The Eric Metaxas Show - Tom Shillue

Episode Date: December 17, 2020

Comedian and Fox Nation show host Tom Shillue is ready to rumble -- he's one of the big guns behind the ChristmasDayUprising.org "revolt," and some of the insanity behind the Covid-19 hype.

Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. It's the show featuring GoGo the Chim. Nothing like a chimp to live enough a radio show. Easy there, Go Go Go. Go. No. No, gogo. No. Now your host, Eric Mataxis. Hey there, folks. Welcome to Hour 1 of the Eric Mataxis show. Albin, we've got some exciting stuff ahead.

It's almost too exciting. What do you think? I think it's a very exciting day. Very exciting. Well, seriously, in a moment, we're talking to our friend Tom Shaloo. Tom is a comedian. And I love him. He's just a wonderful guy. He's a serious Catholic Christian who lives at his faith. He's just a wonderful guy. But he's doing this thing right now, which for him, it's kind of controversial. It's called Christmas Day Uprising. Christmas Day Uprising.S.org is the website. We're going to be asking him about that. But when I get him on this program, I can't stop joking around because he's so, he's just funny and he makes me feel funny. But I'll talk to Tom Shaloo. In our two, we have an historical book. We're talking to the author H.W. Brands. He wrote a book about John Brown, the abolitionist, John Brown, and Abraham Lincoln. Fascinating interview conversation. That's an hour two today. Later on this week, we have Jonathan Kahn. We have Greg Lorry. We have Mike Lindell.

Holy cow. Wait until you hear that interview. Speaking of which, Albin. I've been with Mike Lundell a lot lately. When I was in Phoenix recently, he was there. When I was on the mall in D.C. recently, he was there, and I got to spend some time with him. And part of what happened was I went into his hotel room just to say hello, and he was being interviewed by a woman who has a ministry in L.A. Her name is Ruth Hillary, amazing woman. And Mike was sharing some stuff that was so amazing. I said, I want that tape for my show.

I want my listeners and viewers to see and hear Mike Lindell unplugged. And boy, he really, I was so impressed. It was wonderful. He's the main sponsor of the show. And so now you'll really get to know kind of who this man is because I've admired him for a while. But when I heard him talk in that hotel room, I thought, this is just so wonderful. He's such a patriot, very, very bold in his faith, amazingly bold in his Christian faith. And, of course, he's the sponsor, one of the main sponsors, the main sponsor of this program,

which is a good time for me to reiterate, since I won't get a chance in the rest of the show, that if you go to Mypillow.com to buy Christmas gifts, or if you go to MyStore.com, which is connected to Mypillow.com, please use the code Eric. that's a good opportunity for me to tell my audience that when I was at the Jericho March the other day, there was this, the church, I can never remember there were so many different titles of things. But it was kind of a bizarre event in that it was so many different kinds of speakers. And some people were very upset with me that I would be on stage, the same stage with Alex Jones or whatever. And I thought, look, I didn't know, I didn't know who was speaking.

and I didn't invite all the speakers. And all I knew is that the people who ran this event are wonderful people. And we've had them on this show. These are absolutely wonderful people. And so, you know, and then I made a comment, people who don't know my sense of humor, oh, my gosh, it's, you know, I think I basically, I'm joking, but people either don't know that I joke around or that I play the, comic at certain moments. And so they quote me as though I was being dead serious. They don't get the

joke. And I said something that there were all these Catholics and all these evangelicals and all these Pentecostals. It was so wonderful. I was so giddy with this idea of this wonderful unity. And so they had some Catholic thing. And I said, you know, this is some kind of weird Catholic stuff here as a joke. Yeah. And people wrote to me they were offended and whatever. So I want to say to anybody who's listening, folks, that was a joke. Believe me when I tell you, I, you know, I, Eric, I counted you, you managed to insult about five different groups that day. So just so you know, my goal was six and I felt short. What are you going to do? Hey, what are you going to do? We try. We, we try. Let me, so let me say that. I also was joking around. I said,

make sure you use the code, Eric, if you go to my pillow.com or my store.com, you know, like I was, I mean, of course, I'm being serious, but I was joking because it was so inappropriate. But people wrote about it and they got upset. And I thought, you know, I just have to say, Lord, help, because I don't know sometimes what to say, what not to say. I'm trying to, I'm trying to be fun and silly to kind of make the event entertaining. And a lot of people loved it and got that. But then there are always people that they did. didn't get it and they wrote about it. A dear friend of mine, Rod Dreher wrote a piece extremely critical of it and of me. And, you know, we're living through tough times right now.

Once we've lost our sense of humor, we've lost our nation. Let's put it back. Well, it's, it's tough. We need to have grace for people with whom we disagree. I want to say that really bluntly, folks, that we need to have grace for people that aren't on the same side that we're on, whatever side you're on. And I also want to say that, you know, when I was, I have publicly spoken out and said that those who are not awake to this moment, I said it's like the church in Germany when Hitler rose. And a lot of people got offended by that. And I thought to myself, okay, I need to explain what I mean. I'm not trying to vilify people. I'm trying to say to people, please wake up. Good people. Great people.

people, wonderful Christians didn't see what was happening. And those who did see, many of them were martyred because they spoke up. And people like Carl Bart did not understand what Bonhofer was doing. This is the great, great Carl Bart did not understand what Bonhofer was doing. So when I say that people are blind, that they're like the German Christians, this is not to insult people is to say, consider the fact that you might be sleepwalking, that you might need to wake up. Think about it. But don't be offended. Please. I mean, that's certainly not my goal. You don't gain anything by offending people. I just want people to know that I think that we're living through tough times and that God is shouting and saying, wake up. And good people sometimes don't wake up.

these are people who love God. I don't think Carl Bart was some compromised phony. And yet he was very suspicious of Bonhoeffer at the time. So I just hope we can have grace for each other through these very divided times, folks. Let's have grace for each other. I'm going to try very hard along those lines.

Well, okay. So back to Mike Lindell. We're going to play that interview with him. the website, my store.com has all kinds of stuff. But I want to reiterate that my uncle Mugsy books, the Mugsy Christmas, the Yankee Doodle Mugsy, the July 4th book, the birthday ABC, which is a fabulous birthday book. The illustrations by my friend Tim Raglan are just the most gorgeous things.

When you see them, everybody says, oh my goodness. Like you just don't ever see illustration like this. It's magnificent. It's like from another time. I had the privilege of writing these books. We have never sold them at these prices. But if you go to my store.com and use the code, Eric, I said, I just want to introduce people to them. I know that if people get them and I don't make a dime, I don't care because I know that when people get these books, they're going to say, these are so beautiful.

They're these large, gorgeous books in that they're going to say, well, I want to buy more for my friends and whatever. Tim Ragland is he's been my friend for 32 years and his illustrations I've never seen anything like it. The caveman books, that's his kind of cartoon drawing. That's simple. And those books are available at my store.com as well. But the Mugsy books, you've never seen anything like it. So I want to say that. And Albin, we can't forget, CSI.

We want to mention that, that it's very important that people go to our website. Metaxistalk.com. Click on the banner for CSI. We need your help, folks. We need your help. We've been talking about this incessantly. Many of you've been generous. We are not close to done.

We'll be talking about that more detail in the days to come. But when you go to Metaxus talk.com, don't forget to click on Shop Metaxus, which is our store. You can get Albin's books. Albin, they're finally there. Oh, yeah. Hamster homes. They're there.

They're there. You can get those books. hats you can get mugs go to shopmataxis.com. That's our website.com. Don't you do it. Don't you do it? Ladies and gentlemen, you keep writing us and criticizing us. You say we can't get the big guests. You say we're not pulling our weight. Well, you know what? Today I agree. I apologize. But Tom, he's a friend and he's the only one I could get to appear with me on this program. I've so ruined my reputation. And that, in it. every sphere. Tom, listen, thanks for backing me up. It's such a tough time. I appreciate it.

Eric, it's so good to be here. And I'm just, I'm relaxing at home. I'm, I'm, you look like you're relaxing with your, with your, my pillow behind you. I'm, you know, let me tell you something about Mike Lindell. He's a stand-up guy. Great guy. And he said me some sheets. He sent me some sheets. He invented a pillow. Listen, think, think. He invented a pillow. It's like one of the most basic things. Like it's invented, it's like inventing the shoe. I know, but he did it. He did it.

And for people to mock him, it's not right. And if people use the code, Eric, when they buy a lot of stuff at mypillow.com and my store.com, they can mock him all they want. Who would ever, I don't know anyone who's ever mocked him. You know something? The way you just mocked him now is diabolical. Diabolical, Tom Shaloo. Listen, Tom Shaloole. Listen, Tom, I've already told my audience about you in the previous segment, but for those people just tuning in, maybe they're, you know, maybe they're on the Koske-Eusco bridge stuck in traffic. I want to say to them, you, sir, are a comedian. Your name is Tom Shaloo. So you're principally an Irishman, a drunk, and we love you, Tommy. And Tommy, you have a show on Fox Nation, and you do so many different things. What should we do?

talk about today. Should we talk about this Christmas Uprising thing? The Christmas Uprising. Yeah, Christmas Uprising.com is our site. And I don't mean to say our site. When I sent it to you, I said, I may have had something to do with this. You know, we're kind of an anonymous group. We thought it would be- I know a friend of yours had something to do with this and you're trying to do him a solid. Yeah. But tell me what it is. Now, by the way, we have to mention this before we get even slightly serious. I mock you for being a drunken Irishman. And top of the morning to you, Tommy.

Let me tell you something. The fact that you appear, anybody watching this right now on YouTube sees that behind you is bottles of alcohol. Yeah, that's true. Tommy, I just want to say that this is who you are. You shouldn't apologize for it. You know, those of us who stagger around in the daylight,

we should be proud of who we are. So thanks for the road. That's for a take it with you when you go. I like it. I like it. So we're going to have to get serious. You're talking about something called Christmas uprising. I don't really know much about it, but you're saying there's a website called Christmas

uprising. It's called Christmas Day Uprising. Christmas Day Uprising. Okay, tell me. Org. I'm sorry, we say dot org because we're kind of, you know. It's Christmas Day Uprising. Dot org.

Okay. Now, for some reason, maybe because I've been watching the Crown, Christmas Day uprising sounds like a violent IRA thing. I know, doesn't it? But we wanted to have a, we wanted it to be, you know, we wanted to cause controversy right off the bat. Because for some reason, going to church now, the idea of we're going to go to church is controversial.

Yeah. So when we say Christmas Day uprising and people say, whoa, what's that word uprising? Well, we need an uprising because they're telling us we can't go to church. when the airplanes are filled with people. So it was the reason this started was I came back from a flight. I flew to Pittsburgh. And then I was getting together with some of my Catholic friends and we're having a beer and we're, you know, probably at, you know,

and an illegal event because we're socializing at one of our houses, you know. And we're sitting around talking about the fact that I said, I just got back from Pittsburgh. And when you get on the plane, everyone's got their masks on, but they pack the plane. It's tiny. I mean, I don't know a church that is as small as an airplane, Even the chapel, the daily mass that I used to do when I was an altar boy, our chapel was bigger than an airplane.

So we're all packed on the airplane. And then when they come around with the beverages, everyone takes their mask off and has their beverages. So there's an entire plane of people. We all have our masks off, which we should because we're eating and drinking. We're having the peanuts and the drinks. And then you go to church and everybody, it's 25% capacity. There's tape all over the pews. And then when we go up for communion, the people are supposed to still have a

our masks on. I don't like this new ritual with the masks. All right. We have our own rituals. Okay. So you know something. This is what we talked about. What happened to the old Tom Shaloo that would bow to the communist gods? What, what happened to the sensible winsome Tom Shaloo that that would not would not be upset at this kind of totalitarian crushing of the American spirit and the Christian soul? Whatever, whatever happened to that winsome, Tom Shaloo. Well, they, he's gone. He's gone.

They woke him up. They did. And I don't mean woke in the, you know, I mean, they really woke me up. I'm awakened and awakened. And awakened. And I am angry about it, but I don't want to, I don't want to just shout. I don't want to march in the street and demand. Please, please, let us have our churches.

I said, let's just do this. So we're sitting around a bunch of guys and we're drinking beer and we say, let's just go to church. Let's go to church. Let's not ask permission. let's not beg anybody, let's not demand that the politicians change their policy, let's not go to the bishops. It's time for civil disobedience. Let's walk into church, pull the tape down, get in the aisle, and see what they do. That's crazy talk, man. I can't believe. How did we book this guy on this program? Let me tell you something. I'm Mr. Socrates

in the city. I'm the winsome public face of intellectual Christianity. I would never countenance the kind of madness that you are suggesting on this program. And I want to apologize to everyone tuning in. They wanted to hear me talk about G.K. Chesterton and I bring on a madman like you and a drunken Irish madman at that. So you're suggesting, let me get this straight. Let me see if I'm reading you right. You're suggesting that people go, I can't even believe I'm going to say this,

to church on Christmas Day. Did you say that? Yeah. I believe your great learning has finally made you mad, Tom Shaloo. You mean to tell me that you think people shouldn't ask permission of the government, but they should simply go to worship their God in their churches on Christmas Day? You're calling for that kind of an outrage mob? Is that what you're asking for?

I mean, it is amazing when you just articulate. articulate it that way, Eric. It is amazing that we are at that point in our culture where, I mean, these people who accept this stuff, we all did our Thanksgiving projects with the pilgrims. We all learned about religious freedom, didn't we? Isn't that something that our country was founded on religious freedom? Didn't we all learn that? I don't know. I don't know who forgot it. Tom, Tom, guess what? The real answer to that is not really. In our generation, and I'm speaking for you and me, we're in our 20s, but most of us who are young kids, and actually anybody who grew up from the 60s to the present got less and less of what you're

talking about. And of course, trying to get serious for a millisecond, this is what I have been increasingly loud about over the last years, because it is the nightmare. If you don't teach Americans what it is to be an American, if you don't teach them, that people died for religious liberty. People died for liberty. If you don't teach that, it sort of evaporates, and then you get people who don't really know what they believe. So when the government comes in and with authority says,

you need to do this, you need to do that, they don't understand why they need to push back. They don't seem to understand that it's their very role as free citizens to push back against government overreach. So that's where we are. And that's why I have to stoop to the level of having a guy like you on this. program. It's true. You mentioned G.K. Chesterton, right? All of these, you know, quiet-spoken,

avuncular characters of the past, I'm sure they would, I'm sure G.K. Chesterton would march with me in the uprising. I'm sure that, I mean, Bonhofer, I'm looking at them over your shoulder. Wouldn't Bonhofer march into the church in defiance of these orders? Tom, Chesterton, I mean, the preachance and the genius of Chesterton is that he practically wrote entire essays that we could read out loud now with almost no alterations speaking to the situation. I mean, he wrote about this. C.S. Lewis wrote about this, and we all know that he would have come home to Mother Rome had he lived another six months, according to all my Catholic Lewis friends. But the point is that they saw this because this is simple, truth, what we're saying. This is not, you know, as though we're bending things. These are the eternal truths that we have not been teaching our kids. And so basically we're in a situation now where it falls to the likes of you and me to have to articulate this. But we're going to have you for the rest of the hour. But I want to say to my friends listening that you, Tom Shaloo,

are part of exhorting people to go to church on Christmas Day and debuck the trend to bow to our Marxist masters. And I'm proud of you, Tommy. And until today, I thought of you as a as a Juan coward. And today, my friend, you, you, my friend, all right, we get serious because this is, I mean, we get silly because it's so serious. We're going to be back, folks. Go to the website, Christmas Day uprising.org, Christmas Day uprising.org,

and we'll put some more flesh on the bones when we return. Folks, I'm talking to Tom Shaloo of Tomshaloo.org. Tom, how do you spell Shaloo? S-H-I-L-U-E? I don't have an org. It's Tom. S-H-L-L-U-E. Yeah, I have a dot-com.

Come on. So you're Tom-S-L-L-O-com. Yeah. And your pasty-faced Irishman, what have you got to say for yourself, my friend? I am a pasty-faced Irishman, and I'm proud of it. I put this sweater on just for you because I knew that you would make fun of my Irish-cableness sweater. Can I tell you something? God forbid, my friend, that you should drown.

We would be able to identify your body by the weave of your sweater. It's a fisherman's sweater. And when you're even more pasty-faced carps comes up on the show, We'll know who it was. It was out there in this storm. Won't we, Tommy? That's the thing about this Irish woldose. Still keeps you warm when it's wet.

All right. Well, thanks for wearing the Irish fisherman sweater and reminding us of bloated corpses. That's very sweet of you on this day. He brought up the corpse. The 16th of... Well, that's the whole idea behind those sweaters, Tommy. I think as an Irishman,

you're responsible for that material on the test. Yeah, I know it's true. All right, Christmas Day Uprising.org. So you're suggesting as a serious Christian, which you are, that people ought to go to church on Christmas Day. But don't you find the hilarity that we have to talk about this? That we're living in a time when people have accepted these monstrous edicts of people like Mayor Bill de Blasio. He scares me. He reminds me of, remember the canomites in the, uh,

In the Twilight Zone episode, they came to serve man. Yes. That's Phil de Blasio. He's just about big enough to be a canimate. And he says, we've come to serve man. And then you find out he's going to eat you up when he gets the chance. That's you. That could be Eric.

Eric Mattaxes comes into the corner of the frame. It's a cookbook. It's a cookbook. It's a cookbook. We've translated it. It's a cookbook. Well, listen. But we joke around.

but it's just, it is horrifying that we have leaders. I mean, it's bad enough that the people are unaware of our freedoms and what it means to be free and when we need to push back because we've had it so good in America. Let's be honest. But the fact that our leaders that we've elected people like Cuomo and de Blasio and other folks like that, and they really don't get this, you think that they'd be responsible since they're, you know, taking oaths and things that they would understand this, but they don't get it either. I would also, you know, I've seen a lot of people in the private sector, and I love them. They're heroes. The guy who owns the gym in New Jersey, and he's got the big black beard. And he says, I'm staying open. You are not welcome here. Get out of my gym, you know, to the public health officials. And he says, you're welcome to come in here. Nobody has to wear a mask. We're all going to work out. We're all healthy. Okay, that's great. There's a restaurateur. He's going to keep his restaurant open. He says, I'm staying open because if I don't, then the families that work here are going to go hungry. We are going to. going to continue to defy these orders. Those are my heroes. I want to see religious people doing the same thing. I haven't seen that. I've seen the religious leaders say, oh, no, safety first. We have to do what's safe, what's safe. Yeah, you know what that's called, right? Cowardous.

But that's the nice word for it. No, look, safety, it's one of these things. We read about it over and over again. You know, if you keep threatening death, people say, oh, okay, okay, I'll do it. You say, we don't want anyone to die. People are dying every day. Every one of us will die. So it becomes silly, because there are people dying because of the lockdown. There are people dying because they don't have the fellowship that they get in church every Sunday, which blessed them and fed them, fed their souls week after week after week. The atheist leaders in some of our states and cities, they utterly do not understand this. And that's why we need folks like you to talk about it.

So thank you. Continue. I think it's going to be average folks because I think the leadership you can't look to, and I don't want to. I don't want to go to the bishops and say, oh, you have to do this. If they're going to be afraid of the public health officials, then we're going to have to step up as citizens and do our job.

Just walk in, occupy an aisle. I want the tape down. That's what I want. Okay. So it's not just you've got to go to church on Christmas. day. You're going to go to church and you're going to exceed the 25% limits. That's what I want. I want the churches. I want to exceed and I want to do it in civil disobedience and I want to say we're doing it because we have a right. We've got a lot of stuff on the website about how it's

just as safe in a church or it's safer. It's much safer in a church than it is in an airplane, but I almost don't like talking about safety because even if it weren't safer, I'd do it anyway. Do you understand? This is what I say about the lockdowns. Okay, lockdowns don't work. They don't stop the spread of COVID-19. They also harm people, even if they did work, I'd be against them. I gotta tell you, most of the Catholic bishops and unfortunately the current occupant

of the throne of Peter, they're the kind of dunderheaded cowards that they're enough, let me put it this way, to make me wanna become a Protestant. So you understand that the church is the people. The church is not the institution. You can elect leaders that don't understand anything. The people, the ecclesia, that's the church.

Buildings are just buildings. Even if they're sanctified buildings, the people are the church. And what you are saying, and I'm agreeing with wholeheartedly, is that the people need to stand up and be counted. They need to go to church. They need to say, because we're the church, we're going to defy these arbitration. silly rules. We've played along enough. Enough harm has been done. Let's be honest. Enough harm has been done. We have waited actually too long, but on Christmas Day, we're going to church. We're going to sing Christmas carols. We're going to spread diseases. Praise the Lord. We're going to be right back with my

friend Tom Shaloo. Don't go away. The website is Christmas Day Uprising.org. Tom, it really thrills me that you're getting behind Christmasdayuprising.org. Tell us more about this. In other words, when you say people should go to churches, you know and I know that a lot of people confuse Christianity with being nice. They don't see, we've lived in such a time where we haven't had to see people overturn the tables the way Jesus did. We kind of figure that's the past or that's something.

It just doesn't apply to us. Our job is to be nice and to pass the peace and to smile when we greet the priest on his way out for his his lukewarm homily and we smile because we want to be nice. And you see a lot of that when we started posting this around. You sent out the link on, I think you're on your Twitter feed or one of your feeds. And Raymond Arroyo tweeted this out as well. He said, check this out, Christmas Day Uprising.org. And he said, what do you guys think of this?

Raymond said this. The comments in Raymond Arroyo's feed, and he has a lot of religious people following. I would say mostly. Most of the people who follow him are devout Catholic Christians, of course. And they say, Raymond, this is a lot of this, a lot of this. Probably more than 50% people saying, this is irresponsible. You should not have posted this. This is dangerous.

Comments like, oh, yeah, fill the churches on Christmas. And then the funerals, you know, have your funerals on New Year's Day. Ha, ha, ha, ha, good joke. The thing is, I can't believe that religious people are having these. takes. Okay, that's what I expect from the secular world. But I think they're scared. We are in a panic. When people are in a panic, they don't react rationally. So they start saying, oh, you want people to die? That's where they go. We say, we want the churches, we want the pews filled on Christmas. Oh, really? You want death. I mean, that's panic. You're right. I mean, it's just madness.

And listen, you and I are not saying that some people don't get COVID and die. I mean, I just had a friend say that he has two dear friends who were the healthiest 80-year-olds he ever knew, and they both contracted it from their 50-something kid and they died. So this stuff happens. But the problem is that the media covers it in a way that makes you think that the only solution is for us to hide until it goes away. and actually more people are dying from that, are dying from unemployment, or dying from depression.

The media refuses to cover this. And that's actually Tom, what scares me is that how there's a narrative that's put out there. And if you step past that narrative or even question the narrative, you're labeled anything they can throw at you. They basically say, no, no, no, no,

that's not going along with the party line, and we won't have that. You see, that's what's scary to me, is that the media, and for sure the Democratic Party, but also a lot of Republicans, a lot of people on presumably conservative news channels, they've gone along with a narrative

and they are not even willing to question it or not willing to give voice to people to push back against it because the corporate overlords will cancel them, I suppose. Yeah, that's why I don't like to. And the thing is, just for sport, Sometimes I engage people on the details. I'll pull out the charts and graphs and say, look, this is why the policies have been ineffective. This is why masks don't work the way you think they do.

This is why universal masking isn't a good idea because the way that people wear their masks is done in a way that is not beneficial to them. They end up getting, in many ways, they're more harmful, the way that people wear their masks. They're unclean, disgusting, soggy masks all day. So I will talk about those issues, but the thing is I almost don't want to engage in that because like I was saying before, it's about freedom. The thing is that that should be the be-all and end-all. We should say, I don't care if it works. I'm not doing it because I'm a free, autonomous human being.

I'm not doing it. I just love it. But what you're saying, of course, in this day and age is so radical. I mean, look, it's a weird thing because you're a comedian, I do comedy, but I never identify as a comedian. So when I say stuff that's intended comedically, some serious news organization prints it straight. Like I said it straight.

The other day, for example, I was part of an event on the mall in D.C. And it was wonderful because it was Catholics, Pentecostals, evangelicals, all together. And there was this lovely moment. You set up for a joke. Where they had a, right, they had a beautiful image of, of Mary that they had blessed and they were going to give it. And I get up to the microphone as the MC and I said, this is some weird Catholic stuff. I don't know about this stuff. Like as a joke, you know, right? Tons of people reported on it that it was offensive. How could I say this?

And you realize, but that was the point of the joke is that this was a beautiful event of Catholics and everybody. There were Jewish speakers. There was somebody. And we're living at a time where it's kind of like the new woke culture. Like if you joke, people are saying, oh, no, no, no, there's death at the door. There's no, this is not a time to joke or to be jolly or marry or anything. Socasm is illegal.

It is a huge victim of this, of 2020. The other day, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal that was a humor article, and it was right up your alley. The author was poking fun of the doctor moniker that Dr. Jill Biden, uses, and he's an academic, and he was, the article was a humor article. This is the kind of article we used to read, you know, by Dave Barry or by guys like Eric Metaxus, and we'd read it and say, oh,

you know, no, that's interesting. So he's an academic, and he's kind of poking fun of his fellow academics saying, you know what, in the worlds that I travel in, when you use doctor before your name, unless you're a medical doctor, we think that's a little bit cheesy. The uproar, you know, the, the, the cries of sexist, sexism, there was nothing sexist in this article. He was making fun of academics. If he said she was an amateur proctologist, that would be offensive, okay? But the reality is he was simply taking her to task. And why does she say doctor? Because she has an honorary doctorate? No, she has a, she has a PhD, not even a PhD, it's a, it's an EDD. So she got her doctorate degree in education. And so he was poking fun of that saying, nobody I know they got their

doctorate in education puts the old doctor in front of their name. Right. Right. I have five Honorary doctorates, and there are people who have honorary doctorists and they say, you know, could call me doctor. And I think that, you know, for the people who actually work to get a PhD, that's why I don't use doctor. I believe that to get five and a half or six honorary doctorates is the full equivalent. And I'm waiting for that. And then I'll say doctor. But for Dr. Jill Biden to use that, it is a little cheesy. And can I tell you something, Tom, even if it weren't cheesy, we have every right to criticize it, to say what we like.

Folk fun of it. And to not get people pushing back. It's so much fun talking to you. Folks, we're going to keep talking to little Tommy Shaloo. Look what's become of him. They said he would amount to nothing. And look at him now. We'll be right back.

Folks, I'm talking to Tommy Shaloo, and you're not. But you can listen. Tom, you're part of this thing called Christmas Day Uprising.org. So effectively, I mean, are people going to do this? I love this. I mean, I want to go. I don't normally go to Mass.

on Christmas Day because I'm not a Catholic, but now I want to. The energy of this thing is going to be, I think, just kind of grassroots. The vision for it, I mean, it was a bunch of guys. It's not exactly a guy thing, but it was a bunch of guys that had the idea, a bunch of Catholic guys talking about,

why don't we just go to church, get in the aisle, and see what they do, you know? Are you going to say your faces like in Braveheart? Yeah, it's like Braveheart. of heart or you know what the image I had was do you remember Curtis Sliwa and the guardian angels back when I first got to New York the guardian angels were on the subways and they would just occupy the subway with their berets on and they would stand there in their red shirts and berets and they gave people a sense of security because the crime was out of control yeah I I thought I had this idea of men just walking in and you don't have to fill the aisle you don't have to be dangerous you don't get in and just cough in people's faces I'm saying be responsible go to church get in the aisle and you know, pull that tape down. And I had this vision of a man in each aisle like a guardian angel. And, and, you know, we're not moving. That's so sexist. I love it. Continue. Yeah. I mean, that's because I think guys will, they, you know, they're, they're supposed to be the brave

ones, right? So, you know, we don't need people, you know, moms with the families and the kids and everything, you know, getting into trouble. It's like, let's let's, let's make this a guy thing. But it doesn't have to be a guy thing. But what I'm saying, but what I'm saying, you know, is I had this vision of men, one man in each aisle, and it says, look, we're not going to do the tape anymore. We're going to occupy every pew. It doesn't have to be crowded in there. We just want to break the rules and show them that we're a force. Okay. So we put the website up and we printed out flyers so that people could make their own. You see this? This is Christmas Day Uprising. Okay, yes. So this is like a church flyer. Orch, Christmasdayuprising.org, yes.

Yeah. And this was just sent to me as a message. Someone said, hey, I saw, saw these flyers on every windshield in my church parking lot. So people are taking matters into their own hands. I don't even know where this church is. I don't know who this guy is. It's just a phone number. But some stranger forwarded to us and says, they're doing it. People are, they're doing the Christmas Day uprising on their own.

People are saying enough is enough. Yeah. So if people want to do it on their own church and be almost like the, I said, the guardian angels, but also look to the labor movement as an inspiration. You get your labor leader and he goes out there. He makes the phone calls and he says, hey, guys, just meet us in front of the church at five to ten. We're walking in there.

And if they try to say, oh, did you sign up for meth? No, we didn't sign up. We're not signing up for math. No, we're coming into the church because we believe in God. We want to take the Eucharist. Get out of my way. Punk. Boom.

Down he goes onto the cold pavement. Listen, you, what you're suggesting, what's funny about it, Tom, is it's so basic. The idea that you and I, I, in the olden days, guys like us would have been considered eunuchs. And yet now we are the manly ones. We are the ones speak. I was joking, but you know what I'm saying. The fact is that you and I are not the pugilistic. And yet it falls to us to say the most basic thing. I love this. We've got to have you back to talk more about this. I think the idea of men going in, and if it's possible between now and then grow a beard. You'll look even more manly. And if you don't have time to

grow a beard, take a cork, you burn it, and just give yourself a little beard and just go in there. And I'm telling you, I love this, Tom. I'm really grateful for you. Remember Todd Beamer? Let's roll. Let's roll. We need Todd Beamer's out there to walk into the church. Say let's roll. We're going to church. Christmas Day uprising.org. A lot of people are going to go there. Tom, you make me so happy and you make me proud. They said you wouldn't amount to anything and you proved them wrong, my friend. You and I together. We love you. We will have you back to follow up. This is important stuff. Christmas Day Uprising.org.