.jpg)
Sunday, October 16
· Recap of the Week – Russia-Ukraine war
o John wasn’t optimistic about the general Putin has brought in to lead operations in Ukraine – “He’s not only known for his brutal tactics in Syria, he’s nicknamed General Armageddon. And no one brings in a guy named General Armageddon to do fewer war crimes.”
o One upside of this story was that we got to learn about The Crimean Bridge: Made with Love, Russian-propaganda-style rom-com in the vein of Love, Actually wherein all the romances are centered around the construction of the Crimean Bridge.
o Also in the, “Wait—what?” category was the oddly romantic video Ukraine made thanking France for military aid and asking for more – “What a very weird time to be alive. That is an appeal for military aid set to Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘Je T’aime’ and featuring the visuals of an e-card from JibJab. And the fact that that came from the Defense Ministry’s official account means that someone in Ukraine got a military order of, ‘Go be horny on Twitter,’ and they very much answered that call.”
· And Now This – Daytime with Kimberly & Esteban small talk
o In this local-news montage, the main theme was Kimberly trying her darndest and Esteban being a dead fish in response – I enjoyed him clapping just slightly too far behind her.
o A lot of Esteban’s awkwardness was based on using, “…True story,” as his go-to response to any of Kimberly’s banter – He used it for everything from, “We’re so happy you’re choosing to start your day with us,” to, “Spring break’s still going on.”
· Main Story – Transgender rights
o Much of this story dealt with GOP attacks on trans folks, but John didn’t leave Democrats off the hook – “Frustratingly, there are many on the left who seem at best reluctant to engage on this issue, and at worst outright hostile to it, either complaining about ‘pronoun police’ or arguing that this issue will cost Democrats elections.”
o Unsurprisingly, John was disgusted by Michael Bloomberg derisively referring to a hypothetical “guy in a dress” and throwing out “he/she/it” as that person’s pronouns – “Wow, ‘it.’ Michael Bloomberg can fuck all the way with that shit.”
o Excellent line – “Set aside the notion that it is worth sacrificing protections for a vulnerable group to chase a ‘winning formula.’ Let’s also remember that it’s not actually the left talking about trans rights nonstop. It’s Republicans, who see an advantage in demagoguing this issue, and to ignore them doing that is to allow them to have real, calamitous impact on people’s lives.”
o John pointed out that most of the anti-trans school sports bills become fearmongering centerpieces of GOP campaigns despite, even though, in a state like South Dakota, the school sports commission only knew of one trans girl competing in school sports, and she’d graduated several years ago – “There are more athletes in this shot for Noem’s ad than there are trans girls known to have competed in South Dakota schools. But even if there were more, discriminating against them would still obviously be wrong, and it would still be weird that state legislatures were getting involved in decisions that are usually made by organizations governing the sports in question.”
o These school sports bans are also out of sync with elite-level competing, which evaluates on a case-by-case basis but tends to align with an athlete’s gender identity – “It is pretty remarkable that a trans athlete could theoretically compete in the Olympics but not in South Dakota under-12 soccer, a sport that genuinely only exists to obliterate parents’ weekends.”
o Loved this – “Let me just address the claim that trans kids ‘lose all their hobbies.’ ‘Cause I will point out that when they try to have some, like, I don’t know, school sports, for example, a bunch of arsehole adults try to keep them from doing it.”
o John had a great takedown for the supposed “kids are identifying as cats” disinformation – “That fact you seem to genuinely believe that is happening is just heartbreakingly stupid. ‘Cause when you think about it for literally two seconds, the whole thing falls apart. For one, if kids were using litterboxes in class, a state representative from Minnesota would not be the one breaking that news to you. You would’ve fucking heard about it. If a kid shat in a litterbox in first period, it would be the only thing anyone in that state was talking about by lunch. Minnesota would change its state motto to ‘Minnesota: Y’Know, the State Where that Kid Shit in a Litterbox.’”
o Yes! – “Basically, no kid is casually dropping into an operating room because they just decided to get their uterus removed with the impulsive recklessness usually associated with getting bangs, because that is an absolutely ridiculous thing to say.”
o I loved this line – “Transitioning isn’t taking your kid away from you. In some case, it can be giving you your kid back.”
o This was a beautiful point – “I am glad that Kai is advocating for herself, but if a child has to be an activist, we have already failed that child.”
o I loved this, about the importance of not focusing solely on the miserable parts of trans lives – “Hope and joy are crucial here. They are the fuel that fires the fight for equality.”
Monday, October 17
· Headlines – SEC investigation into Truth Social, Georgia senate debate, Michigan kidnappers trial, Elon Musk backs off on cutting off Ukraine’s satellite service
o Loved this reaction to an opening blurb about BTS members entering their compulsory military service – “Their army is basically unstoppable now. There is no army in the world that is going to take a shot at these guys. Are you kidding me? Who’s going to be stupid enough to take a shot? Everyone’s a fan.”
o Great summation of Trump – “The man loves to crime! What can I say?”
o Good joke – “You may remember that after he left the White House, Trump created his own social media app called Truth Social, which is basically just Twitter, but for white supremacists. And before you say, wait, aren’t the white supremacists already on Twitter? Yes, but on Truth Social, they’re verified.”
o Trevor didn’t feel bad for shareholders impacted by Trump’s allegedly shady business dealings with Truth Social – “It’s the year 2022. If you go into business with Donald Trump and you are surprised that you got scammed, that’s on you.”
o Sigh, of course Herschel Walker said his honorary police badge wasn’t just symbolic – “It almost makes me wonder, how many people has Herschel Walker arrested? Huh? Is there someone locked up in his basement right now who’s just like, ‘Is this a real prison? There’s a foosball table in here!’ He’s like, ‘It’s an honorary prison!’”
o So one of the jurors for the case for the men who plotted to kidnap the governor of Michigan was dismissed for flirting with one of the defendants – “I guess the real lesson here is that bad boys stay winning. This guy is literally on trial for trying to kidnap the governor, and he’s still getting love. It’s always like this. Every famous criminal has all these groupies who are like, ‘Is there a Mrs. Serial Killer? Oh—oh, there was, but you chopped her into little pieces? So you’re single now.’”
o Valid – “You know, Elon Musk is the only person in the world who can do a good thing, but in the bitchiest way possible.”
o Trevor took the Elon Musk thing further with this terrific bit – “Can you imagine if Martin Luther King had this attitude when he was trying to do his good? ‘I had a dream, I guess. Because I don’t see nobody else having a dream, so I guess it’s all me. I got to sleep 20 hours a day because these bitch asses don’t want to come up with dreams of their own.’”
· Correspondent Piece (Dulcé) – Reggaeton
o An obvious joke, but it still made me smile – “The roots of this music go back as far as the ‘70s and as far south as Panama. It could have started further south, but the beats are so big, they don’t fit through the canal.”
o I laughed at Dulcé’s explanation of the earliest performances of reggaeton – “Honestly, I’m glad I wasn’t there. Because watching Spanish words and dancehall music coming together for the first time, that’d been too sexy to handle. There’s no way you didn’t leave that dance floor too pregnant.”
o I loved this description of the musician Shabba Ranks – Dulcé said he “looked like if Blade became a DJ instead of fighting vampires.”
o The genre fell out of popularity for a while in the U.S. but came roaring back with “Despacito” – “This song was so popular, even racists were learning Spanish!”
· Interview – Whistleblower/activist Chelsea Manning
o Manning was there to discuss her new memoir, README.text – She said, “I feel like there’s been all this discussion of things that have happened around me and involving the military, involving other personalities like President Obama, who commuted my sentence. But I feel like my story, my coming-of-age story, really, for just trying to tell the story of how I became who I am today, has been kind of left out of the picture.”
o Trevor asked what she hoped to change by leaking the documents she did – “The public discourse, I feel like, is what I really wanted to impact. I feel like at least if the public is informed, then at least—like having a conversation with your doctor, you have informed consent.”
o I thought this was a good insight into how the landscape of public understanding of military actions has changed in the years since she became a whistleblower – “I actually think it’s shifted from not having access to information to having access to so much information that you can’t filter out accurate from inaccurate, misinformation from disinformation, and that this is going to be the main struggle that we have moving forward.”
Tuesday, October 18
· Main Story – Midterm campaign ads
o We had an opening blurb on the accidental destruction of the oldest toilet in Japan – “And by the way, if you’re wondering, the oldest toilet in New York City is the subway.”
o I loved Trevor’s reaction to an ad where Sen. Ted Kennedy advised Defund the Police advocates to “call a crackhead” the next time there’s a crisis – “The senator is acting like ‘cop’ and ‘crackhead’ are the only two options. That’s it. What about social workers? What about mental health experts? What about heroin addicts? There’s a whole range, people!”
o This was a great bit – “Say what you will about cops vs. crackheads, at least the crackheads aren’t going to be planting crack on you. They’re keeping it for themselves. It works out!”
o Trevor felt sorry for whatever show returned following a harrowing ad from Rep. Eric Swalwell depicting a white mother being arrested for having an abortion – “And now, back to Young Sheldon.”
o Oh man, the rapped ad from Linda Paulson, a candidate in a local Utah election, was simply painful – I think my vote for worst line goes to, “Just to clarify, as a female adult, / I know what a woman is.”
o Trevor’s reaction to Paulson’s rap video was delightful – “I’m not exactly sure how, but I’m pretty sure that was racism.”
o Loved this – “Did you notice that at some point, the beat stopped? But it stopped itself. Like, she was so off beat, it’s almost like the beat was like, ‘Am I the one messing up?’”
o Dulcé was the headline correspondent, and she offered up some fun rap names for Paulson – My favorites were “the Wu-Tang Gran,” “Betty WAP,” and “Oldish Gambino.”
· Interview – Journalist/documentarian Soledad O’Brien
o I liked Trevor’s intro to O’Brien’s new documentary, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks – “You are here with, honestly, one of the most fascinating accounts of a life that I feel everybody thinks they know about, and yet nobody does, Rosa Parks.”
o O’Brien echoed that sentiment, saying, “There has never been a documentary about Rosa Parks. Because everybody thinks they know the story of Rosa Parks. But actually, what you know is mostly not accurate. And there’s so much that you don’t know.”
o O’Brien acknowledged that the myth of Parks as an “accidental Civil Rights leader” might make for a more interesting narrative, but she preferred the true story of the decades of tireless effort that brought forth change – “I think we undermine all the work that went into the Civil Rights movement by pretending that somehow a handful of people stumbled together.”
· Interview – Comedian/actress Amy Schumer
o Trevor tried to reassure Schumer that, even though he was leaving The Daily Show, they’d still see each other in the standup world – She replied, “I know, but I don’t wanna see you in person. I wanna see you on TV. Where you belong.”
o Schumer thought her series Inside Amy Schumer showcases feminist ideas in the same way that The Daily Show showcases ideas about politics/race/etc. – “People don’t want to feel like they’re learning something. But if you can make people laugh and have a point—that’s the only way I want to learn anything, you know?”
o She had some nice things to say about her choice to open up to audiences about some of her struggles – “I found that when I was honest with my struggles and the things I was battling with that I was ashamed of, people were expressing, like, ‘Me too.’ And that made me feel so much better. And so that makes me feel like it’s worth opening my mouth, you know, to make people laugh and feel better—and to be authentic. You know, I think people can tell.”
Wednesday, October 19
· Headlines – Mackenzie Scott gives $86 million to the Girl Scouts, Power Slap League, retailers end free returns
o I laughed at Trevor’s reaction in this opening blurb about the NFL playing on Black Friday – “I love how the league made this big announcement like it’s a genius idea. ‘Wow, football on a Friday!’ Yeah, it’s football. Put it on any day. It works. It’s football. It’s like, ‘Ooh, sex on a Tuesday,’ yeah, brilliant idea. It’s good whenever. Don’t overthink it.”
o We also got an opening blurb on Liz Truss stepping down as the U.K.’s prime minister after less than two months – “When asked for comment, she said, ‘Any woman can break the glass ceiling. I’m proud to have shattered the glass floor.’”
o Trevor pointed out that, despite only having been a billionaire for a few years, Mackenzie Scott has already given away over $10 billion, which is more than Jeff Bezos ever has – “It just shows how much good you can do when your main priority isn’t going to space in a giant metal penis.”
o I smiled at Trevor’s take on professional slap fighting – “Those big dudes might be the champs for now, but it’s only a matter of time before the sport is dominated by immigrant moms.”
o Super valid – “And before you’re one of those people who’s like, ‘You know, this is a bizarre idea for a sport. Is it really a sport?’ Every sport sounds ridiculous when you first hear about it, all right?”
o Continuing on that idea, Trevor used NASCAR as an example – “Can you imagine that first conversation? ‘So we’re all going to drive really fast in a big circle?’ ‘Yeah, yeah.’ ‘But what if I lose control and crash into the wall?’ ‘Well, that’s what we’re all hoping for.’”
o This was fun – “How you gonna charge people for returns? If I wanna make a rash decision on a whim and then I change my mind, I shouldn’t have to pay a price for it. That’s the whole point of America, huh?”
o Good bit – “You know who I blame for this? I blame the Democrats. Yeah. They should have codified the right to free returns when they had a supermajority. You could have done it, Nancy!”
o However, Trevor laid the real blame on a lack of unified size standards in clothing stores, which is why people need to return a lot of online purchases in the first place – “In some stores, oh, you’re a medium. Then you go to another store. Now you’re a 6. Then in some stores, they’re like, ‘If you’re usually a medium, you probably want to go with a large.’ Then just call it a large!! ‘Our sizes run small.’ Then why don’t you make that a medium?! What are you doing?!”
o Roy was the headline correspondent, and while he applauded Mackenzie Scott’s philanthropy, he didn’t agree with giving to the Girl Scouts specifically – “They’ve been making money pimping them cookies. They’re good. You need to give the money to the Boy Scouts. The Boys Scouts the one need the money. They’ve been selling popcorn for decades, and they still broke.”
· Interview – Musician Brandi Carlile
o Carlile gave an honest answer to Trevor’s question about whether she feels pressure to cater to a wider audience – “I don’t really even know how to cater to the fans that love me, you know? Like, my desires are still so strong to pursue my own heroes and my love of entertainment, that I just am, like, a little too obsessive to be able to see outside of that, to really know how to cater, you know.”
o I loved her explanation for why she’s remaking one of her old albums – “There are so many different versions of a song that can exist. And when you’re an artist, like, they exist in your head, whether you get a chance to record them or not, like at any given time. But you’ve got an album. You’ve got one shot. That song is going to have one life, and it’s going to be heard one way.”
o This was lovely, about the dual forces of religion and love in her life – “When I sing ‘You and Me on the Rock,’ it’s a take on a Sunday school lesson, and I know that it’s about me marrying the love of my life, my wife Catherine, and having these two little girls. And I know that that’s not exactly what Sunday school had in mind for me, but I do think it’s what God had in mind for me.”
· Performance – Brandi Carlile
o After hearing her talk about “You and Me on the Rock,” we then got to see Carlile perform it, with her wife backing her up.
o I loved this line – “But nobody cares where the birds have gone / When the rains come down on Babylon.”
o The chorus gave this lovely, simple expression of love – “I build my house upon this rock, baby, / Every day with you.”
Thursday, October 20
· Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That – Research on long-term effects of COVID, Russia targets Ukrainian power stations, Liz Truss steps down as the U.K.’s prime minister
o Good joke – “That’s right. Researchers say COVID can cause your organs to age faster than you are. I’m not even sure what that means. I guess you turn on the TV to watch Euphoria, and your kidneys are like, ‘What about Blue Bloods? Come on!’”
o Trevor’s take on Putin’s use of “kamikaze drones” to take out Ukrainian power stations – “If this doesn’t prove that Putin’s strategy is failing, nothing will. Because you never need to use kamikaze when you’re winning.”
o This was a good point, about Russian buying their drones from Iran – “You’re supposed to be one of the most powerful militaries in the world, but you ran out of shit already? Like, you realize America never runs out of weapons—never. America has so many weapons. Sometimes it’ll sell weapons to countries that it’s gonna fight just to make space, you know? Be like, ‘All right, here you go, Iraq. All right, now let’s do this!’”
o Great line – “Another prime minister! And this one only lasted 44 days. Boris Johnson had COVID parties that were longer than that.”
o I loved Trevor’s impression of the U.K.’s friends sitting it down to have a serious talk – “Listen, honey, you’ve been through four prime ministers in six years. They can’t all be the problem, huh? I’m just saying, maybe it’s time to turn the vote of no confidence on yourself.”
o Of course, we covered the gag about the head of lettuce that was used to measure Liz Truss’s tenure – “At first, people were like, ‘Ha ha! I bet she can’t last longer than a head of lettuce.’ And then by the end of it, they were like, ‘Should the lettuce be prime minister?’”
· Florida gas stations to start selling weed
o Some of the names Trevor used for marijuana were “the devil’s kale” and “George W. Kush.”
o Valid – “You have to admit, people, Florida has range, you know? Yeah, sometimes it’s all, ‘CRT turned my kid trans! Let’s deport the illegals!’ And other times it’s like, ‘What if every oil change came with a free blunt?’”
· Interview – Actor Tyler James Williams
o Williams was on to talk about the new season of Abbott Elementary – When asked about the show’s success, he said, “I think people want to feel good, man. I think after 2020 and what has continued to be the pandemic and our, you know, political climate, I think, we found a lot that we could be mad about and a lot of things that we could yell at each other about, but not much that we could laugh about together.”
o This was a nice observation from Trevor – “The stories talk about what’s happening in the American schooling system, but with grace. I think that’s one of the things I’ve really appreciated, is that it’s not like a mockery of teachers. And it doesn’t shit on anybody, but it’s really honest in people’s failings.”
o Interesting remarks from Williams on the importance of sitcoms as unifiers, something that anyone can talk about around the water cooler or at a family dinner – “The American sitcom kind of can’t die. If the American sitcom dies, we’re f**ked.”
o They talked a little about Williams’ history as a child star who managed to grow up “normal” – Reflecting on that, Williams expressed an appreciation for “the fact that my audience has literally grown up with me. And we’re all here together now.”
No comments:
Post a Comment