. Right. Right. money wasps uh will rival any irish family in terms of alcoholics oh yeah oh yeah like actually clobber them yeah most likely right right all right what are we doing let's do it let's talk about well first of all shout out to mark molson this week's song very fun very well produced and the logo comes from that logo is pretty pretty great. I'm going to have to... And I love the song. I don't know what the fuck happened to the name on the logo. I'll find it.

I'll announce it next week. My apologies. They need... Yeah, we'll read it next week. They need credit because time was spent on this one. Yeah. What is it exactly? Isn't it the takeoff of the show everybody's watching?

The, you know, Marvel? Here it comes. WandaVision. Yeah, yeah, yeah. WandaVision. Which has that retro look, you know, very, you know, Dick Van Dyke show type look at times. Have you seen that?

No. They put them in the black and white. It looks like a 50s TV show for much of it. I haven't watched it at all, and I'm not really that interested, but it's a very interesting approach. I was done by Eric Chirilanzio. The graphic.

Did the graphics. A couple quick corrections. He made me look like Caitlyn Jenner, so thank you. Mouse Rat pointed out that I pronounced Median wrong. I forget how he said it. Maybe I said Medellin. Probably. Rob Mitchell said, your Bitcoin correction now needs more info. Most big companies that accept Bitcoin as payment use a payment processor that converts to the native fiat currency so they don't actually care about Bitcoin price volatility. All right. So they buy it and then they convert it.

Whatever. Everything's over. Everything's changed since this last week on Wall Street. Jay Will says, Fitz Dogg, the name of Rob Duke's band is Generation Kill. He also was in Exodus, the San Francisco thrash band, for several years before he left the band. Good correction. We want to get that right, actually. I love thrash band, even just that phrase. And finally, Paul said, I love all the podcasts. You mentioned that Phil Spector worked on Let It Be. I took a history of rock and jazz class at college, and the professor told us the Beatles had recordings that were essentially demos, still owed their label an album, but could no longer work together.

The record label took the demo recordings and hired Spector to make an album out of them. This is why there are so many added instruments. Spector used his wall of sound technique to make the recording sound more complete. Can you imagine that was their leftover stuff, kind of? I know. Insane. Unbelievable. And I think Yesterday was on that album, right? But I think there were some songs that the Beatles then went back and stripped some of that out of.

I know it was at that point, and oh my God, we're going to get to The Beatles. The Beatles nerd army is going to, you know. But I know that it was very individualized, for lack of a better word, at that point. They were like, you know, Harrison was like hanging out a lot with Clapton. And even, I think, brought Clapton into one of the sessions. But was like, and then Harrison wrote, um, here comes the sun about leaving the Beatles. Oh, no shit. Really? Yes. No, no. They were, they were like he and Paul, I think especially were basically not speaking. Yeah. It was, it was very toxic, especially according to Harrison. Yeah. Uh, but anyway,

don't worry about corrections. We kind of got it right. Please don't correct us on all that stuff. For your time, I'm just saying. No, yesterday was not on that. But on that album, Across the Universe, which some people think is their greatest song, I Mean Mine, I Got a Feeling, Long and Winding Road,

other people think is their greatest song get get back let it be holy shit um tour dates coming up not till march i canceled uh february and march uh march 25th through 27th however i'll be in raleigh north carolina april 29th through may 1st i'll be in San Francisco. Also just announced a date in Sacramento and Philly. Go to FitzDog.com. Hey, Mike, do you have a hard time taking pills? I know

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exactly. You won't have that awkward conversation. You don't want the guy that puts his finger in his ass also talking to you about boners. Now, these people, they only talk about boners. They love it. Yeah. So don't wait in line. I like the name. I like the name. I don't know how it's pronounced properly, Todonafil.

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That's B-L-U-E-CHEW.com. Promo code PAPERS. Front page. There it is. Extra! Extra! We all love it! Extra! Let's talk about GameStop, Mike.

Yeah, wait, can I read? I did pull up one letter you sent me from someone. So here is the letter. It said, Mike, any chance you were in on the short sell of GameStop? sent me from someone. So here's the letter. Uh, it said, Mike, any chance you were in on the short sell of GameStop? I think that's what you call it. Also a memory. I would like to erase cause that's what we talked about last week. And we asked listeners a memory. I would like to erase. It was finding my dad's condoms mainly because they were called rough

riders. Gross. Love love you love the show thank you for the laughs signed liz i was so hoping it was a guy who found the rough riders but no daughter yes poor liz poor liz mom mom, why do you seem on edge lately? Have you had too much coffee? Like tremble. Mom, you're staying down in the kitchen smoking your cigarettes with your wine really late at night these days. What's going on?

Mom, get out of the shower. It's been 45 minutes. What are you... I hope you're washing ketchup off yourself. You're sitting in the shower with ketchup spiraling down the drain, mom. Rough rider.

Mom, why does dad have his Teddy Roosevelt hat on? I took your load out of the dryer. I hope you're eating a lot of beets. Are you? Oh, no. Maybe this should be a 20-minute podcast. All right.

Listen. So that gets us into it. So you started last week. I believe on last week's show, you were already predicting all of this GameStop stuff. Well, no. So I have a friend, we'll call it on the inside, and he is the biggest conspiracy theorist I know, Craig,

and he's great. And he's currently holed up in Ohio during this pandemic. Kilborn is in Ohio? No, not Kilborn. So this guy's in there and he's on these Reddit pages and that's where this started. And basically the long story is GameStop, which is a, like the blockbuster of, uh, of video games, right? You know, that you, you can hold and all that.

So they just like blockbuster, no one's getting these movies via things you can hold anymore, actual tapes and the brick and mortar of it all is, is on the way out. So, but there's a nostalgic play. And also there was a belief actually that they could turn it around and a new guy came in. All right. To move this along, it started because a couple of these Reddit guys genuinely liked GameStop, But then what it really became was GameStop was one of the most heavily shorted stocks. So if you really back up for the real far away look at this thing, for people who don't understand what's going on is you can short

stocks, which mean you're betting they go down. These Wall Street bigwigs and hedge funds have shorted a bunch of companies that think they will go down. Now, not only are they betting they will go down, but their bets on it going down, push it down. And there's a thing called naked shorts, which is kind of not allowed, but they don't enforce it. So it's done like crazy. And do you know what a naked short is, Greg? Is that when I sit down in a bathing suit that's too short? It's not that bad, but it's still really bad. And it's basically, all right, we want to short this company. It's the Greg and Mike company. And we're going to short the shit out of it. It's like to short something, you borrow shares like from Merrill Lynch, you borrow shares from

someone that owns them, and you sell them. And the idea is you're going to buy them back in a few weeks or months, and you are really hoping it goes down, because you're going to buy it at that lower. So you borrow them at 20, and then you then sell them at 10. No, yeah, you sell them at 10. No, you, yeah, you buy, you borrow them at 20. Sorry. You sell them at 20 and then you're hoping to buy them back at 10. It sounds complicated because it is, but generally now it's like, uh, Hey fucking, I think, uh,

Greg, my company's going to go down. Give me shares. And like, we don't have any, they're, they're all like, they're all accounted for. All right, fuck it. We're going to make up 40 more. Say there's a hundred shares of Greg and my company. We're going to make up that there's 40 more and, uh, we're going to sell them now and hope to buy them back later. And then everyone who holds it's like, well, what the fuck? You just made up shares that you're going to short now.

And it's hurting the value of the stock. Also, it's completely fucking made up. So GameStop was 140% shorted. 40% doesn't even exist in that equation. So it's like the producers, the movie The Producers. Basically, yeah, it's fraud. I guess everything falls under that banner in a way. So now it gets fun, actually, instead of technical. So Reddit people are like, Hey, you know what we could do? And these are individuals like my friend, Craig, you know, we could fuck these millionaires and they would, if this stock went up, actually

this shitty stock, it would so fuck them. Because what happens is if the price goes up, their billion dollar, and I'm not throwing that word around loosely, their billion dollar bets on the stock going down get fucked. Because they're forced to buy them at a certain date. Usually it's a 30 day short. So when 30 days comes up, whatever the price is at, they have to now buy those shorts. And they bought them on margin, which means for every $100 they spent buying it, they actually bought $1,000 worth and they owe on that thousand, not that hundred. Yes. They borrowed it at 20 in my example, and they are dying to buy it back at 10. Well, they borrowed it at 20 and now what do they have to buy it back at? $260. Because that's what this

Reddit army just goes, hey everybody, buy it. Buy it. Buy it. Buy it. Hold it. There's one kid, remember that thing I sent you? He's sitting there in his baseball cap. He made $2 billion because he did the guy in the baseball cap made $2 billion with a B

because they did options on the way up also. And I sent you another link like yesterday, and it was like, don't care. The guy just wrote, don't. He sent a little clip of how much money he made, and he had made $26 million. And he goes, don't care. I'm holding. Wait, tell people what he spent to make that money, what his investment was.

Was it $50,000 or something? I forget what it was. I think it was even less than that. Yeah. It might have been. But no, some of them put a big chunk of change, and then it's become so principled. So get this. I started telling you guys about it, I think, Tuesday.

And then I think it was Thursday. So all of them are on Robinhood because Robinhood came about saying, we are not the man. Free trades, no commissions, and it's Robinhood. Take, you know, the whole idea is the little guy can maybe win in this, right?

And maybe taking from the rich. Well, all of a sudden, Robinhood, Schwab, Ameritrade muted the buy button on GameStop and AMC and Best Buy and Blackberry and all these other ones that, um, were the heavily shorted that the Reddit army had targeted and said, here's our list. If we want to fuck wall street, start buying these, even though it is not based on value at all. Right. And, and they muted the buy button on GameStop and AMC and allowed you to sell it. And the whole thing, the whole Reddit army is furious and guessing that the huge, huge money, and guessing that the huge, huge money, established money, the man called Robinhood and said,

you are fucking muting that buy button because we channel so much of our business to you and just mute it. And how about this? Just muted a fucking day. There's going to be huge back and then apologize and unmute the next day. But that day will tank the stock because the only thing people can do is sell it and more people can't buy it. And that's exactly what it did. It tanked it for one day. But the greatest thing was it was like poking the bear that everyone that was like, fuck that. Everybody get on this and buy. And the next day it shot up again. That, everybody get on this and buy, and the next day it shot up again.

So the people that, now what prevents this from happening all the time? And even in the opposite direction, what prevents a group of stockbrokers from saying, pick a stock, the gap. Let's skyrocket the gap and all make money off of it. Let's all buy the gap. Let's get 100 billionaires to each buy a million dollars worth of gap tomorrow and then sell it once it peaks. What keeps that from happening? Okay. It happens all the time. I mean, the most famous example is pump and dump where someone will be like, hey, guys, like to his friends.

Hey, guys, I need this stock to go up and then I'll get out. Gentleman's agreement here. We'll all get out. Like let's, but let's spread the word. Tell all your traders to push it. Tell all your traders to do this. Like I remember when a guy really pushed when the stratosphere in Las Vegas open and my friend from high school, sadly was a cold caller for like Merrill Lynch or, or Lehman brothers. And by the way, naked trades, they think are one of the big things that brought down Lehman Brothers and destroyed it and made it go out of business in 2009. So he would call me like by the stratosphere. I'm like, Kenny, I go, I don't know, man. I don't like it. And I think that, and then sure enough, I watched it go up for a few days and then the

big guys got out, but they needed it to go above its IPO price because they were on the hook at that. Anyway. So in other words, when the fat cats on Wall Street manipulate stock prices for a profit, it goes unchecked. But as soon as the little guy, the individual stock buyer does it, they close them out and say, you can't. But huge difference also is the little guy was 100 transparent you didn't know that there was an invisible hand fucking you right by by all of a

sudden you've been told by and you see it going up that's the key to a pump and dump is you actually see the thing take off and you're like fucking i, I'm in. And it feeds on itself. And then the big guys just wait till it hits that certain number and they all get out and you are left holding your dick in your hands. And it's like decimated stock price. This was, Hey, everybody, we're going to do this on public forums and let's do this guys. Let's all get in by and buy it. And actually we're not going to pump and dump. We're going to buy it and hold it and keep telling people to buy it. Now there is a concern. This can't end well. Of course it's a pyramid scheme. Well, I think, you know, I think America's appear as soon as people stop putting money

into the system, America doesn't work anymore. I mean, Social Security is nothing but that. So anyway, and I know I could get current corrections on, you know, whatever, on that theory. But it is way more transparent. And this isn't to exploit anybody where true pump and dumps are designed to exploit people. And so there are huge differences here. And anyway, it was fascinating because all of a sudden, as you just summarized, it was a, whoa, whoa, whoa, no fucking regulations for us. None, none, none.

And then this happened. Are you going to regulate this shit? Yeah, right. It's just like a lot of people in a recent election who were calling the other side crybabies, crybabies, crybabies until they felt slighted. And then their entitlement kicks in and they're the crybabies. All right. So this goes to the letter. The big question everybody's thinking right now, did Mike Gibbons get in on any of these stocks?

I did. I got in on Tuesday or whatever on any of these stocks i did i got in on tuesday or whatever and i got in late i got in way late and and so even now of course i'm down but oh my god it never fails you can't fucking make money on the stock market. I'm down in Bitcoin almost 30%. Wow. Although I didn't factor in Friday. It went up a lot, I guess. I don't know. I'm not really following it.

I'm just, in a weird way, I'm just buying that and holding it. But I was going to sell. So I think I bought GameStop. Keep in mind, I think GameStop was at like $10 or something like that. I bought it at $360. Good for you. A share. Yeah.

But you did the right thing, Mike. You did the right thing. Right now it's at, I don't know, somewhere between $280. Maybe it's a no. Maybe it's in the threes now. Yeah. But listen, I want to say to my credit, I think you can more convincingly say to my discredit, I had my hand on the sell button more convincingly say to my discredit i had my hand

on the sell button gamestop went to 500 and i owned it at 360 yeah and i didn't and i i fucking i started to believe in this cause of course i did i'm mr shorter who's trying to say this is so broken this is so fucking broken yeah that how is it not going to break? How is something that's broken not breaking? All right, so advice to people this week on these stocks. I can't. I guess if you already know the disclaimer,

AMC is the much more fun one to play around with because it's at like 12 or 13 dollars a year so it went from two I bought it at 15 I had my finger on the sell button at 20 something and well this is the funny so this thing my buddy who's really deep goes and this is when I told you guys about it it was like say 2 p.m here the market already closed GameStop had went from like $2 over the last two days or something to like 10. I mean, a giant uptick, right? Same thing as GME. Those two are named together. So I'm like, listen, you know how these things go after hours trading, which we don't have access to the insiders do, you know, might drive this up and it closes at, uh, no, sorry. No, sorry. It closed

at four 98. I'm not saying 10 is ridiculous. All right. Wrap it up, Mike. We got to move on to other fucking news here. All right. It closed at four 98. It opened the next morning at $20. So then I watched it go down. I bought it at 15. I think it's at 13 now. If you wanted to gamble and feel part of this thing, I guess I'd buy some AMC. I don't know what it will open up. I think the other thing you do is just get on Reddit and wait for the next one they announce because they're going to continue doing this. No, no. It's very hard to do that. You really have to be ahead of it. But no, there's a lot of things in this Wall Street group, which are actually tons of really smart people who figured this out also. So anyway, AMC would be fun. The great news I just read was China,

apparently all these individuals has latched on and they want to support this cause. So a huge influx of money might be coming to buy these stocks. Yes. Now here's the other thing. And there's the last thing I'll say. When the big cats convinced ameritrade schwab and robin hood to mute the buy button and knew it was going to crash the stock a manipulated crash of the stock under the guise of regulation and concern they all shorted again yeah so there's there's new in there's new incentive to drive up the price and fuck them again. Yeah. All right. Speaking of little lesbians, an eight year old student was kicked out of a we forgot a little newspaper crinkle. Oh, I got one. I thought my crinkles were great last week, by the way.

We got 15 minutes. People loved it. were great last week, by the way. We got feedback on that. Holy shit, 15 minutes. People loved it. An eight-year-old student was kicked out of a Christian elementary school after she told another female student she had a crush on her.

Chloe Shelton, a second grader at Rejoice Christian School in Owasso, Oklahoma. Chloe was immediately removed from the playground and spent the next few hours in the principal's office. Oh my God. Where she was told that the Bible says that women can only have children with a man the principal asked me how i feel about this is the mother how i feel about girls liking girls i told her i see no issue with it administrators administrators administrators told her not to come back Friday. The next day, they expelled her five-year-old son.

They also kicked the girl off the softball team and took her Birkenstocks away. So they really went after her. Listen, in fairness, the sun was blowing, two guys, by the jungle gym. That's too much. I just said that about a five-year-old boy. And actually, the guy he was blowing, his nickname was Jungle Jim? That's too much. I just said that about a five-year-old boy. And actually, the guy he was blowing, his nickname was Jungle Jim. I mean, listen, I was kicked out of Catholic school in seventh grade. Is it such, I know this is Christian, is this such a bad thing to be kicked out of an organization who preys upon

the number one target generally is, I mean, the perpetrator there is, as Norm MacDonald famously has said, homosexual pedophiles. So maybe this girl being kicked out of there is going to be a win in the long run. But on a serious note, listen, I guess it's the parents' fault.

This is a private school. They don't have to go there. And I read a quick thing. I looked online because I wanted to see if it was Catholic. It's not. I wanted to see what their deal is. Yeah. It's, it's prayer, mandatory prayer every single day. So, you know, this is what you signed up for. They just did arguably permanent damage. Well, it depends on how much you tell the daughter why she was kicked out of school. Well, what do you think they told her when they're explaining to her and correcting her behavior? That, no, no, what you just did only can be directed at a man. Dude, they just stamped her ticket to Lilith Fair with that.

And psychiatry. If she wasn't gay, she is now. Hopefully. Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. All right, let's get to international news. The Polish government, a little crinkle. Oh, yeah, of course. This is international.

Oh, yeah, of course. This is international infection right here. The Polish government has imposed a near total ban on abortions, including the termination of pregnancies with fetal defects. The unexpected announcement sparked nationwide protests. The ruling states that abortions may only be permitted in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother's life is in danger. But they're Polish women, so they were showing up to the clinic claiming they were burning incense at the time of conception. They said, no dummy, incest. Other women said they had Run DMC playing at the time of conception. They said, no dummy, incest. Other woman said they had Run DMC playing at the time of conception.

No idiot, not rap, rape. No, wait a minute. This story, and how could it possibly sound familiar? Did we, we didn't do this. Maybe we talked about it one week before the podcast. It would be very Polish of us if this is the second Maybe we talked about it one week before the podcast. It would be very Polish of us if this is the second time we're doing it. But my inkling inside me now, and I had no time to prepare for this podcast,

but my inkling is to go right to they also had a huge problem with all the women coming for abortions in Poland who are not pregnant but just want to be premeditated, premeditative. Uh, and that joke sounds familiar to me. I don't know. Yeah. We may have done this before. You know what?

That's the beauty of getting older. I watch, I watch Goodfellas this week, have seen it 15 times, still, still impressed by different, different parts that I don't remember seeing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. We haven't even run a repeat yet of the podcast. All right.

What's going on in China, Mike? Oh, yeah. So here, more international news. China rolls out new anal swab tests to curb the COVID outbreak in Beijing. Now, I don't have any more info on that. I just wanted to read that headline. Well, the good news is no COVID, sir. The even better news is your ass is tighter than the security

at a Uyghur concentration camp. Very impressed. I like that you are keeping this Uyghur story alive because it really is a humanitarian thing. What, the million people in a concentration camp that the U.N. can't come up with a resolution for because China is so fucking powerful? It's crazy. Hopefully they're shorting the market. So the sub headline, which I did peek at, was, quote, the rabid invasive test inserts a swab two to three centimeters into the rectum and rotates it several times.

Oh, I just got a shiver. Sign me up. I think I have it again. I'm pretty sure I have it again. I'm pretty sure I have it again. Was I exposed? Yes. I was definitely exposed the last time you rotated that thing inside my ass. Soon.

How come you've been in the shower for 25 minutes? I'm cleaning my bunghole. Why? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I got an appointment later. Why do you keep not wearing a mask? Can you ask me that after the test, please? I guess this is bad news for people that were stuffing those pangolins up their ass.

They're going to find them. Florida, man. Are we moving? Let's get to Florida, man. Are we moving? Let's get to Florida, man. All right. You got this one. Go for it. A Florida man is out on bond for sex child abuse.

He charges he cut off his ankle bracelet, attempted to raise money to flee the country. Keith Morris Smith, 29, created the online fundraiser titled Trying to Be Free and set up a donation goal of $2,000. Quote, I'm fundraising to basically live. I was on bond that was revoked over something I never did stated the GoFundMe page, which has since been taken down. Quote, I'm on the run. There's no going back now.

I've already cut off my monitor, got rid of most of my things except for the clothes. If I go back to jail, I'll die. I need help with the money

to get out of the country. Wow. So donating money will get him out of this country as opposed to living in one of these fucking Winnebago's in Venice Beach. I'll donate. So wait a minute. Is there a GoFundMe to help all Floridians leave the country? Sign?

I'm signing up for two things. I want that very, very thorough Chinese swab done. And I would also like to help support all Floridians trying to leave the country. All right. Give me a crinkle. Let's go to entertainment. You got it. entertainment. You got it. I watched a series called The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which is so fucking good. Did you see it? Very gay. Very gay.

No, but it's, you know, what's his name? That Irish gay guy here in Hollywood who does very, very good stuff he did the oj you know dramatization john i forget his name i think it won it won a ton of emmys ryan ryan something anyway great if we had a producer who could like get off of his fucking uh his chat rooms do not celebrate uh gay tv shows so yeah and now wait you added hamilton wow you had a real week here i watched a lot of shit i watched hamilton on um uh you had never

seen it disney plus had never seen the play i got tickets when i was writing on crashing my family came to new york to visit me so i went through my agents and i got like front row tickets to hamilton for them to see it but i was working so much i was afraid i wouldn't get the night off so i only bought three tickets and they went and it was and it was like one of those things where you go like and then the night of the play we had like a half a day anyway and i had the fucking night off and it was too late to get tickets and they went and they wouldn't shut up about how fucking great it was i saw that i saw it and i'm not a big rap guy it's so fucking good it's unbelievable and lynn manuel what's his name

miranda yeah he's not a good singer he has a a bad voice. He's a bad dancer. But it doesn't matter. He's the first one to tell you. Yeah, the guy that replaced him is, he's the first one to tell you. The guy that replaced me is so much stronger. Well, that's who Aaron saw. And she said that he was, after seeing it on Apple, she's like, oh, no, no. The guy who replaced him is fucking amazing. Yeah, I saw it here at the Pantages and was pretty blown away.

It very much is a history book meets Eminem. It's so Eminem. Very Eminem. Very Eminem. And have you seen, people have broken down all the hip hop references. There's tons of them, like conscious, very cool, like references. Yeah. He's got Biggie, everybody.

To Biggie. He's got Sugar hill gang is in there but but the book is written by ron chernow and i know i'm a big historical biography fan and it's one of the best biographies i've ever read i'd read it like seven or eight years ago and uh they nailed it they just got they got everything right it was so fucking good wow um all right dude i sadly have four minutes even four minutes so let's get to the cartoons the comments labyrinth though it says you saw that and tiger woods all right we'll talk about that pan's labyrinth is fucking my is mind-blowingly it's

so good and that's all folks all right 30 seconds shout out to chlororis Leachman, who is one of the greatest comedic actresses ever. I mean, Mel Brooks. I'll just read Mel Brooks's tweet and we'll go from we'll leave it at that. Such sad news. Cloris was insanely talented. She could make you laugh or cry at the drop of a hat. Always such a pleasure to have on set. Every time I hear a horse whinny, I will never forget. such a pleasure to have on set. Every time I hear a horse whinny, I will never forget the... I will forever think of Cloris' unforgettable

Flau Bloucher. She is irreplaceable and will be greatly missed. That's a reference to High Anxiety. Or was it Young Frankenstein? No, Young Frankenstein. Yeah, Young Frankenstein. And you know about Fran Bloucher? Every time she said his friend, every time they said her name, the horse Winnie, do you know about that?

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Because Bloucher means glue in German. If that's the actual word, whatever the word is. So that was a little joke he put in. Shout out to Cicely Tyson, who also died. Fucking seven decade career. Tony Awards, Emmy. She almost got the egot she had

the emmy the the grammy no she had the emmy the tony and the uh oscar well oscar nom i think yeah no no no well she got a lifetime uh oh all right then i don't know if that counts with the egot Not for the EGOT. Backing up to sports, just because next week we'll be on Super Bowl Sunday. Fucking Buccaneers, man. Unbelievable, even though they really should have lost that game. But next week, what is it? They're getting three and a half points? They went down to three. First Super bowl at home for one of the teams uh yes yes and people keep writing it about now the uh you know the rams play but yeah the ramps played at the rose bowl that wasn't their

home stadium and the 49ers played at a field but it was not their home field, but it was in the area of San Francisco. Anyway, you're down $200. Fuck. Of course I am. Don't worry, AMC, GameStop, the cause. So you get three points coming up. We'll see how it goes. All right, let's get to the funnies.

Let's start with... Why don't we just do our two favorites? You do Family Circus, I'll do Blondie. Holy. Alright. Did I... Oh, someone grabbed Family Circus for me. Yes. Alright. This is a blind read. Speaking of...

Here we go. Do you need 10 minutes to process it? No. I don't think I do. So there's an old woman I've never seen. I'm assuming it's the grandma i'm not even reading the print down below but now i'm sneaking a glance at the word grandma she has a pot she's coming over to serve them she's holding a spoon clearly and the kids there the boy billy his name jesus christ mike his name is billy so the fucking kids there with his bowl and she's clearly serving him and then it's the kid talking out of his pie hole.

And he goes, Grandma, this chili you made. Oh, fucking God. Finish it. Mike, the rule is you have to finish it. You can't not read the whole punch line. I have a memorial service that I can't. I have to watch where I put my energy. Okay.

There's something Greg and I should tell you guys, which is, and sometimes you're taught that or you just learn it on your own. When you're doing, when you're writing a joke, but this could apply to anybody's life. If you're an architect, I'm sure it's the same thing. And whatever you're doing, that's creative. You eventually, it's unconscious to ignore the very, very first instinct that you might have on something. Like making pancakes.

You throw out the first batch. And it's going to be such, such low-hanging fruit. You're obviously, the easiest thing has come to you first. Yeah. So you don't do that. Okay. This would not. You got to read it.

Hold on. This would not have even been on the list of first. It would have subconsciously been rejected. list of first, you, it would have subconsciously been rejected. Grandma, this chili you made isn't chili at all. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it boggles the mind.

There's like, yeah, print it. Yep. I'm sending it in. Yeah. I'm sending that in. Right. Right. Yep, I'm sending it in. Yeah. I'm sending that in. Right, right. And again, this is, as we pointed out last week,

oh, and a lot of people pointed out last week that the comment I read about Family Circus was actually a line from a movie. I can't remember the movie, but it's Timothy Oliphant. It was his line about, you read the funnies, you're in a great mood. You've read the Sunday papers. And then the last, it's always the last one on the bottom right corner. And that's the fucking thing that sticks with you all week is family circus. Oh, you know, that might've come from, but there is a movie that shits on it. Uh, with Tom Cruise's eventual wife is in it. Of

course, this is, here I go. No names. Can't get the movie. Can't get the actor. Can't get the actress. No, no, no. That's exactly the movie. That's the movie. Kate, Katie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kate, what's her name? John August, I think, wrote it, actually. That I know that is crazy, but I think here comes, Chris is going to fire it up. But anyway, yes. Kate. What was Kate? Come on. Tom Cruise's wife, Kate. Katie. Yeah. I have a memorial today. I have no bandwidth for any of this. All right. Let's get to Blondie. Let's get to Blondie. This will cheer you all up. Katie Holmes. Katie Holmes, there we go.

All right, this is Blondie. So, of course, Dagwood walks into the kitchen where Blondie is doing what? Fucking dishes. While this asshole's got both hands in his pockets, walking around in an ugly orange fucking polo shirt. Just by the way, I've got to take a second to say, Blondie's pants, they are, it's like an aqua blue with a kelly green top. It doesn't even match, but she makes it work. And the buttocks, she's presenting.

She's literally bent over in front of Dagwood, bent over, putting something in the dishwasher. And he goes, I can't decide whether to take a brisk walk or hit the sofa. She says, the walk sounds like a better idea, dear. And he goes, you're probably right. Third frame, this fucking eunuch laying on the couch taking a nap. How about a third choice? You could take the walk, go to the sofa, or you can ravage this fucking

10 that you're married to that you don't deserve. You could grab that ass. The kids have left the house. Take her right over the silverware drawer and just fucking do it for me, Dagwood, once. Also, what's up with the guy who draws this? He's like like this is just incidental like it has nothing to

do with it it's just to drive greg fitzsimmons crazy like yeah right those i mean those are conspicuously tight pants with heels yep and in the second frame her her bosom. Do you see the fucking semicircle under her right tit? It's a shelf. Jesus Christ. I got to thank him. I got to thank him. Even though he kills me with Dagwood, it's worth it anyway. Mike, listen, good luck today.

Yeah, sorry. I'm sure a lot of people listening are sending their best thoughts to your family, your dad especially. And I'll be on the call. I'll be watching in one hour your dad, especially. And, uh, and I'll be on the call. I'll be watching in, uh, one hour. Uh, yeah, I know I'm getting lots of texts. Alrighty, man. We'll listen. Uh, sorry for the, everybody for the abbreviated podcast. I know I, uh, often say to move it along and we get all this mail saying, stop saying that. So, uh, sorry if you're on your walk or whatever it is you do when you listen to this. Um, but, uh, yeah, maybe we'll do a long one next week. We'll do a longer one next week. Okay.

See you then. I will get my China swab. All right. Bye-bye. Take it. Take it. Everybody. Sunday papers Sunday papers Sunday papers Sunday papers Sunday papers Sunday papers With my grandparents Sunday papers With my grandparents Read all about it!