Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 292: Advice Column Filibuster

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

This week we got bogged down in trying to answer some of the biggest ethical questions of our day Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

The New York Times has a column called The Ethicist. Who does that? Kwame Anthony Appiah. Appiah. Okay. Appiah. I don't know that I know that. It's about ethics.

I gathered that. You don't say. What if it was about morals? Those are different. Are morals and ethics different? Yeah, I guess so. I guess. Or am I confusing

about how race and ethnic ethnicity is different? Yeah. race and ethnicity is different? Yeah. Like race and ethnicity is different. Are morals and ethics different? I guess morals would be, well, yeah, I guess it's your sort of values, right? And ethics would be your, I don't know. Ethics is. The only context I ever hear ethic in is work ethic. And ethics would be your... I don't know.

Ethics is... The only context I ever hear ethic in is work ethic. That's true. Well, and the Nicomachean ethics. The Aristotle. I mean, who could forget? Who could forget that? I think ethics is just like a broad term for like various self-help pseudo-philosophy stuff stretching all the way back to Aristotle.

Right. Firing from the hip there. But like what I've realized about this show is that the more you're wrong, the more comments you get about how you're wrong. And that's good because it looks like there's more engagement it drives drives engagement you guys think we're rubes but really we're just we're just really trying to foster conversation and drive engagement we're sure we're sure business man honestly if like the the santhusMusk thing, if he really wanted millions of people

to hop on and listen and engage with it, he should have fired off at the cuff about the difference between Botox and lip fillers. It would have been a home run. Or like enzyme uptake in

cellular modalities on the third degree of cancer patient or something. You know what I mean? Something like that. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? He should have weighed in on vacuoles and rhizomes. The classic debate sparkers. mitochondria yeah DeSantis should just every honestly what I've learned about being a podcaster it's it really is funny it's like every time you

weigh in on a science issue you will get billions of responses but like me and you can just shoot off you know what i mean granted like we when we talk about like history stuff we'll have some people in the comments saying you got this wrong but mostly people let it fly people never let it fly when you get science stuff wrong well the thing about history is it's you know it's your your sort of reading against my reading true but science is you know there's some hard and fast truths that people don't want to... True, and it is also... Don't want to do stepping on.

It is also his story, and so that's important. That's right. Most importantly, it's the story of you-know-who. Oh, man, that's a classic church sign joke joke much in the same vein as exposure to the sun prevents burning s-o-n uh-huh uh the um but i guess what i'm saying here is like if a candidate ever wanted to drive as much engagement as they can possibly drive

just fire off at the hip about science is the way to go yeah I think we all got conditioned that way like sort of the liberal movement of the 90s and the 2000s that's the reason in this house we believe

in science is number one on those signs you always see in those neighborhoods that have been probably recently gentrified. Dude, honestly, I think part of the reason why that's such a big thing is because the Democratic electorate at this point, electorate at this point which is a bros bros broad class collaborationist coalition all right that's you know it's like there's working class people in it there's professionals in it there's you know super wealthy super wealthy super poor but at least on paper you'd think that might be a good thing.

Uh huh. But as the way it shakes out is that a lot of the working class people in there do have college degrees, which means they're credentialed, which means that I've been reading a lot of Robert Brenner lately. Yeah. And, uh, his,

his theories that, well, it's him and this guy, Dylan Riley. They wrote this thing called seven Theses on American Politics. And, like, part of the thing that they're getting at, I read it last night because I was like, I saw the DeSantis thing and I was like,

man, it'd be cool if I had some smart thoughts about this. Are you talking about the one where he recorded that very low, low-fi? Yeah. Oh, my God, man man you raised 86 million dollars and you you sound like us in 2017 we had good mic we had better mics back then arguably we had better fidelity uh-huh but their their argument is partially that the democratic coalition is with the working class is so segmented out by various things one of which is race obviously but another which is like credentialing uh yeah in other words college degrees and that kind of explains the attachment to this ideology of science. Yeah.

Well, it's like even if you don't know what you're talking about, you still just know it's important. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Yeah. You have to be a man of science, even though you don't give two shits about any other. And I'm not, don't get me wrong,

I'm not telling any of you who comment on our stuff telling us we're wrong about science. I'm not telling you to stop. In fact, I'm telling you to do it more. Until you actually ramp your efforts up. Figure out every word in this broadcast. I don't mind that. I occasionally learn

things from the comment section. The only time I get sideways with the comment section is when somebody tries to tell me something that i know better about and then like talk to me like i'm an idiot yeah if you know better i welcome it yeah i i uh i i agree the um i don't know what the ethicist would say about that, though. Is it a rotating cast or is it just this guy's column? I think it's just this guy's column. I think he is the ethicist. You remember that book, The Giver?

Yeah. Who was The Giver? The Giver was Ross Douthat. Oh, okay. You went to him to talk about your wet dreams. I'm going to be the receiver. I just take, take, and take, and never give any back. Like, the New York Times had a roundtable about, like, like masculinity and they had ross do that on it

it's like dude like what is the obsession with masculinity now well dudes are hot let's get that out of the way up front okay dudes are hot they look good I was telling my girlfriend yesterday about how, like, when I was a kid, we used to play in soccer practice. We would have shirts and skins. Did you ever have shirts and skins? Yeah, that was kind of a tough thing for a portly boy. But, yeah, we did it.

I did it anyway. Was there a weird homoerotic thing to it? Because for me there was. I was kind of like, oh, oh man it's shirts and skins days for me i was just trying to cover up my titties more than anything well that's the thing like i never got to be skins really when i did i wasn't i didn't feel good about it it's like i was looking at all the other kids that were skins and like they were they were like attractive young boys i can say that because i was a young

boy at the time this is my opinion then not my opinion now let me just reiterate but like i was i didn't start getting cute until high school you know what i mean all right and then i got hot after high school so that's the thing it's like but i still never got to partake in shirts and skins in the way it was meant to be enjoyed uh well that was that was a tough thing another tough thing was swim pools yeah swimming pool here's what i had to decide at an early age there's two which way which way portly boy there's two ways you'd be a t-shirt in the pool guy or you'd be a dj callid just i'm just going to be confident about this and take my shirt off and let it fly which i went with i don't regret it dude i was a swimmer and I know I've probably told this story on the show before,

but swimming for young teenage boys was the most dangerous sport you could possibly. Way more dangerous than getting CTE on the football field. Way more dangerous than throwing your arm out on the baseball field. You know what I mean? Yeah. Way more dangerous. The reason why is because you had to

wear speedos and and swimming was intergender you know what i mean yeah it's like well and i guess that really wouldn't matter if you were like me and you know it was shirts and skins days you didn't really differentiate between the gender but like i thought, I'll be honest with you, the way you're teeing that up, I was getting very griffy. Like, yeah, it's the only sport you can drown in. That's not where you were going with this. No, where I was going with that was those Speedos don't hide much, man.

And if you get a boner in one of them, you're fucked. You can't tuck up either. No, dude. In fact... Unless you were one of the portly boys wearing a t-shirt to the swim meet. Well, you didn't want to do that because that would...

Being a swimmer, you want to be as glabrous... That's a word, right? I think I learned that from McCarthy's book, The Blood Meridian They should do a book called The Plasma Meridian It's

Like you're in the old You're in Texas working with the Texas Rangers And you're harvesting plasma From Just making a few extra bucks With that working with the Texas Rangers and you're harvesting plasma from... It's just making a few extra bucks with that bonus promo they give you to feed the boys. Yeah, exactly. Everybody's, no campfire chili tonight, boys.

We're going out to Ted's Montana Steakhouse or whatever. Well, I hate to turn this into dudes talk So soon but I just want to explain to my audience If you don't have a penis The architecture and engineering of a penis When it goes up It generally can only go one direction But let's say for example

You have a boner You're standing on the swim block to dive in your boner is pointing down because you're bent over when you jump in that water your boner is going to go backwards does that make sense well it's bad for drag surface tension yes it's bad you want to limit the drag the same reason you wouldn't wear a t-shirt to swim me you know there's too much drag same reason you swimmers tend to shave their bodies you know it's exactly right like it could add seconds on and that's the difference between victory and failure defeat uh well one day so like you, like, it used to happen to me, but it was kind of rare. Like, I would just go to the bathroom and stay in the bathroom.

Or, like, just stay in the water. Like, no, I'm just going to stay down here. Nah, I'm just, I'm acclimated. But it did happen to this one kid one day, and it became a thing during practice. Like, it became, like, practice. Like it became like, everyone was like whispering to each other. And I think the coach eventually had to go have a word with him. Like son,

timeout, taking the, actually don't. Actually don't. Actually don't. Put a goddamn towel around your waist and get over here hell's wrong with you but as you think those hormones are they're pumping man you don't have any control for that shit well i tell you what uh it's you know, I kind of miss the house end days of youthful, inopportune erections.

Now it's like I just don't even care. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're saying like you... I'm saying I'm low T. You're low T? Yeah, that's what I'm saying I'm low T You're low T Yeah that's what I'm saying I need some T You're like Ron DeSantis on the Twitter spaces call

You're low T man I'm low T I understand I'm aloof and disinterested Uh huh Man imagine you're the swim coach And you come home after a day like that Like your wife is like, how was your day, honey?

Oh, well, Roger. You remember Roger, right? Yeah. Boner kid. He did it again. He was doing boner kid stuff again. I'm saying for that reason, it was the most day because you're done like when you're a teenager there's certain things you don't come back from it is a top man it really is a it

really is a tightrope walk when you think about it any little any little aberration in your behavior at a weird hormonal time or whatever's going on with you can stay with you for a lifetime. It's exactly right. Because it can sort you out into various groups of people. It's like, after that, you're only hanging out with a certain group of people. You know what I mean? You're hanging out with a group of people who other interesting but weird things happen to publicly. Yeah, right.

You're immediately ostracized. You're with a kid that shit himself at a party. You have been ostracized. It's just, that is a sensitive time. And thank God now we can just, well, we could. These kids could. We could just go be moved to a new town, be whoever we wanted to. Right.

Right. Somewhere, somewhere, somebody's always going to remember Roger as Boner Kid. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. That's a pseudonym. I didn't want to dox him, but. No. You know. I didn't want to dox him, but, you know. I'm an ethicist.

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything, won't you? That's right. How did we get on swimming? I was reading The Ethicist. I wanted to read this entry, the submission to the ethicist. This says, so, you know, it's kind of like an advice column, basically, except your advice giver is an ethicist.

And so this is the submission. What some may view as a minor event has become a real fault line in our marriage. No, this is not about the guy who killed the cats. Oh my God. Dude, that's... I went to that place in nashville one time the cat bird cat bird yeah it was like well back then it was like you had to get a reservation like

goddamn four or five months in advance but yeah i went one time when i was dating you know who and uh i think about that now it's man, I ate the cuisine of a man that kills cats. Dude, that was, when that got to that point in the story, my jaw dropped. He worked for a place called the Catbird. Oh, my God. That place is very weird. A little overrated, too. I don't know about the whole, it's a Michelin star or whatever.

So the ethicist what some may view as a minor event has become a real fault line in our marriage while we were driving recently on the massachusetts turnpike and going highway speed in the middle lane my husband opened the passenger side window and tossed a banana peel into the road i immediately expressed my disgust god damn mario kart i immediately expressed my disgust telling him that i'm opposed to littering that it's a bad example for the 13 year old we had in the car and that i as the driver would be the one to receive the ticket what if everyone started tossing leftover produce on the highways it's slippery dangerous and just dirty okay like what kind of are you driving a literal go-kart what do you mean it's slippery yeah you're not driving a fucking... You're not driving a goddamn turtle shell with wheels, lady.

It's biodegradable. Listen, I'm coming down on the side of the husband on this already, but I understand the night's young, and this guy might end up killing cats before it's all said and done. You never know. It could go any direction. My husband's response was that the banana pill would biodegrade and he said i'm an adult so i'll do what i want

hell yeah man hey hey just so you know i'm a grown-ass fucking man if i want to throw my goddamn banana on the highway well lady that's just what i'll do um i responded that the pill wouldn't buy would not biodegrade on asphalt when we arrived home i sent him an article outlining why this is dangerous and unacceptable behavior it could lure animals onto the road putting them in danger and it's considered littering and carries a fine well okay now you're moving the goal post because the second year you said it's slippery but what's the science on this slippery we have plenty of listeners who can tell us is it slippery will you derail will an 18 willer run over a banana peel and like i don't know um i also sent him the Massachusetts law

That stated this was illegal God damn Went through the law books Okay Here's something that we gotta bring up Right here just so we can set the You know Set this up properly

I think it is important For Couples to have the same values, but worldviews don't necessarily include the same values. that likes to discard banana pills on the highway and thinks that it's going to biodegrade, you probably don't need to be married to somebody that's pulling the Massachusetts law book on you long after you've forgotten about this incident. Because the same type of guy that throws a banana pill on the highway was not thinking about it five minutes later.

No. And yet, his wife was pulling statutes days later it indicates a bigger divide in the marriage is all i'm saying if you're a guy that likes to throw banana peels on the highway you need to be with a woman that too enjoys throwing banana peels on the highway both of you top down just throw just having the just having the best sex of your life and littering all to hell. You're right. It is like something went wrong here.

This is like you're exactly right. But maybe they like that. Maybe it's like when a conservative marries a Democrat, a liberal, and they're like, no, we like that we can come together maybe maybe that's kind of what gets them off like he likes that's the best example james carville james carville oh what freaks man that would be like maybe that's what gets them off it's their it's it's her staunch anti-littering statue citing stance and his staunch anti-littering statute citing stance and his staunch i'm i'm giving back to the world it's i mean honestly though like is it really again this is i'm gonna fire off at the hip here

is it really that much worse than throwing it in the trash like landfills are huge carbon emitters aren't they like Like, methane and stuff. Like, wouldn't it kind of be better to throw it into the ditch? Well, but in the landfill, nobody's going to spin out on it and lose their stars. It's true. Their coins and their stars. Yeah. It's true.

It's important to keep in mind. I'm trying to keep my coins and stars. Yeah. His only comment comment was don't you have anything better to do with your time that's got rules he refuses to acknowledge that he made a mistake or change his behavior we've reached a deadlock on this issue what do you think um the ethicist's advice is basically like ours because you know he starts out saying it like tossing the banana peel out of the window was wrong for reasons you expressed at the time you know so it will eventually biodegrade even on asphalt which isn't a sterile environment but not necessarily anytime soon bird lovers

warn us that pesticide treated fruit pills can be bad for the critters who eat them. And does nobody remember the discarded pills in Paul Verhoeven's movie, Spedders? I love Paul Verhoeven. That's one of his that I haven't seen, though. I've not seen that either. That's a gap in my knowledge. But I'm intrigued if a major plot point is someone getting hurt on that's yeah things go very badly for the motorcycle who gets the okay things go very

badly for the motorcyclist who gets them in the face okay that's that's an entirely different i hadn't even thought of that it's like you know what i mean like you get the banana pill in the face and it covers your eyes and you can't see. And you start losing your coins and you start shaking back and forth. Yeah. You might now be tempted to slam this article on the breakfast table and say, see, the ethicist agrees with me. But this story, this isn't a story about the proper disposal of banana peels.

In this matter, your husband is no longer claiming he's in the right. Two things seem to be going on. First, he's evidently sensitive to criticism. His pride has been wounded. He doesn't want to reward you with the concession you seek. Given this dynamic, the only surprise is that a fault line didn't open up earlier. Second, though, he's complaining that you're making a very big deal out of a minor misdeed. Here, your pig-headed polluter has a point.

Not about your initial response, so much as about your fully researched insistence on your rightness. Okay, good. The ethicist has redeemed himself for a second, I was thinking, and I thought you were cool, man. I just, I threw an apple core out the other day. Should go back and get it it's like

was halfway between like here and Abingdon maybe like 40 but I could I should drive back and get it and I think it's the only well before it causes a riff in your marriage my question is this. Has a marriage ever broken up because of something like the ethicist or Ask Polly or somebody has said or written? You know, like, has, like, a woman or man been fed up and, like, went to the paper record on it and said, I'm going to get some advice here, and then said, you know what? If the ethicist says it, you know what? it's time to dissolve this marriage uh-huh probably just gave him that little push to get him over the divorce line yeah yeah i mean honestly like would you listen to The Ethicist? His name is The Ethicist. I don't really want to be told where I'm wrong. So I wouldn't go to it.

I would just follow my heart in this matter. My heart says that you got to keep throwing them pills out, man. I don't throw trash out, but I do throw banana pills and apple cores and occasionally sunflower seeds out the window. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I don't eat bananas, really. So, yeah, that's not one I'm throwing out the window. Here's the... This question from a reader who got into a major fight with her husband over a banana pill that he tossed out the car window.

Here are some people's comments first thank you to the ethicist for tackling the issues that most of us face oh my god what this is imagine imagine you go to an advice columnist to tackle the big questions. My God. But apparently it hits, man. Just like with our audience, they love the science content. The ethicist readers love marital strife over the most minute thing. The biggest fight I ever had with my wife was about whether brown or white rice was healthier we went back and forth with articles and research for a couple of days until we decided together that brown rice is a little healthier but that quinoa beats both handily jesus christ man it's

no fucking wonder like fascism is this in the in country. Liberalism is so goddamn banal. You know what I mean? We had a huge fight over rice, and then we compromised over quinoa. It's like, dude, we're fucked. We're boned. We're boned. If this is our coalition, we're boned. We're so fucked. Oh.

Blah, blah, blah. When my husband and I first got together, he would not apologize for anything. I couldn't figure it out. Finally, I explained to him that I didn't want him to apologize in order to humiliate him. I wanted him to apologize to make me feel better because I was hurt. But who apologizes for nothing? I apologize for everything, which is probably... Yeah, I'm overly apologetic.

I'm the exact opposite. I apologize for everything, which is probably... Yeah, I'm overly apologetic. I'm the exact opposite. I apologize for things that aren't my fault. This is insane. I'm a regular reader who has never responded before. The banana peel scenario is so common. What? What? This is like peering into like an ant farm or something.

Like what? What do you mean? More important, the conflict between the letter writer and her litter bug husband is a wonderfully articulated slice of life. So raw, vulnerable, and honest. I could fill every bump in the road. This should be required reading for any premarital couple. What the fuck? These people really need to get out

a little bit more. I don't say that often. Oh, boy. I'm trying to remember the biggest fight I have had in my relationship recently. I think it was when I accused my girlfriend of not knowing what misogynoir was. You know what they mean?

Did that lead to... Did y'all take it to the ethicist or did you just let... Or did you just sleep on it and face the hard discussion the next morning? Well, most of my fights are bits anyway, so... The thing is

the guy could have just wrote it off as a bit just be like okay let's go back and get the banana pill yeah if she cared so much why didn't she just stop the car and get out and get the banana pill herself or turn it or turn the car around i realize it's dangerous with that many banana pills on the road you're trying to get home as fast as possible. Right. It's a minefield out there. As many people, as common as this is. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.

Man, what an incredible job. I want to be the ethicist. Why don't we do that? You need to be the moralist. The moralist. The moralist? Yeah. I think that's probably the one for you.

That's the one for me? Yeah. I think you have to have a counterbalance, and you need to take it to a conservative paper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be the moralist at a conservative paper.

Yeah. Where does the guy moral aesthetic conservative. Yeah. Where does the guy... So, what's that guy's name? Agajanian or something? Oh, the cat man? The chef. Yeah. Where do his actions fall on the spectrum? It's like, I'm obviously very anti-killing cats but in this day and age of getting

canceled over the worst stuff it kind of is like um it's a kind of a wholesome when when a bona fide sociopath that's the telltale sign that you're a sociopath when you like to harm animals right to not eat them just to torture them just to torture them yeah yeah did you see what he did like too like he would he would he wanted to get the turtles himself and kill them himself yeah he uh there were several crazy anecdotes. This woman remembered one night when Aghajani... So we're reading from this New York article about this guy who had a restaurant called Horses that was apparently really popular in L.A., right?

Yeah, the first I heard about this was I was listening to that show Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend. And he had a bit on there where he was going to tell all his friends he wanted to open up a restaurant where they serve horse meat. And just see what the consensus was on eating animals that we don't typically yeah eat you know but dude i and then they brought this place up and which was funny because at the time i was like oh that's funny but now it makes me wonder i follow a uh i follow an instagram account called and it's honestly fascinating they're like cutting up brains and eating them just like boar's heads they're like squeezing food out of intestines might in this instagram account or this

guy's doing this no this instagram account but it's like it's like pak food, it looks like. Wow. So it's like part of their culture, you know? Right. They're like cutting... It's really disgusting to watch, but I'm trying to be open-minded about it. You know what I mean? It's like... They're like cutting ducks...

The bills off of ducks and stuff. I'm like, I'm open-minded about this. Oh, my God. This is their culture. You're like, yeah, I don't really see what the big deal is about this Akjanian guy. I love to watch animals. In fact, I follow him on Instagram.

Oh, Jesus. No, that's not true. I really don't, like, for example, I have a hard time eating, like, and I usually won't eat, like, lobster or crab and stuff like you don't actually eat a lot of meat yeah i really don't only when you like go out to a restaurant or something you'll you'll you'll treat yourself to a little i'll splurge vitamin b12 that's right i don't i'm not much of a meat eater usually you're a forager that's true a lot of you eat a lot of spelted grains i've noticed

i'm i am uh you know all i was reading that book sugar book the book about sugar and he talks about how like every human every document in human civilization going back to like the beginning of the time the to the beginning of time, has a staple starch or complex carbohydrate. You know what I mean? Potato. Rice or potatoes. Rice, millet, wheat. And they usually will fix that up

with various spices and stuff. It's weird, though. America's kind of a... I know maybe ours is corn, but even then, this is not a staple. That's just because we eat so much fucking potato chips and stuff. Well, potatoes, too. Meat and potatoes are shorthand for American cuisine.

Right, right. That is interesting because if you try a different way of eating, like anybody that's ever done keto or went vegan or anything, well, not necessarily vegan because you can still eat those things. Like, it is weird to reorient yourself to just, like, eating meat with vegetables but no starch. Right, right. Yeah, I guess I shouldn't say since the beginning of the time of time just since the beginning of like agriculture basically since whenever adkins came on the same this article says that agajanian who looks like norm Bates, by the way. I mean, like, here's the thing.

I hate to, you know, be a judge book by its cover guy, but this guy looks like he hurts animals. Yeah, he looks... That looks totally insane. Uh-huh. Did they take photos for this piece? It looks like they did. It looks like, you know know it looks like a stylized

like terry richardson kind of photograph or something like you would take for like a profile piece or something like that yeah it does they're like hey can i can i see that don't worry about just show up and take some pictures yeah it looks like they did but well i don't know maybe not because they said they reached out for comment and they wouldn't respond. So maybe not. He took all the worms from the monkfish liver and took sheep's liver and put it through a grinder, then served that combination brusquely to the staff.

Another time he ordered staff fish carcasses blended with water. This is like what he would feed them, you know, like before like a meal. You know what I mean? He's like feeding them the way you would a house cat. If you were like out of cat food. Pate. He's making his own pate that's crazy he serves people some crazy stuff though uh rabbit heads warm crabs

dog wait that's where i was going with that it's like i don't like how they boil crabs and lobsters alive and this weekend i got a rundown on how they make soft shell crab you ever heard about you you've heard about you're the second person to mention this to me in as many weeks what's the deal it's like they set up a trap off the you know in the in the ocean and with a male i think it's like a blue crab they put like a male, I think it's like a blue crab. They put like a male blue crab in it. And like 50 or 60, a whole bunch of like female crabs will crowd around to start trying to mate with it. And I guess whichever one finally gets chosen to be mated with will start to molt.

And so the fishermen will grab that crab that's molting before it's grown back its new shell. After it's molted, but before it's grown back its new one. Then they put it in the freezer or whatever. And then that's the soft-shell crab. So it's like one of those fucked-up things like sticking a goose in a fucking pen and just feeding it until it's morbidly obese and busting out the openings of the cage and then taking their liver out and serving foie gras. Foye gras, yeah.

Which is just a fatty liver. Fatty liver. Yeah. Or we've talked about this before, when they put the little mask on the bird and then he bit his head off or whatever. Yeah. Or we've talked about this before, when they put the little mask on the bird and then he bit his head off or whatever. Yeah. We need to do a deep dive in hoke cuisine sometime. There's a lot of fucked up stuff that goes on in this world.

I know, but that's the thing. It's like people's, that's where it gets ethically dubious. We should ask the ethicist because it's like, it's people's culture, man. Yeah, well, I mean, that's, you know, I don't want to. It easily slips into like racist. Yeah, you can get racist, but I think the French did the foie gras and the masked bird.

I think they're safe to make fun of. Yeah. But yeah, I agree. Sometimes it can veer into racism. You don't want to go there. Man, the ethicist. There's all kinds of stuff in here. Our theater is fighting about diversity.

Who's right? Should we weigh in on this? What do you think? Let's do it. Let's weigh in. I'm involved with a well-regarded community theater that has made significant efforts to diversify its membership, cast, and audience.

A conflict has arisen over a proposed production of Fiddler on the Roof. Yes, we know Fiddler has been done to death in community theaters. It's a different issue. The director proposing the production has committed himself to colorblind casting. Others involved say that,

in view of the Jewish community the play is about, they would consider this to be a cultural appropriation how should we approach this conflict in values what would you say so what are they saying they want to do like a rainbow coalition fiddler on the roof i think so but that's the thing i don't know the plot, I think one way you could approach it is you could just rewrite it for a different context. Yeah, there you go. You know, the same thing, but you say, okay, well, what's the central conflict facing this community?

Let's kind of just follow it, you know, use Fiddler as a template. Yeah. But isn't it, like like entirely about Judaism, Jewish? A series of stories by Sholem Aleichem that he wrote in Yiddish between 1894 and 14 about Jewish life in a village of the pale settlement of Imperial Russia. Yeah, it's true. I mean, yeah, it doesn't all work, work man you're sort of boxed in there yeah

but you could do yeah i don't know if it's fiddler on the roof but it's all hillbillies and it's the marlo cole camp around that same time period okay i'm listening there i don't know it's just funny that that's not funny because you know not certainly not uh but uh what could let's see what could what would hillbilly fiddler on the roof look like? Is there an actual fiddler on the roof? In Fiddler on the Roof? Because if so, we've already got that cover. We got that base cover.

We got plenty of fiddlers and we can put them right up there. We put them right on many roofs. We have roofs and we have fiddlers. Yeah. So we're good for fiddlers. We wouldn't even have to change the name, really. Here's Act 1. Tevi, a poor Jewish milkman with five daughters,

explains the customs of the Jews in the Russian shtetl of Anatevka in 1905 where their lives are as precarious as the perch of a fiddler on the roof. At Tevi's home, everyone is busy preparing for the Sabbath meal. Tevi is delivering milk, pulling the cart himself, and his horse is lame. He asks God, whom would it hurt if I were a rich man? The bookseller tells Tevi news from the outside

world of pogroms and expulsions. There is drinking of alcohol. There's a lot. It's a lot. Revolution. Hmm. I feel like in some ways,

while not as serious of themes, Hee Haw has some, had some interesting things to say. Uh-huh. Maybe there are some plays or works of art that just can't quite be recast. It's not a one-to-one. Like Schindler's List?

You don't really want to go there. Yeah. But, yeah. It doesn't always work. Sometimes you can't do, you know. Well, and why do you want to Hamiltonize everything too is the other thing.

That's a great question, Tom. Am I stalking my own grandchildren? I miss them terribly. My son has three children and is divorced from their mother. He is an alcoholic and as a result has not been able to pay child support beyond the divorce settlement. He can't even support himself.

The children's mother has full custody. Any requests I make for contact with my grandchildren are ignored. Damn, this is sad. I don't engage with anyone, sit in back rows, and am sure to be unseen, but is this stalking? Are my actions selfish or self-serving? No. There are some things people present to the ethicist that

are like they fall into either one or two categories either one is this is boring as hell or two there's not a cia torture tactic in the book to get me to go to somebody with this with this. Yeah. My grandmother is stalking me. We haven't talked because I disagreed with her about fiscal policy in 1997. You see, she's a Keynesian

and me. I'm a neoclassical conservative. And while I love my grandmother, I'll just never see eye to eye on this. Uh-huh. My dead father had a secret, do I tell our family? My father passed away two years ago at 86. He served in the military for six years in the 50s and was buried with full military honors.

Although my father occasionally told stories about his time in service, he never went into great detail about it and he kept no documents from that time. It wasn't until about 25 years ago that my siblings and I learned my father had a child, later given up for adoption while stationed in england after my father passed i began to manage my mother's finances i was surprised to learn that he was separated from the military under less than honorable conditions and was therefore not entitled to pension benefits even more troubling the reason given was homosexual tendencies shit all right so the man had a child and he had a fabulous gay past dude my man was getting it in everywhere i love it so wait what's he asking here should he posthumously

out his grandfather or yes he he says uh uh my mother is in her 80s and is in poor health i've decided not to tell her what i've learned i see no possible benefit to it at this point in her 80s and is in poor health. I've decided not to tell her what I've learned. I see no possible benefit to it at this point in her life. Oh, she probably knows. I was going to say, she's got... A lot of things you can't really hide, man. That scent follows you, you know?

Uh-huh. That is a scary thing I think about from time to time, is once you're dead, you can't control the narrative. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, do you remember, I won't really talk about it, but do you remember when a friend of ours passed away and his long-lost daughter that nobody knew he had

shows up to the funeral and then... Yes. Shit like that it all on your funeral it all gets out in the open anyway so you should just you should just try to just keep as few secrets as possible i love i love the accusation i love getting kicked out of the army for having homosexual tendencies like that is such a hilarious phrase it's like nothing concrete he just just a little he's a little fruity there's a little light in the ass he did his uniform up and a little flamboyant he did his dances were a little more his marches were a little more flamboyant than the rest

come on if you're in the military come. Everyone in the military has homosexual tendencies. The military is a homosexual tendency. That is homosexual tendencies. Yeah, uniforms, swabbing the decks. You and the boys out there. You know? Come on. Or you and the girls.

I would argue being in the military Is gayer than the theater 100% By a factor of 10 100% Yeah This whole gays in the military debate That ate up the 90s

It was all pointless Yeah Can I edit pink hair it was all pointless yeah can I edit pink hair out of my daughter's wedding photos hmm should ask her if that's what she wants yeah ask her if that's what she wants maybe

but that's why she came to the ethicist she wanted to know if it's ethical to edit out pink hair without consent is there anything you would came to the ethicist she wanted to know if it's ethical to edit out pink hair without consent is there anything you would take to the ethicist let's see i'm sure there are it seems like over the course of doing this show i always run into like ethically dubious conundrums. Such as? I don't know. Let's say that...

I don't know. Let's say that I was opening a Michelin star restaurant where I had a pension for killing animals and serving gruel to my workers. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I have one. This happened to me just a second ago. I was outside.

I came back from the gym. A guy walked by whistling the whistle part from Don't Worry, Be Happy. That's kind of nice. That doesn't happen every day. See, man, I was going was gonna say am i ethically in my rights to knock him out said you're not getting the memo motherfucker it's a goddamn recession out here it's a goddamn recession you seen price oatmeal motherfucker get on with you whistling ass um am i i kind of like that though i kind of love if a guy was just in the middle of all

that's going on out here he's just whistling don't worry be happy completely oblivious that's a man that is convicted that ron desantis will be the next president of the united states and it'll all be better then uh-huh our granddaughter is rude and ungrateful what do we do you that was one day floated to the anthocysm that was one yeah throw you could throw her out the window that doesn't seem like that seems like answering a jeopardy question without phrasing it in the form of a question. Right. Someone's revving their motorcycle. You could throw her

out the window of your moving car and then your wife will cite the statute as to why that's wrong. But that's something you can do. She's old enough to enlist in the military and old enough to understand. They're like, just send her into the army. Yeah, she's old enough to enlist in the military and old enough to understand they're like just send her into the army yeah she's old enough to join that goddamn gay parade uh-huh i think what

are some of these like let's see what else we've got here our relatives keep bringing their dog over how can we stop them okay i hate that shit i hate that. You ain't bringing your dog in my house. Stays out on the porch. Can we fire our employee? His father just died. Oh my God. Well, let me go ahead and tell you, if you're the Sierra Club, yes.

Someone did not check with the ethicist when it came to tom's situation to my fire um can i use my adopted child's dna to find his biological parents i think my friend may be autistic do i tell her look as someone who has told me that so many times Autistic? Do I tell her? Look, as someone who has told me that so many times, no, don't tell them. Just let them continue on going through life. Is that any indication that that might be what's going on with them? You know?

We just need to start writing the most banal queries to this guy yeah um my co-worker's annoying what do i do yeah right just i mean honestly it's like that's kind of what some of it is yeah look i understand it's hard to live in the world. People are annoying. Unless you're that guy, you run into his whistle. He seems positively thrilled. But yeah, never had a bad, has not had a single bad day. Or maybe he has. Maybe he's at peace, man.

Yeah. Well, I'd like to know his secret. I'd love to be a guy that whistles. Don't worry, I'd be happy going down the street. And be known for that. Yeah. Is it okay to let my relatives think their dead sister is still alive? Let's see.

Someone lonely considers me a friend. Should I stay in his life? Wait, what? I don't know. Let's read it. Somebody lonely considers me a friend? I love this. I'm going to Ukraine.

Do I have to tell my parents? I'm going to fight with the good people of the Azov. What does the emphasis say? Let's see. Does he like egg them all? Like a responsible, this is the telltale. A responsible ethicist would be like, do not go to Ukraine under any circumstances. But because this is through the New York Times,

the ethicist might be on the Zelensky take. You're right. Yeah, the ethicist says, I understand your desire to spare your parents' stress and don't lightly set it aside, but what you're contemplating is not simply an act of omission. You would, in fact, be actively deceiving them. Okay, so the question isn't whether you should go or not.

It's whether you should tell your parents. Oh, he's decided. Oh, he going. Oh, yeah. Oh, you're going. You're just going to tell your parents that you're going. Could you just imagine, like, your parents that you're going could you just imagine like your parents not hearing from you and then just like they have to find out by courier or something that like

they found your body in the fucking crimea somewhere yeah this is the one that uh i'm lonely someone lonely considers me a friend should i stay in his life a person i've known for many years considers me a friend even a I stay in his life? A person I've known for many years considers me a friend, even a good friend. Although I pretend to like him, spending time with him is seldom enjoyable and is actually often quite difficult. He is, I believe, profoundly depressed and has few friends, if any. He is invariably negative and when questioned about seeming unhappy, is unwilling to consider any different perspectives as possible changes or therapy. God damn, at me next time. This person contacts me every couple of months

to get together and I put it off. Eventually I respond out of sympathy and guilt. When I see him, I'm not gushing. Okay, hold on a second. So some poor bastard at the end of his rope just wants to hang out with you like twice a year. Yeah, it's not that much. And you're like, and then you have to

get on the paper and talk about what a dullard he is and how you don't come on fucking suck it up and go to dinner with it twice a year whatever this is so funny i believe he finds me entertaining in short he seems to have a good time brother Brother, if someone's laughing at your jokes, keep them around. That's a rare thing to have. Yeah. Trust me. Trust me. You better hang on to that.

That might prove to be the best relationship in your life if you have an open mind about it. That's exactly right like as someone who is bombed in front of various friend groups because he can't read an audience uh he has remarked that i'm always direct and honest about my feelings i do normally detest phoniness and have harsh feelings about two people in my own life who profess to be close loving friends while secretly trashing me behind my back i feel for this person and would like to help him but is friendliness a charitable act if it's insincere yeah well i don't know is Yeah. Well, I don't know. Is it?

Hmm. Hmm. That's a good question, man. Are we stumped? Here's what I say. There's no wrong reason to be nice and kind to people. There's no wrong reason? Yeah, no wrong reason.

You're overthinking this this this is just this is just this liberal stuff where you're like examining these are the same people dude that like have to make a show of like ending a friendship yeah that's true you know it's like the same type of person that would ride in here is the same type of person that writes one of those horrifying, like, I'm no longer getting anything out of this relationship things. Yeah. That's true. That is true. Have you ever been broken up with as a friend?

No, never. Of course, I don't have any friends either. I'm the lonely one in this schematic. The ethicist says, Is there any real friendship Between you two I know you feel like a phony But I'd guess that there is a friendship It's just asymmetrical and much lower in intensity On your side than on his

You're concerned that you're Being less than candid in your relationship with him Yet full transparency isn't an ideal To which friends usually commit Yeah don't lie I mean i mean what i mean is lie definitely lie if it makes someone feel better lie listen it's always good you can lie and lie ethically if it's to spare somebody's feelings is a thing i don't care what anybody says uh-huh that's it's those little lies that keep the social contract from imploding yeah like you don't want to be like who are the most reviled people in

society people who are fucking conservatives that are like you know what i mean like you know you know who i'm talking about yeah like the people that are like oh i'm just a straight shooter i just tell it like it is yeah nobody fucking likes you no likes you yeah so yeah enjoy enjoy your moral superiority nobody will remember you or think fondly of you in fact some people might piss on your grave every once in a while when they're just passing through. Is it okay that my wife posts photos of her breastfeeding her son? Yes. Next question.

If you raised money after a fire, can you spend it on a vacation? Yeah. I mean, if people gave you money then fuck it i mean i say use it however yeah you're not the goddamn government near attendance not looking over your finances yeah i mean don't do any i don't you can't be pocket watching with your charity you know Yeah. Her brother most likely died from autoerotic asphyxiation. Do I tell her? How do you know that? How do you know that? Her brother most likely died.

Most likely. Come on, there's some qualifiers there, man. I'm loving it. How do you have any more Insight in this than she does That you'd be the one to tell It says my cousin happened to be one of the paramedics Who arrived at the scene and administered CPR to him Many years later my cousin now deceased

Shared some information with me About the incident that makes it appear that it was not suicide From beyond the grave From beyond the grave Now deceased shared some information It was derived from a Ouija Ouija session From beyond the grave. From beyond the grave. Now deceased, shared some information. It was derived from a Ouija interaction. Ouija session.

Dude, no. Why do you even have to ask? Don't fucking bring that up. There's so many layers of uncertainty to that. What would make you ask the question in the first place? Oh, okay, this is why. My friend has always struggled with not understanding why her seemingly happy brother wanted to end his life. I'm fairly certain her

father who found him knows it may have been accidental but has never shared that information with his daughter. Okay, well, I guess... No, I think in that case, listen, I think in that case you can put it to bed. I think here's how you do it you sit her down you say listen honey i know you've been struggling thinking about the pit of despair your brother fell into that led to his death but i have some information ascertained from beyond the grave how i got this if actually how i got this information, actually, how I got this information,

not important. It's not important. But contrary to what you've been feeling about this situation, your brother absolutely loved life. He died as he lived, doing what he loved. In the throes of pleasure.

In the throes of pleasure in the throes of passion i don't honestly i'm i'm like i think it's fucked up how there's a stigma around dying like that like i really think it's like we should end the stigma like if you die like that i think it should be an honorable thing it's like committing seppuku or something. It's like you're an honor, but you managed to go out like a champ. You know? Yeah, if you die from autoerotic asphyxiation. Like David Carradine.

When he died, people were embarrassed. That's the way. It's just like there's nothing embarrassing about that dude no that's that's in fact that's called living your truth that's exactly right uh i know two men raising other men's children like concrete factually but you don't have one of them's a cop and i don't really whatever happens he has a gun to him. Right. Whatever earth-shattering news he gets at some point, perhaps anonymously. Mm-hmm.

But the other guy is like a Joseph Redcorn in King of the Hill situation, where there's just, this man genuinely believes this obviously Middle Eastern child is his son. That's an ethical quandary, man. I think that's honestly. So here's the question. Yeah, it's like, what do you. Well, I mean, here's the thing, though. It's like the guy who wondered if he should tell his 80-year-old mother about the gay father.

It's like he probably knows, right? Oh, I think he definitely has to know. He's in the most extreme denial you've ever heard. An ex-girlfriend of mine taught at this school. I might have told this story on the show before. I'm not sure. But she taught at this school, and she was married, had been married to this guy for a number of years and then a white guy and then had a black baby and uh my ex was like uh not even talking about like

that but she had assumed that the guy with her was not the father says so who's the uh is the child's father could he come in she goes he's right here and this woman volunteered this this she volunteered this she said he's got that disease where he didn't get any of his dad's chromosomes and when she told me that i said well she's not lying he in fact did not get any of his dad's chromosomes it's just a way yeah i think it's okay i don't think about it that way um he's got that disease yeah like it's common knowledge you know right you know the one i'm talking about the elderly man i've been helping turns out to be a bigot what do i do

um i'd say take all the guns out of the house uh take away his car keys other than that just keep it i mean look look all of our grandparents are bigots you think you think you're you think you're exceptional here uh can i ditch my roommate so i can live with my friend uh yes how much should i keep spend to keep my elderly dog alive? Uh, long ago I bought a human skull. What should I do with it? I'd tell you what you do with it.

You hold it up and see you say to be and not to be. You do drama, dramatic readings. Okay. All right. I mean, we've done over an hour. And, you know, that's good. I mean, I had a whole list of stuff to talk about this week,

but we had to call an audible at the last minute. And so I didn't have to talk about the debt ceiling. I didn't have to talk about Ron DeSantis announcing on Twitter spaces that he's running for president. I didn't have to talk about inflation. All kinds of stuff I didn't have to talk about. This day we talked about good old-fashioned ethics.

We just talked about good old-fashioned ethics. What's wrong in the world That's exactly right Um So Yeah any outstanding thoughts on any of those things Before we sign off for the week Nah I'm gonna start

Spamming the ethicist Weekly with the most Banal queries why do people look different stuff like that what can i utter a racial slur in my classroom oh can you do that can you utter it but you say utter that makes it sound like you want to kind of say it Can you utter it? When you say utter, that makes it sound like you want to kind of say it. Did she say should I, could I, or would I? Can I.

Can I. Hmm. That's an interesting one because if you get the affirmative from the ethicist. She's asking for permission to say a slur. Yeah, she wants the go-ahead. From the ethicist, who is presumably a black man. Yeah, she wants the go-ahead. Who is presumably a black man. Yeah, she wants the go-ahead. Huh. It's a speech from Senator Strom Thurmond using the N-word.

Do I use the actual word in class? Oh, boy. That's one for next time. Let's see what the ethicist says. He says Wow this is a really really long response Holy shit He's like if I just stall for time I won't have to answer this

I'll just do the Advice columnist version of a filibuster here Uh Uh Eh Eh I don't know Um

My daughter's having sex with her best friend Must I tell her mom Okay I mean I gotta stop I'm addicted I can't stop My daughter's having sex with her best friend. Must I tell her mom? Okay. I mean, I gotta stop. I'm addicted. I can't stop. I fucking can't stop, dude.

I just want to know the type of person that's like, you know what? I don't have any people I can turn to for solid advice here, so I'm going to ride into a magazine. Yeah. I say this, and just a few weeks ago, I was thinking about doing the same thing. Mm-hmm. I mean, there's something nice. There's something kind of exciting about it, right?

Like seeing it published in the paper of record, knowing that it's anonymous, that can never be traced back to you. Never. Never. That's a... Well, next week you're going to see one that's like, is it okay to steal... Is it okay to steal my competitor's stars and coins

if he spins out on the banana peel that was thrown out. Let's say we're at a place called, I don't know, Boo's Haunted Mansion. Rainbow Road. Yeah. Boo's Haunted Mansion. Let's say, hypothetically, we're at a place called Boo's Haunted Mansion. There are ghosts. If you look at them, they'll stay in place,

but if you don't, they'll come at you. Some of them are big enough to eat you. The floor is falling in. Let's say hypothetically. Let's say hypothetically I drive my uh 2007 toyota tacoma through there and out the passenger window flies a banana peel yeah oh okay man okay i gotta i can't stop scrolling through these. It's like, what do you call this?

What's going on with me? Like, why can't I stop? They're so good. All right. Dear ethicist, why can I not quit reading your fantastic column? Okay. Okay. Next week, I swear we'll have a more in-depth episode about the way the world works and the state of the world.

It's just like I got sidetracked, and like I said, I have OCD, and I get dialed in on this stuff, and I can't break away from it. So next week, i promise we'll have a little more in-depth coverage of the world and analysis i know that's what you all want right hard-hitting analysis i think that's what people want because that's the feedback i see they're like i'll stop listening to this show because it became a show where they just talk about nothing it's like that's what it's always been.

Yeah, that's what Seinfeld was famously the show about nothing. Hey, that seemed to work out fine for everybody. Yeah, what do you want? What do you want? There's plenty of episodes that are about something, but then you got to have some that are about nothing. What's so hard about that? Something's a nothing.

That's what life's about. That's right Alright You can go check us out on Patreon We had a pretty good episode this past weekend P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com Slash Trailbilly Workers Party Every Sunday Well most Sundays anyways

Or every week there's a premium episode Doesn't always get put out on Sundays, but usually. So go check that out. Go throw us $5. We need your support. We really do now more than ever. And the content's great. So we'll see you over there this weekend.

And until then, I wish you all a great rest of your week. A great Memorial Day. A great Memorial Day. Remember all those gay soldiers that died. Defending our freedoms. That's right. Don't ever forget that. Don't ever forget that.

Alright, we'll see you next time. Adios.