Monday, February 1
· Headlines – East coast snowstorm, highway collapse in California, anti-vaxxer protest disrupts vaccine mega-site, military coup in Myanmar, Redditors drive up the price of silver
o Rueful laugh at the quarantine-irony of this statement on the weather in New York – “In fact, there was so much snow that we couldn’t go anywhere and we had to stay inside all day. It was crazy!”
o I loved Trevor asking why anti-vaxxer are trying to stop other people from getting the vaccine, as opposed to just not getting it themselves – “Like, we don’t come to interrupt you while you’re dying of measles!”
o The blurb on Myanmar did mostly focus on the situation there, but Trevor couldn’t resist a few parallels to the U.S. – “Oh man, Trump must be kicking himself right now. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of using the military! Can I have a coup-over?’”
o I giggled at the shot of Trevor in the Reddit bit, holding up a handful of silverware and laughing maniacally as he declared himself rich.
· Main Story – Marjorie Taylor Greene
o I loved Trevor raising the roof and shouting, “Q is in the House… of Representatives!!!”
o There was a great impression of Taylor Greene working in government when she believes “the government is full of Satan-worshipping sex predators,” constantly flinging open doors in the Capitol building in the hopes of catching the “deep state” in the act.
o Trevor argued that Taylor Greene’s association with CrossFit was even more cultish than the QAnon stuff – “That shit’s just scientology with jumping jacks.”
o I laughed so hard at Trevor questioning why you’d use a “Jewish space laser” to secretly start wildfires when you could just use matches – “It’s like such a waste of a Jewish space laser! It’s like using the Death Star to make s’mores!”
· Interview – Playwright Jeremy O. Harris
o I really liked Trevor’s comment on his ever-present hoodies – “This is how I dress when I’m at home, and I’m not in the mood to act like I’ve not been at home for a year.”
o In talking about the ideas that led him to write Slave Play, Harris had a lot of interesting things to say – I liked his comparison of more direct racism he encountered growing up in the South with white people he met in the North who were just as racist but insisted that they weren’t. He also had some really good comments about the mid-2000s era of “ironic racism” liberal humor.
o Harris stated that, for him, theatre is all about community, and he wanted Slave Play to explore how racism pervades our communities and relationships – “I’m really obsessed with this sort of entanglement that’s based around mutual respect, mutual love, but like wherein that respect is hampered by being blind to the ways in which being socialized white has made it almost impossible for you to understand the complexities of any body that’s not your own.”
Tuesday, February 2
· Headlines – Groundhog Day, spinach used to sense landmines, pandemic news, Biden discusses COVID relief with Republican senators
o Trevor’s annual Groundhog Day story always makes me smile.
o I loved Trevor’s reaction to the high-tech spinach story – “This. Is. Insane. I mean, who emails anymore? Just DM me, spinach!”
o There’s news that some pilots are getting “rusty” after flying less often during the pandemic – “It’s not just pilots, people! Everyone is gonna be rusty after COVID. Projectionists are gonna be playing movies upside-down. Bouncers are gonna be letting in ugly dudes and telling beautiful women they got on the wrong shoes. Bullies are gonna give you their lunch money!”
o Truth – “I do love how Republicans suddenly get stingy the second a Democrat comes into the White House. Because don’t forget, during the Trump years they were handing out tax cuts with a stripper money-gun. But now that Biden’s president, suddenly they’re trying to hand out COVID relief a penny at a time?”
· Main Story – Alexandria Ocasio Cortez describes her experience during the Capitol riot
o Trevor noted that, for those of us at home, seeing footage of the Capitol riot was like watching a particularly-visceral action movie, “but an action movie is very different when you are actually in the movie.”
o So well said – “So I’m glad that AOC shared this story because many Republicans in Congress would like to just pretend that this shit never happened, that the lives of congress members and their staff weren’t in danger and that police officers guarding the Capitol weren’t injured and killed. But if there’s no accountability, then it becomes easier and easier for it to happen again.”
· Montage – Conservative pundits being “silenced”
o This was a fun bit. As congress members, pundits, and TV hosts railed about “cancel culture” and being “censored” for things like 1) being deplatformed after repeatedly violating community guidelines 2) losing a book deal after trying to overturn an election, the show stamped messages across their faces in response to their claims.
o My favorites were, on Stephen Miller, “LIFE,” LIBERTY,” AND THE PURSUIT OF BOOK DEALS,” and on Lou Dobbs, “YOU ARE SPEAKING ON A TV SHOW WITH YOUR NAME ON IT.”
· Wall St. reaction to the GameStop surge
o Despite all the handwringing from Wall St., Trevor once again pointed out that the Redditors’ tactics were the exact type of shit Wall St. does all the time, and he brought receipts.
o I laughed at this response to Goldman-Sachs hoarding aluminum to drive up the price – “Aluminum should never be hoarded. It should be used the way God intended: to make condoms for robots, or for Marjorie Taylor Greene to wear as a hat.”
o In that same bit, I loved Trevor’s sidebar about how he’d been outvoted and forced to pronounce “aluminum” the American way for this story.
o What a great line – “Just as a general rule, whenever you have to remind someone that something is legal, it’s probably shady. No one’s ever like, ‘Hey Trevor, you wanna go to the Cheesecake Factory? It’s legal.’”
· Interview – Professor Ibram X. Kendi
o Kendi immediately laid out why the opposite of “racist” is “antiracist” rather than “nonracist” – “When racial inequity and injustice is normal, if you do nothing, what’s gonna happen to that normality? It’s gonna persist.”
o In discussing Four Hundred Souls, the new anthology he edited, he highlighted the importance of bringing in a wide range of voices to explore Black life throughout the history of America – “We really wanted to bring together a community to write the history of a community.”
o Trevor noted how, while Black people are oppressed around the world, many countries don’t treat Black foreigners the same way they treat their own Black citizens – Kendi replied, “I think race and racism is simultaneously global and national. In other words, you can see similar trends across the word, but each of those trends, each of those policies, each of those racial constructions are distinct to the nation. But what’s also consistent is pretty much every nation argues that they’re not racist towards Black people!”
Wednesday, February 3
· Headlines – Jeff Bezos steps down as Amazon CEO, GOP representatives skirt Capitol metal detectors, Newsmax backs away from Dominion allegations
o I loved the very apt description of “future Batman villain Elon Musk.”
o Good joke about GOP representatives “flexing” by paying the fine for not going through the metal detector to carry their guns on the House floor – “Yeah, that’s right. I got that metal detector money, bitch.”
o This was a great observation – “That’s that power of the courts right now. Because Lindell tried to stage a coup and Newsmax was fine with having him on, but the second he started saying shit that was gonna get them sued, all of the sudden, they’re like, ‘Bap-bap-bap-bap, no, my man! Overthrowing the government, that’s one thing, but a lawsuit, that’s sure serious.’”
· Correspondent piece (Desi) – Rehab for “Karens”
o This “Karentervention” commercial was prompted by the latest episode involving a woman who got kicked out of a Lakers game for yelling at Lebron James without a mask on.
o I got a kick out of this fake Karen video – “They won’t let me in without a mask, but it’s my constitutional right to buy fro-yo and cough on whoever I want to!”
· If You Don’t Know, Now You Know – Childcare in the U.S.
o Excellent example of the difference in #quarantineproblems between people with and without kids – “Oh man, I wasted all day watching Netflix again. I didn’t even get to Hulu! Aw man, what a tough day!”
o This story brought the stats – the price of childcare in the U.S. has tripled since 1990.
o I loved the bit about guys having to “mansplain to each other” at the office, since so many women have felt forced to leave their jobs to care for their kids during the pandemic – The whole exchange was great, but I especially loved the back-and-forth of, “Have you seen a Coen Brothers movie? I mean, really seen it?”, “Quentin Tarantino-”, before the hard cut back into the commentary.
o In looking at the vast difference between the U.S. and a number of European countries on this issue, Trevor hit the nail on the head – “Other countries expect government to make life easier for its citizens.”
o The piece also noted the one time the U.S. proved it was perfectly capable of providing easy, affordable access to healthcare for working women, during WWII – “See? America was willing to pay for childcare when the only alternative was being overrun by Nazis.”
· Interview – Actor Dax Shepard
o Shepard and Trevor talked cars and Shepard’s show Top Gear America – asked by Trevor what his car-love niche is, Shepard replied, “I love cars that look slow that are insanely fast.” He also described his love for “punching up” by blowing past a Porsche in a 1994 station wagon.
o Shepard also discussed his podcast, Armchair Expert – “I love it. It’s like I’m back in college but I never have a term paper due.”
Thursday, February 4
· Headlines – Biden administration weighs distributing masks to all Americans, sexist comments from the head of the Olympics Organizing Committee, rapper’s “forehead bling”
o On Biden’s potential mask distribution – “See, this is a great idea because it helps everybody! Democrats get free masks and Republicans get free toilet paper!”
o Trevor actually thought the Olympics Organizing Committee head was right, arguing that female participants do make meetings run longer – “Because every time a woman gives an idea, a man repeats the idea a minute later, so it doubles the meeting time. You’re killing us, ladies!”
o I laughed at this joke, about a rapper’s diamond “forehead bling” – “On the downside, now Vision can unlock your face ID. Ooh, he’s gonna see all your texts!”
· Main Story – Marjorie Taylor Greene
o Great line about Rep. Kevin McCarthy trying to downplay Taylor Greene’s adherence to conspiracy theories – “It’s amazing that this guy tries to act like he doesn’t know what QAnon is, even after they tried to kill him! I mean, most people would’ve at least Googled them at that point.”
o Meanwhile, Rep. Tommy Tuberville couldn’t comment because, with the weather, he hadn’t been able to follow the news on Taylor Greene – “It’s so stormy, the Pony Express hasn’t made it out here with the latest tweets.”
o As Taylor Greene walked back some of her radical beliefs, Trevor gave us this savage line – “I’m glad she’s come around to the standard Republican belief that school shootings are real, and that nothing should be done to stop them.”
o Loved this – “Marjorie Taylor Greene isn’t the first person to believe things that she read on the internet, but her defense isn’t really reassuring. Because basically, what she’s saying is, ‘Yes, up until now, I believed that school shootings were fake, 9/11 didn’t happen, and that Jewish space lasers blew up California. But that’s only because I’m incapable of separating fantasy from reality! So let’s do the right thing and let me go back to making laws!’”
· Correspondent Piece (Roy & Michael) – The Super Bowl
o Trevor wasn’t about to go against the CDC’s recommendations to avoid Super Bowl gatherings – “I came this far, I’m not gonna have an obituary with the word ‘Buccaneers’ in there!”
o Roy felt bad for Patrick Mahomes facing off against Tom Brady – “On the one hand, if he loses, he loses to an old guy. But on the other hand, if he wins, it’s elder abuse!”
o Good bit about Amanda Gorman’s rising star after performing at the inauguration – “There’s no way the NFL was like, ‘We definitely want a poet to kick off Super Bowl, it’s just a matter of which one.’”
· Interview – Rep. Cori Bush
o I really liked Bush’s ethos about her duty in Congress – “Every single moment, I’m thinking about, what can we do to make sure that we’re doing the absolute most for everybody in our district and around the country, but starting with those who have the very least.”
o Okay, this is wild – Bush came to the House on her first day wearing a mask with Breonna Taylor’s name on it, and some of her colleagues thought she was Breonna Taylor. What is wrong with people?!
o Bush had powerful words to explain her opposition to the death penalty – “We cannot continue this cycle of violence and think that we will begin to heal this country. We have to get out of the mindset that that is a way to get justice.”
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