The Greatest Generation - A Really Remarkable Sign (DS9 S2E17)

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

When a new arrival is greeted on DS9, he is warmly welcomed by everyone except for the person he’s there to see. But when a rodent infestation starts kicking the crew’s butts, the issue becomes a problem for more than just the food service vendors on the promenade. Why does anyone go “full Geordi” anymore? Should we take the mono-myth back to the drawing board? What’s the worst gift your mom has ever given you? It’s the episode that pitches a new health conscious t-shirt that no one will buy!

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friendsofdisoto for labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation, Deep Space 9. It's a Star Trek podcast. I'm Adam Pryanaka.

I'm Ben Harrison. Ben, I have been feeling a little out of touch with the... No, out of touch with the... No, out of touch with what? Well, if you'll let me finish. Those who we might call the deep space nine, higher powers. Oh, would you say you've got a big rod shaped hole in your soul? Yeah, I really do. It's a whole that can only be filled through the judicious study of the Bible. Would you like to do some Star Trek DS9 Bible study with me?

Hell yeah! It's good to see you all in church. It's called the Bible. That's the way God wants it. I don't know why, dude. All these questions is a little blind thing too much to ask. Of course, when we're doing Bible study, we are reading the show Bible of the show in question. In this case, Adam, you have a copy of the Deep Space Nine show Bible. Sure do. For today's reading, I have a copy of the Deep Space Nine showbible. Sure do. For today's reading, I have turned to the page on Jadziadax.

Ooh. She's been coming up quite a lot lately. And sometimes not at all. Her chapter begins, Science Officer Rank of of lieutenant an alien woman very attractive Gotta include that with a very implausible hair bump Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna quickly flip around to the other characters and see if anyone else gets a Description of attractiveness. Yeah, Ben Sisko is described as gentle, strong, soft spoken demeanor, belying a temper that he's constantly trying to control. Major Kira does not have a physical description. Wow.

Miles O'Brien, he's described as an Irishman and a man's man. Odo, alien male, curmudgeon. Julian Bashir gets human male mid-20s. Yeah, that's fucked up. Jadziya Dax is the only one who gets the very attractive modifier. I had a experience recently, right? I'd come off of reading like five books in a row that were written by women, and then I read a, like, the next novel I picked up was by a dude,

and it was like, I feel like I read a like the next novel I picked up was by a dude and it was like I feel like I was going through the bends like realizing how much page space is given up to describing the physical appearance of women. Yeah. Ben's writing. It's like something I'd like read about like the phenomenon but I just like made like a total object lesson for myself by accident. I don't remember who sent in this note to us, but someone wrote in and said, hey, I really appreciate how you guys describe people on friendly fire, because you guys are very quick to call a man attractive when that strikes you. And I think that that's like a good thing that you guys are comfortable in doing that you don't make weird and

I don't know if we replied or not, but like my feeling on the matter was that like I Don't do it. I don't do it out of a sense of Of righteousness or being even handed in how I describe gender I think I do it from just feeling less attractive than Actor people so that's why I do it. It doesn't make me a good person. Yeah, that was one of those ones where it was calling my attention to something that I wasn't even really aware that we were doing. Yeah, Bandax is a trill. That's a joint species first encountered in the Star Trek TNG episode The Host. The trail is comprised of two separate, interdependent entities, a host of a symbiont.

The host provides a humanoid body, the symbiont is an invertebrate and rodgenous lifeform that lives within the host. It looks like a short, fat snake. What? I think there's an animal that it looks like, but Snake is not what I would pick. Snake is far easier to pronounce. Check this out. Many centuries ago, the simpions lived underground while the humanoids were on the surface.

And due to an environmental disaster, they were forced to join in order to survive. You think that there was a nothing bug like takeover when the symbionts realized that they could join? If you put the trill symbionts the nubin bug and the city eel in a room and I put a broken pool queue in the middle Who do you think crawls out of that room? I think that's symbiont, right? Because it's got that club-like tale. Yeah, yeah, I think so too. The result of the joining is a serene character who brings a calm-centered voice to any discussion,

one that is patient, confident, and wise. You might think of Dax as an ancient Zen master in the body of a 28-year-old woman. There's a subtle conflict within or a generation gap, if you will. The older symbiote suppresses the youthful instincts of the host. And so sometimes she will seem controlled when a part of her really would like to let go. Adam, it's interesting you bring up that inner struggle because I feel like that's

something that's been paid lip service to previously. Yeah. Where Chisko calls her old man and stuff, but I feel like it hasn't been fully three-dimensional until maybe this episode. The last paragraph in the show Bible about her is interesting. It says her sexually appealing new form will create a certain tension between her and Cisco, which they will both resist. After all, he's still having a hard time getting used to the fact that she's a 300-year-old worm. I don't think I've ever gotten any sense of sexual tension between them.

I haven't either, and I think that that's one of the things that I like most about their relationship, is that they have a... such a platonic relationship. I don't get the satisfaction of two characters having a platonic relationship. The same way that I do with... ...Gynon and Picard. Like, there is a... there's a guardrail on the relationship and it is the... ...the worm in the room. They don't tweak on that nearly enough, I think.

Yeah, interesting that that should be the page we read today Adam, because we've got a very dex centric episode coming up. It's true, it's episode 17 of season 2. It's called Plank God. Do you realize how many credible this is? No, of course you don't. We got Bashir coming back from something and a a trail initiate named Urgen is traveling with him.

It seems like they're having the conversation of two people who sort of struck up a conversation on the plane and then realized they were kind of going to the same thing halfway through that conversation. And then you feel like you're stuck. Yeah. A little bit awkward. Like, are we going to now share the lift into town? This is why you never talk to the people in your row. Right. Not even once. Not even once.

And while we're speaking about ways to behave on planes at him, we also don't recline our chairs on planes ever. Ever. You think this is a joke right now or a bit? No, it's not a joke. Not a bit. Don't recline your seat. Don't recline your seat on an airplane. So they start walking around on the station and

Arjun is like, Oh, yeah, well, I'm here a little early, obviously. I'll figure out where Dex is in the morning. I'm sure she's asleep at this point. And for sure, she's like, are you kidding? Judges is a night owl. And he asks the computer to tell him where Dex is and turns out she is in Corks bar. Of course.

Who do you think on DS9 can just get you know, get on an elevator and ask the computer where somebody else is? Like, is that restricted? If just, if like, Morn got on the elevator and asked where it taxes, would it tell him? If Morn were to do that, those would be his first words on the series. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Yeah, sorry, Morn, it's just not in the budget. I have got to believe that's the case. Is your locked out at a certain level? That's got to be a really good series situation, right? Yeah. Like I recently got a home assistant speaker. Oh, really? Which one?

I got the Apple one. And there's a part of the setup process where it asks if it should be able to like send texts on your behalf and stuff. And I just thought about it for like a nanosecond and thought about the idea of somebody like as a bit sitting in my living room going, hey Siri, tell my mom to go fuck herself and it's sending my mom a text to that effect. And I was like, of course, I will not turn that on. You know. The question is always asked so innocently too.

Yeah, like the... Would you like us to help you out with a potentially embarrassing situation? Right, but it's like the voice activated computers of our era can't distinguish between two different voices apparently. Hello computer. I want to make it clear. That was not branded content.

And we were not told to talk about the Apple productivity device. Though we would. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's the voice activated part of it is like not even really a sound point for me. Just use the keyboard. Yeah, we have one of those two.

And I'm still not over the how cheesy it feels to talk to it part. Yeah, it's great. I'll be alone asking you to do something and I still feel that winds of shame. Yeah. On Star Trek, it looks cool, you know? And like when I imagine a future where you could have that kind of productive conversation with a computer, like everyone's enjoying it because it's productive and good. One of the main reasons why it's so uncomfortable now is because it's so imperfect.

And that sense of discomfort, being a reliable part of communicating with it makes it like something I don't want to try to communicate with. Right. I think we should talk about Argin because Argin is the main character of this episode. Yeah. Argin has an Emilio Estevez haircut. He is wearing a sack. Yeah, he went to J Press Starfleet edition. Yeah, that is not a soft shoulder on that sack. No, but it fits a man. And he is there to do a form of interview with Jadzea Daxe who is regarded as sort of a dosant for potential, trail candidates. And her reputation is not good, Ben.

When I was told that Jadzea Daxe had been designated by field dosants, I asked for reassignment. The previous Daxe, Curzon DAX, had a reputation for bouncing people from the symbiote joining training program. And this is something we learned a lot about a little in the episode where the guy tried heist, the Ankylo sore. But there's a whole ritualized,

almost starfleet academy like situation where only the best and the brightest get to become joined trill. There is a really pronounced conflict between the two right away. And it is confidence versus differential, right? DAX has the benefit of hundreds of years of life experience and having been through the Trial Program.

And Arjun is like job interview bland. He's trying to appear as though he's agreeable. He's like on his best behavior. He's very successful and not interesting in the way that most very successful people are. And so whenever they're in a scene together, it feels uncomfortable. Yeah. Well, they come in and Judzia is in the midst of a game of tango with the, with the Farenki and doing kind of a dick gambling move, which is giving up Quirks' tell to everybody? Yeah, that's no good.

Like, if you learn somebody's tell in gambling, you don't then just announce it to the table, do you? The rule is this, you spot a man's tell. You don't say a fucking word. You keep it like a secret until that person's out of money. That's an advantage that you don't want everybody else to have. Yeah. But she introduces Arjun to her, and very quickly, she really turns into the big dog,

doesn't she? It doesn't help that Arjun approaches her as the little dog. Right. It does have the feeling of like, guy who read BuzzFeed article about how to do great in a job interview. But yeah, like her being the wizard and zenn master that she's described as in the in the Bible really comes through here and that's really fun to see. It's it's such a

different status disposition for her character. Yeah, it's not just a line item in her bio. She's actually making decisions based on that. And it's fun. It's really fun to see. Yeah. Ben, this is an episode with three storylines, a lot like the episode that came before. There's this main one, which is the Arjun storyline. The B story is the infestation of Deep Space Nine with the Cardassian bowl. It has a lot of steaks in common with the previous episode, which is that there aren't any

steaks, basically. You rarely get like a scene with a rubber chicken in science fiction, but you get a couple of rubber chicken scenes in Deep Space 9 in this episode having to do with this full. Yeah, and you get Major Kira and Chief O'Brien's eye and Chief Miles Edward O'Brien's. This is fucking spectacular. But scene. Yeah, that's the part unparalleled of the rubber chicken scene.

Like, it's maybe the most comedy, heavy episode that we've seen yet. It's comedy, but, like, you never see comedy, but in Star Trek, do you? Or, or body comedy, even for that matter. Right. Yeah, it's, it's an unusual place to go, but like, it, it really works in this episode. It's not like, it's that out of character comedy. No, because it's not just look at Kira and O'Brien's, but they've got their faces in conduits trying to get Cardassian voles out. Yeah, and the Cardassian voles are apparently attracted to electromagnetic fields or something,

and the story is that a lot of the station hasn't really been in use for a long time. And as the population of the station expands, they're moving into sections that have been out of use. And that is driving the voles into populated areas of the station, where previously they were kind of a problem that they didn't have to deal with. And these voles kind of look like falcour on a miniature scale. Yeah, like shaved falcour. Do you think that it's naked because he hit it with the phaser and it like burned its fur off? Phaser's un-stunned, Mr. O'Brien. I want those voles taken alive.

I mean, I don't know only because we see another one later that looks exactly the same. I guess they both could have met the same demise. Or Adam and just hear me out here. It's the same prop just used again in a different scene. Do you think the guy who runs the Klingon Buffet sees this as an opportunity? Yeah, it would have been pretty fun to get him like seeing a fool run through the kitchen and then like licking his lips like Voles back on the menu boys We got a little hang where Dax and Arjen head into the Gamma Quadrant to do some research or some fucking thing.

And it's more an opportunity for Arjen to kind of reveal to Dax how much like Facebook stocking he's been doing on her. Right. He knows what Bikini she wore to the beach three years ago in a way that is fairly upsetting to her. It's unclear whether or not he's gone full-jordy on her. But it sounds like it could be close. Yeah, like why specifically the beach photos do know so much about Arjen? If this is someone that we're rooting for this doesn't help us like him either no like the hero's journey as a form of this right right

But even with the hero's journey. I think we start out rooting for the hero right the the monometh doesn't Begin with the character creeping on his mentor and then the call to action. Maybe it should, maybe the post-2018 version of the Mono myth will. Right. Now that we have social media, we should take the Mono myth back to the drawing board. Please do. Joseph Campbell, get in here. We've got some updates for you new edition With forward by Ben and Adam Man this could be our path to a million dollars. We just republished the hero of a thousand faces, but do like a an intro

With tons of bits. Yeah, that college tour would go really great for us. Oh, you know, I've heard all the comedians say, you never play colleges because they're too PC, Adam. And PC culture is killing comedy. Oh, I meant, I meant as visiting professors. I think that we would be even more vulnerable in that case. TBH.

You know, friend of the show, Sarouse Farivar just recently went on a little, on a college tour of his own for his, his brand new book, Habiest Data. And that's true. I mean, there's a guy we could probably ask about what it's like to speak to college students. Like I know what's up. He could probably plug us right in. Yeah, maybe as data you should definitely consider getting a copy of if you are a legal and privacy nerd. Saroost did like a ton of research about kind of the modern history of data

privacy. One person who has no interest in reading that book is Arjun. He's done what he's done here with Dax. Yeah, I think that he made this mistake of hearing Dax's reputation as being a kind of combative teacher and came in kind of ready for combat. Over the past 200 years, Dax has personally eliminated 57 host candidates from the program. Like he didn't even give Dax a chance to just like him for who he was. He's, I think that that like milk toast aspect of his character is him being defensive. You think? That's my personal take on it, Adam. I don't know.

Most of the hyper nice people I've known in my life have also had that moment where they have exploded not at me but like I've just seen it happen right which from that point forward has always indicated to me like those that are the most deferential on the surface often have the most hostility or anger or or whatever brewing beneath that. And that's sort of what I was expecting from Arjen from Jump. And this scene we get kind of a backstory banger from Jetsia. Backstories, back.

All right. Which is that pre-Jetsia, Dax, Jedzie, when she was in the initiate program actually trained under Kerson Dax and Kerson Dax did not recommend her to advance in that program. And no sooner has she dropped that banger than the runabout drops its own banger. I've got it, engaging manual stabilizers. I like this. It's good, good retcon for, for DAX. Like it really makes it interesting.

The idea of a internal resentment between Jedzie and Kerson who both wound up like sharing the same personality. Yeah, I really like this a lot. They're in the game quadrant. The ship is shaking all around. They get it back right and they realize they've been hit. Something hit their ship. And Arjen calls Jizziah's attention to an exterior camera on the runabout.

And it shows that they have an unknown mass on their starboard in a cell. Yeah, right on the runabout, and it shows that they have an unknown mass on their starboard Nacell. Yeah, right on the tip. Yeah, what you wanna do is roll each Nacell between your fingers, and if you find an unknown mass, you wanna see an oncologist. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I'm not a fan of that. Every day when you take a shower out of my, I would recommend that procedure.

You know, real talk. I haven't done that in a long time. I should really. Yeah. But let's make a new shirt. A testicular Shimoda. One of the most singularly humiliating moments in my entire life was when my mom gave me like a, you know those cards that you hang on the

on the doorknob in a hotel to say do not disturb or do not turn down my room or whatever. Yeah. She gave me that but like a plastic version and it was the testicle self exam. Where did she even get one of those? I don't know. Yeah, she just came home, you know, it was like home after school, high school, then and, uh, hey, uh, why don't you hang this in the, uh, in the shower? Oh no. Yeah. Like did it have a little hook for the faucet? Yeah. It's like the thing that you hang on a dork knob,

but in plastic, with the testicle, self-exam, like, line art comic on it. Here's a happy little bush. Got a little arm, it comes out through there. Did you get the sense that she had this made or was this a buy it off the rack situation? It seemed like something that was like available in a doctor's office and she brought for home for me.

Hey, you mind if I take one of those home with me? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, Free. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so did you, did you like hang it in your shower? I guess I did. Yeah.

I mean, it's still in there. It's still in there? I think so. Wow. That's a real commitment. I mean, it's not a commitment. I hung it up when I was 15 and it's not a shower that other people are using. So it really says a lot about the durability of that little sign.

Really remarkable sign This mess as you would predict Adam has messed up their ship quite a bit and they have to head back to deep space 9. So as I heard him back we cut to ops where O'Brien is, you know, he's pulling dead voles out of the works left and right. And Cork is up there to lodge a complaint about the voles that are running around his bar causing him to have a lower health department rating than he would normally be getting. Yeah. I mean, have we talked about the differences in health department ratings that you get in Seattle versus any other place in that Seattle has the face system? Oh, yeah. Seattle has an emoji-based health department rating, right? I feel like that's a homo sapien normative.

Like, you can never do that at Quark's bar, right? Oh yeah, because people have all kinds of faces at Quark's bar. A lot of people in Quark's bar don't have two eyes and nose and mouth. Yeah, so they're probably later grading that, right? Yeah. More broad comedy here out of Quark because one of the ding-dongs that O'Brien's messing around with to solve

for the vol problem is like, you know, like those Whistlin-Pete fireworks that you light them and then they just start screaming. That's what he's got and he trains it on Quark and it just takes him to the ground. Yeah. I like the idea that in the 24th century this might actually work because you do see this in the hardware store, they like get rid of bugs and mice by plugging this into your wall outlet and forgetting about it. That doesn't fucking work. Now, now anything you have to forget about isn't going to work. No. I do really like this problem being biological instead of technological.

Like so often in a start-trick episode, it's like, can we solve the engineering of this? Yeah. But the idea of an infestation seems like a pretty fresh idea. I also like to see Goli-Vec kind of like uncommented on. They like blow in a complaint to Goli-Vec and he's like, yeah, sorry, tough, tough tits. All sales are final. Yeah. But this conversation is kind of cut short with Dex and her little symbiontrainy come back through the wormhole with the damaged shuttle and they've got to be like toad in and put down in like stasis

because the unknown mass. Oh, it's got caught in the grill. I got it, I got it, I got it, heck it all. Is still lodged in their engine. So she wants to study this thing. She describes it as a subspace seaweed. Yeah. Like some kind of, like she's gonna make some kind of subspace sushi with it. Yeah, one person who probably wouldn't be interested in making such a role

is the owner operator of the Klingon buffet. Yeah. Complete with with chafing dishes like filled with dry ice. That's fun. Yeah Pretty good stuff. He really loves him some dax because she taught him a Klingon song. He didn't know She sings it with him a bit. She does not really have the voice for Klingon Opera. I really love this scene. I really love this guy. It actually made me want to dig into what this guy's deal was. Yeah. Then this is his last appearance on the show. Oh no! So RSVP Klingon Buffet guy. We hardly knew him. RSVP run Taylor. Holy shit, he was in trading places. That's a great credit. Yeah, he was like one of the tough gangster guys, right? Yeah.

Twin Peaks VR NYPV Blue, Matlock, Nightcourt, Miami Vice. Good job, I U-RON Taylor. Look at you, Ron Taylor. I mean, this guy's got a ton of charisma. Like the Klingon restauranter is a character that I am shocked to hear. We are not gonna get any more of after season two. I am too.

I think of Deep Space Nine. I think of him as being part of the texture of it. Like how many episodes has he been on? He's fucking made his mark. Especially because of how much we enjoy shopkeeper culture and how often they rely on it to further a story. Yeah, it's one of the things I like most about this show

is that like there are so many potential guidance, you know? Right. So many potential barber mods. I don't know, man. I mean, if you have 26 episodes in a season to break stories on, I don't know why you don't give yourself more options. Like, you could totally bottle episode this guy

in a really fun way. I don't know why you don't take that opportunity. Bottle episode every store on the promenade. Like, let's get to know the place, you know? To get a shopkeeper bottle every season I think would be really satisfying and only add to the totality of the culture that lives on the station. Yeah. Well this scene is about DAX kind of prying into Arjun's motivations for being in the Symbian program at all because it's a pretty competitive

sport from what she's described. Like there's tons and tons of people that want to get paired and very few angular source to go around and I think what she's looking for here is somebody who's got a lot of drive and a lot of drive in a very specific direction. And that's kind of who she is, but it's not really who he is. Like he's talented and ambitious, but he doesn't want to know what he wants to be when he grows up yet. I think we've met this person in college.

The person who is confidently pursuing a collegiate track that leaves his options open and someone who's just floating from major to major, not really knowing what they would like to do. And Arjun is definitely the latter of the two. I think it would have helped if his description of his own ambitions were a little stronger. I think you can make the case for an open-ended life in a way that sounds inspiring and interesting. He's just unable to do that.

How did it work for you in college? Did you know what you wanted to do the entire time, or did you select a major at some point? I selected many majors thinking that at the time that was going to be the one for me. Wow. I started as a political science major, and then I was an English major, and then I was a film major, and then I ended up a communications major. Man, I applied directly into my major, so it was never even a subject that came up, but yeah, like the main focus of my studies

was decided from freshman orientation. I really, from a very early time, like I would say, even before getting to college, I was really excited about the idea of taking a lot of different classes. Like, I took art history classes and foreign language classes and film classes all in the same year. It wasn't because I felt unfocused, but I really felt like a part of being in college was to Find out about all kinds of things and not specialized right away. I was envious of those that did though. I was Very sure I was going to be a political science major when I selected it and then I just changed my mind

Yeah, like I was sure I was gonna be all of these things at the time that I chose them. Well, I've always felt like my self assurance in what I wanted to do when I went to college was a big help to me because I didn't ever wind up taking a lot of classes on something that didn't help me ultimately graduate. But I think that a lot of people just don't know yet, and that's something I learned later in life.

And my brother-in-law is getting an MBA a few years after having graduated from college and not really know what he wanted to do for years after college. Like, I think that Jadzea in this scene is being a little judgmental of somebody that wasn't lucky enough to know exactly what they were heading toward early on. The tension in Jadzea decks is interesting to me because at a few different points, her desire to be Jadzea Dax and to be that more than the other daxes that her worm was inside has her deny her interest in being in being an individual

that acts separately from that reputation. Yeah, but that's something that I think I really value about her characters that she is Learning how to do this. Yeah in a way that is so interesting as a character like it's it's so well written because it's like Learning how to do this despite being 300 years old and also 28 years old, you know. Yeah. She is navigating a new persona for herself. Don't forget very, very attractive been a team of Bible. Like all of this complicated three dimensional character stuff, but also super fuckable.

So her relationship with Arjen, there's like a polarity to it, right? Yeah, it gets complicated. The road trip part is Jadzee attacks being encouraging and being a good listener and trying to figure out what Argin's about. And then later on in the lab when they're studying the the space seaweed, she turns back into the ballbreaker of her reputation. And this is the point where Argin is like feeling manipulated because Argin thinks that DAX is the DAX that he talked to in the runabout, but DAX contains multitudes and this version

of DAX. He finds very aggressive and it stirs up some feelings in Argin that that manifest in a shouting match. You know what? I'll go somewhere and I'll do some. Maybe I'll run away if you can never find me. That scene is intense because it's like I mean she's she's had the she's kind of gotten the council from Cisco like if he's not gonna cut it, like you should bring that to his attention. And instead of just breaking it to him or talking to him about like, you know, like she, it's like the fucking push a T Drake diss track. Like it's like just relentless and brutal.

That's exactly what I was gonna say. Yeah, I mean, she, mean, she finds every point of weakness and exploits it for everything it's worth. Yeah, more like Jadziya Distrack. Yeah, I thought you were a science officer in the Federation, not a member of the Clips. What they find out about the Space Seaweed is that it is a proto-universe in the early stages.

And this is a big problem because the thing about universes in the early stages is that they grow. They tend to make fairly large bangs. Yeah. And this becomes a problem because a, a problem because in a rare crossover between the deep sea storyline and the A storyline is that one of these Kardashian voles has chewed through a wire that released the containment field around this thing. And so it keeps expanding and expanding. It blows out a wall and then it blows out a window, then it blows out a section. Like it's every time it grows and it's growing at like a predictable rate, but it's like all at once, like every few hours it's like growing a bunch.

And it isn't long before they detect life inside it. And so it sort of pivots the scientific problem into an ethical problem pretty fast. They come up with a way to, oh yeah, if we just put it in a small enough container, essentially, it will expand itself to death, like it'll try and grow and it won't have anywhere to go, and that will destroy it. It becomes a very TNG style. We think that this might be life, and therefore we have to do everything we can to preserve it, but it's also an existential threat to the station. And, I mean, this isn't just alluded to,

there are conversations about killing it before it kills them. I mean, Cisco comes to a decision about whether or not to exterminate it and in so doing, like he compares his decision to the Borgs and Difference in exterminating humans. Like it really goes there. Exciting the Borg was such a good call in this storyline.

And it's that good call in this storyline, and it's that good call that we've been looking for in previous episodes that didn't happen. That has to be the lens through which Ben Sisko sees so much of the world. And the fact that it is brought up here is like, yes, absolutely. I want to call attention to the explosion that happens in the lab when this thing grows and busts out of its containment field. Really nice practical explosion inside the lab and then they intercut it with an exterior hole breach that looks really good, like really good sequencer. Yeah, pretty awesome special effects overall in this episode.

Like we get a pretty cool scene between Arjun and Quirk, where we find Arjun in the bar drinking the blue drink of career despair. And Quirk comes up to him to do kind of a pep talk. Was this worst pep talk ever? I think when you're feeling bad, camaraderie can often help.

And so Quark, by the end of this conversation, welcomes Arjun into the failed ambition club, of which he is a founding member on the station. Like they trade the currency of high expectations and failed realizations. Quarkshire's a pretty interesting story about like he was on the right track for a time. He was on his way to really being something in the in the Ferenci economic universe. He was the special summer intern of the sub-negis of region something. Yeah, all it took was, uh, was him sticking his dick in a place it shouldn't go. Never have sex with the boss's sister. To, uh, to tumble him all the way into deep space nine.

Never an explanation of why Quark failed that I ever expect is Quark had sex with someone. Yeah. Argeons like I've never had sex with anyone. I don't really see how this comports Quark. Quark, look at this haircut. Come on, you know I've never fucked. All I've ever seen is Young Guns 2 on VHS. And while we're talking about sequels, the mighty ducks too.

This is a good scene now. It is a low key one of the best scenes in the app I think is what happens in the spar. I really liked it too. Morning, morning, morning, morning, didn't you sweet, morning, morning, morning, didn't you hear everybody? Morning, morning, morning, stop, have a time. So this expanding universe thing sets up stakes for the first time in this episode.

Like we are literally like 20 minutes in before the first stakes happen in this episode, but it's like this thing's expanding. And so we need to do something with it. And when they realize they can't kill it, it's a problem because if they try and take it through the wormhole, if it interacts with a certain structure in the wormhole, it will blow up.

And they think that the like explosive yield is enough to take out the entire system. All this is to say like I think they missed a little bit of opportunity for Kira to give emotional weight to that because it's taking out the entire system which is which contains her home world but also it takes out the most important location in her religion and she doesn't get to say a lot in the conversations about this. It also didn't make a lot of sense to me that their solution was to dump it in the Gamma Quadrant. Right, it's presumably going to get as big as a universe eventually. Yeah. So why is it just being over there on the other side of the galaxy a save?

This is why I came down on Kira's side, which is the kill it before it kills us side, because everyone and everything is going to die if they let this thing grow. Well, you like Kira have a sort of native antipathy toward federation dogmas. So I guess I understand that Adam. By saying that though, I'm saying that this solution doesn't feel like a solution at all. It's not a binary choice. Yeah. That's what doesn't make sense to me.

Moving it neither saves them or kills it. It's a weird middle that doesn't even solve the problem. If you take their word for it though though, that it solves the problem. That is what the solution winds up being. But it's like easier said than done, right? You have to put this thing in a containment field and fly it through the wormhole. And the wormhole has something called verte run nodes in it. And if this proto-universe touches a verteuron node.

It will explode and it'll usblow the wormhole and everything in the pejorin system. So. It's because verteuron nodes are very sensitive and should you find one. Yeah, you just... Which is never a sure thing. It roll the nacelle between your thumb and forefinger

and if you think you feel a node, you go have someone look at it. So it is. It doesn't have to be weird. No, just make it a part of your routine. And there's been a little bit of discussion about what a great pilot, Arjun is. A little, he's a little Luke Skywalkery

and his self-ass assurance as a pilot. And it comes into play in the wormhole where he has to pilot the ship between all the vertoron nodes kind of just on thrusters. In a way that sort of reminds me of the the booby trap episode of TNG. Yep. Where... Good callback. It's like, spheres in a three-dimensional space that they have to fly the ship through,

and it takes a damn good pilot to steer around all of them. But he manages to do it, and they, I guess, dump the universe and clear out of there. This part is so weird weird and so unsatisfying for that reason. Like they just drop it off, pull a 180 and head back. It's so wild like how awesome the special effects of the Verderon nodes are and the chip flying through them. Like how awesome that part is given how weak sauce it is in the script.

I think it's one of the reasons why I don't think this is such a good episode, is because everything leads up to this moment and there's nothing in this moment that is satisfying or compelling at all. Now let's get this thing back where it belongs. I mean, what we do get is a scene where it becomes clear that decks, you know, may have been in artful in the way she talked to Arjun about the program, but it was all by way

of her trying to kind of kick him in the back of the pants and show him that he needs to have a goal, have a reason for this, be in this for the right reasons and know what those reasons are. The conclusion that we're given here with respect to Arjun is that he is a changed person. Do you get the sense that he is in a demonstrable way other than posture? What's different about him is that he knows what the change needs to be. He can make that choice with his eyes open. Like the thing that they've talked about is that he's kind of doing this because his father wanted him to. It's expected of him in a way and you grow up doing everything that

your parents arrange for you to do. And then at a certain point you're an adult and you have to decide whether, like, at what point to stop doing the things that your parents have arranged for you to do and start doing the things that you're arranging for yourself. And that's a very difficult transition, and I think that's sort of what this episode's about. The thing that's the most clear to its conclusion is that Dax has been the one who's gone through the change More than Arjun, I think I agree in terms of her self-knowledge. Yeah, did you like the episode Adam?

Chekhov's universe was was a real hang-up for me. I think yeah Unfortunately so much of what I cared about had to do with Yeah. Unfortunately, so much of what I cared about had to do with the universe in the room. It seems like they could have written some tectobabble to explain what they were doing. They were also insufficiently impressed by it too. They had an existential fear of it.

Right, like all you need in TNG is to write like three sentences for PSTU to do with a sense of wonderment. Yeah. And you will get everything that is amazing about this universe. No one expresses that wonder here. No one even says anything close to we've never seen anything like this. Just think of it will, an entire universe, and the poem of your hand.

I mean, there are scientists in the room. Right. And they don't express those feelings. So it's hard for me to feel them if no one else is expressing them. And so I think that is a major reason why I did not like the episode. What about you? It falls on the side of liking it for me. We've talked about this recently,, like the low stakes Star Trek episode that

doesn't matter that much either way, it's not the whole banana at stake the entire time. I mean, like eventually the stakes do get raised in this episode, but you never quite believe that they're going to let the pejoran system get blowed up, you know. Do you think that's the problem though? Like by introducing a lower stakes tone in the beginning, like with the voles and with, with decks gambling with the Ferengy, like there's a, there's a stack of minor things happening that like in a way like the cold open in the

first 15 of an episode like teaches you what it is. And because the existential threat isn't introduced until 40 minutes in like could we never appreciate that because it's fun in games up until then? It's not about that for me like those steaks Getting raised then doesn't change the arc that the characters on because the arc that the characters are on are kind of It's kind of disconnected from that and I like Argin's story. I like DAX's story. I like what we learned about DAX in this episode and I Don't think that it's a great episode and I think it's got a lot of pretty glaring flaws, but from a character development standpoint, I really liked it.

Yeah. Fair enough Ben, you want to see if we have any priority one messages? Sure, let's do it. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on this one? A supplement on? A supplement. A supplement. Yes, extra. You need a supplement on this. supplement on comp? supplement supplement

Yes, extra How do you interest alone? Could be enough to buy this ship! Ben, our first priority one message is of a commercial nature play on con It's a four day geek summer camp located in the north Georgia mountains Oh Have your very own west-Hot American summer with canoeing, archery, tabletop gaming, parties, live music, and more.

Play the Starship Bridge Simulator as a crew member aboard our familiar but legally distinct USS entrepreneur. Rent your share a cabin and join in the epic Color wars competition for more information or to book for yourself. You can visit playoncon.com. That's PLAYOM.com. That sounds super fun. I would say that if anybody can successfully go there and convince everybody that their name is Wesley the entire time they have my respect They don't have mine But I would give me a nice chuckle. Yeah, that's really fun. I wonder if they really call it the entrepreneur

That's that's awesome. I really wonder if there are Georgia mountains. Oh, I'm sure there's Georgia mountains Adam until I see them for myself. I'm not sure I can believe that. So how do I get there? I go to playoncon.com. Playoncon.com. To attend playoncon. Playoncon. Playoncon! Good for you, man. Good for you. Good for you.

And in our next priority one, message is of a warm honeyed bosom nature. It's for Ben and Adam. Goes like this. P5. Janet Jackson killed the groundhog. Why are tin-willy ruining Canadian rodentide? Let's see the Ocean's 11 remake, 11 Cheetos starring 10 Don Cheetos and Don in a Bintarong suit. Do you know how to work 10 or GIF magic? Your pumpkin technique leads to breakage. Cry grapefruit instead. May your gate be stable and all your bones be covered. I feel like the warm honeyd bosom is doing that thing where they play mad lives with

a toddler. And it just doesn't know any of the parts of speech. Right. And then you read the thing at the end and you just laugh at the absurdity, but not necessarily at the joke making. Right. Yeah. It is a real word salad.

I mean, we edit this to be the actual text of the P1, but I really struggle to read through that because, like, because there is no logic in it, you can't like predict what the next word you might have to read is, and my brain just doesn't work fast enough. Next time I'm about to go on stage, I'm going to bring one of these P1s as a linguistics exercise to do before getting on mic. Like red leather, yellow leather. Yeah, that's it exactly. The tip of the tongue, the teeth, and the bentarang.

If you have a priority one message of your own, of either a commercial or personal nature, you can take it on over to maximumfund.org slash jumbo-tron or commercial messages or $200 and personal messages are an easy $100 they are a great great way to help with the ongoing and costly production of the greatest generation. Thanks guys. Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk

Trimota? Drunk Shimoda! Yeah, my Shimoda is anyone who chose not to step on the bug that is that universe. Think you got a step on the bug Ben. Sorry, I know it's fucked up, but it's universe versus universe, right? I know our universes can cross. They cross in midstream. It's a universe holocaust at that point. It's messy.

I think people would feel bad about it, but who's to say that the people inside that mini universe aren't grappling with the same issue? Well Adam, let it never be said that you wield any liberal guilt. You virtue signaling fuck. My drug charmoda is a time code, Shimoto. If you go to 15 minutes and about 20 seconds, this is the scene in the Klingon restaurant

where Dex and Argin are having their hang. There's a couple of bolian olds in the background there, presumably on a date or something. And the fella actually feeds something to the lady. That's great. And you know, it's kind of reminded me of that thing that happens sometimes when I'm out on a date with the wife and we see an older couple kind of modeling healthy

relationship Stuff between an older couple and you say like oh look at them. They're so cute together I hope we're like that when that when we're that age you know and I like the idea of old bolean people people being the cute older couple you see out in a restaurant. Oh, Ben, they do it again. They get two takes of it at like 1540. Oh, really? So it makes me wonder how often or how many times they did that as background actors. Maybe in boolean culture, women do not feed themselves.

The man has to do it for them. Get it tell you, Ben, that is one behavior that my wife and I do not model. She hates to be fed. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Especially like in the kitchen, like just cooking stuff like this. Yeah, she will not like aggressively against that. I feel like I just don't trust myself with a fork and anything. Like I'm barely not stabbing myself with a fork when I eat. So I would be very worried to stab my wife with a fork if I held something out for her to taste.

I've never had that fear. Maybe I should ask what would happen to her. Yeah. Maybe it's something she's hanging on to from a long time ago. Point to the part of your tongue where the hot food burned you. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post-show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it!

The Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to greatestgentour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level.

We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org.

Look, your podcast apps are open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, rats, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in mine. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy, what do I?

These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. So gotta get on the art. It is It's about to rain, about to spread humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. Oh, we're actually, we're podcasters. Yes, totally. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out.

We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and of the paranormal stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? O'Neil Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. Rock, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, fugitive. He is ready to sacrifice everything to win her back. That sounds great. That sounds pretty heavy. TBH.

What does Netflix say? Netflix says, Cisco and the Ops Crew pull in a small severely damaged Cartesian vessel containing three passengers. Those are the best. Oh boy, that's fun. Yeah, it's not a bell I want to get stuck ringing every week, but that as clickbait, like come on Netflix. Give me a fucking break.

Well Adam, do you want to find out what state of mind and or looking at each other during? We will be when we record that episode. Yeah, we better. You're required to learn as you play, role. We are on square 55. And that is the meat in between two squares, one of which being looking at each other during, which is only one square away. I'm going to do these clon peaks.

You do that. You can roll that dice. Oh, band the roll is one. Oh, you've got the thing! It is something that I think I feared the most of all of these squares. Here's the thing Adam, I happen to know that you're already coming to My Neck of the Woods for Max Funcon which by the time this episode is out I think will be in the rearview mirror but it's actually, we don't actually have to buy any extra plane tickets this time.

I think if you're gonna do it, what better place? Looking forward to doing the next show, looking at each other during, Ben. Yeah, so, all right, man, well, that's the next one. Gotta think the people who makes this show possible. Yeah, we've got two. I know who they are. They are the friends of DeSoto who go to MaximumFun.org slash Donate and become monthly donors to the production of the program. They're the best and we couldn't do it without them.

Yes, support can come in a variety of forms, though, Ben. One of which is a tasty 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast that also accepts a rating and review? This is true. We thank Dark Materia who made the theme music for the program and Adam Ragusia who has made a wealth of musical creations for us, including most of the theme music you now here on the show. The theme music for greatest GenCon 2017, which is on tour now, now that it's 2018, go to greatestgencon.com to get information and tickets. I think by the time this is out, there will be more shows announced, right? We're adding shows and we're selling out shows. Yeah, so don't wait on're adding shows and we're selling out shows. Yeah.

So don't wait on these tickets, please. We're already getting emails from people that are like, hey, seriously, are you really sold out on these shows? Yes, the answer is we are really sold out on those shows and we're sorry. I think the lesson here is make sure to prioritize getting the tickets when they get announced because like we try and book shows and venues that we know we can get close to if not

fill and that's just because it is fun to do a show in a full room so we're not booking rooms that have way more seats than we could ever hope to fill and That means most if not all of them will sell out eventually so to those people who had wanted to go to a show that is sold out might I recommend Las Vegas? Yeah, that's coming up. What do you say we wrap it up there, Ben? Let's wrap it up, dude. If you want to talk online to us up there, Van. Let's wrap it up, dude. If you want to talk online to us, I am on Twitter at BenjaminRAHR and Adam is at Cut for

Time. And you can use the hashtag GreatestGen. Go to the Reddit group, the Facebook group, the Slack channel. Lots of places to hang out with the friends of DeSoto that are really fun and like non-shitty, non-dark places on the internet. They are not going to make you cleanse your jaw when you sleep at night. You will not need to seek any form of treatment for coming on those websites. And that's one thing that we really value about them. Absolutely, and with that we'll be back in you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9,

another episode of the greatest generation Deep Space 9, in which one of the hosts becomes a fugitive, leaving the other host to sacrifice everything to win him back. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture Artistone Listener supported.