Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 125: The Whiteout Factory

Episode Date: December 5, 2019

This week we huff a whole bunch of whiteout and get totally psychedelic. We talk about selling out to the mainstream media and then take a look at the political scene. Then we take a trip to an oil rig with Bret Stephens and Gail Collins. That's right, it's Act 2 of the political thriller gripping the nation: The Conversation. You don't want to miss it. Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

and we're rolling Tom I'm trying to get my friend Linnea to come out to that show in Columbus see bus come see us live some of us

yeah two thirds of us December 27th yeah flying back in time yeah I'll be there are you gonna fly into Columbus that'd be the smart thing to do

yeah I might or I might just gonna fly into Columbus that'd be the smart thing to do yeah I might or I might just fly into Lexington and ride with Tom the inaugural street fight radio I bet it'd be cheaper to fly into Columbus

probably shopped it around what are you doing man your cats are large and in charge they are man they do whatever the fuck they want

Leon is bulky I know and he just I feel like what wasn't it just a couple months ago he got shaved? Yep. And his ass, I wish my hair grew like that. My God. Well, the hair on my head.

The rest of it can get fucked. Dude, I've got something so goddamn funny to tell y'all. Do tell. So, I was doing my radio show yesterday. Oh, God. And Ricky of not all dogs fame does speed right yeah dude he he speed rick if you spend 30 minutes with ricky it's like traveling all over the world he knows this this famous Jamaican rapper named Esau. E-E-S-A-H. Buddy,

he talks about Jamaica all the time. He's never been. No. He's never, because he can't. he's never been to Jamaica. No,

talks about it all the time because he dates a woman who has family in Jamaica. Yeah, yeah. I've got to be in Jamaica. Well, hell me too,

but, it's like a place I want a vacation i think like i'm i'm really appropriate about like i love dancehall music and reggae and we know that shit well anyways he was like we're talking about drugs because he's like on jury duty for like drug quarters he was like we were talking about drugs and he was like, buddy, he's like, he's like,

now I used to be hooked on pills. I used to, I used to, I used to be hooked on pills. Used to. He's like, but you know what? He's like,

I stopped taking them. He's like, and I'll tell you why. He's like, one day I was going down to buy some pills for my guy. $10 worth of pills. I only had nine.

So half a pill yeah really i was like ten dollars i don't know what he's doing but shit ain't cheap he's that this might be adjusted for inflation keep in mind ricky's in his 60s probably and he's also sundown and so he's probably just lied they might have seen him coming yeah well they sold him aspirin six aspirin for ten dollars, six acetaminophen. Anyways, he was like $10 worth of pills, but I only had $9.35 on me. So I asked the guy, I was like, can you front me $0.65, front me $0.65. He said the guy would not do it, would not do it.

And he said, and that's when I realized, like I told him, I said, you lost a customer today, sir. He said, he hasn't gone back since. Because he tried to haggle. Oh, my God. I'm going to tell you something. If you're going to haggle with the dope man, you got to buy him both. Literally. I just thought it was the funniest God.

Just like, you lost a customer today, sir. And you get clean. Let me speak to the drug dealer's manager. He got clean to spite his drug dealer. Yes. I'll show you, motherfucker. Dude, Rick's a legend. Stiff me.

Not all dogs that the guy got sober just to show his drug dealer. He is an absolute maniac. Absolute king. Truly. I love hanging out with him because i'm telling you it's you're all over the man what's he what's he done where's the earth spiritually anymore spiritually yeah like what's his religion no like i said where else has he been like you know metaphysically well he you know was stationed in Germany in the military. He fell off a roof in the early 70s and broke both feet. Yeah, I've heard that one.

I heard that one when he was told to help me paint a wall, and he would not climb the ladder. He only held it, and I had to climb it. I kind of. And I was like, nope, I don't do that no more. Learned my lesson. Fell off a roof in 1922. And he won't go around a ladder again. Don't fall off four legs. I'd do the same thing if I fell off a fucking ladder. Yeah, we act like it's like, wouldn't be terrifying.

He's missing his index finger. I just barely believe anything he says. But there is a story behind that. I asked him, I said, how'd you lose your finger? He's like, buddy, I was just cutting wood. I was just like. Simple as that. His finger just slipped in. He was like, yeah.

I was like, that sucks. That's not damn. That sucks, man. Oh, dude, he fucking kills me. He gets on the phone. Just loud as fuck in apple shop either on his cell phone or sometimes on the apple shop phone on the apple shop line just hollering at people telling him he can't wire him any more money he can't send him any more money

or that he'll be there in the next three to seven weeks i heard him say that one time i told you i would be there the next three that's not the most concrete timeline anybody's ever given but no and he would often especially where i was doing this big mail in the last month or so i'd be sitting there just stuffing envelopes all fucking day and he would come in there and sit down i'll be like oh you coming to help ricky no i gotta make a phone call and he'd sit there next to me stuffing envelopes all fucking day and he would come in there and sit down i'll be like oh you coming to help ricky no i gotta make a phone call and he'd sit there next to me stuffing envelopes for an hour poking on his little flip phone he's got a old flip and then making multiple calls i think he's doing coke deals off his or do you think he's trying to give the appearance of

like dude he may be using apple shop as a front and if that's the case amen that's awesome he wouldn't be the first i'll tell you that he would not be the funny thing is adam's like i have no idea where the fuck he came from and like he's always telling me he's like man i used to stay away from this place because there was hippies and liberals he's i used to stay away from this place and i'm like well what's changed yeah it's still it's still hippies and liberals. No one here changed. My mom started dating a guy who knew about Apple Shop. His uncle helped with Apple Shop in the beginning. He was like, back then it was just hippies and pot smokers.

I was like, 50 years later, here we are. Same cut. Who the hell, Tom's uncle Blade Blade What a name Larry Adams He was an OG Yeah he was They used to have that

Publication The Mountain Review Back in the day What was that That was what it was called I think it was called The Mountain Review Imagine if Terrence

Was the editor For the Mountain Review now. Trust me, that would be a dream job. Yeah. That'd be a fucking dream job. That is my dream job, to be like an editor. The editor of The Mountain Review. More specifically.

Very specific. Yeah, no. But I don't know. I think Ricky might be like a little lib curious or something. Aren't we all? Just hanging around. Lib curious. Yeah.

Waiting to hear about risk pools and trapezoids. He's went out on many. Earned income tax credit. Well, he's went out on many lambs to convince me he's not racist. That's what I mean. I think he wants to disarm us. He literally said the words, I ain't racist or nothing. That ain't a big limb.

Most of them go out on that limb. Yeah. It's a strong limb. It's holding a lot of people right now. Uh-huh. Well. Oh, Rick. Well, I'm glad he can brighten up your Mondays.

Yeah. I love Mondays because they're the only days out of my week that I have interactions with. You have something to do. Yes. The key to having a good radio show at MMT is to have it bookended by a character. Yeah. Roy is always a good one to have come in before. Yeah.

Roy was great. Red, not so great. No. Red kind of sucked. All these guys have first names that start with R. And all our names start with T. Roger. Roger.

Oh, my God. I've had Roger, too. But Ricky came in. It is Turtles. It is just numbers and shapes. Okay, Terrence Howard. It is. It just occurred to me

Well Ricky came into my show Yesterday and was like He was like man I don't know if you knew this but the guy from the monkeys Which one? Peter Thor The main guy I guess Oh Davey

No not Davey Davey was the main guy Davey was they was the one that was always... Davey was the main guy. Davey was the main guy? Davey was... In my opinion. No, I think you just think this because in the 90s... You had Mickey Dolenz. Okay.

Peter Tork. Okay. Davey Jones. And who was the fourth monkey? I don't know. One of them always went on Boy Meets World. Wasn't that Davey? Didn't he have like...

Oh, no, that was the Partridge family. That was Donny Osmond. Went on Boy Meets World? Wasn't that Davey? Didn't he have like, oh no, that was the Partridge family. That was Donny Osmond. Went on Boy Meets World? I don't know. Apparently one of them, their mother got rich by inventing whiteout. And so he spent his entire,

he spent his entire childhood like in the garage. Sniffing whiteout. Sniffing whiteout. Awesome. But the way Ricky described it, he was like, yeah, man, he spent all of his childhood in the garage just whiting things out. Like to test run?

I guess so. I mean, if you make it, does that mean you have to use it? He made it sound like the whiteout factory was them just whiting things out. Like you don't buy whiteout, you just send it to them. They made it sound like the whiteout factory was them just whiting things out like you don't buy whiteout you just send it to them they white it out for you maybe the fbi and the cia had sent hired the white to redact all of their documents and materials speaking of what did y'all uh yeah no uh hold on nesmith who the fuck what monkey is that michael nesmith man that's not a real monkey that's what i was looking up here yeah that's right when he was 13

that's right mike davy mickey and uh and peter dude ricky wasn't lying to me when nesmith was 13 his mother invented the typewriter correction fluid, later known as liquid paper. Over the next 25 years, she built the liquid paper corporation into a multi-million dollar international company, which she sold to Gillette in 1979 for $48 million. Amazing. That's amazing. I'll be honest with y'all. I love the fucking monkey.

Real bootstrapper. I was listening. I heard Sturgill Simpson talk about this movie Head. I've heard of it. The monkey's like kind of psychedelic fucking movie from the 60s. I want to check that shit out. The monkey's psychedelic phase was kind of good. And honestly, the thing about the monkeys is that like,

I feel like they were like a laboratory band. They were kind of like a boy band. They were like Kiss. They were like Kiss. Like a fake band that became a real band. Right, right, right. Like Slug Peel. Which makes it surprising that their psychedelic phase was kind of good. Yeah.

But maybe that's the thing. Psychedelic music was really at its best in the late 60s once people like Sly Stone had picked it up. You know? Yeah. Every good rock band has to go through a psychedelic phase. Even the Stones had that psychedelic album that wasn't too bad. Which one?

It wasn't terrible. I don't know. I can't remember the name. I can pick one. Goat Head Stew? No, that one's not good. That's their doom metal phase. No, I think it was soon after Brian Jones had done it.

I kind of think the sort of coding rap sort of mirrors the psychedelic rock thing a little bit. To me, Future's DS2 album is kind of like the first psychedelic rap album. In the mid-2010s, it feels like we had a little bit of a psychedelic phase. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this isn't based in any kind of

empirical evidence or anything, but... Just your own... We're all an expert in our own experience, Terrence. Right.

Man, I used to love the fucking Monkees. I would watch that for hours on, like, Nick at Night. Oh, oh dude there was a tv show that's right dog was very campy let's get in on this racket with the monkey what's that let's

get i mean like let's start a band we've talked about this before like a fake band though like we can aren't we in a fake we're like learn to play on tour Tom will be on the drums. I'll be on keyboard, and you'll be on bass. No, we all have to play an instrument we don't already play, so you can't play drums or keys. You've got to play guitar or something. I can do that, too, so I should probably play saxophone. Turns out I play everything.

Turns out Terrence is regular Prince Rogers Nelson over here. We're going to have to put Terrence on the triangle. Yeah. You, my man, are going to play the harmonica. I can't play a woodwind instrument, so there you go. Put me on the clarinet and I'll fucking. No, you're getting a recorder, bitch. You're getting the plastics.

We're the ones with the slide out. Yeah. You're getting a flute. Did y'all ever watch this? It was called TV Party. It was a public access kind of variety show from New York in the 70s. No. But Glenn O'Brien, who's one of my favorite writers,

he started it when he was an intern with Andy Warhol. And it was just sort of that New York downtown scene. But like, they would do, when we were thinking about this show, this is what I always wanted to do with the show.

Like, they would just have crazy shit like Jean-Michel Basquiat had like a, sort of an avant-garde band where he played the saxophone

and they couldn't really actually play their instruments but they kept doing like shows and shit. We could totally do that. I just want to do fucking trippy shit with this show. I just want us to do a lot of psychedelic drugs.

We could cut up all... I'm into it. I could cut up the audio every five minutes and then just jumble it all together. Chop and screw it. There you go. So it's out of order. Yeah.

This is like, what's the Brown Eno? His method. Oh, oh. No, the Eno thing was like, when they were in the studio and they would run out of ideas. What's the name for it? I can't remember the name.

Hold on a second. I wanted to do it for this show. Like, I wanted to have a pile of cards, and then I have, like, if we ran out of ideas, we would pull from a card and have a prompt. Oblique strategies. Oblique strategies. So, like, for example, I'd have one on there, like,

was World War II a just war? Oh, my God. Answer that one. Oh, that is good. Oblique strategies, but for podcasts. Ob for podcasts oblique strategies okay pulled it off the top was world war 2 just war why or why not

you're the historians Joseph Stalin what's up with that guy yeah rank every Castro you know rank every Castro from 1 to 26 what's in this tea Terrence Rank every Castro, you know. Rank every Castro from 1 to 26. What's in this tea, Terrence? Peppermint.

This is mint tea as hell. Yeah. Oh, yeah. In wintertime, we're drinking mint teas in this house. Honestly, it's the best substitute I've got for coffee now. I'm still hanging on to lemon ginger myself. Yeah. Peppermint tea, I read somewhere. Get you jacked up.

Yeah, peppermint is like get your brain working. That's why they give us. That's one of the ways they sell you peppermint essentials. May I go ahead and tell you what peppermint don't mix with, and that's your bird hole. Tom, our foremost expert on foreskin. No stranger. I like to take a bath. I like a bath. I know. I like to

soak. Against doctor's orders. Yeah. Could be the orders of my prostatitis, as mentioned in last week's Patreon. Let me tell you something. Don't think you can make you a bubble bath with Dr. Bronner's. One, because it don't bubble like that in water. But two, damn sure don't do it with peppermint with Dr. Bronner's, one, because it don't bubble like that in water.

But two, damn sure don't do it with peppermint Dr. Bronner's. No. You won't piss for a fucking week. Did it get in your pee hole? Got my pee hole. Burned me all the fuck. Because I always hear from girls, I don't use peppermint Bronner's on my shit because it'll burn you up. No one should use peppermint Bronner's on any, honestly, on any part of their body, but certainly not the most sensitive part of their body.

That shit, though, if you keep it away from urethra, though, it'll cool your balls right up. Dude, it will. That's the best shit. That's why I love showering at your place. You got the peppermint Dr. Broners. Pep my balls up with the peppermint. Man, that shit is good. Pep.

I've never heard anyone say they pepped up their balls. It's not something you think balls can do When you're like me and Tom And your prostate is absolutely Old Saggy Calcified You need to pep it up with something

It's all about small pleasures At this point physically Not in peak shape I ain't gonna lie to you Me neither as seen on our CNN special It's all about small pleasures at this point. Physically. Not in peak shape. I ain't gonna lie to you. Oh, me neither. As seen on our fucking CNN special. God damn.

You're really not happy? No, I hated hearing myself. I hated seeing myself. It was awful. Really? I only watched it one time. I literally couldn't watch it again. I watched it about 30, 40 times. I was like, this is what we were doing wrong.

This is what we were... It's like watching tape. Why did you do that? No, I didn't watch it. I watched it once with my parents. What'd they think? They were just like... I mean, they were very nice.

They were like, congratulations, this is great. I'm sure in their minds they were thinking like, the how are we going to explain this at the pto he's on a mountain there's a wheelbarrow behind someone said what was with the wheelbarrow and and i didn't have any me to tell them actually that was a statue of a naked woman they used the wheelbarrow to cover it up that's what happened oh really yeah that was a naked woman statue and they put that wheelbarrow here's the thing about the wildest thing is i thought it would add some visual interest to kind of have some like sort of like you know yard chachkis up there but they didn't even know they covered up the only chachki that was going to be in the shot with a fucking wheelbarrow yeah oh yeah yeah there's all kinds of great stuff up there i know

i mean sarah i'm sure she'll listen was texting me that night i, Sarah, I'm sure she'll listen, was texting me that night. I thought that was very sweet of her, the producer. She was texting me that night and asked me what I thought about it because she could really not give a fuck. Why would she? And I was just like, man, y'all did a lot of work that you didn't need to because most of it they didn't use. Yeah. We talked about Bernie for one minute. Yeah.

They somehow stretched that into seven minutes. And now I'm Kentucky's premier Bernie bro. So Bernie just needs to put me on the fucking payroll at this point, motherfucker. You need to call me. I mean, there ain't no turning back now. Yeah, you definitely carried the vote in Bell County. Tonya in the house. Maybe Letcher County. Bell County if Tonya and I am.

Maybe Letcher County. Bell County you've been ran out of. Yeah, well, most people don't know me anymore. Well, the filming process was hilarious. It really was. I was having a long conversation with Brett Radliff last night, and I was telling him about it. I was like, yeah, they moved us from this spot to this spot,

and the sun started going down, and we were out there for like three hours oh god it took forever it was pretty funny though it's weird yeah it's just don't really they put a lot of work because they sent two camera people here a producer and ellie so they had four staff here two cameras three different days for six or seven minutes worth of tv which they told us it wouldn't be on tv that was a bigger shock which i was happy about yeah that it wasn't going to be on tv well you know they tucked it in there on a friday evening yeah we're not top billing let's call it what it is i mean the news on friday ain't like tgif well in the friday after thanksgiving apparently it's like one of the lowest ratings days.

Oh, really? I thought it was a high one. No, we needed something to kind of hum a few bars with, and we were the bar hummers. But it just seems like they spent so much money on that, and I was like, for why? It was, honestly, like some of the only positive Bernie coverage I've seen on

CNN. I mean, I don't really watch CNN, so I have no idea with how they're covering Bernie. They're mostly just sort of ignoring him. You know, you've got Jake Tapper and Chris Silliza and What's so damn funny about that, though, is they don't go the extra step to just like just erase him from the polling.

You know what I mean? They leave him in there, but they talk about like he's not firmly at least number two in the race. And they just don't discuss him at the top they leave him in there but they talk about like he's not number like firmly at least number two in the race and they just don't discuss him at all yeah it's it's getting it's getting really fucking ridiculous honestly well i thought it was doomed from jump street when the very first as soon as it come on it's like deep in cutting trump country and i was like here we go buckle up i thought it thought overall I was pretty good. The thing, my only thing was I hadn't seen myself like that in a while.

And, like, I'd forgotten that I have Tourette's. And I had forgotten that I did, but, like, I was just, like, doing the whole, like, tics the whole time. Oh, I didn't even notice. Like, blinking, like, 17 times in a row and all that stuff. I mean, I noticed your tics sometimes, but I didn't on the camera. Probably because I was so self-absorbed with how terrible I was. I've grown out of it mostly. When I was a kid, I used to wear turtlenecks and repeat things under my breath.

I would just go. Turtlenecks? Yeah, it's like Tommy two times from Goodfellas. Get the papers, get the papers. Yeah. I used to do that when I was a kid. That was my big tic. Dude, me and Brett were laughing so goddamn hard last night.

Tom's description of his mother fits in as many adjectives as you can. Yeah. She's a Barney supporter. She's a Pentecostal Sunday's teacher. She supports Medicare for all. I don't know. It was just funny the way you framed it. What did Gar say?

Your mother was a lot of things in that sentence. Well, what I'm saying is that like you wouldn't typically think of a pentecostal sunday school teachers being their arctic but it was hilarious like the reason is a very descriptive person well this is what i'm this is what i'm getting at the reason it was funny is because cnn in these media things you say that you see they try to cut out all of these sort of like soul and um i you know personality of yeah of the subject and it was like it was tom's like very unique way of describing things that was like shining through the cracks of this very rigid like here are these

bernie supporters and trump crunch you know what i mean it had this very rigid framework but like tom's specific personality was kind of trying to like break out of it and that's why it was funny to me you know what i mean you can't keep a good boy down no that's true i loved two different times i think they edited one of us to look like we were laughing real hard at the other when we certainly weren't. Oh, yeah. They were like, Matt Jones said something, and I'm edited to be like, yeah, man.

When the whole Matt Jones interview, we were all three sitting on the couch like, oh, my God. It's absolute training. It was like all these lights were in our face, and we were more docile than we usually are. We were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the couch. It was like three blind mice over here. Yeah. Well, I mean, it was whatever.

It was fun. But there's something I was going to say. Bernie, so today we have the breaking news that Kamala dropped out of the race. Yeah. This won't air today. I mean, the big right this happened but yeah but today yes on this week's episode the big news will be kamala is gone and i didn't read anything but michella told me that she said it was because she ran out of money i just can't you know she ain't going home broke what's this i just don't believe the margaret thatcher quote about um socialism socialism is you always run out of other people's money that is true only for

electoral campaigns but it's also the only place it's also just true capitalism too yeah your business goes under when you run out of investing like your investors yeah when you go bust yep your patreon goes up when you're barely up when you're your show's over your show's over stop packing up friends um so y'all are in the driver's seat here really so i don't know if i didn't i don't know if that's why kamala's thing collapsed i didn't know they had the thing in the new york times last week about all the problems with her campaign and all these people spoke out about how much of a nightmare it was and all this. How much of a nightmare the whole campaign was?

These motherfuckers really ain't going broke. For staffers? Yeah. If there's anyone in the United States who thinks that being a staffer on an electoral campaign is a good job you are a fucking maniac well an absolute fool that's also the other thing too is kamala's campaign manager jumped ship and went to bloomberg's campaign yes that's probably why she dropped out because she's just like can am i going to get another campaign director this far in polling this badly let's just go home you awesome who does that. Awesome. Who does that?

What kind of person jumped from Kamala Harris to Bloomberg? Let's get them on the show. No, I don't want to be anywhere near that person, frankly. They got problems. And they are piling up. Well, it's funny because if you go back, you rewind the tape to, when was the very first

debate? Like June? Yeah, late summer. There were 27. Yeah, we were on tour, I think, when they were in the first debate, right? Maybe July. Is that when Tom coined Debate Night America? I don't remember. He started that?

It was this summer. I know that. And I do remember thinking after the first one, and I'm on record saying this, that I thought Kamala would be the nominee. I thought she would make it very far. Oh, wow. You know that Mayor Pete's still being... Who knew?

Well, look, the reason why, and this is what I'm learning slowly over the course of this election, is that Kamala Harris is very much the type of candidate that the Democratic Party would have loved 20 years ago like very articulate uh very intelligent uh you know as obviously can like hold her own in a debate um would be able to hold her own against like trump and is a lawyer right like fucking people love lawyers obama was a lawyer clinton was a lawyer like all every lawyers have a lot of control over themselves and that's what you need to right manipulate people she's presidential you know like she checks all the boxes for

presidential yes in the sort of like old and this is the best lives the trained lives exactly that's exactly right they're very good at the theat theatrics and the kayfabe that you need to be in electoral politics. But this is the thing, and this is what I struggle with, is that is politics still locked into that same cycle? Has crudeness lapped that sort of disposition as electable? Crudeness or like what bernie presents that's what i'm saying like trump's crudeness or like bernie's just sort of like bear like this is how it is kind of thing right yeah that's the that's the thing i go back and forth on because it's like half of me says that um most people don't even care but then the other half of me is that like says that like i don't know what i struggle with is like how rigged

is the electoral process that's what i've that's what i think that any person who looks at electoral politics would think like naturally it's like how rigged is this thing is it impenetrable or can like democratic movements and social movements penetrate it and i I don't know. I think that the thing about Kamala is that I think she's singularly so bad that she sort of tanked her own campaign. But at the same time, Bernie's continued sort of... I mean, the reason I say this,

I think Bernie's gonna be the nominee. Bernie's soaring. Bernie's up four... Leads the pack by four percent new hampshire right now dude and that's a big margin for something like this and this is the thing i'm like new hampshire first or iowa iowa but new hampshire is one of the first right right right and so like i don't know it's like how much of history is just contingency how much of it is driven by actual social forces or how much of it is is like this

the result is a well-timed ariana grande endorsement exactly yeah like because here's the thing is that like the democrats could easily beat bernie it's just not that hard all they have to do is unite behind a candidate and they can't do it now they can't do it now they're all sort of riven by their they're all torn apart by their own contradictions and egos and legacies like obama saying this contradictory things about biden and then saying well we were talking about this because you had mentioned that choppa had said something about like how like the democrats are muddying the waters to the point where they're actually paving the way for Bernie. Yeah.

In another way, I'm kind of anxious for Barack Obama to try to get goalie with Bernie and try to, like, tank his shit. Because Barack Obama could also be playing with his legacy a little bit. Because I'm sure there's not an insignificant amount of people that supported Obama that are, like, in the Bernie camp. Right. Did he talk shit about Biden? Well, no, there's just this Politico report that came out that said that, oh, Obama did, yeah. What'd he say?

He said Biden wasn't appealing to voters. But there was also the Politico report that said that if like Trump, or if Bernie or Warren start surging, then Obama's gonna do his like, you know, he's gonna step in and try to derail them a little bit. Standing athwart history, yelling stop.

Obama's trying to just be, this shows you how conservative these people truly are. Obama's just adopting the William Buckley. I mean, he did chime in, what was it, an op-ed or something where he was just like, you know, you can't let leftists take over the party

or some dog, just a bunch of bullshit. Right, right. I mean, when Cornel West called him a Rockefeller Republican, everybody just rebuffed at that. They were like, oh my God, that's so distasteful. How could you say that? But he's absolutely a Rockefeller Republican. Right.

Well, how could you say that? This is the thing, though. Like, if they were still operating on the same... Bernie lost in 2016 because I think of the specific personality and cult of Hillary Clinton and the Clintons. And this year, there's no equivalent. Like, this year, it is just a total fucking free-for-all. And yeah, they did point this out on Chapo,

that they're kind of doing to Bernie what the Republican primary did to Trump, in the sense that so many egos jump into the fray that the lonely person standing at the end is the one who is the wild card it's like who can just keep advancing like you know while they're all getting this

like cartoon scrum like you know with the you know the woodpecker and yeah Wile E. Coyote and you know you know what I mean I think I get it. You know in the cartoons where all the characters get into big, you know. I know what you mean.

Bernie's the turtle. Yeah, Bernie's like just running his own race. I mean, he's... You know what, though? Here's the thing, though. In any other election year, if you were leading in fundraising, if you were, like, neck and neck on all those polls, and if you had leading in fundraising if you were like neck and neck on all those polls and if you had like this sort of coalition of like that's as i don't want to say

rabbit because that sounds pejorative but just you know very zealous for you you would be called the favorite you know what i mean but they can't do that they just cannot wrap their head around the world where like anybody but joe biden's gonna like win this thing but joe biden will probably be out of this by super tuesday i bet i hope dude i was he'll win like south carolina i would kind of love to see the cross of how many times cnn has said bernie and how many times they said trump in the republican primary four years ago. Well, they loved Trump. They loved him. Right.

Absolutely. Well, and they haven't been covering him. Oh, man. It's just so weird to me. Like, in some way it feels like something out of 100 years ago. Like, when politics actually would mean something. Because here's the thing. If Bernie does win, we need to start thinking about an entirely new paradigm of politics and like how we talk about it and what the fuck is going to be happening

because the media is going to melt down because here is what i'm also realizing is that they're so out of touch like part of the reason they've been ignoring them isn't necessarily so much because they're threatened by them but because it is so laughable that it could even exist yeah that like there could even be a movement of people out there who like want a better life yeah you know what i mean do you think we were a joke you think we were a big cnn joke we were like a punchline no no talk about bernie no but i think in the larger media ecosystem that is the that is the case yeah which if that is true and bernie does win then we're going to be looking at an entirely new sort of media environment and like how people talk about politics yeah because it really will be an election that like is straight out of like the

early 1900s or something you know what i mean yeah like where people actually talk about real things yeah rather than like this weird dance that we've been in for 50 or 60 years now yeah ever since john f kennedy and beat richard nixon because richard nixon was sweaty on camera yeah Richard Nixon because Richard Nixon was sweaty on camera then it will be the first departure from that. Yeah, that really did usher in the first era. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. We're moving back to issue-oriented politics. Well, and also that spells I mean, we have our own criticisms of electoralism, but that does spell something good for communities like this where you used to be bound together by discussing ideas together. And you had local journalism and you had local politics.

And it wasn't really sort of this weird thing where you just take your cues from whatever's going on in the national scene and apply them. cues from whatever's going on in the national scene and apply them like you know like i knew we were in a bad way when i was seeing that like the county judge of knock county was trying to shut down the government like the local county government and it's like you know he didn't come up with that on his fucking own you know what i mean he's like oh trump can do that i bet we could do that here too people just taking notes from the playbooks of just i mean dude that is neoliberal governing they did the same thing in lecher county yeah well can't get it can't get it balanced we're a quick two mil short yeah on our three million dollar budget and now what we're going to learn hopefully what we would learn under president bernie sanders thing is that there's plenty of money and there has been the whole time

but here's the thing like if that's gonna be the case which i want it to be there's a few things with this the first is that the argument for electoralism is right in some ways like in the sense that um my entire skepticism with this whole time is like how much are the elections just theater and spectacle and how much can they actually like penetrate into the lives of everyday people yeah and and and i think that this shows that it can or that you can at least you can but i don't know but it might be too early it's fucking december He hasn't done anything yet. You know, that's true, too.

And the other thing I think it's going to lay bare, has the potential to lay bare, is when people talk about, like, all these redistributive policies, they all start flipping out. Like, oh, this is going to unstabilize the markets, and this is just going to be chaos. You know how many working people that will actually affect? Not a fucking one.

Except because most people have their retirement vehicles sort of passively tied up in whatever their company's investing in. Or they don't have them at all. Or they don't have them at all. My mom has no retirement. What they're saying when they say that is like, oh, rich people are going to be scrambling because they got their money in stocks and bonds and whatever else.

But there's the thing, though, is that if this is really going to happen, rich people are going to fight back like fucking hell. And this is what scares me about it. Because there really isn't a lot of us. They might be right to be building their little robot dogs. Because guess what? People are going to come for them. Well, we got real dogs.

A lot. Yeah. Yeah. But guess what? I mean, also, in another way, just cosmically speaking, these people deserve to feel extremely unsafe. But yet, here's...

That's a fucking loonly they do. Right. So, okay, so here's the thing. Is that, like... What we've been saying this whole time is, like... And this is another thing about the electoralism thing. Is that, like, you have a hesitancy about sort of reifying the system or adding any kind of justification to it if it is just this gristmill that doesn't produce any actual change.

And so it's like, how much do I engage in it and how much do I not? But this does show, I think, that it can be used to at least sort of throw a blow at capital. Because, like I said, they are going to freak the fuck out. Like, just the smallest, smallest bit of taxation or any kind of wealth expropriation is even in the most minute way,

they're going to lose their absolute shit. What are they going to do? What can what are they gonna do what can they do well they can leave you know take even more money of their and they will money out of their country move money to other banks right right right it and um cause well no there's a term for it capital strikes where they sort of they on their own sort of bring the system to a halt, which would halt the flow of resources because we do, in a capitalist system, it is kind of like

being held hostage. The way resources are distributed are through markets, and if they can bring markets to a close, they can fucking starve us out. They can starve us out. What we need to do is render currency ineffectual. Right. I mean, it almost is render currency ineffectual. Right. I mean,

it almost is. It's all digital. Where's the fucking hackers? No, I mean like, I mean like, we just need to, we just need to. Where are the motherfucking hackers

wasting away playing Call of Duty right now? We got shit to do. Watching Mr. Robot. They're what? I love that show. Yeah, shut up.

One of the actresses on the show is a Troubleshooter. Ashley. Oh, really? She's on the new season. I haven i haven't watched it yet oh i haven't watched the new season either fuck yeah um well but anyways bring us back but anyways um i don't i'm not sure where i was going with that whole devalue the currency thing i was was just kind of... Just popping off. Just popping one off. I was just kind of talking about my ass.

I have no idea about... Dude, I don't know fucking shit about currency. I know about, like, chairs and clothes and... Dude, I say, like, look... Pentecostal. If you look back at the beginning of this year, we are now in the last month of this year. If you look back, the first episode me and tom did this year was with max l bomb about this book he wrote wrote a called revolution in the air

and the whole premise that the whole conclusion we drew at the end of that episode it's like look if we are entering into the electoral bernie thing we have to dig out a sort of revolutionary um niche in it. And so I'm going to continue doing that, and I'm going to tell you that when the capitalists fight back, which they will, we just have to keep going further and further left, and you cannot flinch.

If you flinch, they win. Exactly. This is the thing. We can't start... That just sounded like the right thing to say there i didn't i don't know if they actually do win but you can see what i'm saying like once you are actually locked into this this confrontation with capital yeah um we can't then start doing the electoral thing of tempering the message and being like okay we'll let off i'm

trying to make it palatable now we We have to use the resources of the government to create some sort of alternative system. We have to use this time to take over local governments. You know how the reactionaries created us for the purposes of doing the shit they're doing? We need to create our own agency. But that agency is going to just go do bad stuff to rich people. Yeah.

For sure. And we, I mean, locally, there's a lot of shit we need, of course, but we're going to need participatory governance. We're going to need systems for people to be able to govern themselves. Like, for us to actually govern ourselves instead of these outrageous city councils of, you know, four white dudes

making decisions about shit they don't know nothing about hey including i was a white city councilman god damn you yeah but here's the thing what you're saying is that we need hugo we need a hugo chavez we need something at the very least as far left as hugo chavez and what i'm starting to worry about, what I've worried about all fucking year, is that the CIA really does not like people like Hugo Chavez's around the world. And they're probably not gonna... So much so they gave him cancer.

Exactly. Or they'll hit him with the heart attack gun, or they'll do what they did with Evo and kick him out. But the forces of capital and the military-industrial complex will probably be trying to take bernie down so it's like so my you think the military will turn on the commander in

chief it could happen we don't fucking know if they're government well there's a there's a word for that say it okay a coup but but here's the thing i don't this is my thing about bernie and this and now feel back into this corner because the cnn thing my challenge you're just now you just gotta lean into right my challenge to bernie is that if you're serious about this you i mean like i i need to know how serious you are about this and i need to be put on pyro god damn it because i need to be compensated because we need at the very least someone who is no farther to the right than hugo chavez but that will incur the wrath of some very dark forces so it's like how much are you willing to go to bat for this how much are we all willing to go to bat for this

it's like that adam curtis thing how much you say this and what bernie gets inaugurated then he just puts a beret on and just like a fatigue jacket with all these like arbitrary like medals and stuff but you have to think seriously about this like i mean like i i don't want it to be alarmist and i don't want it to be whatever because like i said what you don't want to be an alarmist come on but you see what i'm saying right this could easily venture into that territory the thing is is if you're concerned about the future of the socialist left in this country you have to be engaged in some way with bernie and so it's like you have to be asking what you're willing to put up with and fight for and if the person that you've invested your trust in will do the same thing well i'm willing to invest in a local coup that's my that's what i want i'm down i'm here for it i am here i have been trying to start

participatory budgeting in leicester county well we'll say i've wanted it for years so it's out to be said how much i've actually tried to do it but But what you're saying is he needs to harness local power in a way that can sort of provide some sort of bulwark against what we know will be an incoming riot, unless it's all bullshit, unless he doesn't mean any of it. And this is just like any politician's promise. Like they're just words on a piece of paper. And he's really not going to do any of the things he says he is,

in which case then we're all fucked anyway. In which case, God damn. Then we definitely have to start our agency. And we got to take out... We can't do that without Barney. That's contingent on Barney. Well, it won't be government funded, but... You're talking about a militia.

Me and Tom going to CEO's offices with cigars in our mouths and you know we have old crew cuts when we rough people up and we have to smooth their hair back over yeah that's right the jimmy hopper in their face yeah now we're gonna come for these foundations too yeah oh yeah that's foundations i think that is a some low-hanging fruit. Yes, expropriate that shit immediately. Absolutely. That should be number one. Liquidate it. Liquidate the entire fucking nonprofit sector.

Absolutely liquidate it. And just take all that goddamn capital. All of it. Gone. Because you're going to need as many resources as you can get if you're going to fucking go to bat against capitalists. Because they have accrued more fucking money than they own the means of production i mean they they when you've got a guy worth 130 billion dollars isn't

that how much bill gates is worth i mean there's a website just try to spend bill gates money i know yeah they're not gonna roll over that easily though exactly i want to tell you something though i'll tell you this it's like if we even go back to sort of an fdr like new deal era style program they're still going to make a lot of noise about that you know what i mean absolutely so it's like things have gotten so bad you know when you're just like in your house and you're really depressed and the shit piles up and you don't even really notice it until six months later and you're just looking around and you have like a moment of clarity like dude shit has gotten so bad like just rotten there's fucking food laying around everywhere it smells like shit that's the system right now it's just gotten so bad when i found that woman in squalor that's a good yes

exactly so when you push back even a little bit i mean this is i don't know this is the thing i struggle with this list like how serious is it winter's bone serious that's how jennifer lawrence and winter's bone serious i just watched it it was disturbing come on true boys jennifer lawce you're a kentucky god please jim law we need you yeah she's like i would have came on that guy i was talking about like you go she's like yeah i'm gonna pass i don't know about that honestly after this cnn thing one of the things i've been thinking about is i've been going back through our catalogs in my head i'm thinking about what will be the most alarming for new listeners and certainly

one of them is uh terrence being skull fucked by pete by mayor pete that was tight that was a rough time um have y'all have y'all not went there you haven't been thinking about that this is hard to train to hop on at this at this stage you're right 130 episodes this is not this is not a great time to become a trailbillies fan if you could just start in the first seasons i'd appreciate that i don't know though i've always been kind of edgy i mean righty's law is not exactly an easy one to swallow that's true okay all right write it back in. If I could just put a bow on this,

and then we'll switch. Okay. What I want to say is that you have to, what you're saying, you have to institutionalize local power in a way that is confederated and tied to the resources of the federal government. And what that will require will be a entirely it's kind of like what they did in reconstruction you know where they had uh agencies

that were specifically created for reforming political uh processes at the most microscopic political level and um that's what you would have to do so look i'm on board with the bernie thing if that's what they want to do but if if it's just this sort of like millie mouthed we'll just be in you know rhetorically antagonistic to the capitalist then well then we're fucked. But we might be fucked either way. Might be fucked either way. We might be fucked either way. I mean, I got an invitation to a dinner this week, and the question on the

table is, what would you like to see in 10 years? And it's fucking laughable. It's fucking laughable. The audacity. The nerve. To serve me fried chicken and ask me this question. I'd just like to see my cholesterol numbers go down.

It's really hard. Well, I'm sorry to take you both down that route. It looks like... No, I'm with you. I'm with you on that. I think... You have this look on your face. It's like... What other choice do we have, Terrence? We've been outed to the country as Bernie bros.

We're going to have to retcon it. Retcon the past two seasons. Yeah, might as well lean in. All right. two seasons. Yeah, might as well lean in. Alright, look, earlier when we were talking about how the media is like, they're not just ignoring him because they're afraid of his ideas. They're also just ignoring him because he doesn't even factor

into their whatever. You remember a few, I think it was maybe two months ago, I actually pulled this up, episode 113. Someone's going to hell and someone's going to jail we read from new york times the conversation section between gail collins and brett stevens we had tom over here playing the role of brett stevens and tanya over here playing the role of gail collins i did watch a video of her briefly,

but I forgot to see. I can't pick up any. She's so boring, so truly boring. There's nothing to be done, but I forgot to read. I want to bring, I want to revive this for Act 2. Okay.

So pull up the articles on your phones. The reading. The reading on your phones. And while you're doing that, as the director, I get to choose the setting for this. So this is, let's talk about Bloomberg while we still can. The conversation, Gil Collins and Bret Stephens in the New York Times. Now, I'm pulling from a few weeks ago because the most recent one was about impeachment, and I don't want to talk about impeachment I want to talk about Bloomberg

As Brett Stevens and Gail Collins Are talking about Bloomberg So So as I said I'm the director and you're the actors So Since we're talking about Bloomberg here I thought maybe we could could go to the side of the action.

So we're going to set this one on an oil rig. An oil and gas, natural gas hydraulic fracturing rig. There's people all around us working hard to extract natural gas from the earth to kill coal. While also paying Tom's paycheck. And so keep that in mind. That's the set. The last one was in a torture dungeon. Remember that? The last one was set inside of a torture dungeon. This one is set

on an oil rig. Okay. While I have been in a torture dungeon, I've never been on an oil rig. Well, all you gotta do to be in the mindset is keep in mind that we are killing coal by the minute. So, that's our whole goal here. Well, you know I organized with KFTC for five years,

so I know how to do that. You know all about it. You've done it before. Coal club. That's right. She's a club. Alright. Oh my god. God damn it. Go for it, Brett. No, you're first. Alright, wait, wait, wait. Hold on, hold on. Okay, so we're on an oil rig. I need an actual

action. I need you to slap. But, you know, we've also, we're also sitting in our smoking robes and we're having a highbrow conversation. So imagine some light jazz in the background while men are drilling for big, burly, chested hot dudes. It's kind of like that scene from the Rand Corporation in South Asia where they're playing tennis and having tea on the veranda

while bombs are going off in the background. It is exactly like that. So just keep that in mind. All right. So are you ready? Yeah. Lights, camera camera and action congratulations brett michael bloomberg just stepped his toe into the presidential race i'm sure he was inspired by our last conversation in which you pleaded for a bloomberg candidacy

i loved your argument that he had nothing to lose except 2% of his net worth. Think it's really going to happen? Who knew I had so much influence? I think my public pleading may have affected Bloomberg's decision by about 0.0000001%. But the poll

that we published last week, the one showing Trump competitive with her, beating Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders in six battleground states, surely had a lot to do with this move. See, that's a can-do spirit. I saw that poll and just got depressed. Some people go into a funk, others register for an Alabama primary. Good one, Gail. Good. Great delivery.

What a zinger. Others register for an Alabama primary. Good one, Gail. Good. Great delivery. What a zinger. As for my political forecasts, I've learned over the years that they aren't worth much more than a bag of dirt. Dude, this is... I love that he's... No true words ever spoken. But the funny thing is, he's saying this because he thinks his political forecasts are actually worthy.

Worth a bag of dirt. Like, he is humble bragging here. Just think for a second. Brett is humble bragging here just think for a second brett stevens yeah anyways yeah that's that's what he was doing pathetic so i have no idea whether it worked for him or not assuming he really does run at least when it comes to getting the nomination today's democratic party is much more ideologically left-wing than it was in the 90s. Not going to divert us with a comment on today's Republican Party. Go on.

Oh, damn, gal. The tea. What a sick burn. What I do think is that the Democratic field has been considerably enriched, pun intended, by Bloomberg's apparent entry. His money could also help flip the Senate for the Democrats, win some governorships, and expand the majority in the House. And I think he could trounce Trump in the general. Who the fuck trounced Trump? Oh my God.

Who the fuck thinks Bloomberg could beat Trump? There is no planet where Michael Bloomberg beats Trump in a general election. No planet. I'm sorry. Continue. I'm sorry. What's your view? Do you share my enthusiasm for the former mayor of our fair city? Recently read a new Bloomberg biography by our former colleague Eleanor Randolph

and it reminded me how good he was at his job. However, no mayor of New York City has ever been elected president. Let me just pause and say that tells you a lot about the liberal mindset. That stop and frisk and let's limit the size of Koch's mayor was like

a good job. Yeah, that's a job well done. Sorry. Here we go. About time. It's one of the toughest jobs in American politics. A couple of reservations. Such a nerd. What is that Bloomberg does not have a whole lot of support in African American communities?

Undoubtedly in part because, remember his police department's enthusiasm for stop and frisk. Also, Donald Trump won the last election thanks to a perception by many average Americans that coastal elites look down on them. And Bloomberg is not a guy who suffers fools gladly. Still worth remembering that Bloomberg won nearly half of the African-American vote in 2005 when he ran for re-election as the Republican against a Hispanic opponent. That is such a diseased

fucking observation. For so many reasons. I know. They're just moving chess pieces around. One, there's nothing you can infer in a 2005 mayoral race that has anything to do with politics today that's one two it's just racist as fuck and think about how far brett dug for this stat seriously literally he has literally he's a maniac i love him saying it's the toughest job

in american politics because he's the exact kind of nerd who like ranks jobs yeah like hardest job podcaster like what we did he's a hack we're a hack we're all hacks your hacks recognize hacks yeah uh gill i don't have reservations about whether bloomberg could be a president, but I'm still not convinced he could get there. Spin me the story of how he wins the nomination and Trump's the Trump. God, buckle up for this shit. Beating Trump would be the easy part. Assuming he can secure the nomination, Democrats will vote for him because he isn't Trump and because he shares their core values

when it comes to reproductive rights, gun control, and climate change. Independents will vote for him because he isn't Trump and because they know he will be a good steward

of the economy and a capable champion of American interests and values. That leaves Trump with nobody except his hardcore base, which is about 40%

of the electorate. Wait, please say the next line. I know please say the next line. I know you don't want to. I also see Bloomberg easily winning Florida. Our first Jewish president. I'm prevailing already.

He'd be the first whole bunch of things. Time for a change. Oh my god. The toughie. The toughie. Any man that says the toughie deserves... Oh my god The Tuffy The Tuffy I ain't even Man that says The Tuffy Because there's

Well anyway The Tuffy is getting The nomination He's an east coast Master of the universe When democrats Have become the party That want to cancel

Billionaires Whatever that Whatever Hey Whatever that means Whatever that means I got a couple things To tell you Brett

Cancel billionaires In quotes I have a few ideas He's jumping in the race Very late And will tick off Some voters For seeming like an opportunistic Johnny-come-lately. He'll have a hard time winning in Iowa, where other candidates have been stumping for months, but he should definitely try to compete in New Hampshire. He needs a strong showing in at least one state to prove he's for real and can actually win votes rather than merely buy them.

Hold on. real and can actually win votes rather than merely buy them hold on i just want to point out here that brett's argument is literally bloomberg would have a hard time getting out of the primary but would just cinch it like have it in the back yeah like if we could just like if we could just fast forward and put him in the as the nominee like what most of the left's idea of bernie is hard time in the primary easy easy time in the general. It's literally the same for Brett, but for Bloomberg. That is, let me tell you something. That is the worst read of things in the history of American politics.

That's a tall order. It's incredible. Looks like his plan is to skip Iowa and New Hampshire altogether. Which worked so well for that other New York mayor Rudy Giuliani still remember covering the Giuliani presidential campaign in Florida

watching him try to casually walk along the beach in a suit but I would never insult Bloomberg by comparing him to Rudy get ready for it comparing Bloomberg to Giuliani is like comparing... Oh my God. It's like comparing Carlos Santana to Axl Rose.

One of them definitely did not get better with age. Oh my God. Jesus. Why he wasn't discarded as a child I'll never know. Bloomberg's appeal to Democrats must be along the lines that he's a uniter in an age of division.

That he made his fortune honestly, ran his business ethically, and has been given millions back. And he's ready to be president on day one. That is a... Let me just stick a pin in this. Okay, I'm going to come back to it. Let me finish this part. Okay. That he will restore

sanity and sobriety to our politics and above all that he is the only moderate in the race with a sure shot at the election people love pete buddhich but he's just too young people should love michael bennett i have no idea but he failed to catch fire i don't know who that is i don't know if that's i don't know i can't tell you the difference between him and Hickenlooper and Steyer. I have no idea. And people don't love Cory Booker because he seems way too contrived. I know primary voters

like to go with their hearts, but 2020 is a year Democrats really need to vote with their heads. The stakes are just too damn high. But I'm dreaming, right? Making the wish of the parent of the thought... Making the wish the parent of the thought, as someone once said.

Here's what I just want to scoop back up to real quick. Yeah, yeah. I got to say something. The two dumbest fucking things. I mean, when people say these things, it just flies all over me because it's just two incredibly stupid fucking things to say. One is, like, it's just cliches. We're talking about presidents. It's one, when they talk about somebody's temperament,

and two, when they talk about being ready to be president on day one. Yeah. Yeah. Just two things that mean nothing. It's just pundit speak. Yeah, it's just nothing. We'll see. I've got to see Bloomberg out. They're pretending to admire the butter sculptures at some state fair before I'm totally convinced this will work.

Well, that's an important point, Gail. Retail politics still counts for a lot. It's a real skill making each and every voter feel that she or he is the most interesting person the candidate has ever met, as opposed to the other way around. Bill Clinton had the gift, and so does Joe Biden. Oh my god. Popcorn! I'm not sure Bloomberg does, and as you say, Bloomberg will have to find a way

to mend fences with African American voters. In the meantime, how about the rest of the field? Wait, I don't know how the fuck you would mend that fence. People's lives. Stop and frisk. There's people in jail because of stop and frisk.

There is no way to mend that. That's not like an oopsie doo. No, it's like the hyper localized New York version of the crime bill. Michael Bloomberg destroyed a lot of lives. Yeah. A lot of lives. On a massive scale. On a massive scale. On a massive scale.

Yeah, let's not act like that's just something you can just give a speech and be... He better be able to like everybody's butter sculptures at the state fair. He better show up to some kids' art shows. I mean, it's just hilarious. Like, he does have a point. Joe Biden is kind of like a retail politician in the sense that, like, he's the guy... Everybody said this about george bush and bill clinton like oh i'd have a beer with them or whatever bloomberg is not like at all he

is a seclusive weirdo rich guy who helped kill cole he doesn't even have that going for him yeah jesus christ sorry gail continue i know you hate the elizabeth warren candidacy because of Yeah. Jesus Christ. Sorry. Gail, continue. I know you hate the Elizabeth Warren candidacy because of her positions on issues like health care. But I truly believe she's suffering from being a woman and not a likable woman, whatever that means. We're still a long way from getting sex bias out of politics. I want to interject one thing. Actually, I don't think that's Liz Warren's problem problem at all i think she's actually plenty likable i think that it's just when she does these like i'm gonna just do the bernie thing but 80 of the way so i don't alienate yeah the true believers in neoliberal politics and she's increasingly

becoming this like gotcha where she's like you know where she's like trying to like be a jokester some shit she's trending down if you notice she's trying to get mean yeah she's getting a little meaner all the time yeah well like her thing with amy goodman and stuff ever since then like that honestly the first one i noticed was amy and she's been doing it more and more yeah that was just yeah uh anyways brett's response to that is... Well, you're surely right. As for me, I'd happily vote for Amy Klobuchar. Oh, my God. Even though she has a reputation as a horrible boss.

Dude, these people are robots. They're just saying... Anyways, continue. Because I like her political moderation, I find her obviously intelligent and slightly nervous stage presence, both reassuring and refreshingly human. What the fuck?

I feel so awkward watching her. Do you feel awkward? Yeah, she is so stiff. I'm vicariously awkward for her. Sorry. No, go ahead, Tom. It's an interesting question and a hard one for me to answer when judgments about female politicians cross the line and from fair criticisms

of someone's positions or an honest dislike of someone's personality to thinly veiled sexism. How do you tell the difference, Gail? There's a disproportionate amount of unlikable going on with the Warren critics. I've told you that the times I've run into her, I've found her always improving. at the times I've run into her, I've found her always improving. More confident, more comfortable with her campaign, funnier, smarter, and selling her agenda.

I'm sure she's totally fine as a person. It's her radical policies and her unelectability that worry me. So these two won't even mention Bernie. Yeah, like that was the theme of the last one was that like... Oh no, here's the

next one. Oh yeah. But Brett, are you finding this campaign both totally obsessing and also completely too much? It's kind of

exhausting to be thinking about Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden every single day. Anything else that you'd like to talk about?

Seen any good movies? I don't get to the theater very often. But I fly a lot and just saw Lost in Translation again. These people these are the two most

boring people on the face of the earth. I fly a lot. I considered cutting this part because it's just so boring but I just like I need This is a good bow putter on it. Let's keep going. Keep going, but what does he say about Lost in Translation?

It holds up well. Which holds up really well. So does the documentary Apollo 11, which blew me away when I first saw it earlier this year. It's a nice reminder of a time when cutting edge tech meant firing giant rockets into space, not depositing mental clutter into cyberspace.

This is like chewing glass. It is so fucking boring. God. Yeah, truly. I've had several conversations over the last few weeks about email. Do you delete everything, or do you just let it pile up? I'm a big deleter myself. Can't stand to have more than

one screen and a computer consultant who came to help me the other day said i've deleted 170,000 messages which sounds troubling these what they printed this in the new york times tanya hold on Tanya, hold on. Uh-oh. Please. Full circle. Get into my... You don't have to say this part. You have to say this one.

Your entire career is running on this line. As the monkeys once sang, I'm a deleter. Keep going, Brett. We're stuffing the digital universe with terabytes of trivia posterity will not be enriched by keeping it well prosperity prosperity is the least of my worries but sort of concerned that i'm spending a substantial amount of my time just tidying up my email account. Time that could be devoted to reading or healthy exercise

or online solitaire. I want to tell y'all something. I want so desperately for you to drown me in Terrence's bath right now. I'm not even joking. It is awful. Bow to the audience. Audience, can we get a round of applause for these two? Kill us both, please.

There's more. There is more, but it's Pavlin, man. Those people are making buku money to say. When the time, look. Bro, he said, like the monkey saying, I'm a deleter. When the time comes, there will be a time, there will be a decisive moment where the forces of, you know, labor, the people, the proletariat, finally square off in the final battle with Catherine. Led, of course, by the monkeys. Led, of course, by the monkeys. Led, of course, by Davy.

The surviving members of the monkeys. And Michael Nesmith. Just channel this. If you need the bloodlust in your mind. I think Davy's passed, but yeah, I don't know what you mean. Just channel this, and it'll allow you to take that necessary final step. Yeah. It'll get you there.

Yeah, it's pretty bad. Well, you did great. Thank you. I think you both did great. You're a good director. Thank you. I don't want to go back to an old rig. Big, burly, handsome dudes shirtless all of them hot and fucking each other while they're drilling

oil okay all right i've watched that from afar just fucking each other in the ass while they're drilling oil oh lord out of the earth out of the earth that'd be tight Into the earth Just picture it in your mind Well I'd hope to give a penny update today Because I have a big one but I guess I'll just hold off Just hold on to it Well we got a Patreon

You're going to have to tune in to Patreon For a very big penny update We're in all out war I'm neutral in the middle. Switzerland of the Pony War. You're in Switzerland in the Pine Creek Penny War. Yeah.

But my neighbor has started snitching. He's called the police on Penny because she's shitting in his yard. And he heard me tell Penny's owners who live behind me,

he lives in front of me, he heard me tell them off my back porch that he's a dickhead snitch. Oh, fuck. Sounds like you're not so neutral. Yeah, maybe I'm not neutral. Yeah, you're pretty aggressive. But I mean, they're at war and I'm

obviously against. You're the instigator. Okay. I'm against the snitcher. The pony was shitting on your yard too, but you chose not to be mad about it. My yard's full of pony shit and I love it. I't care i don't care i love her i found out her real name's brownie stupid name yeah bad penny's way better we're gonna keep we're gonna keep penny yeah i like that better but she like yelled down the holler to her dad see they like her talking about me because i was like we love penny we leave our because i could keep her out of my yard i have a fenced in yard

so they're calling her penny and then he's like who's been it yeah and i'm like you're talking about your niece or something yeah and she's just looking at your niece that goes and shits in the yard no i asked her i told her we called her penny i was like we bought her a brush because a listener sent me a huge pony package Of brush That sounds awesome It was awesome This weekend my friend came over who's a horse girl And showed us how to brush her correctly

Do you get that mean shampoo? No we have a bathter But we brushed her really good When we were brushing her we found that they've dyed her hair pink Some of her mane is pink That's cute Interesting Did y'all ever hear that mane and tail

grows your hair out yeah like that doesn't it thickens it up i mean that's what that's the rumor supposedly i used it in high school i used it all through high school middle school to when i was growing my hair out when i had like shoulder length hair yeah amazing yeah i don't think it like grew it any so were you like a jon a Jonathan Taylor Thomas, you know, long hair? Or were you like grungy? Were you goth? With long hair. What kind of long hair?

Were you punk? Was it like Kurt Cobain style? What were you going for? Would someone please Photoshop Kurt Cobain's hair in a Tom's head? I'd say probably more of a Skate Ulrich look. I'm unfamiliar. Skate Ulrich and Scream. He's kind of a poor man's Johnny De Tom's head. I'd say probably more of a Skeet Ulrich. Look. I'm unfamiliar. Skeet Ulrich and Scream. He's kind of a poor man's Johnny Depp.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's a good description of him. That's not what I was going for. That was like sort of the end result. What turned out. Gotcha.

Yeah. Kind of did like the middle part. Oh, rough. It's hard to pull off. Briefly. Did your mom make you have a mullet when you were a kid yeah i definitely had a mullet i had a bow cut oh yeah definitely i got a good picture of my mom i had a rat's tail down my ass i was gonna say rat tail i love a good rat tail rat tail is

the funniest goddamn thing to put on a child oh god my first crush had a rat tail oh my god i stared at that thing so much it would be kind of tight, I think. Imagine if you had hair my length but I just had a braid that I could just twirl. I wish you would, actually. Did you have a long rat tail that you could twirl? That you could pull around? Was it that long?

Oh no, I never had a rat tail. I want to grow ponytails when I'm one of them. Just like a little pony, you know. I think that they should sell rat tail accessories, like a weave type thing but like something you can clip into your hair and then wear it around yeah it's nice kind of twirl and have a braid yeah anyway when i was in college i thought a good idea would be like rat tail bookmarks like you you had a rat tail bookmark i remember when we lived together you had a rat tail bookmark. And you thought it was hilarious just to

put it on and then like put your book on it and I was just like Why is he doing this? I just laughed. That's good. That's great, dude. Cool.

Alright. Check us out on Patreon Patreon P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com so that's True Billy Workers Party you guys had a good Thanksgiving and everything I forgot we didn't even check in on any of that

well I told you I got mom probs well I just I'll end with a little anecdote from the end of my thanksgiving week um i flew back into lexington late at night like saturday like one in the morning i got an uber ride from this guy and he was like yeah he's like yeah man i got like i got relatives like out in the southwest like i got relatives out in Arizona. Yeah, I married my relative from Arizona.

I was like, oh, that's cool. I thought maybe I misheard him or something like that. Yeah, that's cool, man. That is cool, whatever. Then it just kept going on. Then later on, he brought it up again. His cousin is his wife. Amazing.

He admits it in Uber cars. In a casual conversation. And I didn't want to be judgmental. Let me tell you what he's trying to do. He's trying to break the stigma down. I think that's what he is trying to do. He doesn't want to be in the shadows anymore. I can kind of sympathize with that a little bit. I think the stigma around

incest is being broken down. I think we're in an incestual time. About time, honestly. We've clicked about a buck twenty over here. Well, let's call it what it is, though. If you're from the Appalachian Mountains, chances are you're the product of two cousins. That's just true. That's just true.

But my counter to that is what it's always been, is that it's absolutely true. There's no evidence that there's more incest. I guarantee you have two cousins. No, I'm not arguing that. But I'm telling you there's no evidence that there's more incest in Appalachia than the rest of the country. What about that? Hey, I don't know, man. No, I'm trying to break the stigma.

What you're trying to do is you're trying to put up false flags. I'm trying to break the stigma down. No, I'm saying it's as much everywhere. Oh, of course it is, because this is an incestuous country. Prince wrote a song about fucking his sister. I mean, it's just what we do. But what I'm trying to say is this, is that in the 90s, two of the biggest sex symbols go and were Prince William and Prince Henry, and they're the products of a lot of incest.

Like generations. And if those guys are dreaming then you know. Maybe it's what people want. Lay off my forebears. You know what I mean? Did you ever have like guy friends who were incredibly protective of their sisters

that were about the same age? I always theorized that they just had crushes on their sisters, but they didn't want to. Yeah. Forbidden fruit. Yeah. I got a buddy. I won't mention his name or the girl in question,

but he made out with his sister unbeknownst to him one time. Oh, because he didn't know it was a sister? He didn't know. His dad was kind of this like you know honky-tonk kind of troubadour guy that was just like he used to be george straight's drummer and had been over and just had like had had like side families with like so many women in pike county and then he was like man i had such a crush on this girl and then we made out in the hot tub on like our senior trip and then my dad told me after I came home and told me.

He's like, I got to tell you something. Well, dude, at least he didn't get to third base or something. That would be bad. That would have fucked somebody up. But yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. But there's like a... Anyways, this is fun to end the episode with incest talk.

Is it? There's like an Aaron Dottie Roy. You know who that author is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She wrote the, I think, God of Small Things. Yeah. I think that book is the one I'm thinking of ends with a wild card incest detour.

So consider this episode our God of Small Things. Yeah. A wild incest detour at the end. Every episode needs one. Anyway, race to end the stigma. We're going to do a 5K to break down the incest detour at the end. Every episode needs one. Anyway, race to end the stigma. We're going to do a 5K to break down the incest stigma. Hit us up on Giving Tuesday. Oh, shit, it is Giving Tuesday.

Go to Patreon. Support us there. Bye.