Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews 10/19/2021 – Time to Strike

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Tonight we discuss American labor’s biggest movement since the 40s, as workers nationwide take to the picket line to demand the respect and compensation they deserve. We also make fun of some dumbasses and welcome Corey Ryan Forrester back to the show.Support the show

Howdy, everybody, welcome back and happy skews day to you. Today's October 19th, 2021. I'm Trey Crowder, and that's Mark Aegee. What's up, Mark? What's up, Trey? Good to be here. Big day, baby. The NBA's back.

Colin Powell died. Lots of stuff happening. Yeah. Juicy Fogg, because Powell was vaccinated, Did you see Fox News trying to say that because he died of COVID-19 means the vaccines don't work? Dude, as soon as I, so the first thing I saw was the New York Times tweet about it. And the New York Times, the way it was worded, it said he was 80. I don't even think it said it was 84.

It just said he was fully vaccinated. And without reading anything else about it immediately, I read that and I went, I know what's about to happen here. Like, they're going to take that ball and run with it, even though I know he's old as hell. And I bet there was some other shit going on too. And of course, after that, it got clarified by a whole bunch of people. that he had a blood cancer that compromises your immune system greatly and whatever. But as soon as I saw it, I knew how that was about to go. Yeah.

Yeah, I saw our interview with this woman who, they're talking about who vaccines don't work for. And this woman, she had an organ transplant. She takes, like, immunosuppressant drugs to keep from rejecting the organ. She's part of a study to see if the vaccine would work for her. She's sending blood samples and fell out. Nope, you took the vaccine, but you didn't get any antibodies from it because the drug wiped out the antibodies. so a bunch of that category and Powell was unfortunately

for him one of those and it's just like so much fucking lying man it's like just like vaccines don't make you immortal they just help they just help most people it's like and you can't everything's either all or nothing everything's so heightened and yeah it don't hit

but also like the other side of it was just the full on national security blob just fedding this guy who's who was a hero to them. Yeah. And it's not that he's like an awful person or one of history is great villains or anything like that, but real people's,

there's life stories have nuance and texture and lessons you can learn if you pay attention to them. If you don't pay attention to them, you don't like, you just don't get any meaning out of it. You just hold people up as pure heroes. And his actual life story is really interesting. Like he clawed his way up.

He was born to a poor, poor immigrants in Harlem. He joined the army, worked his way up from a grunt. him to Vietnam. Of course, like, when he made the officer corps, his career went in overdrive because he helped cover up the Mile Eye massacre. That's bad, but then he gets to correct the correct lesson away from Vietnam, which is Vietnam sucks, and we shouldn't do that shit again, right? So it makes that his life's mission to keep America out of unnecessary wars.

Right. Until, yeah, and then what happened? He got steamroll by the same fucking blob. He spent his whole life fighting against in the form of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and they turned him into a liar. There was a famous anecdote where Dick Cheney Brow beat him in the Oval Office was telling him that he could afford to lie to the United Nations because he had the highest poll ratings of any of them. And that's how they got him.

So he's like, oh, I won't tell these lies, but these seem close enough the truth that I'll tell these. And of course, yeah. Yeah. Like you said, real lies and like his story has nuance to it, which is why when you look for nuance, you should really turn to former president Donald Trump to see, to see how he responds to a thing.

I want to read his statement. I'll do it, I guess. So Trump released a statement on the death of Colin Powell, said, wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the fake news media. Hope that happens to me someday.

He was a classic rhino, if even that, always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistakes. stakes. But anyway, may he rest in peace? You know what? When he says, I hope that happens to me someday. I too hope you die someday, Donald Trump. So we're on the same. For once, we're in 100% agreement. Yeah. I mean, like, Trump has this wonderful gift. Wonderful, as a way to put it. But like, he can say true stuff in the lies at the same time. Like, he wasn't against the Iraq war,

but he ran against the Iraq war saying it was a bad idea. That's how he was able to cook Jeff Bush in primary, but also he's both for and against the Iraq war at the same time. I can't even figure out what he doesn't believe anything, but that's just the gift, the beauty of being one of those guys, I guess. Yeah. All right. Well, with us as always as producer, Matt, this is weekly skews. First, we'll remind you real quick.

If you're vaccinated, want to see me live, you can go to well-read comedy.com for tickets. We'll be at one of our favorite clubs in the country, the D.C. Improv and our nation's capital this weekend, Thursday through Sunday. Hope to see you there now for the show tonight. It's the rise of the proletariat. That's right. You can take these jobs and shove them, American workers nationwide, or take it to the picket lines to demand the respect and compensation they have long deserved.

Yes, turns out constantly reminding your employees of how essential and heroic they are doesn't actually amount to very much when it comes to paying the goddamn bills. Also, on tonight's episode, we will be joined once again by everybody's favorite Georgia correspondent. Corey Ryan Forster, that's right, his glorious return is upon us. But first, as always, we begin with the Daily Dumbass. Matt, graphic, please. Tonight's dumbass, any of those Arizona Ninja Turtles we talked about last week who are foolhardy enough to challenge the state Attorney General to a fight

because, make no mistake, Mark Bernovich stands prepared. Clip. It's Arizona Attorney General Mark Bernovich. We've gotten a lot of calls, a lot of emails, but there's one thing people definitely want to see they want to see more chucks so people you want more chucks you count more chucks like there's no context he just tweeted a video of himself playing with num chucks I'm assuming he's bullshitting, but I want desperately to believe that his office was getting a bunch of calls and emails for him to please post. Please show us more chucks, attorney general.

You have to people what they want, man. Yeah. I also assume there was like, like, you know that hang in there, a cat poster? I always like to imagine that there's like a pile of cats underneath that cat where the photographer took him like 30 tries to get it. I imagine that there's like 40 outtakes where hit himself in the nuts Dude you know there are as soon as I clicked this and started playing it In my head I was like oh please hit yourself in the nuts or something But then I was like oh he posted he wouldn't have posted the one where he hit himself in the nuts

But you know it's out there Release the nut cut that's what I want to say He In there is a good idea though He's of course Arizona's lead law enforcement figure And I was thinking what if we've replaced the cops guns with nunchucks. One, cooler, right?

Way cooler. Two, a lot harder to kill somebody of accident or when you're just mad. So, yeah. Yeah, I'm for that. Mark Bernovich, true trailblazer with nunchucks. All right. Next, our first honorable mention for Daily Dumbass,

anybody who thinks that they can relax on a plane in this godforsaken country without some bat shit crazy stuff going on? That's right. Let's see this clip here. This is my case. I tried borrowing yours. You don't want to use it.

I brought my microphone. I'm going to use it. This is perfect. Thank you. We're set up great. The pandemic started all because humans had lost a little bit,

a little bit of faith. Did it cuff me? You're going to cut me. You're going to cut me. Yes. I'm right in front of my face. Ma'am. I don't need to be taken anywhere.

This is, I don't need to be cuffed. Ma'am. I'm completely harmless. Also, I think you're all enjoying this because, like I said, I'm not terrible to look at. Ma'am. That's me. That's what she wanted. The reason why the pandemic started was basically because the Internet

The reason we're going out of here. The reason the pandemic started is because nobody here has anyone paid because you're all stuck to your stupid devices and you don't even know what reality is anymore and you depend on stupid nonsense to determine your reality. My dog. My dog has better sense than any. I, uh, is, is she single? Do we know? I would imagine so, uh, but hard to say. She bought a headset, Mike, to go crazy.

Like, she planned ahead to go crazy. That's what I was going to say. It's like this isn't like an episode. She might be in a prolonged weeks long episode or perpetual lifelong episode. but yeah this isn't like an isolated episode she's having because like you said there's premeditation here she planned this out and like to what end do you know what I mean like was it so this would happen she knew somebody would tape it and she'd end up on the internet because well why is your chosen demographic the other people on this plane with you that you just have to get your message

out there who doesn't know not to lose your shit on an airplane and in you know 2021 a Erica, although I guess, you know, clearly support decision making going on here. I will say that the reason she chose the airplane is because nobody can walk off the airplane at 35,000 feet, and I bet nowhere else in her life will anyone sit and listen to her talk.

But this reminds me, you and I both come out of the comedy role, Trey, and I remember this will hit for you. There's a guy the town I started comedy in, who another comedian stole his some material from him. And so he wrote a movie about this incident and funded it himself.

And my other buddy had a take on it. There was like, he got so mad about this, he rented a boom mic. He wrote and shot a whole movie. That's somebody stealing a joke from him? Yes. Yeah. Damn. How'd it go over?

The movie wasn't bad. It was pretty good. It was in Blockbuster for a while. I saw it. Oh, okay. All right. But it was just, it was really, funny way to put it. And this lady wanted to go crazy so bad, she invested in a Tony

Robin's headset mic, and that really hits for me. And the crux of her argument is that the pandemic started because we all lost faith, because we pay more attentions to our foam than God. And I have to say, that holds up. It makes sense to me. Sure. I'm just saying that's a good way to get your ass that type to a seat. There's a stat came out like weird, weird crazy incidents on planes are up. There's been like 4,000 so far this year. People have to be like restrained or kicked off planes. And we're all going crazy and we're doing it in the air. Dude, I've, I travel all the time and then I stopped, obviously, for a while because of the pandemic. And now I'm traveling again. And like, I never saw shit go down on planes. And I've had like

nothing remotely like this, but I've seen altercations or just seeing people kind of lose their shit on three separate flights I've been on already. And I haven't even been on that many yet, you know, Like, it's anecdotally, it's definitely a thing. I don't know if it's just people cooped up for too long and are finally back to traveling or what the hell's going on. Everybody's just getting a little fucking crazy. I don't know. But it's wild out there.

I'll say for this is how far we've fallen. There were very few incidents of crazy shit happening in mass air travel during the 1918 flu epidemic. And I think that's a sign of something here. Coincidence, I think not. Our next honorable mention for Daily Dumbasses is, All them fancy-ass Brazilians for thinking they could just conga line their way all the way up to Connecticut without Senator Lindsey Graham catching on.

That's right. He made some notes. Let's start with the first clip, Matt. 40,000 Brazilians come through the Yuma sector alone, headed for Connecticut, wearing designer clothes in Gucci bags. This is not economic migration anymore. People see an open America. They've taken advantage of us, and it won't be long before a terrorist gets in this crowd. yeah uh so a lot not a whole lot to unpack there except that we shouldn't let in poor people

because that's bad but also if they have money we shouldn't let them in i know that's bad that's what i was going to bring so first of all we put you put this in our outline our show outline and producer matt commented on and said uh of course he noticed their purses which is very funny again um yeah that's the first thing i thought too is like the narrative was um you know, they're sending rapists and murderers and drug dealers and all that shit. And now it's like they're sending so-crums and Instagram. Yeah. Influencers and thoughts and shit now that they're sending.

So it's just like just any kind of Mexican you can imagine Red America is on their way up here. The rich ones, the poor ones, everything in between. The Brazilian. Yeah, I know. That was on perfect because they're all Mexicans to those people. I was even the ones who speak Portuguese I was just tagging your joke I realized you were joking

But he really does think he has stuff in here Because he went on another Fox show And did this Give that second clip Matt Hotel clerks for You know, well-off Brazilians who are scamming And playing a game

They've got better luggage than I do When we went through the end processing station These were upscale luggage No dirt on their shoes they fly into Cancun. They're jealous of the luggage, man. He's so jealous of the luggage. I know.

It's like Lindsay Graham being like both like astounded by and also jealous of these like well to do Brazilians and all of their, you know, various accessories is just, I don't know. It's really doing it for me. And like you talked about the luggage in that clip. He mentioned the shoes. He again, third time. Here's the, here he is about the shoes again. He's got proof. He's got proof, buddy.

A friend or relative already in the United States. This is offensive. Oh, my. It is a bunch of bullshit. And if you're, if you're just listening, what he had was a picture snapped by Lindsey Graham of a supposed immigrant from, I guess, fancy parts of Brazil. Just somebody's feet with shoes on them. Clean pink and white pumas.

For y'all out there, if you're not a U.S. senator, You can't go around just taking pictures of women's feet. I just want you to know that. He's also just like, look how clean this Brazilian shoes are. What kind of Brazilian doesn't have mud all over their shoes? You know what I mean? That's what's going on in Zy Graham's head. Yeah, I don't know what to think of it.

It doesn't even make it if you don't anything what's going on Brazil, like that take on rich Brazilians fleeing is not what's happening. They're in the middle of like dissent into fascism and gang warfare and the rich people are fine. I just don't I don't understand other than just straight up racism you know I don't understand what the point or argument is supposed to be even if he's talking about like listen there's rich rich ones coming now it's like wouldn't y'all want other countries rich people to come here with their money and everything like when you're framing them all as terrorists and drug dealers and rapists and shit I understand what type of scare tactic you're trying to employing. there. But other than just they are Brazilian, I don't understand

what's supposed to be alarming about this side of the narrative or whatever. I mean, I don't know if you can call it racism because rich South Americans are white. Not just white, a lot of them suddenly immigrated to South America in the 1940s

with German last names. Just for random coincidence. Yeah. But this is a, I know, it's just I don't know. They're wild. There's no, there's no immigrant they can let in other than, you know, white one from England or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Next honorable mention, four-year-olds for getting all caught up in the cancel culture. That's right. Let's watch this clip from Pirate Dan Crenshaw. My book, Fame, and the Raft of Shame is on canceled culture. You can see my own story sort of wrapped into it. It teaches kids how not to engage in cancel culture, how to deal with kids. cancel culture, what it is, what it isn't also, and the value of forgiveness.

So Dan Crenshaw has written a children's book. Of course, he has called Fame, Blame, and the Raft of Shame. Art by Andre Creakil. And the art's not bad. I'm looking at it right now. So the premises book is this city of animals surrounded by a dome of seaweed. When someone is shamed, they kick them out. out of the city and they go outside the dome of seaweed.

But eventually they get too heavy and they cause the collapse of the dome of seaweed and the undersea village is wiped out, I guess is the premise of it. So a great book. Every once you rush out and get it, your kids will love it. Right. If you keep telling people they can't say the N word, eventually the sky will fall on you. It's essentially the thing. Also like how you can see Dan Crenshaw on that cover.

And he's, of course, like a badass leopard or cheetah or whatever that is. Well, you can tell because he's got the eye patch on. So that's definitely him. And it's clearly some kind of buff jungle cat. I didn't notice that. You're right. That's his persona right there. Yeah, his persona is a liono from Thundercats with an eye patch.

I love it. Oh, God. You've got a nice suit, though. That's cool. Yeah, but now cancel culture is running amuck, and they remain really upset about it. They're even coming after cartoons now. Let's get this last clip for Daily Dumbull. I ask my app play it.

The only thing you could do is if you are an American consumer, decide that if you're anti-American, maybe I'm going to go choose a different cartoon. So this is because Superman, besides the new one being bisexual, it's Superman's son, actually, even though they seem to get confused about that. So they're going to take truth justice in the American way. They're just going to start saying truth and justice and leaving the American way out of it because they want to market these comic books. worldwide. But like it's never lost on me that like every time these people who supposedly love

capitalism get caught up in some wolf culture run amuck thing, it's just somebody trying to make more money, right? DC Comics wants to sell comic books to kids in China. So they're taking the American way out of it. So that's it's also it's just funny. He's like, you know, if you're an American man, a good red blooded American man who's upset by this, you're only recourse is to watch another cartoon you know what i mean like listen we've all got to have our cartoon they're even taking our cartoons away from us now by the way nothing wrong watching i watch cartoons all the time and you know cartoons hit it's just it's just a comical thing to be incensed about however you look at it for these people he don't watch cartoons shit oh i fully believe brian kill me watches cartoons

it's probably like which one i'm still droopy dog and stuff like that yeah yeah he ain't watching Harley Quinn. The ones with Sour Puss, and then the ones they teach you out of count. Yeah. All right. Well, let's do it, Mark. Get us into the big story of the day. The story of the moment in time, in fact.

People are striking at levels not seen since the 40s. Yeah. I didn't know that until this week. But in the 1940s, there were periods where one in 10 Americans were on strike. And the parallels of that moment. of course coming out of the Great Depression and World War II, the economy was fucking booming and workers realized everyone really, really needed them. So they decided to try to get their pay rates up.

And that was a good idea probably. So we built the middle class was in the 50s and 60s, right? So yeah, it worked out for everybody. But so just a little bit of roundup, forget the main one. I want to talk about John Deere a lot. So we talked about the Aiazzi strike, which is the below the line Hollywood workers. 60,000 of them were preparing to strike and they struck some sort of deal, but it's not clear the rank and file is happy about the deals. They might vote it down and go back to negotiating table and or go back, decide to strike after the strike was supposedly called off.

So that's happening, but around the country, the John Deer workers were about to talk about who run strike, joined 2,000 hospital workers striking in Buffalo, 1,400 workers for Kellogg in four states, 450 steel workers in Huntington, West Virginia, 2,000 telecommunications workers in California, that's all since October 1st, 1,000 Alabama coal mire commander, 700 nurses in Massachusetts, 400 whiskey makers in Kentucky, hell yeah, whiskey, 200 bus drivers in Reno, and some, their recent settled strikes in 2,000 carpenters by 2,000 carpenters in Washington, 600 free-de-L-A workers in Kansas, and 1,000 Obisco workers at five plants. Tens of thousands waiting in the wings of 37 health care workers in Kaiser in Oregon, in Florida,

Oregon, Florida, and Hawaii who have authorized a strike or about to. There's also, it was a school bus driver's strike all over the country and ran of little pockets. Massachusetts, in fact, had to call up the National Guard to drive school buses. That must have really hit for the kids to be driven to school by a guy, an Arby Sergeant in fatigue. So yeah, one thing about this, and here's the cool, cool part about it, it shows some real growth and labor movements. A lot of this is about two-tier contracts, which one thing capital has been doing when negotiated labor contracts is trying to establish, okay, you get these deals, but new workers will not be covered by these contracts. Like, you get to keep your pension,

but new workers will not have a pension. Right. Because the idea, it's like putting a band-aid on it, right? Like the idea is these people will go for. for that because it helps them and they don't have to worry about the new people and then long term down the line the company gets back to where they want to be because they can fuck over the future generations of workers yeah exactly because that's basically like we'll pay you off to fuck over future you basically is what you're your you pay you off to fuck over your kid if it was to work at this company um the whiskey strike is one of my favorites uh hope they don't i hope i mean i hope they go out to work soon obviously but don't

to get their contract. I didn't like my whiskey. But the company's pro's contract, remove a cap on health insurance premium increases. They would reduce take-home pay, cut overtime and cut changes of work schedules. And one guy said it's going to end up making us work seven days a week with no overtime. So yeah, fuck that. The funny thing about the whiskey strike is a union,

a non-union driver trying to get into the Heaven Hill plant was flipping over. some striking workers and took his hands off the wheel. Flipping off some stripping. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he flipped over the truck and he caught on fire. It almost burned to death.

We have a picture of that, Matt. We put that up there if you have it. But yeah, this. So yeah, this guy, a replacement non-union worker was for some reason, just rubbing it in the face. I guess it was flipping off the union workers as he drove by and then flip the truck over. and dude you don't you don't get moments like this in life very often like it's obviously it's not the same thing but pretty similar when we were in Denver doing shows we were in this like a little hip part of Denver I don't know and these two like dipshit teenagers came up in like a Honda Civic or something and they started like cutting donuts in the middle of this four-way stop with a shitload of people there's all these little bars and stuff there's all kinds of people on the sidewalks and they just started doing donuts and fucking squeak and and tires and all this shit, just being assholes. And then they lost control and ran into a, like, a concrete wall on the side of the road.

Not bad enough, they couldn't drive off, but they fucked their car up and everybody cheered. And it's just, it's just nice to see somebody get some shit that they deserve in real time. Yeah. We got a lot more of this coming up in a little bit because there's lots of Mr. Bean's shit going on around these strikes and people that are pissed off of the striking workers. which brings us to John Deere. So 10,000 workers at John Deere factories have walked off the job. These are plants in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, and Colorado, I believe. There might be a couple others spread out over the country.

And if you want to see why, here's a video of them talking about it in their own words. Pit in the hours, we make the product, and they are making billions of dollars on our back. All these people have been in there during the whole COVID pandemic coming to working every day with the potential of exposing themselves and their families, you know, to this. But they came in and worked anyway. Do I see Deere and Company, you know, kind of recognizing that and trying to reciprocate in any sort of way? No, I don't. John Deer makes $6 billion a year. They do put it shells on the floor and I was supposed to scoop them up.

Well, guess what? My dad may have period was in 1986. We're back for Union Strives. We've got the community behind us. Hell yeah. I like that guy. Like the paint of chills. Yeah.

And so talking about the two-tier contracts again. Here's a quote from the guy. Basically what they tried to do was give them a two-tier contract. And here's a quote from a worker about why they wouldn't fucking take that. At John Deere, we build the best agriculture and construction equipment in the world. We're proud of what we built. We're not disparaging the product at all. It's just the company is run by business people.

I don't take it personally. They have a job to do and a business to run. But don't tell me I'm in your family and they're all part of the Deere family where you're trying to separate us. You don't feed one of your kid's steak and other ones hot dogs. We're all going to eat hamburger.

That's the way families work and they don't understand that. So yeah, that's why they're not going to take the two-tier contract. And by the way, Deere is making record profits. They can afford to pay these workers. Now here's the done to the funny part, talking about the whiskey truck

before getting flipped over. So John Deer is trying to break the strike but moving office workers into the plant. Now, office workers aren't very happy about this. We'll get to that in a minute. It's not like they're being scabs. They're just being repurposed from their other job. They're not unionized.

And a lot of them do support the cause. But the striking workers are doing what they're supposed to do, which is try to prevent this from happening. So they blocked up the plant parking lot. And this union worker, I don't know, Matt, don't know if you have this video yet, but a guy recorded himself driving the line of traffic for people that are already two hours late to work.

Yeah, you'd roll it, Matt, if you had it. Let's see how far they go. Look at all the salary, folks. They look upset. They missed the 7 o'clock buzzer. Well, hell, they're probably trying to get there before the 6 o'clock buzzer, maybe. Yep. That's what John Lewis called making fun trouble, right?

Just gumming up the works, having a little fun with them. But the thing is, about keeping these people from getting to work, they might actually be fucking saving lives. Because here's what happened when they got there. This is extremely funny. So the shift started at 7 o'clock. They made it all the way to 8.30 before an ambulance had to rush into the scene. And then the first day, a non-union salary worker crashed a tractor inside the plant.

So these are skilled jobs, man. They're skilled, fucking jobs. just put a fucking accountant on a forklift and just think that's going to work out, you know? Yeah. And also, and this gets covered in some of the, you know, tweets and whatnot from talking about this situation. But also it just pisses off all of your employee. You know what I mean? It pisses off the salary people because, like, they didn't, they're accounting people and legal or whatever, like HR.

They didn't sign up for that shit. Like, you're just pissing them off too. All you're doing is fucking everybody over and making everybody mad. just because, you know, you can't sacrifice a single day's worth of profit. Hey, real quick, let's just go ahead because Corey's here, everybody. Let's just get Corey out here to join this ongoing conversation. Hey, Corey Ryan Forster. What's up, dog?

Hey, can you hear me. Yeah, buddy. I can hear you. What's up? What's up? We ain't talking about Georgia. It's just good to have you. How's it going, buddy?

Man, it's going good. I'm actually, as you can see, I'm not at my house. I'm in Washington, D.C., where all the real. trouble is. Yeah, where we will be this weekend at the D.C. Improv. You got there early. That is correct. It's been a lot of fun, man. So I'm sure that George is up to no good while I'm gone, but I don't know of anything. Have we done anything stupid that I need to know about? I also don't know, but I'm also sure probably. Yeah. I mean, there are Herschel walkers running for Senate, so I'm sure something happened. God damn, dude. Like, it just had to be that.

like couldn't put me in just a worse situation like no if i'd have known as a kid that one day i would have to vote against harshal walker and something i would have just really not known how to deal with myself what do you think what do you think about john dear you a fan you like you like they're green i love i mean yeah dude look when i was a kid i remember it was a big deal and dad got dad got a john deer uh lawnmower man and that was like the coolest thing like that color rules like great brand recognition i like the way it sounds let me guess am i not supposed to like john dear no well uh you could here's it when they when they buy more john deer products when they pay their workers fairly is what we're getting to remember okay good fuck john

deer i don't if you remember that uh we talked to sent to the thread the other day about that all those uh you those tractor accidents inside the john deer plant where they're trying to use salar employees and the hr and shit to fucking run the plant yeah so that's That's what we're talking about right now. But the thing is the office workers, one of them leaked to this labor reporter who's covering this and was telling what it's what it's like inside the warehouse. They're kind of actively doing solidarity because they're so bad. They might as well call it a slowdown because he was telling them like their productivity is about a third what it would take from a union day, if that may be like a quarter. So they're absolutely, this absolutely is not going to work and everyone knows it.

And they're also saying that they support the workers and stuff, even though they have to, they're basically operating as half a scab. but to show you how much they don't want to be there John Deere is smuggling these office workers in the plant show this picture up Matt if you got it yeah they're wearing hockey masks like Michael Myers that's great just driving van loads of Michael Myers to work

love it what a fucking timeline we all live in you know what I mean just the constant I mean it is October hell maybe those guys are just getting in the spirit of the season is it strictly like it's just there their wages are too low, right? So we've got to bump them wages up, or is there anything deeper to it? They're doing a, they're trying to offer a two-tier contract where old employees will get their pension and benefits, but new employees won't get pension and benefits.

So they're basically going to fuck off. That shit, like, that shit blows my mind. And maybe y'all can smart me up on this, but like, so pension is like, I'm going to be real dumb here, but I'm trying to figure it out. Pension is kind of like the social security for where you work, right? Like, you pay into it the whole time. and then at the end of all that some old white guy can just be like yep you don't get your pension like

I know that they just stay breaking the law but like how the fuck does that? Because I see that in movies it's always a cop right after he just like he hadn't had whiskey in so long and then there's a montage and you see the empty bottle

and then he wakes up and he looks at his gun he's like oh God what did I do and then he went rogue and they're like give me your badge and your gun and you don't get your pension and I'm like I understand taking the badge and the gun but that's fucking his money like he should get his money

right? I mean, if you kill somebody, I'll go back on it. But yeah, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, Cory Forster backs the blue, everybody, you heard her here. Don't you go taking their badges and guns, God, oh, holy shit, holy shit. I know this is a complete, uh, jump off from what we were talking about, but since you said back to blue, can I tell you this little thing that I just, it just popped in my head the other day?

She has, please. Okay, okay, so you know how the, the, the, uh, police, uh, If you like them, it's the flag with the blue line in it, you know? Okay, I just had a flashback the other day. I was driving down and I seen somebody with that on the back of their car. And I remembered in high school, my buddy Josh had that on the back of his car. And I was like, oh, man, because it just kind of looked rad to me at the time. And I was like, what is that?

He goes, oh, my mom's dating a cop. And he told me, if you put this sticker on the back of your car, you probably won't get pulled over. And that just clicked with me And that was 20 fucking years ago. Like, isn't that crazy? Yeah, I didn't even, I did not realize they had been, you know, back in the blue for that. Like, in that specific way, I didn't know that the flag and all that existed. It definitely checks out that that's like a free pass.

Although, like, you feel like as soon as the word gets out amongst, you know, black people and other ne'er-do-wales. Right. Cops love to pull over. I guess they could just, if they see your black, that cancels out the flag on the back of the car. I would rather get pulled over by the cops than have anybody think I was a fucking dip shit like that. So, like, I'll just change. Yeah. So, uh, there's a fun little bit of solidarity.

So the, the John Deere plant workers, they're unionized on the United Auto Workers because they have tractors or cars in Iowa. Uh, so they, uh, they, uh, they, uh, they, uh, they, the UAW, they had to move their picket line because they were standing, I guess they were picketing close to a gas station. And Teamsters stopped delivering to the gas station because they assumed they were picketing the gas station. so solidarity forever baby so something that the guy the john dear worker was talking about the hamburgers and the hot dogs and you missed that sorry for you a little bit ago but he said it's just a business to go she that sounds like pretty important shit to me yeah yeah he was basically saying that like they're trying to give some workers steak and some workers hot dogs but they're all going to eat hamburger for the family um but when he said it's

just a business negotiation i was thinking about how moralistic and principle that everyone gets about labor negotiations but think about if you're selling if you're selling if you're selling anything else besides your labor how straightforward it is like right now wife and I were going to buy a new buy a car but price car prices are through the roof right because there's a shortage of cars in the market so car dealers and car manufacturers have jacked up the prices to make the the supply and demand curve kind of meet right so right now it's a huge labor boom a huge in a huge thirst for labor so labor like oh it's a shortage of labor we can charge we can

check up the amount we charge for it so that's what they're doing But, like, when the car dealer jacks up car prices, no one goes, oh, well, nobody wants to sell cars anymore, I guess. Do you know what I'm saying? It's just a fucking business negotiation. Yeah. Well, we talked about it before when it all, they started talking about there being a labor shortage when it was being framed that way, like a few months ago. And, like, in terms of economics, like the actual study and theory of economics and whatnot, the first thing that happens in a legitimate labor shortage is that wages go up because that's how. how that works.

Right. So it's not a short, a genuine shortage of workers. It's just people saying, no, fuck that. It ain't worth it, you know,

like just pay them more and they will work for you. It's pretty simple. There was a tweet, a thing that was a viral the other day. The guy said he tried to offer us people $14 an hour to unload a truck and nobody would pay it to was doing it himself. And he was wying about that. It's like,

but in capitalism, if no one wants to sell what you. you're buying at a price you have to raise the fucking price right right and i saw that thing you said and like the first reply on it was like you're literally complaining about having to take your own offer yes like that's essentially what happens like you made an offer nobody took it you took it and now you're like look at this bullshit i'm having to do somebody else should be having to do this this ain't right it's just so ridiculous and like at this point i genuinely don't know if if we will anybody will ever be able to be able to

to get over to those people who say things like nobody wants to work anymore because that's such a ridiculous thing to say like there are so many people out of work that would would have loved to work so many people lost their jobs in the pandemic did not want that to happen but like i'm so i'm in dc and at the end of the block where i've been walking every morning to get my coffee there's like a little like homeless little area like with tents like hooverville situation like i'm not saying that to be funny i'm you know what i'm saying like it's their own little area there's bunch of tents. We walk by and I mean, it looks rough, man. And me and Amber were walking by the other day. And I just looked there and I go, yeah, man, isn't it so funny that people back home have literally

said things like, I'll tell you what, they got it better than me. I wish that I could just be homeless and just live off of people's change or stuff. But I got to work. And I'm looking at this. Like, nobody wants to do that. And not even on that tier, but like, dudes are out of work sitting on their couch at home right now. And there's some of them that are sacks of shit. But most of them like it's a pride thing people want to work but people want to be valued and if you go into a job and you're being completely underpaid like yeah i'm gonna leave because dude when you think about it like with what the minimum wage is everybody's like oh it's like what it's seven bucks or whatever an hour of your life for the cost of a big mac dude an hour of your life and all that

that hour gets you as a big mac like when you really put it in terms like that that's the value you put on a human life people want to work it's just that they also have to feed their goddamn family and have a roof over their head it's insane right that's the whole thing if it was if people who worked at the minimum wage in this country was such that people who worked a full-time job could afford to live where they live pay the rent and buy the food and all that shit then none of this would be happening you know what i mean like that's that's really all that and that's like in a country that purports to be the very best in the entire world world, that should be a bare minimum requirement, in my opinion, is that people that work full

time can't afford to live in this fucking country. And they can't, almost anywhere. There's almost nowhere where that is true by the math. And so, you know, yeah, shit's out of whack. And again, it's a time of record profits, too, for the employers and shit. They're all raking it in the richer richer than they've ever been. They have the money to do this. They just won't do it.

And so people are making them. money during the pandemic to send William Shatner to fucking space. Yeah. And then it was a dick about it, by the way. Imagine sending William Shatner to space, and you're still the richest man after you did that. Did you say where Shatner came off and was starting to get like emotional talking about finally going to space and Bezos literally walked up and was just like, I'm going to stop you right there, William.

Listen, this was a great. But yeah, he just like cut him off and like, I think popped a bottle of champagne. Shatner's a recovering alcoholic, by the way. So he interrupts him, cuts him off. And he's like, listen, everybody's a great day. He popped champagne, starts spraying it all over place and shit. He is such a dick bag, dude, yeah. He sucks.

One of the reason you brought Corey on has got to hop off in a minute for work. Yeah. But I want to say this for a go. Like, it's just like I was at my local bar a couple of weeks ago right before the Ayatzi strike. I mean, a couple of crew guys were in there. And the owner's a bit of a crank. And he said something about he deep pulled that nobody wants to work anymore shit. And I thought these guys were going to beat the shit out of him.

And what they said was like, this profession is a divorce factory. I worked 90 hours a week. week. I don't see my wife and kids. And I was like, that's the reason you work is to spend time with people you love. You don't work just to go to work. It's fucking. You're still at least selling chunks of your life. The most valuable, precious, limited resource you have, these motherfuckers, you need to

get in exchange for stuff so you can buy time with your wife and kids and family and people you love and doing shit you like. So, yeah. Amen. All right. Yeah. With that. Thank you, Smart, Mark.

Appreciate it. Bye, Mark. And now the show's going to drop a couple IQ points. Now, baby. Yeah, that's what. Yeah, so the deal is Mark thought that he might have a work situation where he might have to leave. So we put old Kofo here.

That's a throwback. I haven't called you Kofo a while. On call, and he graciously agreed, so we appreciate it. Yeah, this whole working thing is a whole deal right now. I made a video about this whole kind of dynamic today because another thing that I've noticed. It's funny because you have people on both sides right now walking away from their jobs, but for such different reasons.

because the hardcore conservatives are always talking about how nobody wants to work in this country, God damn it, are also quitting their jobs because they refuse to wear a mask or get vaccinated or whatever. And they're like, no, that makes me a freedom fighting patriot. Exactly. These other people who just want to be paid, you know, a living wage, whatnot are lazy bags of shit. I'm a freedom fighting patriot. But everybody's just, you know, leaving work on both sides. And it's just a wild fucking time.

And it all boils down to the same thing that so many, I mean, dude, almost every time I've been on skews, some type of this has been brought up. It boils down to it's the dudes like Bezos who convince their millionaire underlings to convince Sean Hannity to make dudes who make $70,000 a year feel like they all have something in common. So that dude will shit on the guy making $25,000 a year saying you just don't want to work anymore. And how could you screw over these sweet CEOs who just want to provide you with a job at 38 hours a week so that they technically don't have to give you any health care at $7 an hour in a city like Seattle when there's no way that you're possibly going to be able to pay your rent, even if you are working, by the way, you're working a full-time job. still can't pay your rent, which, by the way, means that it is very possible, and of course

happens that when you see a homeless person, they could absolutely still be someone in the workforce, just because they're homeless doesn't mean there's someone not in the workforce. And you look at that and just be like, yep, that's why this country is going to shit, not because two dudes have all the money. They also, they convince themselves of all these different narratives around it, too, where it's like, I've talked to plenty of conservatives before about this whole thing and the idea of like what I was talking about earlier with, you know, most of them that I've met, if you ask them, do you think that in this country, if a person works full time,

they should be able to pay their bills, right? They'll say yes. And then if you say, okay, well, they can't. Right. So clearly something's fucked up. Then they start going into this whole thing. Well, they have a cell phone. Well, what are they spending their money on?

Yeah. Like, you know, what are they spending their money on? That's what I want to know. Like, they just automatically assume that everybody, they're all. just blowing it on fucking booze and drugs or whatever because they're just inherently lazy or, you know, irresponsible or whatever it is. But they convinced themselves of that shit.

Just like with, you were saying about the homeless people, they're like, hell, they got it made. You know what I mean? Like, imagine looking at a fucking person sleeping in a cardboard box with like

newspaper shoes or whatever. They say it about prisoners too. They got it made, man. They got it made. It's so insane. On top of that, not only that, they go,

they go yes i believe if someone works 40 hours a week that they should be able to live you know pay their rent and live you go okay well they can't they go what are they spending their money on break it down just a little bit and it's like so you think that if someone works 40 hours a week they should only right be able to live yeah right like because that's not a life by the way that is how fucking that's how like a son of sam motherfucker gets more like oh so all i can do the only thing i do is work for 40 hours a week i come home i eat a meal and i lay down in, I don't know, on the ground because beds are kind of expensive, and I watch the wall because I can't have a fucking TV.

Exactly. And then I get up the next day just so I can make this motherfucker money. That's, that is my dick, I would strike. That is 100% the other part of it, because one of the people I'm thinking of us specifically and I had this conversation, it went almost exactly like that. I started saying, I was like, listen, dude, just use myself as an example. I've been financially on my own since I was 18, all right? I put myself through college.

When I was in college, I was taking a full course schedule, making a, uh, making A's, and I was working 30 hours a week at a restaurant there, waiting tables, and I had all this extra curricular shit I was doing for my resume and whatnot. So I woke up in the morning and was going all day, either at school or work or whatever, keeping my grades up doing all that shit. And I was like, and I was broke all the goddamn time. And when I graduated college, I had a mountain of fucking debt. And I was like, what was I supposed to be doing any differently than what I, is that not the American,

way? Was I not bootstrapping it? What else was I supposed to be doing? And he was like, and he was just like, on Friday, you got a little drunk. If you just done that. And that's where he went to. He was like, he was like, okay, you're going to sit here and tell me that during that time you weren't spending any of your money on anything that you didn't really need. You weren't going out and buying beer and whatnot. And it's like, dude, like you just said, like, so I don't deserve to fucking try to enjoy myself at any point in this. Like if you, you know, like you said, you're only sure, you should be able to live. you work a full-time job but that's it literally only live you shouldn't be able to to enjoy life

in any capacity at all you don't deserve that and there are of course people of course there are people who just spend extravagantly money that they don't have of course but it's like it's the same as the the the myth of the welfare queen they don't make up enough of a percent to be the rule you know what i mean yes of course they exist but yes exactly it's not this i plague that they used to like nullify the system as a whole you know what I mean it's ridiculous and also I mean

not to not to be completely pandering and just like super cliche and just take an easy one off the tea right down the middle but like these are also Christians this is the party of Christians who I mean let's face it Jesus said more than one thing about the homeless and the

poor and it wasn't none of this yeah no I know sorry I'm looking through the comments over here I've seen some other people pointing out what you were just saying. No, no, talking up Christianity and basically what you just said. Rebecca Pruitt says it's called indentured servitude. Yeah, pretty much. That is accurate.

I mean, that's what they want, though. They literally want you to only exist to be on the, what's the thing when you're at the conveyor belt. it's got a conveyor belt the fucking I can't think of stuff when you work at a factory and it's the uh you know what the fuck I mean that's all they want they want goddamn they just want robots to just take their adder off

focus on their job and then go to bed and then do it over and over again and like at the end of the day they sort of conflate being a hard working man with patriotism and that's what you do to be an American you put you work for 65 years and then you get 10 good ones unless somebody takes your social security

or fucking pension from you and then you don't get shit yeah and uh sorry everybody i'm trying to get these comments pulled up but the system's going a little slow on me for some reason but janet smith says and this is a great point as well there's also a cost to being poor yep put off a hundred dollar dental cleaning eventually you pay for a thousand dollar root canal yep and that's also 100% true poor people have to buy shittier things that break more quickly and then they have to buy them again where if you have the money up front to pay for something of quality it actually saves you money in the long run for sure over draft fees at the bank versus the interest

you receive back you know assembly line by the way is how privileged i am that i couldn't think of the phrase assembly line yes what i was but dude it's 100% right and like it's not just like it's even tinier things than just health care like you know when you don't have a lot of money to spend on clothes and you got to go to one of the one wear stores and then you get a you know you get a button down shirt you wash it you dry and it just it just don't fit no more because it's cheap that happens like in me like in my life i do well so like i do buy more expensive clothes and when i do it i'm like well that's smart corey because this will last you longer but it's like yeah there was a time when like i could even if that logic was

sound i couldn't spend a hundred dollars on a pair of fucking jeans yeah um robin floyd says cori is an american hero that's awful sweet uh cho are you seeing any of these comments pop up Oh, over, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no, not, though. I just mean on the screen where me and yours had that. Yes, there is also a cost to being poor, put off. Yeah, the...

Okay, see, they're not, for some reason, they're not showing up on mine, so... Okay, sorry about that. I'll read them then. I'll read this one again. Corey is an American hero. Thank you, Rob, it's not true. Okay, so they are popping up, right? I'm sorry. Oh, I always remember at this point, as you guys always remind me to say to everybody,

hit like and subscribe and all that shit. We appreciate it. Still don't know exactly what all that does, other than the subscribe. thing but I appreciate y'all doing it so thank you for that it helps um yeah here we go let's see here sorry there's some uh while he's looking for those comments also please go to well read comedy dot com and get tickets to come see us on the road like he said we're in dc this weekend but we might be coming to a city near you there you go right there that gum producer matt yeah what producer matt do he put up the 2021 tour dates in the website you just think

got shit. I'm not getting any of the graphics at all, so I'm going to stop worrying about it. Matt, if you want to put comments up there and Corey, you can read them. I read them. I'm sorry, everybody. I'm having technical difficulties. At least y'all can still hear and I guess see me and all that. So yeah, my bad. But anyway, yeah, rich people don't hit, Joe. More than 11. Y'all have, you'll have skews shirts now. You've got merch. We do have shirts, yeah. Oh, that looks sweet. Go to weekly skews.com to get you one if that's what you want to do. I think as Georgia correspondent and I should get one. So I'm going to wait until you send it to him. me, but I would buy it. Yeah, and you're talking about how they just want robots, essentially, to just do their work for them and shut the fuck up and never do anything else. When we get actual robots and more people are unable to work because of the robots, those people will be lazy, worthless sacks of shit as well who deserve nothing because they refuse to work, even though, you know, you got what you wanted in the form of a robot. Matt says that my microphone looks like a second-hand banana. That's true. And I also would like to point out another little fun fact about this microphone. These are wine stains from when I was a horrible alky and would drink wine while we were doing our podcast and apparently just spit it on there.

And your facial hair too, the wine would get in like your facial hair and then you just get all up on the microphone rub it all over it. There's a lot of people from a few minutes ago. There's so many comments saying, Corey, assembly line. It's assembly line, Corey. They're assembly line workers, Corey. You idiot. It's a whole string of comments saying that. Look, man, I'm out of touch with reality.

I will be the first one to tell you. Natalie Nichols. We know Natalie Nichols. Hey, Natalie. It's godly to be the hardworking poor. Haven't you heard? That's another thing, right? It's supposed to be like, you know, of the Lord.

Dude, it just doesn't make, I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. And like, here's the deal. You're two types of people who say things like people just don't want to work. You either are someone who is in the complete upper class and you know that's not true. It's just that you don't want to pay them more money. You're either that or you are a complete brain dead dip shit who just doesn't want to hear any of the things that we just said. And like, screw hearing it from me. Like screw hearing it from some affluent white guy on the internet.

Go ask one of these workers. striking, why they're striking. And I promise you, they will lay it out for you. And another thing, too, I don't know if you've seen a strike or driven by a strike. Strikes look like harder work than my ass has done in five years.

You know what I'm saying? So like, it ain't about that. These are not lazy people. No, they're also, they're very like blue-collar people. The other thing is, like, it shouldn't be it's wild that the official party of fuck the poor and fuck working people.

are conservatives when you think of the typical demographics of a lot of blue-collar America. You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. And that's why I've said for years like-strike with them. Right. The Democrats should be so on top of shit like this. You know what I mean? Like part of the biggest branding for the Democratic Party should be like the official party of the working person.

You know what I mean? Like that should be driving that shit home all the time. And it's wild to me that they don't do more of. of that, you know. Hey, Shayla, Shayla says, by the way, I agree with you, Trey.

Shayla says that we should come to Portland, Oregon, pretty pleased with sugar on top. How about we're going to be there April 14th through the 16th? It's at well-read comedy.com. You can't get the tickets yet. But at April 14th through 16th, we'll be in Portland where there's a lot of good hardworking people. Yeah,

a lot of unicyclists too. That's, which is hard work, dude. Yeah, that's very hard work, dude. Dude, have you ever tried to juggle while on a unicycle? I have not, but I've... Well, in Portland, Oregon, so many people have mastered juggling on a unicycle.

I think bears can do that. Isn't that true? Yeah, I've seen some bears. They teach them that in Russia. Anyway, I don't know what I'm talking about. That's first grade. Yeah. We have learned the bear juggling.

Yes, teach the bear to juggle. The letter. Every first grader has to go out and steal a ball from a juggling bear and then come back. It's a ride of passage over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, sorry, like I said, y'all. I started having issues with the comments and stuff.

Has Ted Cruz had a soundbite on this whole strike thing? I don't know. I'm trying to think of the last thing I saw Ted Cruz say. It was definitely some dumb shit, but I don't think it was about this. um do you see him in that ask he like was wearing a astros jersey like tucked in no but dude he just he's such a piece of shit dude yeah he's like he ain't he ain't a human person no he's not a human man he's like he's some sort of uh blob netherworld blob masquerading as a as a human man in a skin suit and you can tell it by the way he wears human clothes and stuff just not

right he don't do it right i know that like he believes all the things that those people believe and thus they vote for him but like my god has there ever i like i like i get that part of it but like dude there's like if if if ted cruz was the way he was but also a democrat i would hope that we would burn him primary yeah i i know i always i can't believe he hasn't been primary it's wild to me too because he like it seems like no one likes he don't hit for nobody Right, yeah, but apparently plenty of Texans do, I guess, or it's just they hate the Democrat opponent so much. We've got a comment here says, please come to Ottomwa, Iowa, I hope I said that right. I'll even give you lodging.

Matt points out that's home to the John Darestrike. Well, I'll be damned. Well, I know that we go to Iowa all the time. That's where Corey's people-in-law is at. Yep, I go to Webster City, Iowa all the time. We do Des Moines and Iowa City once a year. I don't know how close those are. I know that Iowa's like a whole state and everything.

It is. But it's a whole state. But yeah, dude, I love Iowa, man. Porkloin, you ain't going to get a better pork loin anywhere in this country. Corn, absolutely tremendous. People who are complete apolitical, but also redneck lunatics. Good stuff. Yeah, man, them frosty plains out there.

Love it, Cornfield. The zombie burger, that's what's up. Bombie Burger and also one of the greatest gas stations in the entire world, Casey's, which has the absolute greatest breakfast pizza in the entire world that has saved me on so many frosty mornings. Is that the squirrel or woodchuck or whatever? No, that's a... No, I know Casey's.

It kind of looks sort of like barnish. Yes. Or like a red barn type thing? Yeah. They did just rebrand, but you're correct. Now it looks a lot like the... It just says Casey's, but it looks like the Wendy's font, and it's a red background in the white, and I keep thinking they're Wendy's,

but I pull over anyways because I like them both. We closing strong here, baby. That's right. Thank you for joining us. Sorry. Rippeting stuff. That ain't your fault. Hell, I got into it.

I got all flustered over the comments recently anyway. So anyway, thank you very much for filling in for Smart Mark. We appreciate it as always. That's Corey Ryan Forrester. And I'm Trey. Go to well-redcomedy. To see us both Andrew Morgan out there on the road.

We'll be at D.C. D.C. Imprope this weekend. Thank you all very much. We'll be back a week from now here on Excuse. Say you love you back. I love you.