Sunday, October 2 – We opened on
Trump’s attempts to claim victory on the first debate. I loved seeing news commentators get pissed
at his surrogates for touting online polls as “proof” of anything. The main story was on police accountability,
less about police shootings themselves than the system that protects so-called
“bad apples.” It’s insane that there’s
no official record collecting data on all police shootings, and I hated the
video of one PD higher-up instructing his staff on how to delete old records/complaints
they “don’t want” in their file. And
really, John is right; when schools with large Black or Latino populations need
to conduct classes on how to interact with the police safely, you can’t say
there isn’t a systemic problem. Last was
an update on Wells Fargo. It turns out a
Last Week Tonight writer used to make
anti-fraud training videos for the bank, so he was brought out to lecture Wells
Fargo for not listening to him the first time.
Monday, October 3 – Lessons from Kanye West: when you have a serious
announcement, make the sound guy turn off the autotune. The prospect of Trump having paid no taxes for up to 18 years led to
Trevor’s off-the-wall supposition that everything Trump has done has been all
about exposing the cracks within American systems/society. I loved his cheery, “Thanks, Donald!” after
“praising” Trump for “tricking” all the racists out of hiding. Joke of the night, however, went to Mitch McConnell
when he said, “I hate to blame Obama…” re:
the 9/11 bill. Trevor ruthlessly
called McConnell out on that front, pointing to Obama’s very public, specific
opposition to the bill six months ago, and Roy showed us the effects of the
bill in action with his plans to “sue Europe” for slavery. James Marsden was on to talk about Westworld, and he and Trevor discussed
the appeal of making Trump president of a fake world peopled by robots.
Tuesday, October 4 – Another live show,
looking at the VP debate. I enjoyed the
montage of Tim Kaine’s forced-sounding punchlines, and I loved Trevor’s
impression of Mike Pence talking about Trump; the comparison to drinking
vinegar but acting like it was water was spot-on. Jordan had a man-on-the-street piece asking
people to identify either VP candidate.
The results were predictable, but I got a kick out of him switching out
the photos of Kaine-Pence with pictures of white bread and mayonnaise. Hasan had a good send-off piece for Joe Biden, remembering his various trainwrecks and stressing that, unlike Trump,
Biden’s near-total lack of power allows himself to be amusing-crazy, not
dangerous-crazy. (Also? I loved
his Aziz Ansari impression.) The guest,
columnist Ezra Klein, discussed the debate with Trevor. I especially liked their thoughts on Pence’s
un-VP-like showing of not explicitly backing Trump.
Wednesday, October 5 – Well, of course Trump is griping about Pence doing well in the VP debate. What did
you expect? (Sheesh.) Excellent story on “fake outrage” news
stories that expressly hinge on taking someone’s words out of context. Clinton, Guliani, and even Trump each got a
bit of “love” from news programs wringing their hands over nothing. (I particularly liked the remark that Clinton’s
so-called “basement-dwellers” comment was the worst thing said in the entire
campaign. Really? In an election featuring the phrase “Mexican
rapists,” that’s the worst
insult?) Lewis was on to fume over the
expected low voter-turnout among millennials – it was funny, but also fairly
depressing and, given the stakes of the election, kind of scary. Mark Duplass was the guest, promoting his new
film Blue Jay. He talked about his preference for being “bottom-feeder”
famous and his mad crying skills.
Thursday, October 6 – First up was
Trevor imagining Cruz dialing a Trump supporter while phone-campaigning: “That’s right – Lyin’ Ted…” Quick blurb on Samsung’s exploding phones, with
great comments on the white privilege of producing a smoking device on an
airplane and being asked if you’re
all right. I loved Ronny’s response to a
horrifically-racist Fox News story filmed in Chinatown. He eviscerated them for lazy stereotyping and
portraying non-English speakers as idiots, capping it with his own Chinatown interviews
featuring articulate answers in both Chinese and English. Desi had a field piece on a woman who makes/markets
political joke T-shirts with a strong preference for misogynistic Monica
Lewinsky jokes, complete with the jarring image of her small children and
elderly mother helping to make the shirts.
Carmelo Anthony was the guest, talking basketball and community
outreach.
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