Monday, December 7
· Headlines – Record-setting diamond ring in India, drug cartel TikToks
o I laughed at this – “I don’t think this should count for a record number of diamonds on a ring, because that thing is not a ring. It’s a hand sombrero. You can’t just say something is a ring because you can stick your finger in it! I can’t put my hand in the muffler of a Lambourghini and say, ‘Look at my fancy ring!’”
o Good point that the enormous ring was both glamorous and lethal – “It’s basically brass knuckles but for the red carpet.”
o I liked the impression of the guy running a drug cartel’s social media – “Hey, everyone! Please like and subscribe! Seriously, like and subscribe; they have my family, man.”
· Pandemic News – International updates, Rudy Giuliani tests postive
o Great intro to the COVID news – “Yes, it’s still real, even though a lot of people are sick of talking about it. It’s like how white people feel about racism.”
o An easy joke, but a good one – “Yes, Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for the coronavirus, although he is suing to have that result overturned.”
o Rather than making jokes about Giuliani having COVID, Trevor preferred to make jokes about him farting during a hearing – I especially like his impression of Jenna Ellis (“I knew I should’ve worn a face mask around you, you smelly bitch!”) and the line, “It sounded like his butt is demanding a recount of his lunch.”
· Main Story – Georgia senate run-off election
o More presidential middle-name fun! – “Donald Jango Fett Trump.”
o I liked this response to Trump rambling about his love of cucumbers during a rally that was ostensibly in support of Senators Perdue and Loeffler – “Of course Trump loves cucumbers, that’s no surprise. Sure, he prefers them pickled and surrounded by a Big Mac, but still, that’s a cucumber.”
o Loved this comment on Kelly Loeffler evading questions about her shady stock trades – “You’ve gotta love how shady rich people always act like attacking them is attacking everybody. ‘If you take away my helicopter parking spot, you’re taking helicopter parking spots away from every American in this country!’”
· Correspondent Piece (Jaboukie) – Music in 2020
o “Music: it’s like podcasts, but with beats” – ha!
o Jaboukie side-eyed Lady Antebellum for changing their name to Lady A – apart from immediately getting into a copyright battle with a Black female independent artist, “If you’re going to change your name, change your name. Don’t just abbreviate the problematic part!”
o He was most enthused to talk about “WAP” – “Never have I ever been so excited to see how Kidz Bop covers this song!”
· Interview – Actor/rapper Method Man
o It turned out to be for thirst-trap-related reasons, but Trevor was worried when he saw Method Man’s name trending – “Whenever a celebrity starts trending, it’s either they died or else you wish that they’d died!”
o Method Man was promoting his new comic-book podcast The Marvel Method. I liked what he said about his lifelong love for the the medium – “The beauty of me being Black and growing up in these neighborhoods, I could be around some of the toughest guys and they still loved Thor, the Hulk, Spider-Man, you know? It was never an issue of me being a geek or a nerd.”
o Great summation – “There’s a moral code in these books that we all live by. We don’t kill, we just – we wanna see justice. We want a happy ending.”
o There was a delightful bit at the end where Method Man and Trevor workshopped ideas for who Method Man would play if they created a new comic-book character for him – they were both so into it, and it made me smile.
Tuesday, December 8
· Headlines – Moun Everest has gotten almost a yard taller, Trump walks out of Medal of Freedom ceremony
o Trevor clarified that Everest’s greater height is from tectonic movement, not merely the accumulation of the bodies of failed climbers.
o I smiled at his, “Who is holding the tape measure?”, celebrating the bravery of whoever took on that task and risked that epic recoil.
o Great description of how “checked out” Trump is on the presidency – “Right now he’s got that energy of a T.J. Maxx employee on his last day.”
· Pandemic News – The U.K. administers the first vaccines, news that the administration passed on an option to buy more vaccine doses, international social distancing enforcement
o Good bit on Trump’s “art of the deal” that resulted us getting 100 million fewer doses of the Pfizer vaccine than we might have had – “Now, Europe is stuck with all those doses, and that means more coronavirus for America!”
o I liked the blurb on international social distancing enforcement, from South Africa police drive-by roasting people who weren’t wearing masks to Indian police making non-mask-wearers do pushups in the streets.
· Correspondent Piece (Ronny) – Technology in 2020
o Ronny of course brought his trademark simmering infuriation to this “best of the year” piece – “If it took a pandemic to get rid of Skype, then I say, worth it. Skype was great if your goal was to not have a meeting.”
o The show has done this joke before, but I still liked the bit on Ronny liking that Zoom charges you after 45 minutes, knowing that gives family calls a deadline – “Is there a 5-minute plan Zoom? If so, shut up and take my money!”
· Interview – Author Ijeoma Oluo
o Oluo addressed the unfortunately-still-timely relevance of her books, which address race conversations – “I think a lot of it is that people are very afraid to have honest conversations about race. It’s such a fraught subject, and unfortunately, that means that people will put it off until they feel they can’t anymore, especially white people.”
o Her new book looks as “white male mediocrity” and the rage that emerges from men who feel their American dream of white supremacy hasn’t paid off – “Often it doesn’t work out that way, and that’s part of why we see the anger. Because people have bought into this system, they’re playing along. They’ve been promised, if they voted accordingly, they spent their money accordingly, that their greatness is coming. And if it doesn’t, who do they blame? People like me, people like you, because they’ve been told they’re supposed to be better off.”
o I appreciated her resilience in the face of death threats and harassment she’s received due to her writing, on top of personal struggles and crises – “I take strength from the fact that I’m still here and can still do this work.”
· Interview – Rapper Busta Rhymes
o Busta Rhymes was there to promote his first album in 11 years, which Trevor was excited about – “It’s great to see how you’ve maintained Busta Bust’s flow and what makes you such a great rapper whilst at the same time changing what needed to be changed for the times that we’re living in today.”
o Busta Rhymes displayed dedication to his work, not content to put out “nonsense” that gains easy attention for a short time – “Credibility has always been important to me, and it’s always been a big component of what validated you as a real artist in the eyes of the public, the consumer, and your other peers, other artists.”
Wednesday, December 9
· Headlines – Supreme Court rejects Trump’s latest court case, Rep. Louie Gohmert loses a tooth while addressing reporters, problems with Russian vaccine
o Trevor really has an endless supply of good descriptions for Trump – “President of the United States and man in a bar fight with reality.”
o The bit on Trump’s dismay that the justices he appointed didn’t back him in his case included this savage bit on Justice Kavanagh – “All of the sudden, now you know the meaning of the word ‘no,’ Brett?”
o I laughed at this joke about Rep. Gohmert – “Trump’s fraud cases are getting kicked out of court so hard that other people are losing their teeth.”
o There were plenty of red flags with Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine, including health officials advising that people not drink alcohol for the first two months after getting it – “Not drinking is gonna cause a lot of problems because it means a lot of Russians are gonna be seeing Russia sober for the first time. ‘What is this? My home is frozen wasteland where the top food is beets? What the hell is this? I thought I lived in Caribbean!’”
· Main Story – New York bar owner defies shutdown orders
o Loved this phrasing – “He found the courage to take a stand against staying alive.”
o Great riff on this bar owner declaring his bar an “autonomous zone” while standing in front of an American flag – “America is tyrannical, so I declare myself independent! U.S.A.!”
o The main thrust of this story, though, was “you’re so lucky you’re white,” and this guy had that in spades – “Yo, can you imagine cops seeing you hit one of them with your car and then you get released without bail? No bail! Best believe, if he was Black, those cops would’ve dragged him out of his car, beat the shit of him, and then beat the shit out of his car.”
o Trevor also covered this guy coming a Fox News hero – “They even told him he was ‘peacefully pushing back’ when he was pushing back with his car! Yo, are you serious right now? When Black people just walk in the street, Fox calls it a riot, but this white guy drives into a cop, a police officer, an officer of the law, and Fox News is like, ‘Now, this is a hit-and-run that Martin Luther King Jr. would’ve been proud of.’”
· Montage – GOP Congress members avoid calling Biden the president-elect
o The capper here was Sen. Marsha Blackburn calling Biden the president-elect, followed immediately by a clip of an anchor explaining that they got a call from one of her people saying that she’d “misspoken”
· Correspondent Piece (Michael) – A proposal to throw out 2020
o I felt this – “2020 was a bust. We got nostalgic for when we got to go to the dentist.”
o When Trevor pointed out that declaring everything from 2020 a “do-over” would be tough, using schools as an example, Michael had this to say – “You think anyone learned anything in remote learning? The only thing students learned in 2020 was that a teacher’s salary can only afford you a studio apartment.”
· Correspondent Piece (Desi) – Horniness in 2020
o This was a fun roundup piece, featuring a lot of good tidbits – On the rise in Pornhub traffic during the pandemic, Desi noted, “That’s right, not everybody was baking bread during the pandemic. Some people were kneading their own dough.”
o Desi’s admonishment of Jeffrey Toobin – “When you’re on a work call on Zoom, that’s not the time to masturbate. That’s time to paint your toenails or get your Christmas shopping done online, you gotta keep it professional.”
o Also, great point that increased free time during lockdown meant there was really no reason to “multitask” by masturbating during a work call.
· Interview – Comedian George Wallace
o Wallace was promoting his new book, Bulltwit… and Whatnot – in explaining why it took him so come to come aboard the social media bandwagon, he argued, “Why should I give away my jokes for free?”
o Great line – “I pray to God every night, ‘Just let me be the greatest bullshitter.’ But right now, Donald Trump is kicking my ass.”
Thursday, December 10
· Headlines – Holiday cookie shortage, British family discovers gold coins in their garden, investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes, Trump’s mass pardon plans, states sue to break up Facebook
o Part of the cookie shortage was due to increased demand during the pandemic – “Okay, you know what? That’s not cool. Like, I don’t know why the news is reporting on the number of cookies I eat. Yeah, I eat more than three! Why is that news? What am I supposed to do, it’s a pandemic! Do you just want me to cry everyday?”
o The other reason? A labor shortage, which Trevor attributed to the elves striking over unsafe working conditions – “If you’ve ever had a crunchy cookie, those are elf bones.”
o I loved this bit – “I’m not gonna lie: Hunter Biden announcing his own investigation? That’s a pretty gangster move. I mean, usually, you see pictures of people covering their faces when they run into court, you know, they’re trying to hide that there’s an investigation. But Hunter’s like a guy coming home late at night like, ‘Uh, babe? You’re gonna wanna go through my phone.’”
o Trevor’s Mark Zuckerberg voice always cracks me up. Also, I liked this point, about so many states, red and blue, banding together to sue Facebook – “If what you’re doing is so egregious that you’re bringing California and Mississippi together? Ya done f**ked up!”
· Correspondent Piece (Dulcé) – Protests in 2020
o I felt this energy – “During 2020, we were either stuck at home in quarantine or out in the streets protesting. There was no in-between.”
o I loved the made-up headline imagining what would’ve happened if “Black Athena” were Black – It was simply “Naked Black Woman Arrested,” with the pull-out quote beneath it, “‘She wasn’t white,’ cops said.”
o Great reaction to footage of an irate anti-masker being physically carried out of a store by his adult son – “Your own son carried you out? You can’t call someone a pussy when you’re being carried out by the person who came out of your balls.”
· Interview – News host Rachel Maddow
o Maddow agreed with Trevor that her new book on Spiro Agnew shows that the U.S. has seen high levels of political corruption before, but she thought the book was most instructive to us for its “good guys,” not its “bad guys” – “We need to tell each other heroic stories about public service and citizenship and civic responsibility that model good behavior.”
o Although Trevor admitted he doesn’t know what the atmosphere was in America during Watergate, he thought the current climate was likely more pervasive – “This feels like it goes down to the ground. Like, the man on the street is involved on this level, if that makes sense. You know, it’s not a political thing, it is just a thing now.”
o Asked about the particular skills of right-wing media outlets in terms of viewer engagement, Maddow said, “I do think there’s something a little bit magic about the right-wing media, that the left-wing media will never do, and that I think liberals and centrists will never do, which is that they tell their audience, ‘You can trust no one other than me. There are no facts other than those I’m giving to you.’”
· Interview – Actor Bryan Cranston
o Cranston noted that “how are you?” is no longer a meaningless filler question that you answer with “good” and move from – “Now it’s like, ‘Ooh, 2020! How am I? How am I?’ It’s kind of this existential question now.”
o Trevor aptly described one of Cranston’s best gifts as an actor, saying, “I feel like you have this amazing ability to play characters where you’re a good person who is not doing the right thing, but we want you to not do the right thing because we’re in touch with the humanity of the person we’re watching.”
o For Cranston, it came down to people recognizing and empathizing with the flaws and vulnerabilities of others – “When you mature, you learn that human beings are really lovely at heart, the foundational sense of a human being. If they see someone humiliated or embarrassed or vulnerable, they don’t wanna laugh at them. They wanna wrap their arms around them, they want to protect them.”
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