Triforce! - Triforce! #78: Vietnam, Smiley Face, lol

Episode Date: October 10, 2018

Triforce! Episode 77! Pyrion addresses last episode, Lewis reads some writing prompts and Sips is back in Vietnam! Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Triforce podcast. Wow. Yeah, we're doing it. The most consistent podcast on the internet, TM. We've done it. Yeah. We're doing it. The most consistent podcast on the internet, TM. We've done it. We're more consistent than who are some other big podcasters? Geez, I've got no idea. I don't listen to any others, do you?

Russell Brand. We're more consistent than Russell Brand. What an accolade. Very consistent podcaster as well. I like Russell Brand's podcasts, actually. I think he stopped, though. I think he a while he has like he goes on and off right he has he's become like he had a kid okay he's become like a Buddhist basically okay and he did a video on YouTube talking about how to do

meditation stuff and yoga nice and he's got a little big beard now and stuff he's got a bit mental I think well maybe maybe he's found maybe nice and he's got a little big beard now and stuff he's gone a bit mental i think well maybe maybe he's found maybe the opposite he's he's gone a bit you know what i sense what he's gonna start a cult just like i was saying last week this is oh yeah i sense a bit of of zeal of the recently converted there like you know i definitely i've been a buddhist for five minutes and now everybody needs to be one because it's so amazing I've got all these cool things to tell you about it and it's changed my life

and yada yada yada that's what I sense maybe that's just me being cynical though yeah that's right so I got some stick last week because I talked about Mormons which I still think was hilarious.

But some guy on Twitter was quite upset. You're not allowed to talk about other people. Well, you're not allowed to talk about other people's beliefs. This is his comment, which he then edited for some reason. But I found it interesting because it's kind of a rambling and angry comment. So he says, cults are just social pyramid schemes. Now, I thought that was like a reasonably interesting statement.

False stop. Mormon is a slur. He then says that Mormon is a slur? I don't think Mormon is a slur. It's a description of a language. Oh, do they call it that they say?

Well, it doesn't matter because if you Google Mormon, it doesn't say this is a slur. Like, he says it's a slur. Just because it's the common term for several religious groups doesn't mean it is okay. That's definitely not true. Like I've heard lots of people say, yes, I'm a Mormon. It would be like saying that referring to someone as a Christian is a slur just because you should call me a Protestant or a Catholic. I don't agree

with that. But anyway, he says, especially given the large differences between, and then he says LDS, RLDS, FLlds which all seem like they have the words latter-day saints in so i don't know what the r or the f stands for i mean he's basically saying you can't say christian you should say protestant catholic baptist you know those are the specific versions they're all pretty much the same thing guys come on and he says wow almost everything pflex said is completely wrong raffle you have heard this podcast before raffle we talk a lot of shit and we are incredibly hypocritical exactly so he said he watched the south park episode and didn't even pay attention well i i

mean i missed some of the details i get that he's generally anti-religion but seriously would you talk about any other world religion like that yes if you replace the slur mormon with a slur for the jewish peoples would the same conversation be acceptable to you seriously the polygamy was needed because it was legal to murder a member of the church at that time check it out now i did check that out and i want to respond to this specifically there was a period i believe it was missouri where uh this specifically. There was a period, I believe it was Missouri, where for four days there was a bill passed that basically said it's open seasonal Mormons. They either leave or we're going to fucking round them up and kill them, right?

This one guy passed this crazy bill. After four days, they got rid of it. The Mormons basically left Missouri and went west. End of story. There's no historical evidence that any Mormons were killed as a result of this bill, but obviously if you want to make out that they were persecuted throughout their history, I'm sorry.

And also the polygamy... All of our wives were killed! We had to get new ones! I have so many questions about the polygamy that we had to have polygamy because of... I mean, it was not legal to murder a Mormon. There was a very short period in that particular part of Missouri whenon there was a very short period in that particular part of missouri when obviously there was a problem there was not some nationwide

mormon hunt right that was going on and uh i just think it's funny because the polygamy was around with joseph smith he was married a bunch of times a bunch of times and i'm pretty sure it wasn't open season he was tarred and feathered because people thought he was an idiot and a con man and a liar and all this weirdly you know calling it calling it lds right is is even that reminds me of lrh you know like l ron hubbard from scientology i think it's incredibly culty sounding like pseudonym if you have to acronymize your religion maybe shorten the name if it's that long just chill and i also think i just think it's funny that he wants to make out like mormons are persecuted they're all pretty well off dudes as i understand it you go over there it's like you know the midwest they're all white and they wear nice

suits and shirts and ties and they give bibles away they got their own state they do lots of fundraisers as well lots and lots of fundraisers they got a whole state isn't utah basically the mormon state is that right pretty much yeah they can pretty much do what they want they got a state wow they moaning about so yeah i got no problem i've met some mormons there you know they're pretty chill but they always say like yeah i'm a mormon like you know because they obviously race this mormons the ones you like i've never had a mormon knock on the door because if they don't come this far but i've had je had a Mormon knock on the door because they don't come this far, but I've had Jehovah's Witnesses knock on the door before. Yeah, we get Jehovah's Witnesses too.

They're always really smiley and creepy as well. Yeah, of course. I don't know what they're hoping to accomplish by knocking on my door at nine o'clock in the morning on a Saturday. It's crazy. I'll tell you what they're hoping. The same thing all these religious people are hoping. God's favor.

That's it. No, they're just, you know what they're hoping hoping for they're hoping to catch you like on a bad day when you're like depressed or what do you know you just lost your dog or something and then that's when they swoop in and mind control my point is that their motivation there are two motivations number one it says in the bible you've got to proselytize you're going to go out and tell people about god right so you obviously got to do that to please God. It doesn't say this is a really good thing to do and you might help people. It just says you must do it because God says so.

And only once everybody has heard the word of God will the second coming happen. So their mission is to make sure everybody hears it because that's when God will come back. But there's no fucking benevolence to it. They just know they've got to get the word out there. Bam, bam, bam, hit them. Get those numbers up, people. Let's move. We've got to get streets A through Z.

Go, go, go, go. I think my big beef with religion is that I get the feeling that people who are doing all this stuff are doing it to like get favor uh for the for the afterlife right like everything they're doing is just like oh well there's no way i'm going to hell like i'm going to be going to the i'm going to heaven i'm going to the palace and i'm gonna do all these nice things for eternity and stuff so get my own locker space it just seems a bit i i don't know it doesn't seem like okay that's that's the feeling i get i'm you know a part of my ignorance i'm sure that people are going to disagree but that's how i perceive it that is an incredibly that is an incredibly powerful tool that has

kept people in religion that that fear that if they don't do this then they'll have you know they'll they'll fuck it up in the future. But I think part of it is not necessarily that selfish thing. I think, like, when I see a guy in town, like, you know, in the middle of the shopping centre, like, yelling Christian stuff. Through a megaphone. Yeah. That's how you spread the word of God.

And he's like, listen to me, the word of God is awesome. The word of Christ is fantastic, and you will all be going to hell. But usually, actually, these guys are more actually genuinely concerned about us. They genuinely think I am going to hell. When I walk past a guy in the street, he thinks I'm going to hell. And he doesn't want me to go to hell, actually, because most people are nice. I'd like to think that. Does he know for sure, though? I mean, that's...

He's very convinced. It's a kind of shitty way to be isn't it like it's very judgmental who the fuck is this guy to say that you're going to hell or not what insider fucking info does he have what like god appeared to him in a vision and told him specifically that you're going to hell because you haven't listened to his megaphone broadcasts? Well, I guess it's more that he, that somebody told him who was authoritative enough to convince him that he believes them and he follows that. So imagine if you had someone who you believe everything they say, told you something, you were like fully convinced of that, you know? I think like for me, okay, I think I figured it out, guys. So, you know, Lewis has figured it out! I don't think you I think I figured it out guys so you know Lewis has figured it out

I don't think Lewis has figured it out I'm not confident in your figuring it out I don't think you've figured it out somehow

break it down baby boy those Nigerian like phone scams or email scams yes I'm very familiar

with them with the prince right and who says oh yes there is like 13 million dollars in escrow and all this shit

and we have to whatever all that shit those things are so shittily done that only the dumbest people fall for them

okay that's the same with Jehovah's Witnesses oh my god Lewis it's so badly done and everyone knows that they're coming around doing this thing everyone knows it's bollocks except everyone knows that they're coming around doing this thing

everyone knows it's bollocks except for that very small percentage of people who fall for it and the thing is like the reason those

Nigerian scams are so bad is because they want to filter out everyone who's going to fuck with them or waste their time right they really only want

that 1% of absolute schmucks who are the most vulnerable people actually or the most kind of like like elderly people who i don't know what they're doing or a lonely or like are you trying to tell us you fell for a nigerian scam that's so basically i'm now a mormon yeah you feel bad well anyway welcome to the triforce podcast proudly sponsored this week by Jehovah's Witnesses Association of America and the

Church of the Holy Redeemer Latter Day Saints and the Mormons I don't know if you remember Flax when you were in North America maybe you were too young but they used to always have those commercials on TV I was literally just thinking about them

because they were on all the time The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yeah, Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yeah, and they always have a kid helping an old woman rake leaves in her front yard and stuff. It was always, for some reason, it was always very autumn in all of the ads, too. It was never like a hot, blazing summer. It was always autumn. The Mormons in the ads were never

just sticky with sweat, dripping, looking exhausted. They've been through a hundred houses of people telling them, get out of here fucking Mormons. I wish it was still legal to kill you, you polygamist bastards. Get out of Missouri. That's not in the advert. So it was always somebody

raking leaves or helping put leaves into garbage bag they always they always make me they always make me think of dentistry for some reason when i think of mormons they're kind of sterile it's gonna hurt and you but they're still kind of nice about it kind of thing it's like this weird dentistry thing i can't put my finger on it that the thing is i'm not i'm not anti-religion i'm not i i don't know like i don't know where i stand on it i have opinions um me too for and against obviously and i don't know where that puts me like i i'm not sure if i i strictly believe in god like a glowing man in space or in heaven or whatever.

You know, like, I don't know if I believe that. I don't know if that exists. But the idea that people are religious and they form a community around it and they provide things, services to the community, like support and help and a place for people to gather and be together and do stuff, i'm all for i think that that side of it is fantastic this is extremely difficult to calculate right the positive impacts of religion are many fault they're generally very positive high very nice people i worked for the church for a couple years i worked uh in an office doing admin for the church of england at

chelmsford Cathedral, right? And I did it when I came up from university. I was very depressed and very upset. And well, no, but I was just temping at the time. I worked in Broomfield Hospital for a bit, doing like, taking like doctor's notations. So I'd translate like what the doctor had written down into like in dictaphone.

That's a tough job. And it was nonsense. It was so difficult to do. Anyway, I did that for a bit, and I did all these other shitty temp jobs, and then I ended up getting a temp job at the church, and they were like, do you want to work here? And I was like, sure.

And they're all incredibly awesome people who are very almost just they want to make good, and they're very generous with their time they're always volunteering for positive things in the community they're a good group of friends they're very supportive they raise money for so many good causes they keep these old buildings you know up upkeep and keep them all good and they run these local events and it's very british you know that there's a church fate on the on the village green or that there's a thing raising a priest raising money for the steeple it's very kind of it's very nice right it's very postman pad isn't it and to weigh that up against all

the negative stuff that you hear about religion from you know pedophile priests to you know sort of horrible fucking genital mutilation going on in africa and all sorts of awful stuff like it's very hard to like think put these things in the same basket and say is this is this is this good or bad like do we is it worth chucking the whole thing out or is there some way to salvage it or how do we get rid of the bad bits and keep the good bits you know yeah i just feel like people are so fundamentally fucked up it's impossible to have something nice in this world consistently nice like free from any form of corruption or or just general shittery. Like, you know what I mean? It'd be cool if, if, if, if religion was this sort of bastion of, of peace and understanding

and a safe place for people. But when, once you get people involved, it's, it never is, is it? There's always some fucking asshole trying to create his power silo or, you know, do a financial scam or molest somebody or whatever, you know, and it just ruins it all every time. Like everything. It's a nice idea that someone and a lot of someone's are going to fuck it up in a big way. Right. It's always going to be people fucking it up. Sounds nice. Right.

In any company, in any corporate company, there's going to be bad people running it or doing it or in it, and it's not the fault of the company. Great idea on paper. Sounds like a big... All these fucking guys, they fucked it up. Oh, my God. Oh, man. It's a tough one, right?

Anyway, let's move on. I had a thing that I read on Reddit today, and I think this comes from being a hypocrite already because I can't write, but I was reading writing prompts, okay? And there was a writing prompt. Give me a writing prompt, Lewis, right now, and I'll freewheel the story for you.

All right, good. Death, this was posted 21 hours ago, but obviously it's a week ago. Death has hourglasses for every person. One day during cleaning, he finds a dust-covered one that had rolled under his desk. Okay?

Yeah. Go for it, P-Flex. Free ball it. You want me to come up with a story based around the fact that Death basically lost track? Yeah. Well, you can...

It's up to you how you think. So that's the problem. It's the prequel to Coco, Disney Pixar's Coco, where the old grandma is clearly about 500 years old and the hourglass for coco the grandma right i don't want to spoil anything if you haven't seen the movie but that's the grandma um was just sort of forgotten about and then when he found the hourglass boom coco died all right there you go i i probably would i'm not going to actually like try to to to come up with all the words because that that

i don't want to type it's too loud but well no okay i'll give you my rough story outline i wouldn't begin with with that opening i would i would start death. Well, you have to, though. It's a prompt. Right, but I would start with death holding an hourglass covered in dust. Oh, you go for the dramatic sort of setup. Yeah, you kind of look back, and he's thinking about things like his cleaner and stuff like that. So the end of the story should be the fact that he realizes that he, you know, he's debating in his mind, is it fair at this point? But then he's debating, surely all death is fair at this point but then he's debating surely

all death is essentially unfair so does it matter if it comes unexpectedly and in a way they've had more time how does he make up for his mistake does he have a master like there are lots of questions there's a lot of deep stuff here so let me just that's it that's not one you can just come up with oh go on you've already cracked it i've cracked the death story everybody lewis brindley has cracked the story here we go it's it i i was uh relaxing in the evening reading read it this was on this writing problems on the front page i thought that sounds really gently and slowly masturbating just i was just gonna say surely there's some hand cream involved here okay and i'm just i'm just thinking because i don't really read writing prompts. Maybe it's a place where people were learning to write. Maybe English isn't their first language.

And I'm going to take that. But I feel like if you're writing something on writing prompts, you should at least give it a little bit of a proof. Now, obviously, we live in the days of spell checking. So it's very hard to make spelling mistakes. But it is very easy to make grammar mistakes. And you think that maybe if you're going to post spelling mistakes, but it is very easy to make grammar mistakes, right? And you think that maybe if you're going to post a thing, which isn't very long, it's like three paragraphs, you might spell like grammar check, the first sentence.

Right, right, right. The first sentence of the most upvoted comment on this thread, which has 14,000 upvotes. Let's hear it. Is this. Do you want to hear it? Yep. The actor stood, answered the knock at his trailer door. When he saw who it was that knocked, he said, I wondered when you would show up.

Want to come in? Death nodded his skeletal head and said, yes. The two took seats, the actor in his chair and the skeleton on a long couch. I mean, first of all, obviously there was some grammatical... There was a gratoir in the breakfast. Okay, it's poorly written and it carries on with that level of poorly. Death slowly moved his head downwards to look at a shifting mass between his legs and said, cup the balls, work the shaft.

I don't think we checked if the skeleton still got a big old job on it. Death is Sylvester Stallone. We cracked it. We cracked it. The next one, okay, is just like what Perion would have started his with. You've got to cup the balls. You've got to cup the balls and work your shit. Part of the process.

You don't cup those balls, I'll give you a war you won't believe. Cup those balls. Yes, Mr. Stallone. Call me then. Are you ready? I'm Stallone. I'm ready. I'm Stallone.

The hourglass had rolled to his side, its content perfectly balanced on both sides. A potential eternity in the shape of a few still grains of sand. Death rolled it between his fingers, the dry, bleached bones clicking against dusty, bubbly glass. The sand inside was a dark, coarse thing, tinged with the black of volcanic ashes and the red of granite, spelled

wrong, dust, clumped by time. How is granite spelled? C-R-A-N-I-T-E? With no E. Oh, with no E. Oh my god, that's a big no-no. And I mean, that would have gone through spellcheck, right? Yeah. Okay, let me get the next one.

The Grim Reaper tracked down the rightful owner or maybe the rightful property of the hourglass what he took a moment to consider whether the human owns the hourglass or the hourglass owns them after all can something that controls fate really be called your property oh give me a break. It's exactly P-Flex. These are the best ones. I was like, come on! There's such a good prompt here. But it's all like Peter woke up. He looked down under his desk and there was an H-shaped glass

object there. Peter, also known as Death, picked up it and looked at it with his empty eye sockets into the dark blackness of the twilight realm in which he secretes spirits away to take them from the mortal man.

Boo! Thomas Mann woke up in his bed and said, What a lovely day it is today. I hope I don't die. But little did he know, Peter Death would be opening the door to his house.

This isn't an actual story. Peter Death, said Thomas Mann. It his house. This is all this isn't an actual death said Thomas man It is you. Yes. It is. I Peter death death That are spiraling with the blackness of a thousand nights. It's like you're making that one up, right? Of course I am It's bold like that That's a pretty good made- good made out I thought you were reading yeah Pete the Death that was some real

freewheeling shit it's like Gordon Freeman's brother I mean the thing is props to these people for coming out though right like if you like writing

I shouldn't be a hypocrite props to them for revealing to the world that they can't write for shit well done oh come on

you can't be that. It must be practice, right? For these wannabe writers. Yeah, they're just kids, man. I mean, you know, Jesus Christ. Look at my writing. It's fucking, it's terribly written. It's just, if you enjoy it,

just fucking do it. But if it's on the internet, I'm going to blame it. I mean, that's part of Bodega, though. That's self-aware. Like, maybe these guys aren't expecting it, but the amount of cock-sucking that goes on in the comments

on these threads as well, it's like, oh, this is the best thing I've ever read. I burst into tears. I'm like, what? I read it's like that about everything, though. Literally somebody accidentally falls asleep at their keyboard and a string of random characters, and that gets gilded and upvoted to hell.

That's Reddit for you. Some of these ones are multiple gold, some of these stories. I'm like, what the fuck? I think Lewis was annoyed that it felt like a waste of a good resource. Like, here's this good prompt.

Here's this great tool that Reddit could be. And instead, you've got people upvoting and masturbating about something that's objectively bad. And I understand

that frustration. Those three I read were three times gold, one gold and one gold with millions, thousands, tens of thousands of upvotes between them

and it's like there's a mistake in the first sentence. I mean, come fucking on. Do you know what I mean? Give me a fucking break. Have you guys noticed by the way

that when you start a mail in Gmail now, as you're typing, it tries to auto complete words for you like predictive you know what i love about gmail i love those i love the um the automatic responses to emails like you can you can detect the tone yes i would love to do that exclamation mark i use them all the time i'm tempted to use it but then i realize other people will recognize these phrases and think that lazy bitch just fucking pushed yes or no just one one button pushed for a reply on that one it's like a big

also there's no smiley faces everyone knows i use i only communicate in smiley faces these days that's what you do in 2018 i i like to end most of my sentences with lol and then smiley faces as well i use rothelmau even in formal letters. No, I just go lol. Even when it's not funny, it's like, hey, long time no talk, lol. Lol. Hope you're doing well.

My recovery from my debilitating disease is going as well as expected, lol. Lmao. Lmao, yeah. I guess maybe it's because I've been a little bit disappointed with actual books lately as well, though. um brandon sanson's oathbringer and i found it i found it a little bit of a struggle to get through at points and i've just started reading um some other stuff and i i'm struggling to i haven't read anything for a long time i go through

phases though like my whole life is is weird phases and they're like seasonal too like i find sort of at the end of the summer september going into october i want to play a very mindless grindy game like and if i look back two three years those are the times where i played a lot of diablo a lot of overwatch. And like, it's crazy. Like I can see these patterns like all the time. I find after Christmas, like March going into like June, I am more up for like, you know, a bunch of different games and stuff.

Usually over the summer, I tend to watch a lot more TV and movies and stuff. But there's no time in the year for me now to read books. Like that's not part of my cycle. Unless something really awesome comes by. I have actually reread a couple of books that I had read some time ago. I reread The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, which I recommend. I think we spoke about it previously.

Maybe we didn't. I have a friend of Mrs. F's. Her child is autistic. And the main character in Curious Incident is autistic. And it's an interesting look inside the mind of someone suffering from quite debilitating levels of autism. But they're all very different. So I had a lot of questions from my friend and I said, you know, can you hug your child? She was like, absolutely.

She loves hugs, but you can't kiss it because then she just wiping the part of the face where you've kissed it for like an hour because she's like convinced there's still something on there and stuff. So it's like I thought it was interesting to read that now knowing someone who's autistic so i thought that was interesting uh and i'm also i reread the godfather which is just honestly if you haven't read the book it's it's excellent um because it's like godfather one and two in one book uh and goes into a bit more detail so that's very good and those are both sort of classic books i'd say say. Sort of modern classics, if you like. And then neither of them is particularly long, especially Curious Incident isn't very long at all. So those are both worth a read if you haven't read those, I would say.

Do you think we could get Gmail to write something? Well, you know what? I was thinking about the Gmail thing, and I quite like the fact that, I mean, there's no penmanship anymore. Like, I used to know people's handwriting, because you'd get a letter from someone, you'd know straight away who it was from, from the address. You know, you'd recognise the handwriting. Like, I recognised my mum's handwriting, my sister's handwriting, Mrs F's handwriting, and a couple of other people. Dear Master Flax, salutations to you once again.

It is I, Lon. On this Crispin's Day Eve, Lon. Oh, yeah. It's penmanship. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the thing is, I think that at least in emails, people have a style of writing, whether it be putting lo after everything or whatever.

But if you have all this predictive text stuff, much like the one-button replies, I feel like it's going to make it a lot more uniform. So people aren't going to have necessarily their own writing style. There's going to be a lot of people hitting tab to autocomplete words and stuff like that, which is a shame. But then it also, nobody's going to be able to fucking spell. Yes, that sounds good.

Except for my iPad. Exactly. is going to be able to fucking spell like you know yes that sounds good sent from my ipad exactly i just think it's kind of removing any humanity left from communication by just saying you know what we can automate all of this like there's that google assistant that will make appointments for you with the hairdressers and things like that if you didn't see that video check it out um i've actually got one of these right open in front of me now, and the options to reply to this fucking email are, awesome, thanks for the info, sounds good to me, or that would be great, thank you. They're all so positive.

And do you know what? Weirdly, actually, since this has been put in, I have been clicking them more. I have actually been using these fucking Gmail things, and it has made me more nice than I would normally. Maybe you can get a like an an add-on to make it uh negative and have street slang in there as well yeah so like yeah instead of it being like chirpy and positive and accepting of what's in the email it could be like you better

go somewhere with that motherfucking bullshit and stuff like that you you know? Like, that would be great. There's a Chrome attachment, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, there are Chrome plug-ins for everything. You get a Chrome plug-in to, please make my emails a bit more street smart and give them some slang. Yeah, you can put some slang in there. Put some negativity in here.

I want to be able to say, no, this is not good enough. Instead of awesome. What about some Cockney rhyming slang? A plug-in for that would be really good too. I think that would be pretty funny. You could reply to all of your emails like Phil Mitchell from

the hit series EastEnders on BBC One. Proudly sponsoring this podcast as well. Can you imagine if EastEnders sponsored this podcast? Think of the new viewers or listeners we'd get that would be completely flummoxed. Yeah, they wouldn't get it. Can you fucking...

What the hell is Dana fucking doing? They're bloody saying these lads are all feeling bloody wrong. Yo, China. Oh, my God. I'm not giving any bees and honey to these fucking mugs. Bees and honey. Fucking mugs. It's money, isn't it? These fucking mugs. These fucking muppets. These fucking slags.

So it's cold and flu season guys. How are you faring? I'm on my deathbed here. I've been sick for about a week. Why is it cold and flu season? What do you mean? The weather's turned. Kids are back at school. Two weeks after they get back to school.

Didn't you get a whole bunch of pamphlets in your mail saying to get your vaccinations and stuff and get your kids vaccinated and vaccinate your dog and vaccinate your mailman and vaccinate your butt? Any Mormons that come to the house, vaccinate those guys. Yeah, just vaccinate the world. We all need to be vaccinated again for the the flu i mean you have to have your flu thing like annually like a top-up to try and stop you getting the flu i've never personally

had it the kids get it mrs f gets it but for some reason i just can't be bothered to walk five minutes to the chemist to prevent two weeks of miserable flu in the middle of the year i don't know why i can't be bothered but i hate getting sick i like i've been sick recently and it started on my way back from oktoberfest i was in gatwick airport yeah i was just sitting there watching uh this documentary that i've been watching it's a it's a it's a fucking the biggest documentary i've ever watched it's really good i'll tell you about in a minute okay but um and then all of a sudden my nose just started fucking pouring with like you know clear liquid snot so like i was i had this mountain of tissues next to me where i was like blowing my nose constantly got on the plane and

that made it even worse i was all sinusy when i got home i had the shivers i had the sweats you name it brother i've been there with you for two weeks it sucks i think i'm coming to the end of it but you know that moment i'm sorry to get graphic but you know that moment when you're blowing your nose and everything's clear for a week and everything's fine you think okay it's not going to be an infection of some kind and then suddenly you get that really horrible bogeys the yellow bogeys and you think this is this is a bad sign because i really don't want this to get worse i thought i was getting better but now i'm worried but then i'm thinking maybe

this is like the late stage and it's the last battle the last or maybe it's like another one that just like exactly another one snuck in there it's like this is this is this the end of the last one or the beginning of a whole new horror a whole new horror escalated the war now and they just as we were fighting the back they brought in some yellow reinforcements you're like what the fuck and your body's like no we're on defcon one all of a sudden pull back to the original positions you're like but we're giving up a week's worth of land we lost so many white blood cells with pull back pull back everybody runs back mortars covering fire smoke grenades they all dig in the bombing campaign not the bombing campaign so please

we love so many no get on it now so anyway i'm watching this documentary on netflix it is a 10 part series and each episode is between like an hour and a half and two hours is it the vietnam one it is yeah yeah yeah it's good isn't it oh fuck it's really good it's uh it's crazy and unbelievable and just really well done really well done i like all the stories of like the people that went and you know the just like the just the general heartbreak behind all of it it's terrible it was terrible it really was it was a real landmark in America. The thing that surprised me the most is that they learned nothing from the French doing the exact same thing like 10 years before they started. Like the French literally went through all of the same motions and all of the same disapproval back home. They lost a ton of troops.

They spent a ton of money just trying to keep this country subjugated. And they couldn't do it. I think it's a combination of a lot of... There's arrogance has to be factored in there. We never lost a war. We're America. How can we lose to Vietnam? There's arrogance in there.

There's also a lot of political pressure. This has to work. Despite the fact it's almost impossible really to win that kind of war. You had this army and all these generals and everything and this whole structure coming off the back of World War I, World War II, Korea, and they were much more conventional wars. Yes.

That they had won. And it's like, this has worked for us for a very long time. There's no reason to think it'll be any different here. Well, I guess those wars all had fronts. Exactly. You had an enemy that wore a uniform. had had fronts and exactly you know an enemy that wore a uniform you had fronts you had there were no tunnels there were no booby traps it wasn't it wasn't like that no vietnam was just unbelievable well actually there were booby

traps there were booby traps in world war ii but there were minefields you know it was like a minefield rather than you walk into a village and some kid throws a grenade uh you know actually you know that kind of stuff. And also, I think the conscription for World War II was, we're going to go fight the good fight. And it's like, we have to defeat these guys. They're the baddies. And we've got other friends who are also on the side of right,

and we're going to defeat these baddies, and we're going to free everybody, and it's going to be great. This was much more difficult because originally, they didn't have conscription. Then that they needed more people and it dragged on and it was getting less and less popular. It's just unbelievable. For the South was, was insane.

Really? When you think that not, not a single government in the South of Vietnam was ever even remotely credible. Like they were just, you know, generals corrupt as shit. Like,

you know, never, they never had anyone decent running the South yet. They were just, you know, generals, corrupt as shit. Like, you know, they never had anyone decent running the South. Yet they were still, you know, fighting for it because they were just so afraid of communism causing a domino effect in Asia. Yeah, it was like a proxy war, really. It was, it was, yeah. I mean, it was a reason to have a war without nuclear confrontation.

It's interesting because I'd known about Vietnam. We learned about it in school, obviously, and stuff. I went to school in North America, so we had a big fucking module on it at school. Did Canada send troops? I knew enough about it. Canada didn't send troops, but Canadians volunteered to fight in Vietnamietnam so there was i think there was

something like 30 000 canadians uh volunteered to to fight in vietnam because you could dodge the draft by going it was yeah it was a big thing dodging the draft and going to canada at the time which i didn't realize but um but yeah a lot of people as sort sort of like discontent with the war escalated and escalated and escalated, more and more people were just like, you know, fuck this, I'm not going. Like they did like the draft lottery thing Nixon did, you know, where it was like if you were born in this age, like date range or whatever, you had to go. Didn't matter what class you were from and stuff so all of a sudden like all these people who were sure that they wouldn't ever get drafted who were just going to go to school and be doctors and stuff like that were like yeah okay well you're drafted so that's a lot of people volunteered i mean there were people that signed up because they believed in it yeah you know this there was that kind of i want to i don't want to be a coward if you like even though i think yeah

being yeah being signed up to go and fight a war that you don't agree with. I mean, Jesus, that's a fucking. That's crazy. But they don't. I don't know. Like, I think like later on it was like that. But at first it was very much, you know, the day and age was, you know, I believe what the president's saying. Like, why would he lie to us sort of thing?

Like, I'm going to serve my country. It's going to be glorious. You know, like they had all like the sort of right ideas. But when they got there and did their tours and stuff, they sort of realized that, holy shit, what a fucking mess this is. We can't win this. And this is a fucking disaster. Everybody hates us here.

And we're just losing people. That's crazy. We're not achieving anything. You're not gaining ground, you know. Yeah. But they had all kinds of kinds of crazy schemes and they had this idea for the sort of fortified hamlet which is an idea where you get a village and you convert them to your side and then you know that you win the

hearts and minds that way because it doesn't work and it reminded me a little bit of like the wire too with like the stats reporting and the body counts and stuff like that you know like how how it it went from being about something to just being some statistical right gaming you know what i mean like it was just if you think about the war now in in like in a war now people would have video cameras and things on them even the soldiers would be able to film stuff vlogs and stuff like that it would be much harder to to uh to silence people whereas back then you the the papers were still that they put out to the people the troops were still like basically propaganda talking about how they were winning the war and all the rest of it so it's just crazy to think it's such a weird time you

know when i was growing up in queens one of our neighbors uh jimmy who was an irish guy like full irish accent actually 100 irish but was an american citizen fought in vietnam he actually went out there so he told us like what it was like yeah and he was on the base like he wasn't one of the grunts that went out into the field i think he was one of the rear echelon motherfuckers as they call them the remps so i don't know what he specifically did he worked in computing at that time but i don't think they had computers out in vietnam anyway he said like when the base would come under attack you'd be asleep and you'd hear the attack and you just have to put on whatever you could find to hand like they generally just put on their shirt and run out butt naked from the waist down and just fighting for their lives because if the base got overrun

they'd all be killed so i my main thing as a child was not wow they fought in a war but naked you know that was what i couldn't believe yeah yeah there's all these guys running around with their dicks swinging around shooting people it was like unbelievable my my son's starting to learn about their they they're teaching history you know to to six-year-olds you know so it's very basic history. But I think they've started teaching him or mentioning World War I. And my son's questions about it are hilarious, because it's like, you can't really convey how horrific a war is to a child. So he thinks that there's, and I guess to some degree he's right there are

sort of rules and stuff around wars you know like there's conventions established to prevent or hopefully prevent people from um taking things like too far or like against civilians especially and stuff like that but his questions are all like like he thinks it's like a nine to five job sort of thing and i guess sometimes maybe it is a little bit like that too um because like soldiers have to sleep at some point but like he i get the impression that he thinks that like at five o'clock when it's all done like both teams just sort of hook up and like talk about things that have happened these agreements to like with each other like not to shoot certain things like he just

can't understand how brutal and savage people can be you know what i mean like especially during a war like or in some sort of like combat zone or whatever so it's kind of hard to it's it's kind of it's kind of hard to hear in some ways because you want to correct him and and really sort of drum into him that hey the world is not terrifying in a horrible place never ever get in a situation where you have to go to a war because i'd be worried sick and stuff like that but he's got that childhood innocence and you know the sort of ideas he gets from watching cartoons and movies and tv shows it's weird because you know, it's funny you say that, that you do get conflict happening a lot, even in kid shows.

There's generally, it's a battle between good and evil. Yeah. Children at a young age have an idea of conflict. I mean, when I was a kid, I'm sure you guys were the same. Half the games you played in the playground were war of some kind. Of course, yeah. You know, there's sides and shooting each other and stuff like that. were the same half the games you played in the playground were war of some kind of course yeah sides and this and shooting each other and stuff like that but i wonder what what preparation does that really give for when you're 18 and you're conscripted or no no no 19 as they were in vietnam

and dropped into battle with this very childlike image of what war must be like. And all of a sudden it's like, oh wait, it fucking sucks. Like it's not fun or action. It's literally miserable, grinding horror for the entire time I'm here. And I could die at any minute. Yeah. I think that's one of the worst things. People's expectation,

the way we socialize and normalize war to the actual grim reality. People have no fucking idea. I feel bad for people who- that's why infections come back and they're like i literally can't talk to anyone about it because you would not understand no not just that like you know even in that documentary i i was i was surprised you know you hear people that come back from wars and they've got post-traumatic stress which probably wasn't diagnosed properly back then um or you know even in like the in the world wars and stuff but the the the long-term effects of um being in in in a war being in combat taking another life but you

know like all of these things they they fuck you up for the rest of your life yeah you know like there's a guy in the documentary that said that he was so petrified, you know, some nights they'd sleep in the jungle and you'd hear whispering all over the place. And it was, you know, Viet Cong like moving and whispering and he was just terrified and he can't sleep without a nightlight now. Like for the rest of his life, he's actually like a grown man afraid of the dark. Like for the rest of his life, he's actually like a grown man afraid of the dark. And his kids grew up, you know, his babies, whatever, had nightlights. And then they were like weaning them off the nightlights. And the kids were like, well, how come dad still gets to have a nightlight?

And it's like, well, because he's fucking traumatized for the rest of his life. Your dad's seen some shit. Okay, kids, your dad has seen some shit. You know, I don't think that people back then, when they signed up, thought about all this stuff. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just crazy. I think everyone, war is glamorized

to get people to sign up for it. And the people in the know end up dodging the draft, like Trump did, you know, with saying he had bone spurs in his foot or whatever. Or, you know, the rich people end up getting out, you know. All you need is a good paid doctor to say, no, he can't go to war. He's got a bad toe. That bad toe ain't getting any better.

You want to send a man into combat with a bad toe? He's going to jeopardize the defensive posture of his entire unit. Grappling about that toe. Here's the situation. It's the middle of the night he's in the jungle ow my toe hurts gives away the enemy's the position of the enemy

whole squad lost catch this man to be suicide thanks doc here's ten thousand dollars oh my god and I think like

every war's different as well in horrible ways you know no one knows why no one necessarily knows which you know Vietnam was different to Korea was different to World War II in different ways you know no one knows why that no one necessarily knows which you know vietnam was different to korea was different to world war ii in different ways people never

fucking talk about korea which is bizarre because it was korea was a two-parter though right like the first part um was against north korea but then north korea had china come in and support them. And then they... And Russia. So I think at first, North Korea lost a bunch of territory and then China sort of came in and said, okay, well, we'll help you take it all back. And then they took it all back. Yeah. Sort of thing.

But yeah, you barely ever hear about the Korean War. It was a very strange stalemate because China didn't want, you know, sort of a US-backed country on their border. Yeah. But they also didn't didn't want you know a US backed country on their border but they also didn't really want North Korea to be you know I mean in a way like

probably a good look at if we if we I say we as in like I suppose Britain did actually fight in the Korean War to some extent but you know look at how look at the world we have today with North Korea and South Korea. Obviously, on one hand, we have an incredibly dangerous, crazy... It's mental there.

It's just like the Hermit Kingdom. Everyone knows. And in South Korea, look how amazingly successful it's been. I'm looking at this screen with a Samsung monitor with half of the things in this room are made in South Korea they make all the fucking container ships

in the world as well in Korea they're pretty much all made in Korea it's an amazing success really and it's

so war what is it good for and my god the barbecue the barbecue Korean barbecue is so good

so to give you guys some idea in the Korean war about a hundred and nearly around 200 000 people died and half a million wounded on the sort of allies side if you like that you know the west and then about maybe a million people on the sort of north Korean side, about the same amount wounded, 2.5 million civilians killed. And honestly, honestly don't think people talk about Korea. Certainly maybe in America they do,

but Vietnam had a much bigger impact, it seems to me. Well, it's so controversial. I mean, it was the first time really that there was like a massive revolution like around it and stuff too, right? But it's weird, isn't it? The two wars were very close together in terms of when they happened. And very similar in theme, but the difference was in the way they were fought, I guess.

One was more of a traditional, if you like, conventional kind of war. The fact maybe that Vietnam was this drawn out conventional kind of war that the fact maybe that vietnam was this drawn out guerrilla war that seemingly went nowhere and people were just sent over there died and nothing really changed that that sort of was one of the factors or was it was vietnam opposed more because of the change in the the mentality of the sort of youth culture that hippie culture that counterculture came in and the civil rights era and everything was that what kicked off the opposition to vietnam because why wasn't there the same opposition to korea they were materially quite similar wars for very similar reasons and between very similar opponents like i just think it's strange i think i think uh in vietnam you

had a lot of um like war correspondence um a lot of a lot of coverage that might have been different as well you know like i think whereas in the world wars there was there was a lot of press censorship around the kind of stuff that they could report and the things that they could say yeah i don't know if that extended to the korean war but in vietnam certainly there wasn't any real press censorship so reporters could go over and just call it as they saw it sort of thing. So like whilst the military was trying to weave this huge tale about how well they were doing and how close they were to winning and everything, the reporters would come back and say, what the fuck are these guys talking about? It's a mess over there.

Like nothing is happening. Nobody is gaining territory or anything conventionally. It's a mess like people are dying all the time nobody even knows who the enemy is and stuff and and i think once people started realizing all of that stuff that's when they really started questioning like why are we over there you know like the average american had never even heard of vietnam before like as a country knew nothing about it yeah and then they just sort of started saying, well, what the fuck? Why are we over there?

What are we doing? Like, why is it so important? Like, and they'd always just come back and say, well, because we don't want communism to spread. And I guess, like, fair enough. But I don't think it was enough in the end to convince people. I think everybody just got really fucked off. Just make more shit.

Make and sell more shit. That's how you convince people. Private Dave everybody just got really fucked off. Just make more shit. Make and sell more shit. That's how you convince people. Private Dave Gordon woke up in his tent. It was a dark night, as always. The enemy could be anywhere. Are you reading this or making it up? He's making it up. Let him go.

He heard an explosion in the camp and quickly got out of his tent without even time to put his pants on. He held his gun and bullets flung, flied around him, killing his friends. But as always, he survived somehow.

Strangely, death avoiding it. Later on that month, he was standing with his pants on in a lake, holding the dog tags of his dead companions. When a sudden shimmering of light appeared next to him. And a skeleton in a robe holding an hourglass in front of him appeared. Oh, Dave, said Death.

It is you. I found this hourglass. And it must have rolled under my desk. Dave said, I knew that my time was limited here. But thank you, Death. I'm sorry that I have to go now. Goodbye, said Death. Goodbye, said Dave Gordon. limited here but thank you death i'm sorry that i have to go now goodbye said death goodbye said dave gordon goodbye turned to dave and said i will allow you to write one last letter to anyone

of your choosing who will it be and dave said my mother and death said begin writing. So Dave opened up. Dear mother, here I am with death in Vietnam. Lol. Happy face. Also filled in because he had the crow letter. Yes, that sounds awesome, lol. I would love to do that! Exclamation mark. Yours forever, Dave.

P.S. Death is coming for you next. For fuck's sake. P.S. Death says you're next. Smiley face, lol. Fucking hell. Well, that is the Trials Podcast today, guys. Thank you for listening.

We'll see you all next week. We love you all daily. Goodbye. Bye. you for listening we'll see you all next week we love you all daily goodbye i love you lots bye