The State of the Union: No Guest only Voters.

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Now, wait a minute. Now, wait a minute. [00:00:03] Speaker B: I think that we've done a lot of these episodes, and we're getting into a great rhythm. We've had great times with all of our guests, and I gotta vote. [00:00:14] Speaker A: You gotta vote. [00:00:15] Speaker B: And I, I worry that we might be losing ourselves in the bits a little bit and becoming maybe like a bit of a function of the wallpaper, know, blending back into the wallpaper. And so I thought it would be a good time. As we find new guests, the show picks up in popularity, more people are discovering us. I thought it'd be a good time to do sort of a State of the Union and reintroduce the show and all of us to people who haven't really thought about us as people outside of this great show. [00:00:51] Speaker C: No voting today in I I. Well, I, I, yeah, I, I, I can do an intro. [00:00:58] Speaker B: We can always vote, vote, vote, vote. Is that not an intro? Go ahead. [00:01:05] Speaker A: I mean, okay, that's an intro. I just want to know if I can vote or not. [00:01:09] Speaker C: It is an intro. It's just we usually yell about voting. So, yeah, it was just a different, you know, it's just a different vibe. [00:01:17] Speaker B: You. We should always. Internal democracy is the best democracy, Kennedy. I mean, internal democracy, voting isn't just a single system, and a healthy democracy is not one election. A healthy democracy isn't even just your midterm elections. It's elections about elections. Democracy is a series of extreme micro decisions, and you don't always have to yell about all of them. It should just be like brushing your teeth. Sometimes you just do it. [00:01:50] Speaker C: This election, which will be, I do truly believe, the most important election of our lifetime. [00:01:56] Speaker A: This is the most important election of our lifetime. [00:02:00] Speaker C: This is the most important election. [00:02:02] Speaker A: Don't you you hear that? This is the most important election in our lifetime. [00:02:07] Speaker C: I certainly think it's the most important election of my lifetime. [00:02:10] Speaker A: This is the most important election of our times. [00:02:14] Speaker B: Politicians say every time, this is the most important election. This one's really that important. [00:02:19] Speaker C: I mean, if I yell all the time, maybe it won't be interesting anymore when I yell about voting. [00:02:25] Speaker B: Right, you're free to yell, but it's okay to save it, too. [00:02:29] Speaker C: That's. That is a concern. I think that a lot of our listeners are starting to have, I think they're starting to say, kennedy, what if, yeah, what if you yell about every election? What if you scream at us every time there's an election? Will we know which elections are still important? [00:02:48] Speaker B: Well, the Shelley and the answer. [00:02:50] Speaker C: The answer, it luckily Is easy. It's easy to know the answer to this question because the answer to which elections are important is of course, all of them. All of them are important, and all. [00:03:06] Speaker B: Of you are important. [00:03:08] Speaker C: This is an open book test. [00:03:11] Speaker A: Especially you, listener. Yeah, you specifically. Nobody else is hearing me say this. You are very important. [00:03:18] Speaker C: Yeah. We only have one listener. Joe Biden. [00:03:22] Speaker A: No, we have plenty. Okay, fair enough. [00:03:25] Speaker C: Joe Biden is always listening to every episode. We make this podcast at his request and his behest, and this was a. [00:03:33] Speaker B: Fact long before even we started this show. [00:03:38] Speaker A: I think we're talking about the Batman character. Or is it Spider Man? It's Spider Man. [00:03:42] Speaker B: The Biden administration was watching us long before he was even. We knew him back when he was just a regular puppet of the State Department. Yeah, I mean, our. Our thing with this guy goes way back. [00:03:55] Speaker C: Joe Biden also paid for not safe for wonks. [00:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah. If. [00:03:59] Speaker C: For those of you who remember that show, you know, Joe Biden completely bankrolled, has completely bankrolled my entire political career personally. And he's. He's the only person listening right now. So thank you, Joe Biden, for your support. [00:04:15] Speaker A: Thanks for Linux. Thanks for Linda Khan, Joe Biden. She did a great. [00:04:19] Speaker B: We really learned that in polit. The best audience is an audience of one. [00:04:26] Speaker C: An audience of one. [00:04:27] Speaker A: Are we all an audience? [00:04:28] Speaker C: Who is the president? [00:04:31] Speaker A: Aren't we all an audience to each other? [00:04:33] Speaker C: Really makes you think, wow, aren't we all a president to each other? I'm actually not sure if that one's true. [00:04:41] Speaker A: President Andrew. I am President Andrew. A better one. Not the one you're thinking of. Anyways. Kennedy and Brandon, since this episode seems to be so atypical, what will we be talking about today? [00:04:54] Speaker C: Well, you know, we're going to be talking today about just the state of the union. We're here, we're unionized, and we're in a state. The state is confusion or perhaps panic. [00:05:07] Speaker A: I live in Illinois. I live in Illinois. [00:05:10] Speaker C: For some people listening, it might be Ohio, which is even scarier. [00:05:15] Speaker A: I thought you said Ohio wasn't real. [00:05:18] Speaker C: That was pretty scary. [00:05:20] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, My background photos at home. I live it next to one of the top 10 most dangerous intersections in my city. I'm constantly hearing something in the background and looking and sometimes making sure everybody's alive. [00:05:35] Speaker B: Oh, I thought you were just like rotating in different. [00:05:41] Speaker A: No, that was a car revving engines. At the most, one of the top 10 most dangerous crossroads in my city. [00:05:51] Speaker C: It did sound like a comical car engine, though. [00:05:55] Speaker A: Oh, no. I'M hearing that all the time. [00:05:56] Speaker B: It sounded like something Sonic the Hedgehog would kill for sure. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Anyways, I'm sorry. [00:06:03] Speaker C: We're here today to talk about how things don't always work out. [00:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:08] Speaker A: Sometimes moving next to a terrible crossroads. [00:06:14] Speaker B: We'Re talking about the State of the Union. And I think for most people, even if they're optimistically minded, they would say they're in a state of surviving many near misses and near catastrophes. And you know, with our viewers, with our co hosts, with our guests, when we talk to them about the experience, they are often just shell shocked, like they've survived a disaster. They're walking around on wobbly legs like Sandra Bullock at the end of gravity. That's all to say that now's a good time to talk about some of our near misses. What are some of the disasters that you were almost subjected to but just slid out of the way from some of the choices as a voter that you weren't quite pigeonholed into making. [00:07:02] Speaker C: And on the subject of choices as a voter that we weren't quite pigeonholed into making, we're also going to be talking today about a few of. A few of those electoral choices that we've had in recent years that the voters chose not to make. I want to start off with a few. A few classics. Some classics that y' all don't. Ben Carson. [00:07:29] Speaker A: Not before. We were planning for this episode, to be clear, and I liked it better that way. [00:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah, Ben Carson had some minor notoriety in the black community before he ran for president. [00:07:43] Speaker A: It's just like, what was that surgery that he did that put him on the map? [00:07:48] Speaker B: Well, you know, everybody. I mean, people suspected that he might be right wing, but just as a. He had sort of a. A space as a vague, inspirational, positive figure. [00:08:01] Speaker C: Yeah. And he kind of. He kind of took that goodwill, ran with it to the top of a mountain, lit it on fire, and then that was. That was kind of the last anyone ever heard from him. [00:08:13] Speaker A: Wait, did they name Carson City, Nevada, after Ben Carson? Wow, what a mistake. [00:08:20] Speaker C: Used to be the nightmare there. [00:08:22] Speaker A: Okay, but seriously, every time I read his name, it's not 100% his fault. But my retail job I used to work was a department store called Carson's. So not only do I think of the politician, I think of that job I hated. [00:08:39] Speaker B: I love the idea of a nightmare being someone on a search for redemption. [00:08:44] Speaker A: The Daymare has found themselves, but the nightmare uses the darkness of the night to reflect on who they truly are. [00:08:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I like the Idea of the nightmare being formerly cancelled or with some degree of notoriety. That's pretty interesting. [00:09:03] Speaker C: Nightmare definitely needs to be somebody who's capable of bane posting. Yeah, like I want to hear some about how the darkness of the night lives inside your heart. [00:09:17] Speaker A: You know what you all make me, I want to be my city's nightmare. Now, it's not a big city, so like, you don't need a big, like I, I, I'm not capable of doing a big city. Right, but it's a smaller city, a smaller big, not a big, big city. [00:09:32] Speaker B: Would y' all like to meet the nightmare of Atlanta? Because Atlanta does have one. And I, I am a member of the little Five Points Business Administration. And we, we, we've met the nightmares somewhere in the the bracket because we're a nightlife. [00:09:49] Speaker C: We should, we should talk to the nightmare. I've got questions and answers. [00:09:57] Speaker A: Who else do we have to talk about today? [00:10:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:02] Speaker C: Yeah. So Ben Carson, you know, he, he famously burned up a lot of goodwill running for president. He's not the only person to do that sort of thing. Rand Paul, I think, was a guy that sort of had a relatively okay reputation in politics, but before he ran for president and then after he ran for president, everyone looked at him under a magnifying glass and was like, oh, man, this guy's super weird. If you look at him up close, this guy. [00:10:29] Speaker A: Is Tim Walt's voice weird? [00:10:33] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's something about for the. [00:10:36] Speaker A: Longest time I called him Paul Rands because Rand is his first name and Paul's his last name. Okay. I've had to really put that in my mind. [00:10:45] Speaker B: There's a Ron Paul, a Rand Paul and a Paul Ryan. The simulator writers, you know, Jake, Paul, Logan, Paul. Yeah. Then they did a Jake, Paul, Logan. [00:10:55] Speaker A: Heinran, I don't care. [00:10:57] Speaker B: The writers are juggling a lot of those kinds of guys. If George R.R. martin can lean into it, why not real life? [00:11:04] Speaker C: Yeah, but if George R. Martin did it, they'd all be a part of the same family and there would be a lot of intrigue. You know, Jake Paul and Rand Paul would have public feuds. It'd be a lot more fun. [00:11:16] Speaker B: That said, yeah, there'd be some kind of romantic affair between the Jakes and the Pauls and the Ryan. [00:11:22] Speaker A: But you know who I remember from the past who I still think can make a comeback? [00:11:28] Speaker C: Jeff Bush, baby. [00:11:31] Speaker A: So, so he's gonna get next election. He's gonna win every state. [00:11:36] Speaker B: But there's got to be like a non zero reality of Jeb Bush resurgence. [00:11:42] Speaker C: Well, no, no, yeah, for sure. In fact, I think it's kind of fascinating when people with that much dynasty power fail. Yeah, like, like, by all accounts, like, Jeb kind of should have been well poised to be a presidential candidate. [00:11:56] Speaker A: The little guy that I like to. [00:11:58] Speaker B: Call Donald Trump had, had his, had his brother been a compassionate conservative. The Iraq war made it that there was never going to be any other Bush family member. I mean, it was one of the most unpopular wars of American history. It's like if Lyndon B. Johnson had a brother, actually. [00:12:21] Speaker C: Although this is a good take in some ways, I actually disagree, though, because George managed to overcome that. [00:12:28] Speaker B: Well, had Donald Trump. [00:12:30] Speaker C: Daddy, Daddy, Daddy Bush. Daddy Bush couldn't even get elected a second time because his war was so unpopular. [00:12:38] Speaker A: Don't call him Daddy Bush. Don't call him Daddy Bush. [00:12:41] Speaker B: If, if Donald Trump had not been in the picture, then there's certainly some kind of reality where Jeb Bush wins the nomination and the election on the shear. They gave this guy more money than he knew what to do with. He could have, in a Romney, like way, gotten through. Maybe, but it's hard to imagine. [00:13:04] Speaker C: Just not a likable enough guy. [00:13:07] Speaker B: Yeah, well, yeah, I think so. And also, I think the Republicans, like, you know, that stuff about Jeb that, that we all find charming and humanizing. They really hate that stuff. [00:13:20] Speaker A: Jeb. [00:13:20] Speaker B: Yeah, they don't want, they don't want a candidate that libs are smiling, talking about. [00:13:27] Speaker C: Yeah. Sort of the opposite of George, where, like, you know, as much as we roast George W. Bush's folksy attitude, it worked on a lot of the voters that he was trying to reach. Jeb had the opposite thing going on where instead of reaching Republicans, it was like the left found him funny. That's bad for you as a Republican candidate. [00:13:48] Speaker B: He did not. He did. He did not really. He did not own the libs anywhere near enough. The libs were never owned by Jeb. [00:13:58] Speaker C: But, you know, we can't, we can't give the libs a pass for all their candidates. What about John Edwards? [00:14:05] Speaker A: I remember the name, but I have no fucking clue who you're talking about. [00:14:10] Speaker C: Oh, you don't remember the guy who burned up the entirety of his goodwill by cheating on his wife who had cancer? [00:14:17] Speaker A: Ringing some bells like. I remember the story. [00:14:23] Speaker B: Oh, this is the really, really a disaster to that political coalition because there was no real successor to John Edwards, politically speaking. It went to Obama. And that's a whole nother story. [00:14:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I, I don't remember the name, but I, I'm seeing his face and I want to punch it. So I never heard this story before. I know. I've heard that he was a vice. [00:14:51] Speaker B: Presidential nominee for John Kerry. He was the 2004 vice presidential nominee for John Kerry. He was a senator from the Carolinas to balance out, literally Jeb Bartlett and John Kerry. [00:15:08] Speaker C: Yeah, it almost worked for a minute. [00:15:11] Speaker B: John, he was a. [00:15:16] Speaker C: Oh, he, he. [00:15:16] Speaker B: You can listen in Minecraft speaking. He was just doing Jesse Jackson. Anybody can go do that at any time. [00:15:25] Speaker C: True. And John Edwards does listen to the show, by the way, because Joe Biden makes John Edwards sit in the chair. [00:15:31] Speaker A: I've just heard a knock. I just heard a knock on my door. I think I heard the somebody say FBI. [00:15:38] Speaker C: I thought those agents were busy redacting files with Donald Trump's name in them. [00:15:43] Speaker A: Oh, right. We have a Republican presidency. I'm fine for the next four years. Yeah. [00:15:47] Speaker C: So, you know, sometimes, even when you are well positioned politically, even when the machine is relatively behind you, there's money being thrown at you. Things go wrong. We're just a small podcast. We don't, we aren't getting $100 billion in coke money like Coca Cola or cocaine like Coke Brothers, but any of the above could be funding a political campaign. So yeah, like we tried Coca Cola. [00:16:18] Speaker B: Sigmund Freud brands, cocaine, cocaine, and neither of them have, none of them have stuff. [00:16:26] Speaker C: We called all three of them and none of them got back to us about a sponsorship. [00:16:32] Speaker A: I called John Coke, nothing. [00:16:35] Speaker C: But yeah, so you know, as just as just a sort of regular podcast of mid level Internet wannabe comedians. [00:16:50] Speaker A: I'm still, I'm still low level. You two are mid level. I'm still low level. [00:16:56] Speaker C: I heard Ken Klippenstein followed you recently. [00:16:58] Speaker A: I can either confirm nor deny I'm. [00:17:01] Speaker C: Moving up in the world. [00:17:02] Speaker A: Okay, so Mara Wilson follows me on Blue Sky. I'm still small. I will never be a medium sized account. I will always be a small account. [00:17:12] Speaker C: That's what every, that's what every account that's becoming medium sized starts saying they all. They all start. That becomes like everyone's been for like six months. [00:17:23] Speaker A: No, no, let's move on. I don't want to think. I don't want to become an account. I don't want to become a poster o. A poa. [00:17:32] Speaker B: A medium, A medium sized account. It's just a small sized account that had two popular. [00:17:37] Speaker A: I need to, I need to make more bad jokes. I'm not making enough bad puns. I need to make more Bad puns. My New Year's resolution is more bad puns. [00:17:49] Speaker C: That'll help. Yeah, that'll bring you back down. So, you know, not everything that we plan for this show works out. We make plans for this show sometimes, and sometimes we think that they're even maybe pretty good and they don't end up going the way that we had hoped. Like, we recently recorded an episode about the Simpsons. We for a good while debated if that episode should be the Simpsons and Epstein. And it just. It just felt like the comedy wasn't there and that it was too icky, you know? [00:18:24] Speaker B: Well, for me, I just thought the comedy was just gonna get. This is just gonna get more absurd. They're just gonna get more. I mean, the comedy isn't haha comedy, but darker things in human history have been. [00:18:39] Speaker C: Oh, sure. I just meant at this particular moment in history, though, and especially not just because of the timing, though, but also because of the ways in which we would have potentially linked it to the Simpsons that we were coming up with. All of them were like dark road endings. [00:18:56] Speaker A: Think when it comes out. Well, it'll be out by the time that this comes out. You'll find it pretty wacky. Yeah. [00:19:04] Speaker C: We ended up having a good time with it, taking it in a different direction that I think worked pretty well. But yeah, the initial concept. The initial concept for a while was like, would be the Epstein episode. But again, just the nature of, you know, the content we were. That we were working with. We just kept trying to link up these two topics and yeah, Brandon, like, it's not that I. I don't think there's any way for us to do a funny Epstein episode. I just thought Simpsons and Epstein just. It just kept not lending itself, like something was not linking up there. [00:19:43] Speaker A: Are we talking about New York politician Harvey Epstein? [00:19:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:49] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. [00:19:50] Speaker B: Pretty phenomenal bit. I did laugh watching Saturday Night Live. [00:19:55] Speaker A: That was one of their better skits, for sure. Harvey Epstein watches Saturday Night Live when it first airs. He's a fan, so he loves that skit. The actual R.V. epstein. [00:20:10] Speaker C: Yeah, it's definitely like a Matt. A Matt Gertz situation. [00:20:15] Speaker B: And he won kind of by default. Yeah. The guy he was running against is just somebody you wouldn't. [00:20:21] Speaker A: I want to vote for the guy who's on Saturday Night Live, obviously. [00:20:26] Speaker C: So, you know, that was an episode that didn't work out. Also, a guest brought up the topic of Dark Souls. [00:20:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And play Dark Souls someday. [00:20:38] Speaker C: I'm not against the. I'm not. We ended up going with something else with that guest and ended up going. It ended up being a really good episode. But I'm not against the idea of doing Dark Souls necessarily, but that one seems challenging. I'm not gonna lie, you know, for a lot of these episodes, kind of pull back the curtain a little bit. [00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:55] Speaker C: It's not like. Or any of us on this show, like, naturally know everything about pop culture. We have to do research. A lot of times when our guest brings us a topic. [00:21:06] Speaker A: Sorry, I just thought of the next episode we're about to do. And I just invested in the show. Continue. [00:21:12] Speaker B: I mean, the thing that we do is we ask the guests that we want, what do they want to talk about. And then we watch whatever the show is. We think about it. We think about what kind of challenging questions we could ask. It's a pretty. [00:21:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Next week, the episode after this one, it took all four of us, the three hosts, you hear, and our editor working together to come up with a topic. Like, we all were involved in this one. The next one. [00:21:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think it works out really well. And sometimes we have episodes where one of us knows everything about the topic. Of course, you know, if somebody does an episode about Stardew Valley or something. [00:22:00] Speaker A: Yeah. When Pokemon was mentioned, I instantly said children's rights movement, and everybody went with that. [00:22:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's great when there's, like, an esoteric philosophical knowledge, like with the Gundam episode, and somebody can say, oh, yeah, this goes to something that, like, especially when it's two obscure topics. I find that, like, if you're a listener, you're having a lot of fun because you're learning about two things that you might not have known about either of them at all. [00:22:33] Speaker A: And you're laughing. Is good. Laugh, please. Clap. Please clap. [00:22:38] Speaker B: You're laughing. You're hearing about two basic concepts in American democracy and pop culture, and you haven't heard of either of them because you are both sheltered culturally and politically ignorant. And you're laughing. You think it's funny. I do. Tired of pretending it's not. Yeah. I don't know. It's great. [00:23:01] Speaker A: You're great. [00:23:03] Speaker B: I think that we've had great chemistry with the guests. [00:23:06] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, we've had fantastic. [00:23:08] Speaker B: Every guest, almost every guest that we've had has been fun to have on. I wouldn't even say almost. We've not had any guests where I'm like, glad to get rid of them. What a bunch of losers. [00:23:19] Speaker A: Hey, Kennedy, remember that time you said you would welcome Will Stancil if he wanted to be on the show. Well, I think he would be the. [00:23:28] Speaker C: Ah, that would be the exception. [00:23:33] Speaker B: So you remember when President Trump and the Vice president both like, verbally jumped Zelensky in the Oval Office with the cameras running. And then there was an awkward silence afterwards as Zelensky is like, explaining the real human stakes of the conflict in Ukraine. And, and Trump sits back and he's like, boy, this is gonna make a great video. We're a little bit like that. Sometimes something hits the fan. It's crazy. And if, even if it were to be Will Stancil or anyone like that, we would just have the blow up and then we afterwards be like, well, great video, by the way. Also, there are, there are definitely, I don't think Will stance so literally, but there are definitely Will Stancil adjacent people who would happily come on here and take any kind of verbal confrontation from us. I bet we could get New York Times columnist Ezra Klein on this show. [00:24:39] Speaker A: What? [00:24:39] Speaker C: Why? Why do you want. Why do you want torment for us? [00:24:44] Speaker A: Speaking of dark soul. Speaking of dark souls, you're putting us. You're putting podcasting. [00:24:52] Speaker B: Brandon, we're talking about dark souls and fandoms we're familiar with. I figure, Andrew, you're probably like one or two fandoms removed from the abundance pill. People, you're a statistician. [00:25:04] Speaker A: Oh, God. Abundance. Oh, abundance. [00:25:09] Speaker B: Talk about the. The. Give them your degree. Let the editors edit in. Your degree. [00:25:14] Speaker A: Don't talk about abundance. [00:25:17] Speaker C: My conclusion here is that Ezra Klein come on the show and talk about dark souls. [00:25:23] Speaker B: I love that. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. Come on. Talk about dark souls. We're gonna get into an argument about abundance. [00:25:30] Speaker B: No, we missed it. You know, like, I write another book and then we'll talk about dark. [00:25:37] Speaker C: Yeah, you guys, you gotta be promoting a new book. [00:25:40] Speaker B: The Abundance Press. [00:25:41] Speaker C: We're not. We're not just gonna have you on in between. In between cycles. Yeah, you gotta. You gotta be. You gotta be poppin. You gotta write a new book. [00:25:51] Speaker B: Yeah, new book. [00:25:54] Speaker A: The book Abundance literally says we need to get rid of cheap ilk air filters for houses along the highway. It literally says we need. Well, it's. It's like, well, imagine, you know, uses that language. But the conclusion is those houses don't need those cheap air filters that dramatically improve quality of life. Life. Like you two are testing me today. Let's continue. [00:26:21] Speaker B: Whenever anyone says. Read it out. That I said to be fair. Whenever anyone says there's a spending cut and they say, or they're, you know, what are you willing to cut? Tell Us what you're gonna cut. And so at least there is an answer. And the answer is like, yeah, life's. [00:26:42] Speaker A: Gonna be better when we can't. When poor people can't breathe. Continue, Kennedy. I am, as the kids put it, perturbed, as the kids put it. [00:26:52] Speaker C: You seem, you seem a little upset. [00:26:54] Speaker B: Ezra's podcast. As podcast people, we, we'd love to know your music library that you use. We love some of the beats. Anyway, you got the great NPR library. [00:27:07] Speaker A: I. Okay, we talked about this being a Lore episode, so I'll just put this down. I've been homeless as a teenager, so I have a lot of opinions on these housing solutions and some of these people that try to make things look good or I have strong opinions on those chart types that show that give you a chart to tell you everything's fine. I will calm down. Give me a second. [00:27:35] Speaker B: But you're voting. What made you enthusiastic about voting? [00:27:39] Speaker A: I mean, it was, it was Bernie Sanders. I mean, first, at this point, like voters at home. I have a confession to make. In 2023, I did not vote in my mayor in my local city campaign, and a maga MAGA mayor won because I did not vote. And this is only half a bit like, I regret not voting in that election. I regret not being able to say I voted against her. So, yeah, I've gotten more serious about voting since then. Yeah. [00:28:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's easy to not take it seriously, and a lot of times there's no reason to take it seriously. And that can make it easy to take your eyes off the prize of when it does matter. [00:28:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:34] Speaker C: And I know that this isn't supposed to be a serious show or whatever, so I'm not gonna belab the point. But, you know, right now, another subject we've had a little trouble voting about is nuclear proliferation. This is something that has come up over and over again. [00:28:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Every time the concept, this concept comes up, it blows up in our faces. [00:29:05] Speaker B: I feel like I'm the person that keeps floating nuclear proliferation. And it's just because I often like to think about time periods of politics. A lot of the time, pop culture or like a fandom is really about a specific point of time that was really cultural and interesting. And the time period of nuclear proliferation is, I mean, culturally, tons of nuclear. [00:29:33] Speaker C: Yeah, nuclear. [00:29:37] Speaker B: So it'll be the right thing. You know, I, I, they're remastering Metal Gear Solid three right now. And also a lot of, a lot of the ideas and things that we talk about, I think they can all have sequels. [00:29:55] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah. There's. There's. There's lots of ways to touch on a lot of these topics again. And so it's not even to say that we have to pick the right moment for nuclear proliferation and never discuss it again, but it's always felt like loaded topic that will have kind of a bigger discussion around it and be complicated to discuss and blah, blah, blah. And there's just, you know, there's just that extra layer of complexity, like an onion, you know. But like, Death Note was one that we considered for nuclear proliferation. Like, obviously that kind of the idea of, like, different nations having a Death Note. Which nations would get a Death Note. There was something to that. I like, I. I like where we took the Death Note episode. [00:30:46] Speaker B: Probably will do that again, because the. The thought experience, the thought experiments that we had were pretty. [00:30:53] Speaker C: Yeah, I would. I would definitely do another Death Note episode. And yeah, maybe it'll be Death Note nuclear Proliferation. But we did just once we landed on Havana Syndrome. That was such a funny thing to pair with Death Note that. That just kind of won. And then Gundam is another one we talked about with nuclear proliferation. And I mean, we sort of cheated in the sense that we did Naito. So did we do nuclear proliferation or not? Not really, but we kind of skirted. We did skirt the edge a little. [00:31:28] Speaker A: Bit. [00:31:30] Speaker C: But we did do a NATO standardization instead, which just ended up feeling like a. A natural sort of fit for that one as well. But, you know, we're gonna. It's gonna happen. [00:31:43] Speaker A: You're gonna happen. Okay, everybody, you just got Kennedied. [00:31:49] Speaker C: Something else we've been working on is this concept of a. An episode about, like, the console wars and who was president at the time that different consoles came out. But, like, I don't know, like, we had this idea one time and we were like, yeah, yeah, we're cooking. And then, like, we came back to try to write the episode and it didn't really make sense. [00:32:16] Speaker B: The console wars are one of those topics that's like politics in that it's got endless nuance, it's got endless competition, it's got endless wrinkles, and it's got structure. Especially like the SEGA died. [00:32:34] Speaker A: SEGA was killed. SEGA died. [00:32:37] Speaker B: So it seems to be just a concept that has a great energy. And it's also a topic that I feel like we could talk about for. For, like, a long time. So I don't know what it'll be, but yeah, when we find it, it'll be interesting. [00:32:53] Speaker C: I'm sure we're going to bring this concept back at some point. It's going to be great. It's just one of those funny things of like, we sort of had this idea and then like I said, we came back to write. It's like, you know when you're like musicians and you're jamming and you have a little riff and you're like, hey, that riff sounds really good. Let's come back and write a song around it later. And then you come back and try to write a song around it later and no one's playing the thing the same way. Like, like nobody, nobody was really. Nobody was really. Like nobody quite remembered what it was. Like, we have some notes, we actually have pages, we have like six pages of notes about this episode and ideas for it and, and it's just still not there somehow. [00:33:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a unique version of that situation. Yeah. [00:33:46] Speaker C: Last. [00:33:46] Speaker B: You know, if you have a riff and you can play it, then at least it's a 45 second song, right? Play it. It's not anything. [00:33:55] Speaker C: So I don't know. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll keep working on that one that may show up someday in your feed listeners. Also, last but not least, we, we've been on a long road trying to do women's suffrage episode that much like the nuclear proliferation one, this is one that gets tossed around, but this one's actually trickier. Whereas nuclear proliferation, we've had some that arguably we could have done and we just decided to go with something else. With women's suffrage, we still haven't quite had somebody suggest just the right thing. And I don't know what that is yet, but we'll know when we see it. It's definitely something that, like, I'm really interested in the history of that whole movement in this country. And I think as like an American history topic, it's something that, I mean, it's definitely one that we could talk about more than once even, but we're just kind of waiting for the right moment for it to land. But that's something that, like, I feel like we talk about like every other episode. We go, hey, women's suffrage. And then we go, no, probably not this one. [00:34:55] Speaker B: I think that we'll find a real suffrage head that'll probably suggest this autonomously. [00:35:02] Speaker C: Just actually, you know, somebody came in with Daria. [00:35:05] Speaker B: Okay, yeah. You know, this, this, this topic is a little bit like. And by this topic I mean the show itself. It's a little bit like pairing a wine and a pasta. You're kind of pairing two conversation types that a person does not normally get to have. You normally are not, like, just taught. Like, the people in your life that care about this thing, they've probably heard it to death. You know, it's sort of an interesting conversation in that it's a topic that you don't get to talk about in history. History and politics are definitely topics you don't get to talk about a lot. So sort of a unique, fun experience. [00:35:49] Speaker A: I'm not gonna spoil it when we get to the episode, but Montana of all states was the one with the politician who introduced what became the 19th Amendment. Like, there's something so much to talk about this, and I would like the proper chance to. Montana. [00:36:06] Speaker C: We're gonna find it. We're definitely gonna find it. It's such an interesting topic. You know, we're just. We're just not there yet. It's got to be just the right. You know, there's such interesting intersections of race, class, culture, things going on when you look at women's suffrage. But, you know, the right. The right thing will. The right thing will come up in front of us. And, you know, on that subject. On that subject, we each kind of have to kind of finish this off here. We each kind of have a short list of ideas for episodes that we'd like to have, topics that we'd like to see people bring. And so we're each just going to list off a couple of topics that we'd like to see in episodes. [00:36:51] Speaker A: Real quick, who are you starting with? [00:36:54] Speaker C: Andrew? Why don't you go first? [00:36:55] Speaker A: I did speak first, and that's how this works. All right. Photos at home. You're never gonna believe I'm gonna say this. The hedgehog. It's okay. [00:37:06] Speaker B: Yeah, there's. [00:37:09] Speaker A: There's a lot of good. Sonic Mania is fantastic. I'll defend Sonic Frontiers. But let's be honest. There's been a lot of. And that's gonna be fun to talk about. That's gonna be fun to bash. On the time Sonic became a knight or a werehog or a human princess kissed him thinking he was dead. Like, come on. We also have One Piece, which. It's One Piece. It's progressive. Luffy defies the world's government. Like, there's a lot going on here. It has a very realistic sense of making progress. It does rely heavily on the myth of the good king, but it's really. Luffy is constantly putting the hands from the evil person to the good one. And he's just a pirate traveling around like he's not going to have the time to. He's not going to have the decades needed to really establish a new kingdom. And he's a new government in each place. So he's doing his best. Then we have undertale. Deltarune. If you're familiar with them, you know you got to pair them together. Undertale is that game where you can spare or save enemies. In deltarune is a parallel. I think one thing a lot of people don't talk about is more so are deltarune. But they're the second person point of view. You're not the character that you usually control. You're another being that's usually in control of that. And the fact that you not always in control of them is a huge plot point in deltarune. They're hiding something from you. And finally, a little novel by Terry Pratchett. Discworld. It's Discworld. It's funny, it's progressive. It's Discworld. Like I'd love to do Discworld. Let's do Discworld. [00:39:00] Speaker C: Series of novels, but I'll allow it. [00:39:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. One book. One gigantic fucking book. [00:39:06] Speaker C: One small book. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Yeah. But like there's a lot of progressive ideas and all of this stuff. Even Sonic was meant to be like environment versus technology as a theme. So like. Yeah, yeah. [00:39:22] Speaker B: These are all interesting, good, compelling things. I want to see all of these. [00:39:28] Speaker A: Yeah, Even Sonic. You want to see Sonic? You want to see the Sonic episode? [00:39:32] Speaker B: Every. Every time that you do a Sonic joke, I do a seven minute bit on Sonic. So. [00:39:38] Speaker A: Okay, good. Yes, you. [00:39:40] Speaker B: We just gotta find a guess. Let's see fandoms that we have not covered sports. Is there someone who's into the history of a sports team? [00:39:52] Speaker A: My mom was a Red Sox fan. If we get a Red Sox. Oh my God. I'm gonna understand what they're saying. [00:39:58] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. Weird niche hobbies, collectibles, American Girl Dolls, DVD direct to DVD stuff. You know, I am a YouTube watcher and I love like watching three hour YouTubes on topics that I just. What? What is this? So yeah, if you collect something weird that's interesting to me, if you're in some weird fandom where there's infighting over something that the rest of us couldn't possibly care about. But you really want to get into it for an hour. That's super interesting. Batman's always interesting. Multiple guests, multiple hosts. Pov. More work for the editor. [00:40:43] Speaker A: Did you hear about Aztec Batman? [00:40:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh yeah, I saw Aztec God. [00:40:48] Speaker C: That looks so good. [00:40:49] Speaker B: I don't know anything about it. [00:40:50] Speaker C: Yeah, hopefully. Hopefully somebody will request that. That'd be cool. [00:40:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I'm probably gonna watch Batman Ninja vs Yakuza League. I watch even the lowest of the barrel Batman material. So, yeah, any Batman conversation, just ring us. [00:41:07] Speaker C: Yeah, those all sound cool. And both of you have brought up stuff that I think it's easy to see how there's some great political topics we could link them to. For me, a few that come to mind. I'd love for somebody to want to come on, talk about JoJo's bizarre adventure. [00:41:21] Speaker A: This must be the power their enemy stand. [00:41:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I think there's a lot of, you know, just coming up with what's Teddy Roosevelt stand or something. I mean, we'll probably come up with something even more clever than that, but just Donald Trump. It's just hilarious me to think about how we could do some stuff with that Dragon Ball Zed. [00:41:43] Speaker A: You're not British, Kennedy. [00:41:49] Speaker C: I. I'd love for. I love for somebody to want to talk about Dragon Ball Z. I think that'd be really cool. It's actually one that, like, I've kind of joked about since we started the show having, like a Dragon Ball Z episode, but we haven't actually done it yet. Now I'm starting to be like, okay, what's up? Where's our Dragon Ball Z episode? I also think the Puppet Master film series, this one I'm putting out there, especially because this one's a little bit more of a. The other two, I'm like, sure, somebody will come on soon and say, dragon Ball Z, let's do it. But Puppet Master is a little bit more of a strange, acquired taste to some extent. [00:42:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great niche choice. [00:42:31] Speaker C: It's. It's a. It's a bit niche. It's a bit niche. It's a bit something, but I think it would be a really fun one. There's a lot to say about that series of films. It's a fascinating series of films. So, yeah, I. I think that could be a really interesting one. [00:42:52] Speaker B: And then almost any niche film series with a lot of sequels probably has. Like, if somebody came here and they were really into Air Bud, I bet that would be a phenomenal episode. [00:43:02] Speaker C: Oh, I'm sure up in Master in particular, though, it's a much more interesting series in particular. Like, each individual film is, like, just kind of okay. But as a series, like, it's a lot more consistent and interesting than most horror series in terms of its lore and how dedicated it is to, like, Having a pretty deep internal canon of stuff, so there's a lot to chew on there. Last but not least, Twin Peaks. Come on. You know, I love David Lynch. I'd love for somebody to want to do a twin Peak. [00:43:36] Speaker A: A show so great it peaked twice. [00:43:39] Speaker C: I mean, that actually is true, though, because, you know, it got canceled and then it got. It had. There was the revival many, many years later. [00:43:46] Speaker A: Peaks. Twin Peaks. I love meaningful names. [00:43:49] Speaker B: I know you like the revival. Me asking you that is pretty ridiculous. [00:43:53] Speaker C: So I think Twin Peaks could definitely be a killer episode. An episode of all time. That's all I've got. And yeah, I think that's all we've pretty much got for this episode in general. Thank you so much, listeners. We're just sort of enjoying a little bit of indulgence with us. [00:44:12] Speaker A: We still voted today, right? We still voted, right? [00:44:15] Speaker C: We still voting? [00:44:16] Speaker B: Yeah. The state of our union is strong is where we are coming into to park here. The state of our union is strong. [00:44:26] Speaker C: Yeah, the state of the union is quite strong. [00:44:29] Speaker B: We will preserve this podcast for our futures, for our children, for our children's children. We will make these episodes for all mankind and for all time. God bless you and God bless the treadmill of podcasting pod. Save America. Is that taken? That's a great name. [00:44:53] Speaker C: That would be a great name for a show. [00:44:55] Speaker A: America. [00:44:58] Speaker B: Let's talk about this after. [00:45:00] Speaker C: Yeah, let's talk about this off the air. All right, thanks, everybody for voting along with us as always. We'll see you next time. Bye bye. [00:45:10] Speaker A: Bye forever. [00:45:11] Speaker B: Bye bye. [00:45:17] Speaker C: Thanks for listening.