The Ricochet Podcast - State Fair

Episode Date: August 30, 2018

This week, we do a Rico-Centric show with our regular crew and our two trusty editors: Jon Gabriel (Ricochet’s beloved EIC) and Bethany Mandel, the Madonna of The Main Feed. We talk about flagpoles, conservatives on social media, an insider’s view of Arizona, why Instagram is the best social media platform (after this one, natch) and of course, Lileks gives the lowdown on the Minnesota State Fair. Source

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If you stop lying, I will stop interrupting. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lalix, and today it's an editor's podcast with John Gabriel and Bethany Mandel. Let's have ourselves an editoritors Podcast. Bye-bye. Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number 413, but that's not an unlucky number.

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Max will be happy, won't he? Well, I can't speak for Max. I don't know. I don't know what makes Max happy. Max could be happy or unhappy for a bunch of reasons. Your distress makes him happy. Yes. Well, listen, if you are a member of Ricochet and you're listening to this podcast and you enjoy it, we thank you and we are pleased to have you as a member along with us.

But I have to say this. If you are not a member of Ricochet and you are listening to this podcast and you enjoy it and there are literally millions of you who do – well, I don't know if it's literally millions. It's very close to millions. Today's member pitch was once again written by Ricochet's director of technical operations, our DTO, as they say, or a CTO. She's called him CTO. Max Ledoux. Ricochet, we are great. Ricochet.com slash join.

Membership level start at $2.50 per month. If you just want to support the podcast, you're already listening to it for free. Or $5 per month if you want to write your own post, be more a part of the conversation and the community. Join today. Do not put it off. Ricochet.com slash join. We've got swagger.

I don't know. Now I felt like Bob Hope reading one of those sketches when he had to play the hippie. He had no idea what that meant. We got swagger. Well, yeah, I guess. And Peter has swagger. Oh, I have. I'm swagger adjacent.

Are you sure that's not a typo? We have swag. That's for sale on the website. Coffee mugs. Now we're getting to old man territory. What do the kids mean? The language. I don't know.

Join Ricochet today because it is on fleek. I think that was – all I know is there are certain words that if I had used them, my daughter would just die internally. She's like, Dad, don't even use them in the house. If you use them around my friends, I will absolutely fall into the earth like the Wicked Witch. And then I'd say, well, she didn't fall into the earth. She melted because she – whatever. You get the point. Don't say that either to my friends when they're around.

Yeah. Well, gentlemen, here we are. Another week. I can't for the life of me remember what we were supposed to be occupied and incensed about last week, but we've got a full plate now, don't we? So the biggest contretemps, I think, which is now probably gone but ripples yet, is the flags at half-mast, which I think mattered because not so much for what it said about the president. I don't want to surprise anybody, but how it divided sort of the conservative movement about yes be rude or no be i mean peter rob do you think that that was indicative of something or just uh whatever who knows let's get to the next thing well there's sort of twin hypocrisies going on here right i mean and i suppose of all the hypocrisies

the surprisingly the least hypocritical here is Donald Trump. I mean Donald Trump hated the guy. He hated the guy. He thought he was a jerk. He hated the guy, and Trump isn't able to be a big person or to rise above it. Trump wasn't able even to grant him that his status as a war hero, a genuine war hero. So Trump is a petty little awful person, right? But at least he's not pretending

now that he's sad or that he has any respect for John McCain. What's weird are the giant outpouring of love and affection and respect from people in the press and on the left who despised him too and who called

him all sorts of names um and and were vaguely disrespectful to him i mean i'm you know i give obama credit he what he said was you know his his written eulogy or memorial for john mccain was you know beautifully written and i'm sure he feels it but it was very easy for him to dismiss kind of rudely and haughtily John McCain who – during the healthcare legislation debate where honestly had he listened to him, Obamacare wouldn't be the shambles it is today. So on the one hand, I think Trump is a petty, awful person who wouldn't recognize true patriotism or true heroism if it marched down the street and smacked him in the face. And he's loathsome for that. But on the other hand, at least he's not pretending he's not. And I'm not sure which makes me kind of queasy and nervous and ill more, Donald Trump or the newly found respect and awe and love and honor that McCain is getting now

from a press that never gave it to him, certainly not when he was a candidate. Peter, some people say that even though Donald Trump hated John McCain and it was probably quite mutual, that this isn't about him. This is about the presidency and what presidents do, right? Well, we're still on the flag. I spoiled myself. I spoiled myself. I spoiled myself for this conversation because I read someplace over the last couple of days that flying the flag as it was flown in the White House is perfectly in accord with whatever federal regulation rules the use of the U.S. flag. And it seemed, and the person who wrote this article, wherever it was, somebody, some Ricochet member, please post on this because now I can't find it again. It was unclear that the president himself had had anything to do with it.

It seemed as though it could have been a routine bureaucratic decision. So I've spoiled myself for this. I can't feel any real dudgeon toward Donald Trump for putting the flag back up when there's the thought in my mind that this may be a non-story. Sorry. How's that? means it has to be of incredible importance to America as large, certainly more so than consumer confidence being its highest level since what, October 2000? That, you think, when it comes to the general mood of the country, matters more. Rude animal spirits, bulging wallets, all the rest of it. And that allows the president to get away with some things that some people can't stand. So does this make you guys nervous? Are you looking

at all this and say, boy, stock market's doing great, economy's humming along, consumer confidence is good. It's time for a fall and it's going to hit us and smack us just in time for 2020. Excuse me. I'm sorry. As I explained just before we started recording, I made the mistake of going for a jog or a plod or a hobble or whatever it is I do these days. And I ingested. My sinuses are now teeming with pollen. And it's like having – I'm fine, but I feel as though I have a terrible cold. Sorry.

And that information is as relevant to people as the callers would say, as I was telling your screener. As I was telling your screener. Well, I'm trying to explain for the rest of the podcast. You sound – I may cough. Here's what was interesting this past week. As I was telling your screener, well, I'm trying to explain for the rest of the podcast. Here's what was interesting this past week. Two states held primaries. Two big states held primaries. There may have been others.

Arizona and Florida. And two kinds of candidates won their party's nominations. On the Republican side, it was candidates that Donald Trump had endorsed. Ron DeSantis in California, running for the GOP nomination for governor, started double digits behind a man called Putnam, who was a poll in California. I think he's the agriculture commissioner now. Donald Trump endorsed Ron DeSantis, and Ron DeSantis won the primary by double digits. So we have Trump taking over the Republican Party, which I doubted would happen, but it's happening. And on the Democratic side, the people who won were progressives. The guy who won, his name, Gillum, I believe his name, Andrew Gillum, African-American mayor in Florida. He won the Democratic primary. Who campaigned for him bernie sanders so we have the the polarization all these things that

rob was saying was going to happen was happening and i was saying no no no no it's not calm down rob was right i'm not going to add the corollary that i was wrong but rob was right well i we're recording this right that's a i'm glad this is glad this is going to go out into space. Look, here's what I think. I think that it just is one more indication that the party faithful, the engines that drive both parties, by that I mean the people who vote in primaries. That's not a big number, but the hot molten core are made up of firebrands and true believers. Good thing, bad thing, however you want to look at it. The problem is that the elections are not won by that, mostly. It is perfectly, I think,

accurate to say that the President of the United States is currently in the White House because of the absolute enthusiasm and fervor of firebrands and true believers. So all of the old political wisdom is up for grabs really until I think until 2020 when we find out what actually drives voters to the voting booth in a general. We kind of already knew what drives people to the vote, what drives party members to the voting booth primary. But the general to me, or even November, like this November, will be really interesting. And I think anybody who thinks they know what's going on is,

I mean, maybe there's statistics there I haven't seen. It seems really, really hard to pinpoint. I just think these are two parties in desperate search of a message that inspires the great big shrugging middle and also their firebrand true believers. And I'm not sure that there is a message like that. I'm not sure. Reagan had that message and Clinton had that message and Obama had that. But I'm not sure anybody in the party right now has that message. One other interesting fact, the polls, the way they stand right now, it looks as though a very small victory in the House of Representatives, winning control of that body by some low single-digit number of seats.

Very, very close. In the Senate, where Republicans are defending far fewer seats than Democrats and where Democrats have 10 candidates up for election or reelection in states that Donald Trump carried. And in the Senate, again, where Republicans were expecting until, oh, at least a month ago to pick up two or three or four seats. What are the polls showing? Absolutely unchanged. Republicans pick up three seats and democrats pick up three seats and after the election in november if the polls hold today it'll be 51 49 all over again right we with donald trump so dominates the news cycles that we sometimes forget it's all really really close it's really

close it is really yes he dominated but it's chaff and it's hash i mean trump's worst week ever and his numbers just basically don't go anywhere well there are two ways there are two ways looking that way go ahead sorry well the flip of that the flip of that is that his best week ever he gets up at 48 49 in some polls ronald reagan only spent a couple of months below 50 so donald trump just can't quite touch Ronald Reagan's lowest point. The guy, he has his base, but he has not reached out to the rest of the country. It's all frozen, it seems to me. So I think we're seeing that Trump confounds all sorts of measurements, right?

And one of the measurements I think he confounds is measurements of popularity and who's going to vote for him, who's going to like him. The most interesting thing about those polls is how incredibly rock steady they are. That's right. And that's just not normal. That's not what a normal – even a normal successful popular president doesn't get that. And he gets that, and I think there are a lot of people who do not want to tell pollsters they do not like him. And there are probably a lot of people who do not want to tell pollsters they do like him. Yeah, I think that's the case as well too.

And then you have all that – sorry, go ahead. No, I just think that one of the reasons perhaps that the numbers don't move is just that people don't have the same sort of involvement that they might have with a reagan character right they they they you know reagan was somebody that you could feel aspirational about and i don't know what i'm saying literally i don't know where i'm going with this other than no i don't i mean i had a james just improvise watching you improvise is good enough for me go i've been standing on a state fair stage for the last seven days improvising for 30 minutes a day, throwing lip balm at people, interviewing a lady who's got a lamb in her lap. OK, so I'm pretty much done with that. Well, wait a minute.

Stop there. What did you learn about America at the state fair? That's the place to learn. Well, that people sit there and listen to a Democratic politician with kindness and patience. That people sit there and listen to the republican politician with kindness and patience and afterwards there are no fistfights no minnesotans getting each other's faces and stabbing each other's sternums with index fingers and that the great minnesota get together which is this astonishingly diverse if you really want to think about it in terms of all of the type fbd doesn't stand for friendly business ducks

or for the freelance beatbox department FBD doesn't stand for friendly business ducks. Or for the freelance beatbox department. FBD stands for support. We support businesses and communities across Ireland. Visit your local branch to talk to your FBD insurance team and see how we can support your business. FBD Insurance. Support. It's what we do. FBD Insurance Group Limited. Trading as FBD Insurance. Is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. At LiveScore Bet, we love Cheltenham just as much as we love football.

The excitement, the roar and the chance to reward you. That's why every day of the festival, we're giving new members money back as a free sports bet up to €10 if your horse loses on a selected race. That's how we celebrate the biggest week in racing. Cheltenham with LiveScoreBet. This is total betting. Sign up by 2pm 14th of March. Bet within 48 hours of race.

Main market excluding specials and place bets. Terms apply. Bet responsibly. 18plusgamblingcare.ie FBD doesn't stand for friendly business ducks. Or for the freelance beatbox department. FBD stands for support. We support businesses and communities across Ireland.

Visit your local branch to talk to your FBD insurance team and see how we can support your business. FBD Insurance. Support. It's what we do. FBD Insurance Group Limited, trading as FBD Insurance, is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. ...sorts and beliefs and styles and hats and tattoos and all the rest, with this great assemblage of Americans wandering through this place, eating greasy food on a stick on a hot 80-degree day.

We get along. We get along. Right. And the fact that we get along is a given and it makes a lot of what we expect and hear and fear about america sort of fade away when you realize hey here we all are i guarantee you they're a random guy we disagree about a lot of stuff maybe we could talk about it but we don't have to because we're americans here at the fair god bless him right um and so you know if i take away anything from the state fair year after year after year, this is a great place to live. And also, I wish people wouldn't wear so much old spice because the bus coming back is like the barn after a whole bunch of

teenage boys shaved the sheep and doused them with ax. But that's another issue. It could be worse, though, you know. Well, at the end of summer, you know, and it's at the end of summer, it's it's this great there's always a day at the state fair where you know and it's at the end of summer it's it's this great there's always a day at the state fair where it's cold and you feel the first intimations of fall there's always a day where it's blaringly hot and feels like summer is eternal and always comes down to the end at labor day when the fireworks go out and we say goodbye to calendrical summer with the great glorious explosions in the sky it's wonderful and you've had a few beers and you're hot from the you go home and you sleep.

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And our thanks to Casper, of course, for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we bring in, oh, this guy. Okay. All right. Take that out. Take that out. I'm kidding. We love him. John Gabriel, the beloved editor-in-chief of Ricochet, co-host of the wildly popular Conservatarians podcast on this very network. And, John, I haven't seen you since we swanned around D.C. at a cocktail party having sort of insider banter. Was that that thing? Yeah, the cocktail parties are the only reason I visit that town. So you know me. We were just sitting on the sidewalk.

You can follow him at Twitter at X, or I'm sorry, at X John. And I do so because it's lots of fun. Hey, Arizona, what happened? Walk us through it. Well, what I think happened is Arizona has been a hotbed of this kind of, I guess you would call it Trumpian populism for quite a while, going back to Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And after that, we had Jan Brewer as our governor, and it really seemed to turn. It seems like Arizona finally kind of went with a more establishment candidate. You had Martha McSally.

She's a representative representing the Tucson area down in southern Arizona, but a loyal, rock-ribbed conservative, and she defeated a couple different people, including Sheriff Joe, who came in third place, and Kelly Ward, who are both eagerly duking it out for the past several months. They didn't even pay attention to McSally at all. All they did was fight about who loves Trump more and who can have more alt-right people ride on their bus tours. So it was a pretty almost comical but in a depressing way campaign. But McSally won big she won i think final count was 51 of the vote so both of her opponents votes totaled together she still beat that so

it was a good sign for the gop they have a tough race coming up in november against a democrat kirsten cinema who's pretty popular so i think this was her only chance to hold Jeff Flake's Senate seat. But John McSally is not unconservative herself, right? No, not at all. And if you look at her CV, it's pretty amazing. You know, she's one of the she's an Air Force colonel, retired fighter pilot, one of the highest ranking female pilots in the history of the Air Force. She actually sued the Pentagon over them trying to force her to wear a hijab in Saudi Arabia. She's like, I'm not going to wear that thing. So yeah, she's hardly a shrinking violet, but she was promoted from the start as, oh, well, she's a sitting U.S.

representative, so she's establishment. But I think she will be a definite conservative improvement over Jeff Flake. And whom did the president endorse? President was very cagey. He actually complimented all three at different times, but didn't officially endorse. The second, it was, you know, and I think it's been apparent for the past month that McSally was going to race to a victory. She stopped even talking about her Republican opponents

and focused on the Democrat at the end of the race. But Trump, just enthusiastic endorsement. She's great. She's going to change Washington. Vote for her. I need her there. So you don't have any sense that this was not a referendum on Trump. Trump was happy with all three of these candidates and all three of the candidates were happy with Trump.

Nobody was exactly. Yeah, no one distanced themselves from Trump at all. There wasn't any any kind of backlash. I'm sure it'll hit when the Democrat gets in the race. But what's funny in Arizona, when you go for a statewide office, the Democrats try to run to the right of Republicans. I'm actually in Kyrsten Sinema, who won the Democratic primary. I'm in her district. She's a representative currently. And I get mailers once a month. I have been for the past five, six years, and it's nothing but flags and uniforms and fighter jets flying over. She never was in the military herself, of course, but whenever you try to statewide office in Arizona, you never quite mentioned that you're a Democrat. You just say, oh, I love the flag and

I love our troops. Please vote for me and hope they don't notice the little D after your name. Hey, John, it's Rob Long. Hello. So I have two questions. One, did you go back to the Senate race? We could have had this conversation and felt as incredibly confident about an R seat last year in Alabama. McSally is no Roy What's-His-Name.

But is that going to be an issue, do you think? I mean, is there anything here? If I'm the Dems in Arizona, what am I going to be poking at? Oh, they will definitely poke at the Trump thing. She voted with Trump X percentage of time. I'm sure that's going to come up. And she's been a reliable GOP voter, so I'm sure she'll have to deal with that.

What's interesting is she's really contrasting in her first ad against her Democratic opponent. She's really focusing on, well, I was in the Middle East killing bad guys. My opponent was wearing a pink – a code pink tutu and screaming how the troops need to come home. And that positioning is brilliant, especially for this state. Arizona has a lot of retirees, several large military bases here. But even the civilian population tends to be right-leaning. Democrats in the state tend to be right-leaning uh democrats in the state tend to be right-leaning for the most part so they are going to try to tire to trump but she is going

to portray um kirsten cinema not as this very moderate democrat she has been the past few years but 10 years ago she i remember in an interview she called herself a Prada socialist, and she was very considered extremely far left-wing person in the state. I suspect every voter in Arizona is going to know that. Oh, yeah. It reminds me that there's a great old Republican media strategist named Arthur Finkelstein, I think.

Arthur just died last year. Oh, okay. He had a template, and his template was, so-and-so is too liberal for whatever district or state you were in. We can't trust him. Too liberal. It kind of always worked. It was a great of 1 to 10 – obviously Trump is a 10 – but on a scale of 1 to 10, how much impact will immigration have on the race? I think immigration will be mentioned, but she – McSally hasn't made it a huge part of her campaign. It's always going to be a big issue in Arizonazona but i think she's going to couch it in like arizona's governor doug ducey does it's like look it's about safety we welcome all legal immigrants just you know please go through the process so it isn't this vitriolic um you know build the wall

and they will say i'm sure at some point she'll say build the wall but it's not this it doesn't feel like this nativist or anti-hispanic rhetoric because Arizona, it used to be a part of Mexico. We have a lot of Hispanics who lived here longer than crackers like me. So it's very important for the party just to be kind of inclusive but say, no, we have to watch the border and make this an issue. And that's popular again among Democrats in Arizona as well as Republicans. How much daylight is there between her – frankly, between her and Sinema, or between her and any viable candidate in Arizona of either party? I think there's quite a bit between her and Sinema,

but once again, you kind of have to get to Sinema. His brand has really rebranded herself as the most milquetoast, moderate Democrat you'd ever meet. Someone who would be, you know, attending GOP. A proven model. Right. And but yeah, they're going to tie her to she's a little Nancy Pelosi and like that Finkelstein ad.

They're going to she she will be this raging Democratic socialist by the time this campaign's over. Anyone any election? Usually I'm just going to go with the Republican winning statewide, but it's been pretty volatile lately with Trump, the backlash to him. There's been a lot of teachers union organizing, getting Democratic Democrats registered as much as they possibly can. So I think it will be a bit tighter in cinema, too. Is she someone who is very likable?

She has a lot of friends on both sides of the aisle. She's always been very kind of bipartisan, palling around with Jeff Flake and McCain constantly. So it won't be as easy to paint her as, oh, she's this crazy radical Alexandra Ocasio type person. Right. But so I think it will be, you know, but I think it'll be a single digits in – I don't know. I think McSally will win, but it will be like a 2%, 3% type victory, not a double-digit victory. Last question. John McCain. How much was – legacy and personal heroism aside, just pure politics. How does his – how did his death have any impact on this race on Tuesday if it did?

And then what is – who's Arizona's elder statesman, grand statesman post-McCain? That's a really tough thing because all our grand statesmen, I would say John Kyle, but he just got tired of politics and he kind of stepped away. He's actually shepherding Kavanaugh through the Senate now, the confirmation hearings. statesman's i would say john kyle but he just got tired of politics and he kind of stepped away he's actually shepherding kavanaugh through the senate now the confirmation hearings but i i think he is definitely a go-to and has respect on both sides of the aisle what's interesting is uh goldwater gave the um uh gave a eulogy at the death at the funeral of carl hayden the senator from way back when who was an Arizona senator, this giant of the Senate for years.

And then when Goldwater passed away, McCain gave his eulogy. So a lot of people are wondering, hmm, who's going to be giving his eulogy? Because Arizona has this record of these kind of giant senators who are always a pain in the rear end to everybody in D.C. and their own party a lot of the time. And it'll be interesting if someone like that could make a name for themselves these days, just this kind of weird old crank from way out west. The grand old gentleman of Arizona is going to be Sheriff Joe. Hey, John. A couple of last questions about Arizona.

In the Senate primary yesterday – what was it yesterday? Yeah, yesterday. Okay. So voter turnout, 400,000 vote in the Democratic primary votes cast in the Democratic primary, 500,000 cast in the Republican primary. So that's a 20% more Republicans voting. Does that bode well for the election day in November or is it irrelevant? It's actually better than I was concerned it might be. It's not as overwhelming as it usually is in Arizona. Like I said, a lot more Democrats have been registered. More GOP voters have been registered as well in the past couple of years,

but more Democrats. They have a lot of space to make up, though. And part of it, too, is you kind of have this institutional machinery of the state gop and the big money people and once they get these races rolling it's like with mccain a lot of conservatives were so frustrated with him which i was many times as his constituent you know he's not representing the people of arizona but um kind of the powers that be in the state party, once they get rolling, it's pretty unstoppable. It is an all-out blitz, TV, radio, internet, public appearances, and they really do a number on people.

So anybody who challenged McCain, someone like Kelly Ward the last time around, J.D. Hayworth before that, they just get – J.D. Hay was so destroyed, he fled the state at the end of it. You know, it is just brutal. And I'm sure that's part of it. It's like his business was gone, his reputation was gone. So they really play for keeps. And I think it's going to be a pretty brutal race. Last question. Republican governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, gets to appoint someone to fill out the unfilled portion of John McCain's term. Who's he going to pick? And will he do so fast enough to get... At LiveScoreBet, we love Cheltenham just as much as we love football.

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Main market excluding specials and place bets. Terms apply. Bet responsibly. 18plusgamblingcare.ie A vote in the Senate for Brett Kavanaugh. Hearings begin on September. Hearings begin just next week. It's a matter of days before Brett Kavanaugh. Hearings begin on September. Hearings begin just next week. It's a matter of days before the Kavanaugh hearings begin.

Well, he's unfortunately has not responded to my recommendation of Alice Cooper, who is a Phoenix area Republican. So that is out, unfortunately. Yeah, he is a rock rib Republican. My friend's parents attended his Sunday school at their church way back when. He is a fascinating character. But my pick would be a placeholder so then the voters can pick someone in 2020, someone like a John Kyle or John Shattuck, who's a former congressman. A lot of people are thinking Kirk Adams, who's his chief of staff, who is kind of an up-and-comer. He has a broad party support, and he's someone that could fill that role for year after year after year. I would love to leave that decision up to the voters, and I'm not sure Doug Ducey wants to do that.

People have mentioned Cindy McCain too, but I just think that would really smack of kind of a Kennedy type, let's rebuild Camelot in the McCain name, and I don't think voters would be smack of uh kind of a kennedy type let's rebuild cattle uh camelot in the mccain name and i don't think voters would be too thrilled with him he's up for re-election in november as well so i doubt he would do anything that controversial that might cause some hiccups in that race so he may take his time about this there may not be a vote yeah i suspect that he's already figured out who he's going to put out there he's probably waiting until all the mccain ceremonies and funerals in arizona and in dc are done and then announce it quickly thereafter got it thanks john um this is an editor's podcast we should note

and so that means that we also spotlight some of the things that the editors have written that you should go to ricochet and pay for. You had a great little piece about how the left has given up on comedy. Let me quote this for you. This age of political buffoonery, media panic, and perpetual outrage is a comedy goldmine right when many comedians are losing their sense of humor. As the left grows ever more dour, their political prospects will continue to fade, as will the laughter from an audience who could use a break from the anger and the despair. Nothing's funny. As a matter of fact, you're the guy who put that meme out, the that's not funny meme of the very stern-looking woman on the seashore.

So are they self-censoring, or is it because they believe, as many do, I think, that to actually be funny in this day and age is somehow to betray the spirit of resistance that is so necessary before we tip into utter fascism i really think it's the latter in uh most of the cases there were all these rave reviews over an australian comedian uh hannah gadsby who released a special on netflix as every comedian is required to do by the constitution i believe um they're all over the place but um it made such huge news because it wasn't funny and it was harrowing and it was painful and it was a searing indictment of the comedy culture and it's like okay that's stand-up tragedy that doesn't stand up comedy so um it seems like the basic abcs of comedy is making people laugh and i think a lot of people on the left is how can you laugh at a time like this um well this is actually the perfect time to start laughing that's you know you see

um a lot of comedies you know coming out of the awful world war ii that's when you had so many jewish comedians mel brooks rising to prominence just like look we gotta laugh at this stuff this is so horrible we don't even know how to cope with it. So of any time you could be making fun of both sides, now is the prime time to do it. But they would much rather win plaudits from critics by acting very concerned and shedding tears on camera and being outraged about whatever Trump happened to eat last week. If there was only somebody we knew who was an expert in comedy and had some network connections, we could actually do something about this. Yeah, you know, it's all about the Benjamins for me. only somebody we knew who was an expert in comedy had some network connections. We could actually do something about this. It's all about the Benjamins for me. John, thanks a lot for joining us. We'll see you, of course,

every day at Ricochet, either in spirit or in form, and of course on Twitter as well. Talk to you later. See you soon. Thank you. What's the... I'm not a musical comedy guy, but what's the brush up your Shakespeare? I always used to hear that.

Kiss Me Kate. Kiss Me Kate. Is that what you're called? Yes. Cole Porter. Yep. Oh, well, there you go then. Well, if you would like a musical comedy and you would like to also brush up on your Shakespeare,

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And our thanks to Quip for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome back to the podcast Bethany Mandel. She's a part-time editor at Ricochet, columnist at the Jewish Daily Forward, stay-at-home mother of three kids, only one of which I think was born on the roadside, four years old and younger, so she's got her hands full. How she manages to do all of this while doing all of that? Well, if you ever met Bethany, you'd know. She's a person of

great spirit and energy and manages also to be the co-host of That's Bethany Show and Ladybrain's podcast. Thank you so much. Follow her on Twitter at Bethany Shondark. And of course, if you go to Ricochet's site, you will see that spelled out so you can copy and paste. But nobody can copy Bethany. Hey, how are you doing?

Hey, I'm good. How are you? Well, we're all jack dandy. So we had conservatives in social media. It's been an interesting week. Dennis Prager has said that there's been some admission that they took his stuff off, that there was actually somebody of a particular ideological construct who flagged his stuff as hate speech. There was an anonymous troll who surfaced supposedly to destroy the career of Selena Zito

by posting all of these accusations. Are conservatives going to have to find themselves additional networks, new networks? Because, you know, Gab is a cesspool. Where else is there to go? What exactly do we do? Ricochet? Is that a trick question? That was a trick question.

You passed. Very good. Very good. Thank you, Bethany. We'll talk to you next week. I was like, I feel like of all people, you should know the answer to that one. I'm just setting it up and giving you a little t-ball here so but how toxic is it i mean you're you're on this is rob by the way you're on on on uh twitter a lot

so it's your so it's your husband how um twitter but i think that we should have an understanding of what they are and what they aren't um And I mean, we should be using Ricochet. It's been really scary watching how people can be silenced in ways that they don't even necessarily know they're being silenced. And several of those ways are sort of what we saw with Selena Zito. We saw an anonymous troll army take her on

um in a coordinated attack that i think was uh coordinated and paid for by someone i don't think that this was an organic uh okay so uh bethany i mean these twitter face, they deny this. Yeah. Sure. My kid colored on the wall today. She wrote her name on the wall. I'm not sure who it might be, but it was her name on the wall. I mean, this is stuff that we verified.

There's been enough people who have admitted it that it's not undeniable. Right. Like I just, I don't, they don't have the credibility. Bethany,

Peter here, layers of, I don't, what's the word censorship. So it was explained to me. I live, as you know, I live what,

two miles away from Facebook headquarters and 10 miles away from Google headquarters. Somebody explained, this should be obvious. Maybe it is obvious to everybody except me. But Facebook, since the scandal they got in, they've hired several hundred people to do nothing but look at posts and yank down the ones that are objectionable. And they have very well-written, tightly written rules, and they're supposed to be totally objective. But who are they going to hire?

They're going to hire kids, kids who live in Northernifornia yeah exactly and so of course they have a bias even so there's this first layer where there's a bias just because they are who they are and even when they think they're being unbiased they're being biased that's layer one right totally unintentional i mean they don't actually care about being non-biased. So, and I don't, I think what's worse is they not only don't care, but don't realize that they're, the things they believe are not the truth. They, they've never heard an argument that someone who voted for Donald Trump is not inherently racist

so one of their fundamental truths that they walk around with is anyone who pulled the lever for donald trump is a racist and a homophobe and a disgusting deplorable human being um and so where do you go from there like they of course and i don't i don't think that they care that i don't even think they realize that's a bias or care that that's a bias that's just a fundamental truth to them well yeah i i mean if you believe that the southern poverty law center is a neutral arbiter of these things then then you would naturally say well of course dennis prager right ought to be limited ought to be branded as hate because this organization, the go-to place, we're not talking just poverty law. We're talking poverty law from the South, which has so many moral emanations to it.

How could you question? So anybody the SPL will see hammers. I mean, it's to the point now where if you are a member or accepted money from or spoke before Alliance Defending Freedom, which is an organization about religious freedom, you're a phobe. And the prefixes of your phobe are numerous. So you're right. I mean institutionally inside of their ideological bubble that they probably have been in since they went to college, there's a settled way of looking at the world. These are the good guys who represent

the way normal ordinary people think and then there are these strange rabble-rousing strange evil conservatives over here but the only way to get around that is to well i don't know how you get around it frankly other than you go to ricochet and i don't want us to live in silos i would like us to mingle and exchange so again again, we come back to that. Aside from everybody retreating to their own little sandbox in Boxing Match, what do we do? But why not though? I mean, Bethany, why shouldn't we be in our own little sandbox?

I mean, there was a time not that long ago, a much more civilized time, when people kept their thoughts to themselves. They didn't expect the world to pay attention to whatever their creepy thoughts were, whatever even their normal thoughts were. We were much more in our own little silo beginning in our house and then in our neighbors and our friends. Now we seem to think that somebody who lives seven states away needs to hear our thoughts on capital gains tax or China trade. We simply don't. We don't live in an age of information.

We live in an age of distraction. Oversharing, yeah. So what's the solution? Should we turn it off? I mean look, years ago, Rupert Murdoch had a theory. The theory was that half of the country wasn't being served by the news. So he started a phenomenally, phenomenally successful business. Is there a phenomenally successful business in right-wing Twitter?

So I don't know if it's a business. I'm not a business person. Twitter isn't a business at this point, but yes. No, it's not doing very well. So I just wanted to share, and especially for people who listen to Lady Brains and know who my friend Lindsay is, she's back in the dating world after calling off her wedding. And she met a guy, and the first question we all asked was, what is his name? We want to look him up on Facebook. And she said, oh, he's not on Facebook.

And we were all automatically impressed by him because he is smarter than any of us. I think that there is value just in the time suck and in your mental health to disconnecting from these sites as much as possible. Except for the shade? Well, yes, because... No, I'm being serious. I think that you need to let off steam. And especially for me being in a blue... And I'd actually be curious to see the breakdown of members by blue state and red state.

I live in very blue New Jersey. And there is not uh there's not a place where you can bounce ideas off people who agree with you and who will not um who will not attack you like selena zito has been attacked and not use bad faith um arguments or try to dox you or anyway there's um there that doesn't exist really um and for me facebook i i've really disengaged from facebook a lot because i don't care what someone i went to middle school with thinks about donald trump i don't care about what my my middle school english teacher thinks about don Trump. And it honestly makes me like them less, even when I disagree with them because it's gotten so angry and so filled with

hate and Twitter. Twitter is where I go to hate the opinions of strangers and Facebook is where I go to hate the opinion of people that I like. And I don't want to do that. I hear you. So I guess what it would take is sort of a mutual, spontaneous, unorganized turning off, right? I think that's happening.

I mean, just talking among friends, a lot of people are spending less time on Facebook. I spend a lot more time on Instagram, which is a just a nice place where you share pictures. And I want to see pictures of people of my friends, kids and their dogs and the food they're eating. That's the content that I cared about on Facebook. And if someone has a baby, I see a picture of it. And that's how I get the news. I see very little benefit in being on Facebook anymore outside of the groups.'ve blocked, I think, 300,000 people. I've blocked like 90% of Twitter at this point. So, I mean, it's getting more pleasant, but I've blocked a lot of people.

So, I'm just trying to figure out what the options are at this point for somebody. Besides the sort of cultural acknowledgement that these things are – we thought they were going to help, and it turns out they're not really that great. Or maybe they just get replaced by TV, and you watch your TV shows on Facebook, and that's what that is. There was something really exciting about a place where people were providing content for each other which is the term everybody uses like you know little jokes and stories and pictures of your dog um what what is what's wrong with us that we take this stuff so disproportionately seriously right there was a time in american politics where an american culture where there were big issues, but people still sort of shrugged and went about their day and did not feel that they needed to contribute to the soup. Is it just that we now can, so we now feel that we should,

or is it that this is actually what democracy looks like, just everybody screaming at once? I don't know. And I've been thinking that a lot too recently. Like, what has happened? Why are people so angry? I am very tired. I work and I have three children and I'm home with them. And it's also been a really hot summer. I'm tired. And I do not understand how people can get so worked up every single day about politics. People need to stop taking it so personally and chill out. And I don't I think that part of it is that we are constantly under siege with politics in a way that we never were, because we have our phones dinging in our pockets with news alerts and we we have Twitter, and we have Facebook, and we turn on the TV, and then there's a 24-hour news network that's always hysterical because that's the only way they can get ratings. And I think it's feeding into each other. I have a personal relationship with someone that I have to deal with but whom I cannot stand.

And I decided to just totally cut them out of my life. And the anger that I felt towards that person. Is it John Gabriel? You can tell us if it's John Gabriel. It was. Thank you. Yes, he's really obnoxious. So I just keep our conversations very civil on Slack now.

And I've blocked him on Twitter. My life is a lot more pleasant, I have to say. Oh, wait. So you cut somebody out of your life is a lot more pleasant. I have to say. Um, Oh wait, so you cut somebody out of your life. Yeah. So I cut someone out of my life and I'm not as angry at them anymore because I don't, I don't have to deal with them ever. I don't see their posts. I don't, I don't hear their voice. I don't have to deal with them in person and it has made my life far more pleasant. Um, so saying somebody is dead to you actually works. Yes.

Yes. Yes. It worked for my mental health. And I, Bethany is the father of five. I have to ask you a question about the kids, how you're managing. I'm thinking back to when my wife,

I'm sorry, I'm changing subject. I'm dropping politics completely. I'd rather talk about my kids. What you're going through. So I used to get this when our kids were little. And in fact, we had, there was a time when we had, just like you, we had three, she would put three kids in the shopping cart when she was grocery shopping. And she would come back because almost every time she went to the grocery store, somebody would make some comment about, which are you, Mormon or Catholic? I think that's what she's Catholic. And don't you know about birth?

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. People feel, for some reason, feel totally justified in walking up to a poor mom who's trying to handle kids and mouthing off at, does this happen to you? Oh God, yes. My favorite is the, whoa, you have your hands full. I'm like, yeah, thank God. And that's always how I answer. Thank God. The number of friends that I have who are searching for a partner or who are trying to get pregnant, my biggest problem in life is that i am extremely fertile um that's a pretty good problem to have okay so here's the next question as i said so i don't know what i don't know what the jewish analog to this is we would get are you catholic or mormon so here's what you're getting a gentile who doesn't know his way around the culture, but you have too many kids to fit in with secular Jews, but not enough unless you and Seth are planning to have twice as many or three times to fit in among the Orthodox.

I mean, how does that work? How do you fit in? So we live in a modern Orthodox community. Oh, you do? Okay. Yeah. And in the modern Orthodox world, three is a very normal number and four is a normal number. And five is even a normal number.

Yeah. Yeah. So we fit in. So here's my question for you since we're talking about this. When should we have another one? Should we have another one? Why don't you weigh in? When the ratings dip. Let's open it up.

Watch the ratings. Just look at the numbers for the podcast. Wait a minute, Peter. Come on. You're the expert on having this many kids. I can tell you that every single time my wife gave birth, from the first on, she said, never,

ever, ever again. By a year afterward, she was starting to think well maybe and then and then after we and by the way my position every single time was every single time she told me she was pregnant i thought oh no what if how can we so i i never i mean this is all strange because of course i i know where babies come from but I never really was ready or wanted. And then so here's an here's an interfaith story. My pediatrician, when I was a kid, was one of the sweetest men I've ever known.

And we stayed in touch. And it was Dr. Rzefsky, I.J. Rzefsky. He grew up during the Depression. He went to medical school. He told me that there were times in medical school when his dinner was ketchup on a slice of Wonder Bread. Anyhow, he was a wonderful man. And after, and he congratulated us on every child. And after the fourth one was born, he said, he sent me a note. No, we had a phone call. And he said, listen, it's your business, not mine. But I have just noticed over the years treating big families that five seems

to be a good number. It seems to work well with the children. And so I thought, Dr. Rozefsky, as far as I'm concerned, these are words directly from the mouth of Moses. They might as well have been. I had such respect for the man. And it is also the case, you're almost there between three and four. It just doesn't make that much difference. And between four and five, you're used to it by then. Yeah. Yeah. Big decisions are one, two, and three. Everything else is easy. I recently watched one of my friend's kids. So I have an almost five-year-old, a three and a half-year-old and a one-year-a-half-year-old, and a one-year-old. Or he's almost one-and-a-half now, actually.

And so I watched one of my friend's other four-year-olds. And so I basically had five, four, three, and one with me. And I did not feel a difference having that fourth kid with me. And she was very young. And she was, like, smack dab in the middle of my kids age-wise. And I was like, this doesn't feel any different. Bethany, all i can say is thank goodness we're not recording this on facetime because you cannot imagine the faces rob long and is pulling right now i'll tell you one last thing about having having a bunch of kids now my kids except for our youngest of the four oldest

are in their 20s three of them are out college. One is going back for his senior year. And it's this strange thing that they sort of get reputations among their friends for having brothers and sisters and there's a certain kind of I mean, we're not the Kennedys or the Bushes,

but there's a certain they feel a certain pride in having brothers and sisters, all of whom are doing interesting things and have interesting friends themselves. So this was – I was – I have one brother. He's 11 years older than I, and he went off to military school. He was a handful. So they sent him off to military school. From the age of three, I was raised essentially as an only child.

So all of this is new to me. Yeah. Watching it happen. So there's this surprise when they reach adulthood, they're part of a unit and they're sort of proud of it somehow. So if you and Seth are thinking about more, I'm not going to talk about it. I will not talk you out of it. Good. I'm glad to hear it. We are thinking about more. I'm an only child, and

I think that there should be research done into how many folks who are only children or who identify as one, like you do, who go on to have multiple children, who do not have only children. My personal observation, anecdotally, is that I know one only child who wants to have an only child himself. Everyone else wants to have more than one kid. Hey, Beth, it's Rob here. So here's a completely unfair question. Do you think the families that you see with more than two tend conservative. Yeah,

I think so. Good darn question. Good question. Why? I have, I have a joke that I'm going to use it one day as a book title maybe. Um, so nobody take it.

It's like me copywriting it right now. Not that I haven't treated it a million times. The breeders will inherit the earth. And I think for several reasons. One of them, I think, is because we are more optimistic about the future of this world. I don't think that global warming will destroy life as we know it in the next 15 years. I don't think that everyone is racist and homophobic and all of those other phobics and we're surrounded by a culture of hatred. I think that people are like generally

okay. Even Trump voters. Like, we're not allowed to say that anymore. But I think that everybody is pretty nice and pretty okay. And I think that I have an optimism about the future of this civilization that a lot of people who want to change the fundamental truths of this civilization do not have. I don't want to change the basic definitions of, like, who is a man and who is a woman. I'm perfectly acceptable. I'm perfectly accepting of the civilization we've got now and i want more people in it and also kids are fun like so uh can i have a follow-up there and i'm really not leading it because i really don't know and i'm probably gonna say something really offensive here but isn't it also possible that if you are you know small c conservative meaning um i don't maybe it isn't maybe something fit on political lines but if

you believe in people and you believe in the human condition and you believe also that it doesn't really that wealth is not measured in what you can afford to buy because, of course, the more children you have, the poorer you are, right? Yes. And having a child is like just committing yourself to sort of this insane open-ended expenditure that no financially astute or conservative person would do, right? But if you are conservative, you're driven by other values, then you don't really think about the fact that, okay, well, this means we can't go out to dinner twice a week. This means we can't do this. That's a greater purpose. You have a purpose-driven life that is not what you can buy.

And that sometimes, not always, but sometimes has now tended towards the conservative side. Yeah. No, I think – I mean I think it's not necessarily conservative. I think it's a lot of religious. I guess that's the better way to put it. Yeah. I think that Seth and I talk about this all the time, especially on our podcast, That Stephanie Show, also available on the Ricochet Network. You're good at this. I know um we we very genuinely believe that our children are the best thing that we have ever done

and the most important thing in our lives and I don't care if I can never afford to have avocado toast. And I think it's also like I grew up poor. So I feel like I'm not really giving anything up. I can buy an avocado. I can toast my own bread. I really need to spend $25 on it. I had avocado toast this morning. That is really literally true. This morning for

breakfast. At a breakfast meeting, we had avocado toast. I take your point. I really actually resent how cheap your avocados are. I guess my next question, I know we want to let you go, but one more. I'm sorry, James.

One more. Do you think that is that what's missing in the secular left is – or maybe what they have is this discomfort with the selflessness part or the larger purpose part of religion? They've replaced that with idea – with progressive values and all that sort of stuff. But they don't have that part. So I actually really dislike how parenthood is framed as a selfless act and that it's – I mean it's of course hard. Like I haven't slept in five years. But it's worth it. I mean I wake up – my kids sleep in my bed because we're whipped and, um, my two older ones do. And my son just lights up the second I opened my eyes and my daughter is glued onto Seth. Like I, if anyone follows me on Instagram, I basically post

a picture of them snuggling asleep every day. And that was at his home. He has heard me say that because he's not on Instagram. So he doesn't know that I do this. Um, you have to go just like, yeah, I understand. Um, but it, it is, um, it's not selfless and it's not, I'm not, I don't do it because I'm a martyr. I do it because it brings me a lot of joy.

And I think that a lot of, a lot of sort of mainstream perspectives, mostly obviously from the left because they control the narrative in the media and in Hollywood, as you know, is that it is like a selfless, awful thing. And you see sort of the bad moms movie, like they're tired and they're exhausted and they're beat up and they're miserable. And that's sort of the perspective of motherhood, especially. And I think that that has scared a lot of people in my generation away from parenthood. Well, the left post the 1950s and 60s scolds has believed that domesticity is a prison.

It's a heteronormative patriarchy that's imposed on women against their will. And that really what they need to do is to break out of that frilly apron-clad hell and go to the joys that compromise the modern office place. Listen, I was a stay-at-home dad for years and years and years, and anybody who thinks that you have less fun at home than you do at home. Follow me on Twitter, on Instagram. I mean, you go to the office, and what do you have? You have a meeting. You have a whiteboard.

You have interminable conversations about things you're going to be doing six months down the line. You're home with a kid. You're talking about what you're going to do now, why you can't watch that television show now, what we are going to have for lunch. All right. Okay. A macaroni and cheese again. And then we're all going to go to the place where we can sit on the wheeled carts and roll around for the day. The greatest joy of my life was being a dad, not being in an office, but it's fun. And it also connects you to what's coming coming and if the left has this institutional notion of

the despair of humanity unless we do what they say they're utopian and where they think we can go but there's this despair underlying it because capitalism is destroying the planet and the economy and the family and the people and everything else there's why would they bring people into that world they're the ones who are saying i it is immoral to bring somebody to head to bring a carbon emitting creature into this, which itself is about to be overrun and be blanketed with pollution and drowned with excess sea levels. Of course they're not going to breed very much. It's the people who have faith in humanity and see something transcendent both in the family and in humanity's future that will breed more. So good for you.

I wish I had more than one myself, but she know, she was a medical miracle as it was. Well, miracles are miracles. I'm one of those too. Well, well, Bethany, it's been great. It's always fun to talk to you. Yeah, fun to hear you on Twitter or see you on Twitter and the rest of it. And, uh, I've just, uh, just to begin following you on Instagram and you were not lying. Follow Rob back so you can get those hot pictures of avocado toast. begun following you on Instagram and you were not lying. I know. I know. Every day. Follow Rob back so you can get those hot pictures of avocado toast.

Yeah, that's me. I followed him back. No, but look at the pictures. I mean, people won't be able to see this, but I'm sure I'll do it tomorrow too. I went to a creek today with my kids while my husband, my poor husband was in the office slaving away, making money. I was at a creek playing with my kids. my husband, my poor husband was in the office, slaving away, making money. I was at a creek playing with my kids. It was awesome. Why wouldn't anyone,

why wouldn't everyone want this? It's such a beautiful, fun thing. Alright, you made a good point. Everybody breed. Everybody breed. Go make some babies. Breed in, breed out. Alright, thanks, Bethany. We'll see you later. Thanks, Bethany. Thanks, Bethany. Say hi to Seth. I will.

After you explain to him why you're taking incredibly private photographs and blasts on social media. I don't think he does. Well, if you're that fertile, just be on the same microphone in the next podcast and that'll be number six, number

seven. Thanks, Bethany. Thanks. Well, gentlemen, anything we have to settle before we end, not just the podcast, but the summer itself.

Wow. That's right. That's, you know, I would like, I, I'm going to try to pull themes together here. No,

what a pompous here's James. When you talked about going to the state fair, everybody gets along. And then Bethany said that basically when you have kids, you're meeting other moms, you're meeting other families. People turn out to be pretty nice. I just sold my 2002 BMW M3. Oh, wow. And I did it – when you got that. I sold it because, Rob, it was starting. The engine was still in good shape and the body was in good shape, but there are electrical components and hoses.

And it was starting to – it was clear that it was going to require work here and work there. And I'm just – for me, that's all a burden. There are people in the world, so I was told, who like that stuff. So I put it up on Craigslist. And I had three or four friends say, ooh, Craigslist. That's just anybody. Anybody could come to your house. You probably shouldn't have anybody come to the house.

You should go meet them in a parking lot. Don't let anybody get close to your actual house. They'll see where you live. Didn't do that. I flipped it over to the boys who were here this summer, told them they both get a percentage of the sale price, which turned out to be minute. The car needed more work than we thought. But the point is they had about half a dozen people over the course of the last three weeks show up from Craigslist. And you know what? Every one of them couldn't have been more pleasant, more interesting.

It's true that the people who respond to that kind of ad know something about cars. They love talking about cars. There is just this, when you're in touch with ordinary humanity, Pat Sajak says this all the time. He likes those people because I love them. He loves his contestants. He loves his viewers. He doesn't like Hollywood that much,

but he loves the people who come on Wheel of Fortune and the people who watch Wheel of Fortune. I like the people who show up after looking at an ad on Craigslist. I just have a little codicil to that, or not a codicil to that, but an addition. Last weekend,

I was in Florence, Alabama for a music and food and frankly, a fashion event. It's put on by Billy Reed, who is a Louisiana-born, Alabama-based designer, clothing designer and just designer. Fairly well-known, won a bunch of awards, has a couple of fancy shops in Manhattan and in Nashville and in Atlanta and Charleston, a place like that. And he's from Florence, Alabama, so he throws a big party for his customers and his fans and people who like him. And we'll get some great music guests. Casey Musgraves was there and St. Paul and the Broken Bones.

It was great. It was great. And great food. And it's amazing. In the little town of Florence, Alabama, you see people walking around, and you can tell instantly if they're from Florence. And you can tell if they're just like people like me just sort of sweating and sweltering in the hot sun and then there's a whole bunch of people

there who are clearly New York fashion people who are walking around like visitors from Venus in Florence, Alabama and everyone kind of digs it like the people in Florence like it and the people who come from New York City go

it's a really nice town and it's amazing how maybe it's the summer maybe it's everybody's outside maybe it's just the conviviality of outdoor living in the summer there is something about that still, I mean all the gloom and doom and we're a tortured nation

and we're divided and there's a civil war all that stuff, it's all true probably probably partly but it's also equally and partly true that um we can't all really do we can't actually just get along over a beer and a you know grilled steak if only we would do it and just the choice we have to make it's possibly that there's just two to three percent of the miserable people out there who have poisoned all of these social networks, that it's the bitter spinsters and the incel neckbeards and the rest of them who just delight in going and seeing other people be miserable. And it does tend to change the character and the atmosphere of things, but then you realize this is not real life. This Twitter thing is a box of madmen screaming from a glass box in my hand. The Facebook thing with its endless scrolls of stuff is a flood of information that's like putting your ear up to a satellite that's beaming all these disconnected, unrelated television shows into various dishes.

And that's why it's great. I mean, when I went to England a couple of weeks ago, I mean, it was just great to not have to, well, nobody has to, but to just be in this little small town where even though everyone can get out their phone and do Twitter, and of course they do,

it's actually the joy of going down to the local and standing there and having an ale that is the actual real joy of life. And that feels real in a way that none of these other things do. They don't. And I was considering the other day, well, maybe I should just quit Twitter. It lasted about 17 seconds because it's useful.

I mean it's useful. It's a great way to take the rectal temperature of the madmen out there. I mean really. And I don't do – It's a great image. I've been doing Facebook this week because at the state fair, I've been live streaming my lip balm review as it's called. So I got into Facebook, which immediately means that my phone is pinging all the time with notifications. And I have no desire whatsoever to go and constantly check to see exactly who's notifying me and liking me and waving me and the rest of it.

I don't need that validation. I get it from my enormous ego. I don't need that validation. I get it from my enormous ego. I don't need it from other people. But what I found myself doing was after daughter gone to Brazil, after I went to England and did that, I was wrapping all of these things up and I thought, this is the start of the last act. Now I could say the third act of my life, the first being your youth and the middle being your marriage and responsibility.

And then after that comes the third act of my life the first being your youth and the middle being your marriage and responsibility and then after that comes the third act and i call it the last act because plays shouldn't have four acts any more than symphony should have six five acts i'm looking at you gustav well you know you know shakespeare maybe could have i'm talking about modern plays and books and movies we have the three act rob for god's sakes you're in situation comedies act commercial act commercial you know exactly what i mean so i had to come up with some you know here was the thing i had to reb rebrand myself you act this is something that people actually do if they're silly and think about this too much wait you have to think about what your brand is going to be so i had to change

my old beloved icon of ready kilowattatt, smiling, helpful, electrical, deadly if you touch him, to something else that I have loved just as long, and that's a very angry grocery store owl. So now if you go on any of these sites, you will see, instead of Ready Kilowatt, you will see the red owl. I've been walking around the state fair with a T-shirt bearing this logo of this defunct grocery store

for the last seven days, and every day people come up, point, talk. They want to talk about the owl. They remember the power of this icon as a grocery store. It's extraordinary. I can't walk 20, 30 feet without people pointing and saying, red owl, man, I remember that. So that's my new identity, I guess, a dead grocery store brand that had a 1.5 second appearance on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. That's me. That's me for the third act.

Anything else, gentlemen, or are we done? I like recording. Ordinarily, we record early in the morning, California time, and we're recording this. If people haven't sussed this out yet, we're recording this one in the evening. And Blue Yeti is typing, saying, wrap it up, wrap it up. Well, we're enjoying ourselves. You know, it makes a big difference when you have a little rum and Coke next to you when you're doing the podcast. I am enjoying my afternoon cigar right now.

Here we go. This is the time to do it. All right. I'll shut up. All right. You know what? I'm going to go have my evening cigar and pour a famous grouse. And I say that just to get all the whiskey people all spun up so they'll go 30 comments about the grouse.

Now I shouldn't get the smoky kind and the rest of it. But that's what comments are for. That's what Ricochet is for. We would like to thank Quip.com. And we'd like to thank Casper. Casper.com slash savings because I get this great deal that ends Labor Day. Act now. You'll sleep for years better, and you'll be thankful that we told you all about it.

And, of course, join Ricochet. Head off to iTunes. Give us a review. All that stuff helps. But, of course, joining Ricochet and giving us the shekels really helps more than anything else. Rob, Peter, it's been a great summer, and I look forward to talking to you come the fall. And we'll see all of you at Ricochet 3.0. Happy Labor Day, fellas.

Happy Labor Day. Our State Fair is a great State Fair. Don't miss it, don't even delay It's dollars to donuts that our state fair Is the best state fair in our state Our state fair is a great state fair Don't miss it, don't even be late. It's dollars to donuts that our state fair is a great state fair. Don't miss it, don't even be late.

It's dollars to donuts that our state fair is the best state fair in our state. Ricochet. Join the conversation.