Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Now wait a minute. Now wait a minute.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: As famed elder statesman and beloved American political icon Bob Dole once said, politics of failure have failed.
We need to make them work again.
Tomorrow, when you are sealed in the voting cubicle, vote for me.
Vote for Bob Dole.
Let's all get in our boat voting cubicles. It's time to strap ourselves in. Hold our. Hold our eyelids open and keep them glued to the voting screen at all times. Because it is time once again, you know it, for the most important election of our fucking lives. This election. Which will be, I do truly believe, the most important election of our lifetime.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: This is the most important election of our lifetime.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: This is the most important election.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Don't you you hear?
[00:00:59] Speaker C: This is the most important election in our lifetime.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: I certainly think it's the most important election of my lifetime.
This is the most important election of our times.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Politicians say every time, this is the most important election. This one's really that important.
[00:01:15] Speaker C: Vote early, vote often.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: So we're twirling towards freedom is what you're saying.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: This is gonna be a good one. I'm Kennedy Cooper. I'm always here. I'm stuck in the voting cubicle as mentioned, sealed in hermetically forever with as always, we've got our in house statistician, Andrew Fields.
[00:01:35] Speaker C: Remember everybody, the real reason Six was afraid of Seven was. Seven was secretly an assassin sent by Nine to kill Six. Nine faked her death. Nine faked her death.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Checks out. You really have all the. You're a real Tony Reali on this.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Brandon is here. Brandon was always here.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: The real Brandon was the friends we made along the way.
[00:01:54] Speaker D: This show is always like this and sometimes it just takes me a few moments to. To truly understand the moment that we're living in.
[00:02:03] Speaker C: Gotta vote.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Wow. Rude.
[00:02:05] Speaker C: Gotta vote.
[00:02:07] Speaker D: That's how elections are won. Now, did you know that if you're rude enough, they'll let you become deputy director of the FBI?
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:15] Speaker C: I'm gonna be super nice because I would never want that.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: We have an incredible illustrious guest here, somebody whose articles I enjoy waiting for on a regular basis and who is involved in quite a few just interesting things in general.
We've got the mighty Vin here with us today. Vin, thank you so much.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: I was told there would be pudding.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: There is pudding, but you have to eat it with your fingers.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Oh, wait, no, I'm looking here.
Oh, potting. Okay, well, that's different.
[00:02:46] Speaker C: Yeah, we have potting too, but you have to eat it with your fingers also.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Yes. Oh, thank you, Vin. Thank you so much. For being here today, I like to give our guests a chance. Whenever I remember, sometimes I forget to say something about themselves right at the start of the show in case people don't listen all the way to the end. So, yeah, listen to.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: The Monday night fake fights. That's not my thing, but listen to it anyway. But my thing is writing. So go to vinforte substack.com and subscribe for free.
Or you can throw a couple bucks per month if you'd like, because there's all sorts of weird articles and shit there. I did a big deep dive into the Virtual Boy recently.
I did a thing about Rick Rolling and Rick Astley.
Before that, I did some other stuff that I'm forgetting off the top of my head.
[00:03:38] Speaker D: Vin, may I. May I do. May I take over your plug for you? Although your plug was very good. What I'll say is, so many of the people that come in here, their content is fine, but I don't personally recommend it.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Double dumbass on you.
[00:03:54] Speaker D: But for. For Vin, I'll.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: I know you. I know you were just gonna stop right there. That.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: That's hilarious. Just cut right there.
[00:04:03] Speaker D: I did pause right there just in case the editor just wanted to go to town. But I will say that your column is actually one of the things that I look forward to every week.
It is a 2015, 2017 style blog where you never know what you're going to get. Just that it's going to be approached from a fascinating perspective with a lot of texture and detail.
When people say, oh, I miss when media was. First of all, it's just a sign of laziness spreading through our society. But it's just a reminder that that kind of peak cultural media didn't come to an end. There are people who still do it, and you are one of them.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: Oh, well, thank you. It was very sweet. And yeah, I pulled up the site right now. So if you. If you're interested in stuff like me revisiting the Tony Hawk Pro Skater trilogy on Game Boy Color, doing a deep dive into Brian Wilson's 60s side projects, and reviewing the lost Garfield Euro Dance album.
Yeah, there's a Garfield Euro Dance album I'm gonna be subscribing after this.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Legitimately content is legit.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a Garfield. Yeah, yeah, it's a legitimately great album. It's got a lead single called Cool Cat that has a music video and everything. And then the rest of the album doesn't really have anything to do with Cats. It's just like a Cool ass hero dance album that has a song called I'm getting high on it, which is just some lady yelling I'm getting high. And, like, that's the whole song. But it's on a Garfield album.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: It's. It's.
[00:05:46] Speaker C: Oh, all those words are in the Bible. Every single one.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: The father, the son, and the holy odie, or the holy John, whoever you.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Pray to talk about Garfield. Although now I'm wondering why, aren't we. Yeah, if only I should have backup prepped a Garfield episode and just.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah, Garfield is like the poochie of the Simpsons.
[00:06:10] Speaker C: What are we doing today, Kennedy?
[00:06:12] Speaker B: We're here to talk about a little. A little TV show about a family.
A little show.
Short show, folks get up to some wacky hijinks. A little animated program. It's crazy. I haven't really narrowed this down yet.
[00:06:32] Speaker C: Does it have a sitcom family Roseanne. Yes.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah, we're here to talk about.
[00:06:36] Speaker C: Oh, sure. I like to call Roseanne. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. I've just been told we'll get canceled if we do.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Oh, I know. It's the home improvement animated series.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: Oh, no, we're actually his new. His new, even shittier sitcom. You know how that guy. He just. He just makes a new.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: I know, but he still complains that. That conservatives don't get hired for sitcoms. But he's had, like.
[00:07:01] Speaker C: I don't think so, Tim.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think so, too. Every time his show gets canceled, he's like.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: But no, we're actually here to talk about the Simpsons. So, Vin, what made you want to talk about the Simpsons in particular with us today?
[00:07:15] Speaker A: I just think there's so. I think there's so much you could do with the Simpsons doing, like, something political. And I was. I had my own ideas, but Garrick said, no, no, no. All we need is the Simpsons. And then we make. All you need to do is pick out the main ingredient for the stew. We will create the stew. So I'm curious what the stew is.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Yeah, this was an interesting one because it kind of felt like it could go a lot of places.
[00:07:42] Speaker C: Yeah, one of those where I had a hard time figuring out what to do just because you don't want to do anything too obvious. But everything's obvious with the Simpsons.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Yeah, they've already done everything.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Yeah, the Simpsons has done everything. I mean, the Simpsons predicted Trump getting elected.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: I hate. That's, like, my least favorite meme now is, like, the whole, like, dog Simpsons created this. It's like, because it started Way back when, when they did the whole, like.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Created is the thing that I think is frustrating about that attitude. Right. Like, it's.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: But, like, people are taking fake things now. Like. Like, the Trump one is just a fake. Like, Steve, oh, he went down an escalator. And there's like, no, he didn't. No, that was created after he was already, like, president.
It's like the whole, like. Because this started all the way back, like, it probably has been going on forever. But it really got kickstarted when they were like, Simpsons predicted 9, 11. Because in the New York episode, like, they show Lisa holds up a brochure that says 9 and 11 on it.
[00:08:42] Speaker C: It's like, okay, well, like, so the whole Trump thing, like, the escalator thing is stupid. But they did predict President Trump. Yes, they just. They did predict him, but that was just because he ran in the previous election, third party, and they thought he would be the funniest person who could have ruined the country.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: And that's it.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: That's all they did. And you know what? He was the funniest choice.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: Like, we're like, trump's going to be president one day. And then Trump watched that and was like, I'm going to be president. Or so I don't like.
[00:09:11] Speaker C: No, the joke. The joke was, Trump is never going to be president, but if he was, he would ruin the country. And half of that is right.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Can we get back to the days of, like, having Ross Perot be the big person people were making? Can we get back, like, Amanda Bynes making fun of Ross Perot?
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Or can we go back to make the Simpsons making fun of Bob Dole as I referenced at the start of the show?
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Like. Like, remember when making fun of Bob Dole used to be a big political thing? And it's like, that seems so harmless now.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: I only think that the harmless one to me is like, remember that? To think there was ever a time where Howard Dean going like that. Like, that was like, oh, God, we gotta get this guy out of here. Like, there's no way this guy can run.
He has to suspend his campaign immediately. He cannot be allowed to run. He's going to ruin the Democratic Party.
[00:10:01] Speaker C: Took that out of context, too.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: I know. He was just. He was. He was at a fucking rally. Like, he was literally rallying the fans. Like, this is what you want the guy to do.
[00:10:12] Speaker C: Like, they were discouraged after a surprising loss. What do you do? You try to get them happy again.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: He was rallying people at a rally, like, oh, Like, Jesus Christ.
[00:10:21] Speaker D: I don't, like, I don't know if you guys, like were alive back then, but this Howard Dean thing was bullshit at the time that it happened.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:31] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:10:33] Speaker D: Like, you know, they were first. They. I mean, they were trying any excuse to throw this guy in anvil. You know, once you say the word health care on tv, they're just looking for anything.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yeah, no, Howard Dean was screwed from the start in a lot of ways. But also, you know, I just want to say that, you know, they were laying the groundwork by pushing Howard Dean out of polit.
They were laying the groundwork by showing that autism stims were unacceptable in the public eye. It was all. It was all preparing us for what RFK Jr is doing now.
[00:11:09] Speaker C: I would like to talk about the simpsons, please.
I would like to talk about the simpsons.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Let's go back to the yellow people. Can we make America jaundice again?
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Finally, the simpsons.
A rather short running TV show.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: I know. Whatever happened to that show?
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Like, much shorter than Sesame street. One piece.
[00:11:30] Speaker C: Yeah, by the way, One piece is longer than the simpsons, by the way. It's 1,100 plus episodes. So Simpsons is very short.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: To me, it's so short. Compared to mission hill, the critic, like general hospital, Gunsmoke.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Just really a very short TV show that you could watch in just a series of multiple afternoons as it is. 790 episodes.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Don't try and binge.
Go binge. Meet the press before you meet the simpsons.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Yeah, The Simpsons, as we've mentioned, has covered a lot of different topics.
Vin, you. You did a good job of explaining why you wanted to talk about this on the show in specific. But are there reasons why the Simpsons, like, speaks to you as a person? Like, is there something about it?
[00:12:20] Speaker A: I'm just a huge simpsons fan. Which is funny because, like, people my age who say, like, oh, yeah, I'm a big simpsons fan are not the real. Like, we all have to come to terms with the fact that we're not the real big simpsons fans. Because there's got to be people out there. Because, like, when I say I'm a big simpsons fan, and when like, me and like one of my best friends, this guy Matt, who's also a huge simpsons fan, when we get together and.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Talk Simpsons, a little fellow named Matt Groening.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Yeah, me, man. Well, I didn't wanna. I Let me pick that name up off the floor.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: I didn't want to brag about.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: They want to. They want to brag on the epil comical life in hell. Like, but no, we would get together and like, watch Simpsons DVDs like 10, 15 years ago. Like, we would be exclusively talking about, like, the first, you know, like, not eight, nine seasons of the Simpsons now. It's like, that's nothing. Because there's got to be a fan out there who has watched it its entire run and who's trying to convince us, like, in this moment that, like, no, no, it got. And like, I will grant you that I do have a theory about the Simpsons that if you talk to people who stuck with it this entire time, they will. A lot of them will tell you that the past couple of years.
Nobody's going to tell you, like, oh, it got back to like, its golden years or anything like that. But. And I kind of agree with this, that there was a huge dip at one point for like 15 years, which is crazy, but that's just how long it's gone on that. You could have a dip for like 15 years. But then the people who watch the show growing up started writing for the show and the quality kind of leveled out a little bit or like, got back up. So now you. You've hit this weird groove where they'll try new things and sometimes it'll bomb horribly. But then, like, every season now, you always kind of hear that, like, there's a handful of episodes where it's like, no, you gotta, like, if you haven't checked it on the Simpsons in a while, okay, you gotta check out these couple episodes.
[00:14:28] Speaker C: So, like, okay, so that's like, what's been going on with spongebob. That's been what's going on with spongebob too.
It's gotten a dip. But the later seasons, they experiment.
[00:14:39] Speaker D: Who among us hasn't had a little 15 year dip now and then, you know?
[00:14:44] Speaker C: Have you heard of my new band, the 15 Year Dip?
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Actually, that band would have been a crazy big hit in like 2003.
[00:14:51] Speaker D: Yeah, it's actually interesting. That band is taking their serv safe right now.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: No, actually, I was gonna say, I think that band is. They're probably about to do one of those, like, revival tours where one of the members punches another member in the face and the tour ends early.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that band. That band is opening for Save Ferris.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: I feel like that's where that band would be at right about now and.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: Is on tour with the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: They're tourists.
[00:15:19] Speaker C: Yeah, the citizens. I obviously I. I wouldn't say I'm a fan, but obviously I've seen the memes. I remember some Parts Growing up. I remember the episode where Ned Flanders had a store for left handed people. I remember Super Nintendo Chalmers.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah. The left horium.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: The leftorium I think. Doesn't that. That persists for a while, Right?
[00:15:43] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: I was gonna ask. I have questions about the left tour. I'm assuming that the left torium is maybe even still around.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: I think it may still be there.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: We'll have to go find out. We'll have to.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Altogether a lot of like the season 35 or. I think that's where we're at. Or 36.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: Yeah. There's something they. It's getting. It's.
It's up, but it's getting to that point where it's like some of these voice actors are dying off.
Like what are they going to do? And why are the big ones.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: They've started to swap a couple of them. Like they swap for.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: For politically correct reasons. Like I think they, they, they swapped up who's voice actor for obvious reasons.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: And to be completely fair, like Hank Azaria was like very on board of it. He didn't. He was like kind of a big sweetheart. He didn't fight it or anything. When that whole thing happened. He was like, yeah, you know, like times are different. Like yeah, I have no problem. Like, like they should get. I do enough voices on this show. Like I really don't mind like giving this up.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: I think they gave, they gave Carl a different voice actor who's actually black.
[00:16:50] Speaker C: A lot of the Simpsons is people talking to themselves.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
But it's a very talented cast. I don't know why half of them had to be in that 98 Godzilla movie as actors. But whatever.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: It's just one of those things.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: It's just one of those things. Oh, sorry.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: So I, I kind of. I started thinking about the family of the Simpsons and the, the economy of this family.
Big line go up or down as, as I was thinking about this show.
The big line is mysterious in this case.
So you ever notice that the, the, the finances of the Simpson family seem like maybe they don't add up?
[00:17:34] Speaker C: Oh no.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: There seems to be something that doesn't quite sit right about the numbers here. So I crunch the numbers to try to figure out what's going on with the Simpson family household finances.
So first in 1996 is the only episode where Homer's rate of pay was ever confirmed. And at that time he was making $24,939 a year.
Now if we adjust that ahead for inflation, it's closer to 50k in today's numbers. About right, right. Right around 50k. So Homer's making about $50,000 a year, as we understand it.
Also, Marge's dad set her up with a secret bank account that pays her $1,000 a month, which the show used to try to patch over at one point. The fact that the family's finances don't really make sense. It's like, oh, well, Marge has a little bit of secret money, but that's still only $12,000 a year. So we're at, like, $62,000 a year in income, which is. I mean, that's a decent income. But does it match their expense for a whole family?
[00:18:45] Speaker A: Yeah, for a whole family. Like three kids and then a house that big.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Right. I mean, Homer's the only employed member.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Although. Although his son does own a factory and he does eat lobsters for dinner.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Well, we'll dive into as much of that as we can. But, you know, Homer's like this mediocre white guy that just sort of failed up into this reasonable job. But. And it sort of implied that, like, yeah, you know, this is enough to provide for the family.
But, you know, I think the Simpsons is kind of perpetuating a sort of type of American myth. Like, it's like the Chuck Schumer type imaginary family.
Like the family he's imagining is the Simpsons.
It never really dawned on me until recently, but this is basically.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: I've never heard that the. The Chuck Schumer archetype.
[00:19:39] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, he has. I forget what their last name is. But he has imaginary friends. He has imaginary friends he talks to.
[00:19:48] Speaker D: Schumer's imaginary friends are richer than even the Simpsons are.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Oh, you say that, but you have not yet grasped how rich the Simpsons are, my friend.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: You're just.
[00:19:59] Speaker D: Well, I guess your argument is that over the years, they've. They've moved up just from. From the.
I'm open to hearing your math. The Simpsons vs Chuck Schumer's imaginary friends.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: I did. I gotta say, in a million years, I would have never expected that the.
[00:20:18] Speaker D: Topic was going to be the baileys.
[00:20:20] Speaker C: He calls in The Baileys.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Simpsons vs. Chuck Schumer's imaginary family.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So this is the Simpsons versus the baileys. All right, here we go. So, Andrew, I'm gonna let you chime in with some stuff about the Baileys that's relevant as I go here. You can. You can feel free to interrupt me if you've got anything in front of you. So first of all, the Simpsons own a 3,000 square foot house, roughly according to my math. I did some rough math on the square footage of the house. A pretty large house looks like it's about on a 116 acre yard. It's a two story house fenced in.
This is presumed to be in Springfield, Oregon. Springfield, Oregon is loosely the basis of Springfield in the show.
Now, of course, Springfield in the show is not actually set in any specific spot place, but because it's not set in any specific place, that doesn't really give us anything to work with.
[00:21:19] Speaker C: So since the systems aren't my mayor, they aren't my neighbors, and I live in Springfield, Illinois. So, yeah, they don't live in this Springfield. I can confirm that.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: But Springfield, Oregon is a suburb of Eugene.
Really makes sense as an analog for Springfield. Again, Matt Groening took a lot of inspiration from Springfield, Oregon when he was envisioning the town of the show.
So for our purposes, we're going to say that their house, you know, we're going to use house prices in Springfield, Oregon.
So I did some math. Their house is worth about $425,000 on today's market in Springfield, Oregon.
So that means that their mortgage is right around $2.3k a month. On the mortgage that already is presenting a little bit of a problem.
Because if you do the math on that real quick, you'll see that we're already.
We've eaten up half of Homer's income right there.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: Times are tough.
[00:22:18] Speaker C: The Baileys live in a suburb of Long island with three kids. They both work, and they earn about 75,000 annually. And this was 2009, so just a little bit for inflation.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: No, see, so this is actually perfect because this family that Chuck Schumer's imagining in his mind, like, he's never done the math. He's never done the math. They can't. Like, whenever he describes them, like he's describing a family that can't actually financially exist. And I'm setting out here to also prove that we have the same problem here with the Simpsons. And surprisingly, I really thought that I wouldn't have been the first person to do this. Like, I, Garrick and I were kind of assuming that, like, someone else would have done this, but I looked at. I don't think anyone's done this before.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: This is insane.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: So whatever that says, I don't know. So already, you know, half of Homer's income is out on the mortgage.
You're going to spend about $4,000 annually for utility bills on a 3,000 square foot house in Oregon, once again did the math on this.
Little bit rough, but, you know, so that's, you know, we're continuing to add up there. They own two cars. Assuming they have car payments, this could be as high as like 10 to $20,000 a year that this costs them. But assuming they don't have car payments, car ownership still tends to run about $5,000 a year, even if you don't have a payment that's in gas, insurance, registration and other fees.
So they've got two cars. That's $5,000 a year per car or more. I don't know if they have car payments. I, I tried to figure that out night.
I don't know. I'd probably have to watch all 790 episodes.
[00:24:03] Speaker C: It's easier than One Piece.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: They have three kids. It costs $310,000 to raise a kid from the age of 0 to 18.
That means that they're paying $51,000 a year to raise the three kids. Oh, now we really run into problems.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Cut them some slack on that one. They're probably cutting corners.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: No, I'm not cutting them any slack because Bart's hospital bills are constant.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:24:31] Speaker C: We do live in America.
We live in America.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: They have a cat and a dog. The average cost of cat ownership is between $830 $500 per year. The average cost of dog ownership is about 15 to $4,500 per year.
So, you know, you average some of that out there. They're definitely spending a couple thousand dollars on the cat and the dog every year. And then we get into.
Marge has a retired living mother, Jacqueline Bouvier. She lives in an independent retired living home or apartment complex. These usually run like around like $2,500 a month on kind of as like a median. Jacqueline seems to have been a housewife, so she probably has like a minimal Social Security payment, maybe like $600 a month generously.
So they've got to be this, the Simpson family's got to be paying for the rest of her apartment. That's like another $2,000 a month. And then Abe Simpson is in assisted living. He has more serious health needs. He can't live on his own.
So Simpson is probably costing the family closer to 5, $5,600 a month. Now he is a veteran and is probably getting between veteran pension and Social Security around maybe 2000 ish dollars a month income. So that cuts that down a bit to maybe $3,500 a month that they're paying for aid. But this still Seems like a lot of big numbers. And in fact, if you add all this up, you get right around $185,000 a year.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: She match you. That's a lot of money.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: We actually haven't covered a couple of things yet.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: In season 10, episode 10, Viva Ned.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Flanders, yeah, they got married. He got married again.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: They are reminded at the church that tithing at the church is 10% off the top, off the top of your gross income and that they do audit.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: So 10% of the income is going to. Going to basically pay off secret wines.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: So if we. If you add, you know, increase by 10%, $185,000 a year, you get around $205,000 a year. We're now at. And we have not mentioned Homer's severe drinking problem, any of the failed business ventures. Time Homer takes off from his real job to do something foolish, the time Marge becomes a gambling addict, or other things that occur during the show that would drastically affect the family's virus.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: Because I was going to bring this up as sort of like the smoking gun of everything, because Homer's had a lot of other jobs. How do we know that a lot of those other jobs haven't paid into, like, some sort of account to bring down that money?
Like, he's been an astronaut. You're telling me that at least for a couple years there, he didn't use his astronaut money to, like, secure the house funds or, like, pay things down?
[00:27:36] Speaker B: And I think that is a reasonable argument. And I will say, first of all, that the show's estimation of his pay is far too low.
Someone with his job in real life would be making at least $100,000 a year.
So, you know, you start there with, like, you know that, but then that begs the question, why are we being lied to? Right?
Why are we being deceived? Why are the Simpsons pretending to be poor?
[00:28:07] Speaker C: What's Big Number up to?
[00:28:09] Speaker B: All right, and. And Vin, you brought up a great point, because there's even more to Homer's sort of suspicious. Where does his money come from? Homer's won a Grammy, a Pulitzer, and an Academy Award. Yeah, these are all things that don't really get discussed that much. But is he just raking in the royalties and then pretending like he's just Joe Schmo?
I am here to present as a foundational argument to this episode, that the Simpson family are trustafarians, that these fuckers are rich and pretending to be working class.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: To that point, I came armed with a little bit of information.
I have every single Other job Homer Simpson has ever held holy. Would you like me to speed run through them?
[00:29:01] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: Let's do this.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: Homer Simpson has been.
Okay, drink of water. Give me one second. Okay.
Homer Simpson has been a boxer, a mascot, astronaut, imitation crusty baby proofer, trucker, hippie, plow driver, food critic, conceptual artist, grease salesman, carney, mayor, grifter, bodyguard for the mayor, country western manager, garbage commissioner, mountain climber, farmer, inventor, Smithers Poochie, celebrity assistant, power plant worker, fortune cookie writer, beer baron, Kwik E Mart clerk, homophobe and missionary.
[00:29:43] Speaker C: That's a job? Interesting.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: That's why it says this thing I'm reading.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: Wow, what a list.
Does that sound like the list of jobs that a regular person has? No, it sounds like a Nepo baby's resume.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: It does. But there are also several government jobs on there. And we, as we all know, when you have a job at the government, you have a job for life. Now, obviously, Homer didn't, but I have to imagine there's some. There's some pension plans in there. Or at the very least, got some big payouts that we don't know about.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: Homer is working the system. He's working.
He's grifting all of us.
And, you know, he's just. Just down at the bar pretending like he's Joe Schmo, drinking with the other guys.
Like, those guys live in an apartment above a bowling alley below another bowling alley. They don't live the fancy lifestyle that Homer's living. Yeah, there's. There is. There is an inherent dishonesty. The Simpsons financial reality.
[00:30:50] Speaker A: They're always going on vacation. They've been to England, Japan.
They've gone on safari. Like this family travels.
[00:30:58] Speaker C: Frank Grimes did nothing wrong. Frank Grimes was right.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: No, all he did was pee on the seat. He did nothing wrong.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: That's why today, this episode is in fact, the Nepo baby episode. That's right.
We are here to talk about people in politics who pretended to be, you know, more folksy than they were, more down to earth, more working class than they were.
And some of the implications of that kind of stuff.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: I can see. I can see Shelbyville from my house. No, you can't.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: You know, so we don't need to bridge through this topic overly long.
I think everybody kind of knows that, you know, there's an extent to which our politics is full of these folks. But I think that there are a lot of fun examples that we can just quickly remind ourselves of over the years, you know, throughout our political system, there's been some rather some Rather nasty, nepotistic stuff that goes on. And some of it we know about more. Like, obviously, there's George W. Bush pretending to be folksy when he's like a third generation political machine.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: There's a Duck Dynasty, guys, the Duck Dynasties.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: You know, there's Joe Biden always telling his weird stories about summer jobs that didn't exist.
Yeah, all these. You know, a lot of our politicians kind of like to pretend that they're from some background that they're not in that kind of way to. To appeal to working class voters and that kind of stuff. Hillary Clinton famously latched on to Bill's somewhat more legitimate working class background and pretended like, yeah, I'm from that too. But she was.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Oh, well, Hillary always carries hot sauce in her bag.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: I mean, I was gonna say also, like, she's, She's. She's what bankrolled Bill getting into politics like that. You think he just found that money in a. In a random wallet on the street?
[00:33:07] Speaker C: You know, Pokemon Go. Stop asking questions.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: I've got a couple of particularly funny things here that are maybe y' all haven't heard of, though, as much or a little less familiar with in some way or maybe you are, or, you know, we'll just see. But, but here's just some. Some interesting stuff that I was reading about while I was doing research for this show. Well, me and the editor, to be clear, but, you know, the editor just has to silently sit there and listen to me say, I did this. And that's, that's just, That's. That's how it goes when you work on a podcast.
[00:33:42] Speaker C: We have to be nice to the editor because the editor controls what we say. The etiquette controls all.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: Dang right?
[00:33:53] Speaker B: New Jersey's. New Jersey's Donald Payne Jr.
Is a. A member of Congress. You ever heard of him? Probably not just one of the many, uh, random members of Congress. This was a city councilor. He won a special election to replace his. His father as a 10th district city councillor in Essex county of Newark.
Or in. Sorry, he's a Newark city councilman.
And yeah, he just. His father had had this seat since 1989, and then he dies, and they hold a special election and they just elect his son.
[00:34:30] Speaker C: I like the idea of a pain senior having hold of a seat, and when he dies instead. Payne Jr. They're really bringing on the pain in New Jersey.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: Yeah. What a campaign.
I'm just picturing my head. His dad is Major Payne from the Damon Wayans.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: And the funny thing is when in Donald Payne Jr's election. He was running against another Nepo baby, Ron C. Rice himself, the son of a longtime state senator.
So who do you even root for?
[00:35:04] Speaker C: It looks like Payne cooked the rice.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Yeah, cooked rice. Ron see rice. Ron eat rice.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: This one y' all might be more familiar with, but I have to. I have to shout this one out.
Did y' all know that Nancy Pelosi is a part of a long political dynasty? Well, if you didn't, who's Nancy Pelosi?
[00:35:26] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Her father was a representative of Baltimore in the House of Representatives.
[00:35:36] Speaker A: Oh, shit. House of Nepo babies.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: He was a mayor after that, tried to be a governor. Her brother was also a mayor. Her whole family is full of political types. And Nancy Pelosi famously has accumulated incredible wealth during her political tenure. You know, it almost seems like it was all some sort of lifelong plan to screw us or something. But I don't know. I'm just a podcaster.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah, you're not a nipple baby.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: And then, did you know that Matt Gaetz is a political Nepo baby? What?
[00:36:17] Speaker C: I guess you can say he lived in a real gated community.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: Don Gates served in state legislature and was Okaloosa county superintendent prior to that.
[00:36:30] Speaker C: And just fun to say.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: Okaloosa.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: And his grandfather, Jerry Gates, was also a mayor and a state senator prior to that. So he's a third generation political, political machine product. You know, these Nepo babies, they're all around us. They're even more common than we think. Like, we know that they're there, but it's just crazy how, like, you. You. You throw a rock in politics, and it's like almost everyone in politics, it's like the son of a political guy, which kind of makes it feel like maybe we don't live in a democracy. Never mind.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: Yeah, we need less Nepo babies and more Muppet Babies.
[00:37:08] Speaker C: You wouldn't download a Nepo baby.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: No, I wouldn't.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: I. I try to avoid it if I can.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: Yeah, you wouldn't download a Nepo baby. It's a big picture of mad cats, like, trying to give you malware, at best.
I was gonna say that's the least of your worries.
Giving you malware.
You wouldn't steal an election. No, they would.
[00:37:34] Speaker C: They did.
They. They already did.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: Yeah, they did it. You were here.
We all saw it.
Who stole the Lindbergh baby?
[00:37:42] Speaker B: It's time to properly seal ourselves into the voting cubicle, as previously mentioned.
[00:37:49] Speaker C: Am I gonna die in the voting cubicle?
[00:37:52] Speaker B: I got some questions that might provoke some interesting.
[00:37:55] Speaker C: Can you answer my question first. Am I gonna die in the voting cubicle?
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Well, you're not coming back out of it, so ethnically, yes.
[00:38:06] Speaker C: This was probably the contract I signed. It was in the podcast, and I just didn't read it.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah.
[00:38:12] Speaker C: I have to hurt myself.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: So if there was some kind of secret Simpson family trust and it came to light, who would leak the documents? I'm thinking, you know, it be Lisa, Mole man, Mickey Mart, blog guy. What do you. What do you got for me?
[00:38:29] Speaker A: It could be Homer might leak it himself on his own Mr. X website.
[00:38:33] Speaker C: I. I was thinking Homer like, wacky adventure, and at the end, everybody forgets about it.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: I mean, we all know the real answer. It's Maggie. Maggie McGaggy is leaking it. That's. That's the only answer.
[00:38:47] Speaker B: Maggie's gonna grow up to be a radical. Yeah. That we're kind of.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: I mean, they kind of hint that in several episodes that she's gonna be like. Like a. Like a. Basically like an anarchist. Like, she's gonna rebel against the whole family.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: If Maggie were actually allowed to age, like, if any of them, like, you know, obviously these characters aren't allowed to age, but if. If Maggie were allowed to age, she would be writing for Teen Vogue by now. Like, that would be her character.
[00:39:13] Speaker C: Hardcore, that Simpsons.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: Hey, let me cook Simpsons writers. Give me a call. So you think. You're thinking Maggie would be the leaker?
Andrew, you got any alternate hypothesis here?
[00:39:28] Speaker A: No.
[00:39:28] Speaker C: I'm going to say that the baby who shot the very rich guy is also going to be the one who leaks her family's finances.
[00:39:38] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: Fair enough. I can't really counter that. Here's my next thought for us. Would Homer be better or worse at lawn money than Jared Kushner? And could we even tell we even determine this easily?
[00:39:54] Speaker A: He will.
[00:39:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't.
[00:39:57] Speaker C: Yeah. From my perspective, we would have to determine how. Like, that's just my whole statistics thing. Like, how would you measure that in money in terms of how many people know, in terms of consequences?
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Well, we. He's kind of laundered money before. Like, he's. As the beer baron. He successfully for a while operated a money.
A money laundering scheme with Mo through his bar. True. If he laundered money, it would be akin to that, though. Like, it would be like this, like, ad hoc operation involving, like, secret tunnels and bowling balls and shit.
[00:40:36] Speaker C: Okay. He would definitely do that.
[00:40:38] Speaker B: Yeah. It would be wacky, which, you know what? I actually feel like that would be nice.
Not enough of the schemes going on in our politics are wacky enough right now.
[00:40:48] Speaker C: I would say Homer would be better because one, it's just wackier and two, he wouldn't ever get long term consequences. Just maybe at the end of the episode.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: Yeah, like Watergate. That was a wacky time.
[00:41:02] Speaker A: Exactly. No one got catapulted.
[00:41:05] Speaker C: Wacky Watergate.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: We haven't had a scandal.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Wacky Water. Yeah.
Wacky Water games. My favorite Sonic.
[00:41:12] Speaker C: That wacky Richard Nixon.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: Goofy guy.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: That Tricky Dicky.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: All right, all right. Here I've got.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: I mean, Homer does have the end with Gerald Ford. They are like best friends.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: That's true. All right, I've got a fun little quick lightning round for us here. Would Homer be more or less competent than the following Trump cad nitpicks? We'll start with Linda McMahon be more or less competent as Secretary of Education.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: I mean, more by virtue of the fact that I don't think he would think to destroy the department that he's running.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: I mean, he would.
He would destroy by accident. I'm saying he wouldn't get the job and then immediately be like, yeah. He wouldn't immediately be like, oh, you gotta take this thing out. Like, we gotta destroy this.
He would try and figure out like a good. He would try and figure out ways to better it. But like, those ways probably wouldn't work in that.
[00:42:14] Speaker C: I would. Yeah, I would say that's more confident.
God, we live in depressing times.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: I mean, how is Lindy even running that thing? Wasn't she like in a coma and in a wheelchair for a while?
[00:42:25] Speaker C: Like, she's doing it with this. Watch out for her steel chair. Oh, yeah.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: I'm like, man, in every corner of.
[00:42:32] Speaker C: Government, he's just smacking the Department of Education.
[00:42:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:36] Speaker C: With a steel chair.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: What about Tulsi Gabbard? You think. Do you think Homer could do.
He could be more competent at national intelligence.
[00:42:45] Speaker C: Has Homer ever ran over the family dog? How did the family. That the original family dog die? Sure, I digress.
[00:42:52] Speaker A: I think you're thinking of the. The family cat.
[00:42:55] Speaker C: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, Tulsi Gavard.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: That's Snowball too. You're thinking.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: You think. You think Homer could.
Tulsi Gaffer's doing right now.
[00:43:06] Speaker A: Yeah, because I think unlike this Homer's Department of Education chair, I think that he would luck into much like with. With Frank Grimes, he would look into doing things that everyone loves.
[00:43:24] Speaker C: Oh, my God, I want to see that episode.
[00:43:26] Speaker B: Since inverters Definitely, definitely would have dump the whole Epstein file onto Twitter.
[00:43:32] Speaker A: Exactly. That's exactly what he was like. Like, everyone would be having this whole thing about the Epstein files, and he would like, here you go.
Or no, he'd be like. Like the episode where he. Where he gets morbidly obese and he's like, trying to start a. Start a bar tab on his computer by hitting the tab button. He'll like, accidentally hit that on his computer, and it'll accidentally, like, release the Epstein files to the New York Times.
And they'll be like, homer, you did it. Like, you did what no one else had the courage to do. They'd be like, I did. Yeah, I guess I did.
[00:44:04] Speaker C: I mean, of course I did.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Now who sides? Complete sidebar. Maybe this is, like, not a question we should be asking.
Well, okay. Maybe we should. I was just. Okay. I was gonna say, we could always cut this out.
Springfield is in the Epstein files.
[00:44:26] Speaker C: Oh, no. Krusty the Clown.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: Low key Mayor Quimby.
[00:44:31] Speaker A: Yeah. You think Old Gil is in the Epstein files?
[00:44:34] Speaker C: Homer Simpson would be. But he didn't actually know what the island was about.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: Yeah, Homer flew there and back once, but didn't. It wasn't nothing untoward happened. It was a total misunderstanding.
He actually only spent about 15 minutes on the island and then flew straight.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: He didn't make it out of the airport. Like, he was, like, trying to get something out of vending machine at the airport. And when he couldn't, he just got back on the plane.
[00:44:59] Speaker B: But unfortunately, you know, it is on record.
Say Troy McClure, the monorail guy who I was also going to bring up later. Anyway, so.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: Oh, monorail guy. Lyle Landry.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: Wait, was it Lyle Landry? I thought it was Troy McClure.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: No, Troy McClure is the actor.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: Oh, fuck. My bad, Kennedy.
[00:45:18] Speaker C: I'm canceling you.
[00:45:21] Speaker A: Dare you screw up multiple Phil Hartman characters.
The ring came off my pudding can.
Oh, Apu's brother. The one that lives, like, a swinging lifestyle, that was always trying to get Apu to, like, cut loose.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: Lyle Landley while Lanley. Oh, yeah, Lyle Lanley, the monorail guy. He's in the Epstein files. Sorry, editor. For how long it took us to get there.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: Who else?
[00:45:47] Speaker B: What about Superintendent Chalmers?
Could. Could Homer do better than Pete Hegseth?
[00:45:55] Speaker C: That's a good question.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: Homer would also not be able to commit to stop drinking before taking the job. So they have that in common.
[00:46:04] Speaker C: Could Homer do a better job being in charge of the Pentagon?
[00:46:08] Speaker A: I'm gonna say yeah.
[00:46:10] Speaker C: Why are so many of these.
[00:46:12] Speaker B: Yes, there Might be some kind of subtle. Very subtle, very tasteful point I'm trying to make. Very subtle.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Well, I think the reason he's probably.
We're all siding on. Yes. Is because Homer is not an implicitly evil man. And a lot of these jobs are frankly.
They're frankly neutral jobs in the sense of if you are a neutral human being, these should be jobs that, like, really don't rock the boat that much.
So, like, if you install a Homer Simpson, he would have to. He's not going to. He's not interested in doing any job.
So, like, given what we know about him at the nuclear plant, he's going to just like take a nap all day, like eat a bunch of donuts.
[00:47:01] Speaker C: He's going to launch the stream missile. But that's still better than what we have right now.
[00:47:05] Speaker A: Like, but, like, look at him at the nuclear. But he has never caused, like a nuclear meltdown. He's helped stop nuclear meltdowns.
[00:47:12] Speaker B: I actually think that Homer would leak less state secrets because he wouldn't be.
[00:47:18] Speaker A: Doing his job and he wouldn't be rooting around files where he would accidentally, like, have those files on hand to leak.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: He would still leak state secrets, to be clear, just not as many.
[00:47:30] Speaker C: Yeah, the worst under forums are sad.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: You know who would be in the Epstein files? Chester J. Lampwick.
[00:47:38] Speaker B: God damn it.
Why would you say something so true?
[00:47:44] Speaker A: You mean the same man who wants a gold mansion and a rocket car?
[00:47:50] Speaker B: Would Homer do a better job than RFK Jr. Hmm.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: That's.
That's a legitimately tough one because.
[00:48:02] Speaker B: Yeah, Homer's concepts of health are not great.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: Okay. Homer Simpson thinks vaccines cause autism, but doesn't understand the problem.
[00:48:13] Speaker A: No, this one might be a. This one might be a toss up.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: So, like, it's either we get. We get RFK's weird, or we get Homer Simpson who says you're only allowed to eat McDonald's now.
[00:48:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, every cup has to be a super. He's gonna bring back super size. Yeah, yeah, that's.
[00:48:36] Speaker C: That's thing.
[00:48:36] Speaker A: That's the thing. Because both him and RFK would do things that none of us agree with.
But then they're also both doing that thing where it's like, we're gonna throw you one big thing that, like, you've been dying for in the back of your head. Like, RFK's whole thing is, like, recently has been. We're gonna give you more, like real sugar in soda, which is something that, like, people have low key been, like, wanting for a very long time, but God knows what else he's gonna do after. Like, he's like, they're gonna give you one thing to sort of like, almost like a smoke screen. So, like, Homer would do the whole, like, guess what? You're McDonald's. You can supersize that shit again. But then, like, he's going to do a million other things where it's like, wait, he put what in the water?
[00:49:24] Speaker C: Okay, so here is my question, and I think will be the determining one. RFK has talked about putting autistic people in camps. Would Homer Simpson do anything that insane?
[00:49:39] Speaker B: I guess Homer wins again.
[00:49:40] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:49:41] Speaker B: Marco Rubio, Secretary of State. Could Homer Simpson do a better job?
[00:49:46] Speaker A: I'm going to be completely honest.
Not, like, what does the actual job mean? What does Marco Rubio as a person actually do in that position?
Have we heard anything? Like, of all the people who've been in the cabinet, can anyone know?
[00:50:01] Speaker C: Every time we hear him do something, it's just like, Mr. President said this. So I'm gonna do what Mr. President told me to do. That's literally all it has been.
[00:50:12] Speaker B: Also, just, like, bloodthirstily call for war. But unlike Pete Hegseth, he can't actually press a drop bomb button.
[00:50:20] Speaker A: Right, Right. Like, he can't really do a whole lot. I don't know. I think this, I think this one's a wash. Like, I don't know.
Marco Rubio.
[00:50:28] Speaker C: You know what I want to say? One person in power will be better than Homer Simpson. Just because I don't want to end this episode completely depressed. So what Homer Simpson was. Will not be better than every person in power.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: Okay, so we'll go. So we'll give this one to Marco.
[00:50:43] Speaker C: Yeah, just little Marco.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: Congratulations, little Marco.
You have, you have won. You are the highest of praise. Better than Homer Simpson at your job.
Enjoy that, Enjoy that water bottle.
[00:50:59] Speaker B: Imagine.
Imagine. I, I, I, I know that Marco Rubio will probably never hear this show, but I really wish.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: Why are they saying that about me?
Why are they calling me little Marco? It's my big ears, isn't it?
[00:51:14] Speaker B: Last but not least, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Who former television personality.
[00:51:22] Speaker C: Okay, don't think of this in terms of the person, but you know how at the started this year, it felt like all the planes were crashing all of a sudden? That would be largely because of Sean Duffy.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: Okay, Sean Duffy was. You said Sean Duffy was a reality TV star.
[00:51:38] Speaker B: No, he was like a Fox and Friends, I think.
[00:51:41] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:51:43] Speaker C: Like, just like Pete Hickson.
[00:51:45] Speaker A: He looks like someone, but I Can't put my finger on.
[00:51:48] Speaker C: He almost looks like a human being.
[00:51:50] Speaker A: Yeah, he looks. Let me look up more images of Sean Duffy. Sean Duffy, Wow.
[00:51:56] Speaker C: That is the first time anybody has ever said that.
[00:52:02] Speaker A: Oh, no, he. He was on it. No, he was on a reality show. You're right. Oh, he was on the Real World.
[00:52:09] Speaker C: But they call it the Real World even though it was a fake world. Really makes you think.
[00:52:15] Speaker A: 90S star of real World. Which Real world was he on? On? Hold on.
[00:52:18] Speaker C: I thought there was one Real World and it was called Earth. Am I just so close minded?
[00:52:23] Speaker B: I was so woke of you just now.
[00:52:26] Speaker C: Am I getting canceled off this podcast for wokeness?
[00:52:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sorry.
[00:52:30] Speaker C: Okay, okay, everybody. This is my last episode.
[00:52:34] Speaker A: Sean Duffy was on the sixth season of the Real World, which was set in Boston and aired in 1997.
[00:52:40] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: The real World Boston.
[00:52:43] Speaker B: He really came a long way from that. You know, you have to respect the hustle.
[00:52:46] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, you think of all the people. Okay, who said here. Bonus question. Who's had the better post Real World career? Garrick's eyes are about to light the fuck up because it's gonna be either Sean Duffy, who's now in politics and was on Fox News, or the Miz.
Aw.
[00:53:06] Speaker C: Came to.
[00:53:07] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:53:08] Speaker A: Miz is a multiple time WWE champion. Has been in that company 20 plus years now. He's made a pretty good.
[00:53:16] Speaker C: I just got a note from the editor. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
[00:53:21] Speaker A: Grand Slam. Yeah. This is a Grand Slam champion. As Garrick is pointing out. Grand Slam champ twice has had reality TV shows about him taking the whole thing full circle. Is married to Maurice. Sean Duffy ain't married to Maurice.
[00:53:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm not even married to Maurice. Wow.
[00:53:39] Speaker A: The Miz has hosted a WrestleMania before. He's been in the main event of a WrestleMania with the Rock no less, as part in some capacity.
He's.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Homer Simpson. In a surprise twist. Homer Simpson not even considered in this round.
Surprise run in from the Miz wins this one.
[00:54:03] Speaker B: Not.
Not originally a candidate, but that. But now how the Miz's career has been. Right? Yeah, you know, it fits. All right. That was pretty incredible. Now, in a similar manner, which of the following Simpsons characters do you think could survive a Senate confirmation hearing?
[00:54:25] Speaker C: So we're going back into the days in which people could fail the confirmation hearings. Right. We're not sticking in modern times where you will pass it no matter what.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: We're back in the 90s when the Simpsons originated.
So we've got first up, Principal Skinner. Man, who can talk his way out of a situation or two.
[00:54:49] Speaker A: Yeah, he. He could. He could pass. He could absolutely pass. He passed the Steve Ham's test. He could pass.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: I kind of put him in as like the. The gimme. He's like the buy here.
[00:54:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:00] Speaker C: Bernie Sanders, a war bore. Alice in the other room. Located entirely in D.C. 1% of Americans.
[00:55:08] Speaker A: Control 100% of the Aurora borealis.
[00:55:14] Speaker B: Rusty the Clown, could he make it through? Said it.
[00:55:17] Speaker C: Confirmation.
[00:55:18] Speaker A: Yes, but only. Only because he bribed the committee.
[00:55:22] Speaker C: Okay, that's fair. I was gonna say no, but you're right.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: Narrow. Narrow. Yes for Presti.
[00:55:27] Speaker A: Yeah, he had. He sent over Mr. Teeny of a bunch of cigarettes. Yeah.
[00:55:31] Speaker C: Out of.
Barely makes it.
Just barely got enough vote.
[00:55:37] Speaker B: Sideshow Mel.
No, I didn't think so.
[00:55:41] Speaker C: Yeah, his whole thing was being a butt monkey. Right. As he keeps trying to kill Bart.
[00:55:46] Speaker A: No, that's right.
[00:55:48] Speaker C: Oh, okay. This guy sounds.
[00:55:51] Speaker A: Basically, he's. I mean, there's. No. Not. He's the cuck of the clown world.
[00:55:55] Speaker B: Yeah, of the clown.
[00:55:57] Speaker A: He's the. He's the clown cuck of crime.
[00:56:00] Speaker C: No, no, I refuse.
I refuse. For this to be my fate, I will change my destiny.
[00:56:09] Speaker B: All right, next up, we've got Cletus Buckler.
[00:56:13] Speaker A: He would pass. I just have. I just have a vibe. He would pass.
[00:56:18] Speaker C: He would pass.
[00:56:19] Speaker A: Only he would wear down the committee.
Well, he would wear down the committee. And they'd just be like, okay, whatever, fair enough. Like, hey Ma, I'm on the SPINX band.
[00:56:30] Speaker B: Like, okay, okay, okay. How about Lyle Landley, the monorail guy?
[00:56:35] Speaker A: Oh, he would pay. He would talk his way.
[00:56:37] Speaker C: Yeah, he would get a. At least a 99 to 0 for not 100 to 0 and years down the road. Everybody's gonna have to justify their vote for him when he does horrible, horrible things in the position.
[00:56:50] Speaker B: Well, I. Oh, I thought it was going to be when he gets. When it's revealed he's in the Epstein files.
[00:56:55] Speaker C: That too. That too.
[00:56:56] Speaker A: Someone built a monorail on this island.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: Disco Stew.
[00:57:01] Speaker A: Disco Stu doesn't negotiate with terrorists.
[00:57:04] Speaker C: Oh, that's definitely in his favor.
[00:57:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, like, I think he would just invoke his fifth Amendment and I. Well, I don't know.
[00:57:12] Speaker C: Invokes my fifth. Well, you don't get fifth Amendment rights.
You. What you get instead is. I don't remember or I haven't read and looked into that.
[00:57:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I think disco, which is completely.
[00:57:24] Speaker C: Different than the fifth Amendment.
[00:57:26] Speaker B: Totally different.
[00:57:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I think he just wouldn't he'd be very difficult and, like, not really answer.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: He'd be combative.
[00:57:33] Speaker A: He'd be combative.
[00:57:34] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, what about for our next topic here? Let's change gears a little bit. Who would say more quotable phrases in four years of presidency? Homer Simpson or George W. Bush?
[00:57:49] Speaker A: Let's say Bush, because you'd have to catch Homer saying them on a hot mic.
[00:57:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:57:54] Speaker A: And I don't think that's going to happen as much.
[00:57:56] Speaker B: Well, I don't. I don't know about that. I don't. I think Homer would have outrageously bad mic etiquette.
[00:58:02] Speaker A: Worse than Bush.
[00:58:03] Speaker B: I don't know about worse.
[00:58:04] Speaker A: That. Well, that's.
[00:58:05] Speaker B: That is what we're debating, so.
[00:58:08] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. I think w. Considering we.
[00:58:11] Speaker A: We've seen Homer have enough jobs where he's had to be in front of a microphone, a lot of his quotable moments don't really come in front of a mic. Whereas Bush.
[00:58:21] Speaker C: Yeah. Who is not working class.
Well, fake working class, like Homer Simpson.
[00:58:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:27] Speaker B: Okay, okay, okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. I kind of thought I wanted to put. I wanted to put Homer up against one of the greats. You know, Homer's a pretty quotable guy, but it's not easy to put food on your family.
[00:58:40] Speaker A: Not on the table.
Not on the family's table.
[00:58:47] Speaker C: I ever visit you and you cook some delicious food. Are you just going to put it on my head?
[00:58:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:55] Speaker B: I mean, that's what George W. Bush would want me to do.
[00:58:58] Speaker A: I have soup on my family.
[00:59:00] Speaker B: Do you think Ned Flanders got a PPP loan?
[00:59:03] Speaker A: No.
[00:59:05] Speaker C: Oh, out of desperation.
[00:59:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I think he got one. I don't think it was anything nefarious, though.
[00:59:11] Speaker B: It wasn't.
[00:59:12] Speaker A: I think, like, if he got caught, he would do that thing that he's done in a couple episodes where he's like. He, like, breaks down and he's like, I admit it, I did it. But only because it's, like, some trivial reason that no one cares about. But, like, only he thinks. Big deal.
Yeah.
[00:59:26] Speaker B: Yeah. The episode hasn't been about that even, like, it's been about something else. But he's been thinking. Everyone has been, like, trying to catch him.
[00:59:34] Speaker C: Okay, that's writer Simpson writers. Give us a call since we know.
[00:59:40] Speaker B: That the Simpsons are Nepo babies. Now, which of the three Simpson children is most likely to marry a Jenner?
[00:59:48] Speaker C: Mary.
[00:59:50] Speaker A: Mary Kardashian slash Jenner?
[00:59:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:55] Speaker C: I'm thinking Lisa.
[00:59:56] Speaker A: I was leaning Lisa as well, but I don't know, because we. We've seen glimpses of who Lisa would marry. And it's. It could go high society, but, like, I don't know if I would consider the Jenners like, the same style of high society that Lisa would. Would.
Would marry. I think Bart would luck into marrying a Jenner, and there'd be a lot of problems with the Simpsons family and the Jenner family.
[01:00:22] Speaker B: He'd get into, like, a Pete Davidson situation.
[01:00:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's exactly where I was going. I think. I think he would get into a Pete Davidson situation.
He'd get a lot of tattoos they. They doesn't really like, and then have to get them all taken off. Years later.
He'd take Kim Kardashian to, like, a screening of Spider man, like, down the block from my house, which is a real thing that happened.
[01:00:49] Speaker B: It is.
[01:00:50] Speaker C: Wow.
[01:00:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Kim. Yeah, Kim. For people who don't know, I live in Staten island, and Pete Davidson brought Kim Kardashian.
[01:00:58] Speaker C: You live in Staten Island?
[01:00:59] Speaker A: Yes. And there's a movie theater, like, a. Literally a block away from my house that I've lived near the. My entire life. And when the last Spider man movie came out, he took Kim Kardashian to see Spider man no Way Home.
And the amount of fucking uproar that was going on in this theater, people fucking showing up out of nowhere at tmz, showing up. It's like, get the fuck out of here.
[01:01:25] Speaker C: Like, okay.
[01:01:28] Speaker B: If Springfield. Oh, no, hold on. Let me. Let me phrase. Actually, I'm just gonna change how I'm gonna phrase this.
[01:01:33] Speaker A: Springfield were a tree.
[01:01:36] Speaker C: If Springfield, Illinois, was real, would I live in it? Yes.
[01:01:39] Speaker B: What's the dirtiest money Mayor Quimby would take and would he outcropp corruption. Eric Adams.
[01:01:46] Speaker A: No. Nobody's out corrupting Eric Adams. Nobody out Pizza Hut. Come on.
[01:01:51] Speaker C: So the thing about Eric Adams is he's not, by New York City mayor standards, as corrupt as you would think. He's just so fucking bad at covering it up.
[01:02:01] Speaker A: He's so great at comedy.
[01:02:03] Speaker C: He is like, I wish I. Obviously, he can't keep on being mayor, but what if we had, like, the court just a position in the. The New York City politics. Just make a court juxtaposition.
[01:02:16] Speaker B: Or maybe he could be nice.
[01:02:18] Speaker A: People have mentioned that. That, like, imagine if he could just. They're like, we don't want him as mayor, but can he still, like, act like he's mayor and have a Twitter account and, like, do things for the next four years? I know.
[01:02:30] Speaker C: He can't be nightmare.
[01:02:31] Speaker B: We should have Eric Adams be nightmare. Of New York City. You know, nightmare. Something that we are big, they're big proponents of on this show, then you probably not aren't aware yet. You know, we believe that every city above a certain size shouldn't just have a mayor during the day, you should also have a mayor at night who operates at night.
[01:02:53] Speaker C: And I mean, I'll give, I'll give Eric Adams credit for the whole trash can thing. Like, I have heard that has really helped.
[01:03:01] Speaker A: No, those. Yes, I suck. Like, are you okay?
[01:03:04] Speaker C: Then I will no longer give him credit for that.
[01:03:06] Speaker A: So here's the thing with those trash cans, okay? They're great. It's a total, like, double edged sword because on one hand now places like CVS and like, businesses and actually, can.
[01:03:17] Speaker C: You explain to people who might not be familiar with New York City to understand, what did you do with your trash before Eric Adams forced the trash can?
[01:03:26] Speaker A: So this isn't so much for like residential units, but, like, businesses would just pile bags of trash up outside and just wait for, you know, the, the, the. The sanitation department to come pick it up.
[01:03:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:03:40] Speaker A: Which sometimes would be like days out.
Now they. They legally have to put it in like these giant trash bins that they were forced to buy, which is great for businesses because now the garbage isn't sitting out. Like, rats aren't coming around. Like, good idea. The bad thing about that is that residential buildings also have to do that.
[01:04:01] Speaker C: I have saw that.
[01:04:03] Speaker A: Which you would think, okay, what's wrong with that, Vin? Well, the problem is that a lot of these residential buildings, very small blocks. New York City is a grid system. It's kind of jammed up. So now there's designated places for these gigantic ass trash bins that like, outside of housing. So like, it takes up multiple parking spots. Now the. And they have to be like a certain size so that the trash, you know, the fucking sanitation department, when they come by, they have these like robot arms or whatever that like, can pick up the trash can and like dump it in.
So, like, it's great that you have these new big trash bins, but, like, they take up so much space and they feel so wasteful. It's like, couldn't you just have made it so that, like, hey, put the, like for residential people, just put your garbage in a regular garbage can. Like, there's no need for them to have done these gigantic trash bins just because he wanted to do a war on rats. Also a little bit of a sidebar.
Are we allowed to. I'll only do this once. Are we allowed to Share clips.
[01:05:12] Speaker B: What do you mean?
[01:05:13] Speaker A: Because I want to put in the. In the. In the chat right now a clip that I would like you to play.
[01:05:19] Speaker C: This is. The podcast is voice only.
[01:05:21] Speaker A: Oh, I know.
Okay, it doesn't. We'll watch the clip.
[01:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
[01:05:28] Speaker A: Okay, so then let me.
My favorite Eric Adams clip that sums up Eric Adams in a nutshell.
Jump to. Jump to two minutes in this. In the chat.
Okay, so here's Eric Adams doing a PSA about, like, how to combat gun violence. And he's in. For those who are listening, he's in like a. A living room, bedroom, whatever. He's in someone's house and he's gonna tell you, like, how to.
How to spot, like, oh, if your kids are coming home with drugs or guns or anything nefarious. Also, I don't know why the background.
[01:06:10] Speaker E: Music is so weird with many different locations. Look through it to see what exactly is your child caring in addition to a book, Something simple as a crack pipe. A used crack pipe. Could he have found it on the street? That's quite possible. But this is a. A discussion piece where you should start speaking with him to find out what is he doing with it and. And the whole use of drugs. This invokes conversations. Look at picture frames and behind them, cameras. Try to determine what's. What's taking place.
Behind a picture frame, you could find bullets. What does that mean, to find bullets? Does it mean your child is carrying a gun?
[01:06:49] Speaker A: No.
[01:06:50] Speaker E: Where there's smoke, there's possible fire. Where there's a bullet.
[01:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah. What you doing with it?
[01:06:55] Speaker E: A gun? You should engage in the conversation and find out.
[01:06:59] Speaker C: Listen, folks. Conversation.
[01:07:01] Speaker E: And this empowers the parents. Look at all the items inside the room and feel around and see what's the possibility something.
[01:07:08] Speaker B: What the is going on.
[01:07:10] Speaker A: Doll.
[01:07:11] Speaker E: Could be just a baby doll, but also it could be a place where you can secrete or hide drugs. Run your hands over the pillows and see if you feel anything that's unusual. Like a pillow like this with a button is a perfect invitation to hide something. And I felt something bumpy, I would reach in, see what it is.
This one could be hidden inside a pillow, a gun, maybe something that you think that can't be hidden there, but it can.
And what happens not only when the person who's carrying this illegal gun is in possession of it, but also a child that comes into the room on the bed, they find this gun. Let me tell you what a child would do. A child would take this gun, and because the trigger pull is so hard, they normally take the gun and they point it in their direction to pull down on it. So many gun accidents take place merely because a child discovered a gun in the room and believes it's a toy. And they play with the gun. Just look and see what's inside your bookcases. It could be more than just books. Perfect place to hide cocaine or other illegal substance inside the room. My message to you, you have an obligation to protect your home.
The First Amendment does not apply to the right of parents to go through their homes.
[01:08:24] Speaker A: Yeah, so he.
That's him telling you what you can and finding your kids.
[01:08:30] Speaker B: I.
It's so hard to believe that that's real.
It reads like, it reads like a white kid, you know, sketch or something.
[01:08:43] Speaker C: Kennedy, look, check behind your microphone. You'll notice that there's a gun.
[01:08:49] Speaker A: Perfect place to find a crack pipe.
[01:08:51] Speaker B: Hey, listeners at home, your computer monitor right now, there's probably a gun.
[01:09:00] Speaker A: You may find bullets. Like, what do the bullets mean? Have a conversation with your kids.
[01:09:07] Speaker B: Have a conversation.
[01:09:10] Speaker A: As simple as a doll can be a place to secrete drugs.
[01:09:15] Speaker B: What do the bullets mean?
[01:09:17] Speaker A: I love that. What do the bullets mean? It doesn't necessarily mean that your child has a gun, but where there's smoke, there's fire.
Maybe.
[01:09:29] Speaker C: Maybe he's actually a PhD in philosophy.
Well, you know, you know his real questions.
[01:09:37] Speaker A: You know, his, his, his, you know his famous saying. Right. He said it multiple times. All my haters are my waiters at the table of success.
[01:09:50] Speaker C: So funny. Evil mayor.
[01:09:53] Speaker B: I have one final. I have one final thing that I think will do a good job of just sort of wrapping up and summarizing everything that we've sort of come to today, which is it's the 2032 Democratic nomination. And in the final round of the nomination for president, we've got Chelsea Clinton's AI Avatar versus Lisa Simpson. With a one billion dollar trust from Elon Musk's ghost, who wins our next Democratic president, Lisa Simpson. Hell yeah.
[01:10:32] Speaker A: It's gotta be like, come on, Lisa Simpson. First off, we've already seen her as president, and it's pretty. And she does a pretty good job from what we've seen.
[01:10:41] Speaker C: So, I mean, wouldn't technically she be our next president because she did clean up Donald Trump's mess.
[01:10:47] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:10:48] Speaker C: Canonically.
[01:10:49] Speaker A: And Chelsea Clinton. No.
[01:10:51] Speaker B: Love to believe in that happening for us.
[01:10:54] Speaker C: Kennedy. What if I told you it's possible for good things to happen?
[01:11:00] Speaker B: How dare that be great. I'd love, I'd love that.
[01:11:02] Speaker C: I mean, I'm lying. I'm lying. Let's be clear. Nobody get any false hope. I'm lying.
[01:11:07] Speaker B: Well, President Lisa, we're looking forward to serving under you as your loyal, dedicated voters once again.
It's been so great to vote with you, Vin. Remind everybody where. Where the fuck they find you?
[01:11:23] Speaker C: Yeah, where can I vote for you?
[01:11:24] Speaker A: Yeah, where you can vote for me over on Blue sky at Vinforte Bluesky, where you know the weird handles they have over there. But more important than that, subscribe vinforte.substack.com it's free.
[01:11:39] Speaker B: It's the good. Yeah, don't miss out. And you can, you know, find us wherever you find podcasts, give us a little vote over there. Five stars.
And let people know why you can't stop listening to this show. Because physically, we won't allow you to stop once you start and, you know.
[01:12:02] Speaker C: Be trapped in this voting booth. I'm trapped in this voting booth. How do I get out?
[01:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Just like you can't stop the Simpsons.
[01:12:09] Speaker B: Just like you can't stop the Simpsons, you can't stop elections. And that means you can't stop this show. It's been great to vote along with you listeners, as always. We'll see you next week.
You have a good one. Bye. Bye.
[01:12:24] Speaker C: Bye.
[01:12:28] Speaker A: 1% of Americans control 100 of the Aurora borealis.
[01:12:34] Speaker B: Thanks for listening.
