Monday, January 25
·
Headlines
– Tom Brady heads to his tenth Super Bowl, Russian protests supporting Alexei
Navalny, new COVID-19 travel restrictions in the U.S.
o
Trevor
didn’t see how Tom Brady could be 43 years old and still playing in Super Bowls
– “I’m only 36, and all my Google searches are like, ‘Hips make clicking sound
when I walk, am I dying?’”
o
Astute
point on the protests in Russia – “Guys, can we agree? Anyone who protests in
-58° weather should have their demands heard” (not least of which due to the
risk of them setting buildings on fire purely for warmth!)
o
I
smiled at Trevor’s delight to hear about South Africa making international news,
even in the context of travel restrictions over a highly-contagious COVID
variant.
·
Main Story – Trump’s second impeachment
o
Trevor
wasn’t on board with Lindsey Graham’s “but where does it end?” argument re:
impeaching Trump – “Okay, first of all, I support impeaching George Washington,
because I don’t want that guy holding office again! A slaveholding zombie as
president?! That’s terrifying!”
o
I
loved the point that Trump having left office doesn’t negate the need to hold
him accountable for his actions, with Trevor noting that that wouldn’t fly in
any other job – “If you get fired at Best Buy, they don’t just let you steal a
TV on your way out.”
o
On
Trump’s rumblings of starting his own “Patriot Party” – “And you know he’s
serious because he made Jared Kushner Google ‘how to start political parties.’
This shit is on!”
o
Awesome
line – “Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that she’s gonna be running for governor of
Arkansas, which, based on her track record, means she’s not gonna be running
for governor and there is no state called Arkansas.”
·
Correspondent
Piece (Roy) – "CAHOOT" crisis intervention team in Oregon
o
Roy
was amazed to learn that the crisis intervention leaders he was interviewing
didn’t just set up shop in the wake of the summer protests – “Wait, 30 years?! When your organization was
created, the fresh prince hadn’t even left for Bel-Air yet!”
o
Impressive
statistic that this group operates on 2% of the local police budget but
responds to 20% of the area’s 911
calls.”
o
I
loved this exchange between the organization leader and Roy over the number of
“Karen” calls they respond to – “We have a lot of calls placed to Public Safety
with a certain outcome in mind….” “Just say, ‘racist,’ Tim! Tim, this is a safe
place!”
·
Interview
– Football player/actor Nnamdi Asomugha
o
In
talking about taking the switch from the NFL to acting, I liked Asomugha’s
particular description of himself as a risk-taker – “I don’t go into it saying,
‘I can’t wait to take this risk.’ I just love things that require me to take a
risk in order to achieve them. But I dunno, I think it’s important to have no
idea what you’re doing and just go for it anyway.”
o
Amusing
story about how long he spent learning to play the saxophone in preparation for
his new film Sylvie’s Love, which got
drawn way out due to simply struggling to find a studio to take on the film –
Trevor asked at what point it stops being prep for a movie and becomes “just playing the saxophone for no
reason.”
Tuesday, January 26
·
Headlines
– Biden’s early policies, coconut milk tied to monkey labor, cat birthday party
leads to COVID outbreak
o
I
loved the description of Biden coming in hard with progressive policies like
someone on their first day of prison – “Yo, who’s the wokest mother**ker in
here? ‘Cause I’m about to whoop his, her, or their ass!”
o
I’m
with Trevor on the, “Wait, what, monkey
labor?!” of it all, and I liked his observation that humans will never be
able to compete with a monkey workforce – “I would like a living wage.” “I will
do it for bananas.” “Damn you, Bongo!”
o
In
addition to a cat birthday party being a dumb thing to risk COVID for, Trevor
questioned why such a thing exists at all – “When have you ever seen a cat
like, ‘Ooh, a room of loud humans. I hope one of them straps something onto my
head.’”
·
Main Story – Difficulties getting COVID-19 vaccines
o
Great
line – “We should have seen this coming back when Popeye’s ran out of chicken.
If America can’t handle sandwich distribution, what chance do they have with
the vaccine?”
o
In
the bit on seniors having a hard time navigating mostly-online appointment
registration platforms, my heart broke at the clip of an old man saying, “I
feel like I’m in a maze with no open doors.”
o
It’s
wild that some people are getting unexpected vaccines when other people don’t
show up to their appointments, with healthcare workers desperate to administer
the doses before they go bad – “Who is missing their appointment for a COVID
vaccine? What else are these people doing? Are there really people out there
who are like, ‘I mean, sure, I have a vaccine appointment at 3 p.m., but I also
have this cat birthday party I’m supposed to go to, so…?’”
·
Fake
Commercial – Leo Deblin “lawyering services”
o
This
was Roy’s Leo Deblin character offering his services to Rudy Giuliani, who’s
being sued by Dominion over his lies about their voting machines.
·
Sketch
– Trump’s “divorce” from Fox News
o
Great
description of Fox’s fawning relationship with Trump – “For four years, they
treated with him like a white lady treats her dog: he was a good boy, and if
ihe peed on you, it was your fault.”
o
In
the ensuing sketch, Roy presided over the court for Fox News and Trump’s
“divorce,” with Desi and Michael playing their lawyers.
o
I
liked this line from Desi – “Your honor, my client has suffered too long with a
lying, racist partner who incites insurrection. They want to find a lying,
racist partner who doesn’t incite
insurrection.”
·
Interview
– Filmmaker Stanley Nelson
o
Nelson
was promoting his new documentary Crack:
Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy.
o
He
emphasized how important it was to get the story straight from dealers and
users from the crack epidemic, counteracting “the lies that were told” about
them at the time – in discussing one former dealer who was interviewed for the
documentary, he said,“This wasn’t a guy who woke up one day and said, ‘I want
to devastate my community.’ This guy was a high school kid, he was a kid who
was working at McDonald’s.”
o
Trevor
asked about the responsibility of the media throughout the crack epidemic, who
were more interested in “parroting the propaganda” from the government rather
than examine the very story they were telling – Nelson’s simple reply was, “There
was never an analysis of what was going on.”
Wednesday, January 27
·
Headlines
– GameStop’s stock surge, pandemic birth trends, no player inducted into the Baseball
Hall of Fame this year
o
I
loved this description of the stock market – “America’s number-one supplier of
Great Depressions.”
o
Trevor
did a fun bit breaking down the GameStop situation for laymen, a la the Margot
Robbie scene from The Big Short.
o
Awesome
line – “I think it’s actually fun to see how Wall St. doesn’t like it when
somebody Wall Streets them. Yeah, because when they make moves that cost people
their homes, people on Wall St. are like, ‘Hey, man, those are the rules.’ But
when it happens to them, they’re like, ‘Those aren’t the rules! Is someone
gonna regulate this?!’”
o
In
reaction to the news that births are dramatically down this year – “Wow, so
apparently these last 10 months have been all Netflix and no chill.” I also
loved the additional point, “I mean, who’s f**king to Tiger King?!”
·
Pandemic News – Spreading variants, lockdown protests in the Netherlands, Israel’s
efficient vaccine rollout, China’s dubious vaccine efficacy, anal swab tests in
China
o
I
liked this line, about the protests in the Netherlands – “All right, guys, this
right here is a bad sign. How’re we gonna keep the lockdowns going in the rest
of the world when the country that invented legal weed is losing its shit?!”
o
Trevor
suggested that resistance to lockdowns might be a branding issue and suggested
alternative names like “nationwide slumber party, “extended cozy time,” and
“the pretend-you’re-an-indoor-cat challenge.”
o
I
laughed at loud at Trevor’s deadpan reaction to learning about China’s anal
swabs – “You know, there’s a point at which I would rather just have the coronavirus.”
·
Biden’s
calls for unity
o
This
was a very salient point – “So, I can see why unity would be very appealing to
people right now, but for unity to work, you have to agree on what unity is.”
o
And
that was the crux of the piece, the fact that a number of congressional
Republicans are standing up every time Biden or the Democrats do something they
don’t like and exclaiming, “But what about the unity?!”
o
Loved this description of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – “It’s
like a normal Karen fell into a vat of chemicals and then became a Batman
villain.”
o
There
was also a short skit with Desi trying to “mediate” unity between Dulcé and
Michael as stand-ins for the Democratic and Republican parties. This was a great
exchange – “What about the Capitol riots?” “That could’ve been a real moment
for unity, but there wasn’t one Democrat in that mob! They’re all talk and no
insurrection!”
·
Interview
– Poet Amanda Gorman
o
Gorman
admitted that she wasn’t ready for the incredible boost in her profile after
the inauguration – “All my apps had just crashed because of all the followers
flocking to my channel.”
o
What
a beautiful sentiment – “In a lot of cultures, we think the way to cleanse
ourselves is with water, I think we can cleanse ourselves with words. We need
to kind of resanctify, repurify, and reclaim, not just the Capitol building,
but American democracy and what it stands for.”
o
I
loved this – “Poetry is a great reminder of the past that we stand on and the
future we stand for.”
Thursday, January 28
·
Headlines
– Snowed-in healthcare workers give vaccines to stranded motorists, first
private space tourists named, Proud Boys leaders was an FBI informant
o
I
laughed at this line – “Whenever there’s a storm, get in your car and drive
around until you stumble upon someone with extra vaccines! And that, my
friends, is Trevor’s travel safety tip of the day.”
o
This
was a good dig – “Are you kidding me? The founder of the Proud Boys is a
snitch? Man, fascist bigots just aren’t as trustworthy as they used to be.”
o
Trevor
wasn’t surprised the leader of the Proud Boys had wanted to help the FBI – “Hey,
I heard your crew tried to kill Martin Luther King Jr.! Game recognize game!”
·
Main
Story – Wall St. moves to stop the GameStop stock surge
o
There
was a line with a similar sentiment yesterday, but I loved this one too – “The
same guys who are like, ‘The markets must never be regulated! They must always
remain free!’ Those same guys are like, ‘Oh shit, the poor people got a hold of
the freedom! Turn it off! Turn off the freedom!’”
·
Interview
– Economic analyst Doug Henwood
o
The
story was really just a jumping-off point to get to this interview.
o
This
was a very telling, albeit ominous, observation on whether the Reddit traders
did anything “wrong” with their short squeeze on GameStop stock – “These
Redditors are the wrong kind of people, but they’re playing the same game that
Wall St. is playing.”
o
Henwood
described the stock market as “a machine for extracting wealth for a top 1% of
society,” which seems to be depressingly accurate.
·
Correspondent Piece (Roy) – Advice on democracy from Africans
o
This
was a really interesting piece, with political scholars from different African
nations looking at lessons learned on coups and unstable democracies on the
continent.
o
Man,
how apropos was this comment? – “People will say, ‘Okay, it’s time to heal, and
it’s time to forget and move on,’ and therefore never holding people
accountable and never deconstructing the institution that allowed such
violence.”
o
The
experts did not hold back in their
estimation of U.S. politics – “The Electoral College exists in order to keep
white Southerners within the United States by empowering them so much that they
would be able to maintain a system of segregation pseudo-slavery.”
o
An
easy line, but a good one – “Now tell me, who is the shithole country?”
·
Interview
– Actress/director Regina King
o
King
praised the screenwriter for One Night in
Miami, her directorial debut on a momentous night shared between Muhammad
Ali, Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke –
“He put conversations that people have been having, that Black men have
been having, into the mouths of these larger-than-life men.”
o
She
went on to say that her chief job as a director was essentially to let the
dialogue do its job – “Just lots of conversations and preparations ahead of
time to just allow the dialogue to be the star and allow everything else to
just kind of cradle that dialogue.”
o
Trevor
highlighted the difficulty of directing a film out of a piece that was
originally a play – while a single, contained setting can feel expansive
onstage, on film, “You have to direct to make one space feel like it’s going
somewhere.”
