Sunday, September 26
· Recap of the Week – The View cohosts test positive for COVID on air, Haitian migrants at the border
o Excellent response to a horse-mounted border patrol screaming insults about Haiti as he whipped a Haitian migrant – “Really?! You’re gonna call their country shit? Because they just got here, and you’re making a great case for this one! So far, 100% of their experience in America has involved a man dressed as a Party City Park Ranger screaming at them on horseback. You’re not doing much for our fucking brand!”
o I loved John answering press secretary Jen Psaki’s declaration that the images at the border aren’t “who we are,” referring to both the country as a whole (John pointed out that history disagrees with her) and the Biden administration specifically – “Are you sure about that? Because, from an immigration standpoint, there’s not much evidence that you’re anything else yet.”
o This, exactly this – “It feels like the Biden administration is far more focused on seeming better when it comes to immigration than actually being better.”
o Good mic-drop line – “It is past time for this administration to stop telling people who we are and start fucking showing it.”
· And Now This – “It’s Fall, Y’all!”
o Montage of local newscasters declaring, “It’s fall, y’all!” – My favorite clip was the one of a newscaster laughing uncontrollably after her co-anchor said it.
· Main Story – Voting rights
o 18 states have enacted new voter restriction laws in 2021 – “For anyone who’s surprised to see New Hampshire up there, let me just remind you: it’s a state that’s 88% white with a Republican governor and no adult seatbelt law. Sure, they present themselves as charming, but deep down, they are basically just Florida with foliage.”
o Many of these laws are present in swing states, and John reminded us that, with a difference of just 43,000 voters in just three states, Trump would’ve won reelection – “I know things are bleak right now, but depressingly, it’s also important to remember this is technically the better timeline.”
o Told by GOP politicians to stop complaining about voter suppression and “just read the bill,” John read the bills… and found all kinds of voter suppression aimed at very particular communities – I liked his analogy that these laws “hide” their racism about as well as a second-grader “hiding” behind the coffee table in full view during hide-and-seek.
o I loved this response to a congressman from the Texas House, who prefaced debate on their election bill with a directive for members to “kindly refrain” from using offensive words like “racism” – “Look, look, if the word you don’t want people to use is ‘racism,’ I hate to break it to you, but you’re doing a racism. Someone might’ve told you that sooner, but in fairness, you told them they’re not allowed.”
o So true, what is wrong with people – “For the record, if you say the words ‘colored people’ and it is not immediately preceded by ‘National Association for the Advancement of,’ you are officially in time out.”
o Good point that, post-2020, lawmakers have shifted from a hard-to-prove claim about “what people are doing” to a more nebulous “what people are feeling” as justification for voter suppression laws – Saying, “There’s massive voter fraud” when there isn’t is difficult to keep up, but it’s a lot easier to claim, “People don’t trust our elections anymore.”
o John then argued that, if it made sense to legislate based on feelings, he would outlaw Tilda Swinton – “She looks like a ghost who knows exactly when and how you will die but won’t tell you because it’s more fun for her that way.”
o There was a wonderful, completely-random bit about John sexually fantasizing about lobsters that I loved – My favorite lines were, “Do you know how many legs a lobster has? I’ll tell you: a sex amount,” and, “Fuck me stupid, you weaponized ocean bitch!”
o John had a withering response to Biden’s lack of urgency on this issue and his insistence that “it is possible to out-organize voter suppression” – “The solution to voter suppression cannot be ‘just vote’ for the same reason that the solution to being locked out of your home can’t be to tell someone, ‘Just go inside and get the keys.’ What the fuck are you talking about? I’m locked out! How are you not understanding this situation?”
· And Now This – ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith
o This montage, of Smith’s extensive and weirdly-timed dramatic pauses, made me laugh – The pairing of the pauses with his emphatic shouting made it even better.
· Finally – Duck stamps
o I always appreciate John’s sexual enthusiasm for pictures of animals – “Quick question: does this stamp come with mushu pancakes? ‘Cause that. Duck. Is. Shredded.”
o We looked at the ins and outs of the annual contest to select the painting for the official duck stamp of that year, a collectible stamp/duck-hunting license whose sales support wildlife conservation – I smiled at the “actual duck dynasty” of brothers whose paintings have won the contest 13 times.
o I also liked the bit about a troll who continually flouts the contest rules and has escalated to making highly-targeted duck art specifically aimed at annoying one particular duck-art stickler – “If this man made a communist duck out of your personal photographs, just think what else he’s capable of!”
o Of course the show entered the contest – I loved how the saga kept continuing, with each admission of an entry being rejected followed by the news of additional entries.
o The show entered five times in all, and while none of the paintings made it past the first round of voting, the show is auctioning them off, with the proceeds going towards conservation efforts – I especially liked the painting of a duck with a gun hunting a hunter and the one of ducks judging a duck painting.
o John had a great time comparing his Duck with a Pearl Earring to the Vermeer original – “That girl doesn’t even have any feathers! Or a beak, for that matter! Clearly a waste of paint.”
Monday, September 27
· Headlines – R. Kelly verdict, Instagram pauses its kids’ app, cryptocurrency-selling hamster
o Trevor hit the nail on the head with R. Kelly, a situation where everyone knew/suspected the situation for years and nothing was done about it until now – “You know what’s even crazier to me, is the fact that in America, it feels like the justice system and the investigators and all of that are nothing compared to a good documentary.”
o I laughed at Trevor’s envisioning of Instagram for Kids – “No one wants to see photos of little kids at brunch! What’s that even gonna be, like a fruit roll-up and a juice box?”
o Good line – “Cryptocurrency: the main retirement plan for people who own pet snakes.”
o I feel the same way about this hamster that trades cryptocurrencies – “I guess it makes sense. That hamster has about the same understanding of crypto as anyone else, so why shouldn’t it also get rich?”
· Correspondent Piece (Michael) – COVID vaccine booster shot confusion
o Trevor admitted that different federal health agencies disagreeing over who qualifies for a vaccine booster is confusing – “That’s why I never see a doctor for a second opinion. I just go straight to Web MD, and what they say goes!”
o Michael did a goofy “explainer” about vaccine boosters, featuring wildly unhelpful analogies that didn’t serve his point – “Now, to be clear, this is a basketball, not a booster shot. A basketball cannot be injected into the bloodstream.”
o He also failed to explain anything important while detailing unnecessary minutiae like the meanings of “FDA” and “over 65.”
· If You Don’t Know, Now You Know – Texas abortion ban
o Since a new bill protecting abortion rights passed in the House isn’t going to pass in the Senate (because of course not,) Trevor noted that it’s a mostly-symbolic statement against Texas’s new abortion ban – Unfortunately, “unlike the House vote, that Texas law isn’t symbolic, and it is having very real consequences.”
o We looked at how the law targets, not just abortion providers, but anyone involved in any way, including the driver who drops someone off at the clinic – “I get it: Uber drivers don’t wanna get sued for where they drop someone off! I mean, if I was an Uber driver in Texas, I wouldn’t even drop couples off after the club. I’d be like, ‘No! You get off there, she’s going home. I will not be responsible for what happens next.’”
o The story covered what’s true about abortion restrictions anywhere, namely that 1) rather than reducing abortions, they generally just cause women to turn to less safe unregulated procedures, and 2) the impacts of these laws fall disproportionately on the poor.
o Lots of truth here – “If pro-life lawmakers want to reduce abortions, there are so many other ways they could do that by supporting women instead of harming them. I mean, they could increase access to contraception. They could make it easier to raise children with better access to childcare and education and healthcare. They could make it so that every kid comes with an iPad! So I mean, if you don’t like your kid, at least you’ve got an iPad. The point is that they don’t wanna do any of that. They just wanna say, ‘No abortions! Problem solved!’”
· Correspondent Piece (Roy) – The Star-Spangled Banner
o This was amusing – in light of another Texas law mandating that the national anthem is played before all sporting events (sigh,) Roy came on in the guise of Francis Scott Key doing a “breakdown” of his hit song.
o I cracked up when “Francis” recited, “And the rockets’ red glare, / The bombs bursting in air,” and just shouted, “Bars!”
o This was a good bit – “I wanted to end strong for the troops, so, ‘O’er the land of the free’ – that’s us, you know, except for the slaves and women – ‘And the home of the brave’ – you know, that’s America. We bravely genocided a whole people for this land!”
· Interview – Comedian Neal Brennan
o Brennan noted that, of all the talk-show hosts he’s friends with, Trevor and Charlamagne tha God were the quickest to book him to promote his new off-Broadway standup show – “I wanna let the white people know, be good to your Black friends. It will pay off.”
o Brennan explained that the show is “basically about the ways in which I feel alone in the world,” and Trevor pointed out that that’s a common stance among comedians – “That’s why you’re a comedian. You watch the world and you’re like, ‘This is crazy!’, and everyone else is like, ‘No, that’s normal.’ And then you go, ‘I feel alone in the world.’”
o I liked this explanation of the show – “This is about me getting a better relationship with myself and getting- it’s called Unacceptable because I’m unacceptable to me, and by the end of it, I get a bit of grace into more acceptance of myself.”
o At the end of the interview, Brennan praised Trevor, calling him “a walking reconciliation” – “You want everyone to get along. And you’re not silly about it.”
Tuesday, September 28
· Headlines – Switzerland legalizes same-sex marriage, new climate study, murder rate increased in 2020
o Trevor was surprised that Switzerland only just legalized same-sex marriage, surprised that the country that “invented the world’s most bangable cheese” wasn’t more progressive.
o Good point – “You know, Americans always assume Europe is the most progressive place on Earth, until you see stuff like gay marriage being illegal in Switzerland or France trying to ban hijabs. I think that’s how powerful a European accent is; a European could be yelling slurs at an immigrant family, and Americans would hear that and be like, ‘Wow, dude, what an enlightened man of culture. We’ve gotta be better.’”
o In response to a report that kids today will live through three times as many climate disasters as their grandparents – “The good news for these kids is they can finally one-up their grandparents with ‘my life is so hard’ stories. ‘Back in ’55, there was a blizzard with snow up to your neck!’ ‘Bitch, that’s an average Tuesday! Now give me my scuba gear, I’ve gotta swim to school.’”
o Trevor wasn’t surprised that the murder rate went up last year – “Think about it: people were stuck at home, with their families, with their roommates, 24/7, for a year! That’s a year of snoring, chewing loudly, arguing about whose turn it is to wipe the Amazon packages. No, I’m shocked everyone didn’t kill everyone!”
o Loved this bit – “By the way, it’s funny how people don’t talk about murder the way they talk about COVID deaths, have you noticed that? Like, you don’t have any denying like, ‘Yeah, he was shot in his home, but he was old and he had heart disease! Are we sure it was the bullet that did it? I’m just saying! I’m just saying; I need to do my own research.’”
· Main Story – China’s strict technology regulations
o I laughed at the description of China as “world superpower and country that has held the world record for most Chinese people for 4,000 years.”
o Too true – “Damn, you know crypto’s got issues when the Chinese government thinks it’s too shady.”
o Trevor was worried about Chinese kids’ video game time being sharply curtailed by the government because, without kids catching Pokemon, they “overrun the city” – “The Pokemon are everywhere! They’re everywhere! There’s something we’ve gotta do to them all, but what is it? What have we gotta do??”
o The Chinese government is also cracking down on celebrity fandom – “Whoa, whoa, whoa, people. If you ban the population from obsessing over celebrities, how are people supposed to know what to buy, how to look, or whose testicles are really swollen? Do you know what you’re doing here?!”
o Dulcé checked out the situation in China for herself, and she decided she was fine with the government banning cryptocurrency and limiting gaming time – “I am sick and tired of meeting men who have more achievements in Grand Theft Auto than they do in real life!”
· CP Time (Roy) – Black models
o Roy noted that Naomi Sims, the first Black supermodel, paved the way for every other Black model – “Like Oprah Winfrey, who’s on the cover of a magazine once a dang month!”
o We looked at Tracy Norman too, a pioneering Black model who was blacklisted from the industry after being outed as trans – “If there was a problem with 1980s fashion, it wasn’t trans women modeling. It was the leg warmers, the Jheri curls, and all those crazy patterns! Spent half a decade in an epileptic seizure.”
· Interview – Musician Davido
o Davido talked about the rise of afro beats, which even his own label didn’t understand at first – “They were really not sure what the sound would be like, and I told them, I said, ‘You guys might not understand now, but in a couple years, this is going to be one of, if not the biggest, one of biggest genres in the world.’”
o Trevor loved seeing the explosion of afro beats, given that many Africans have an “inferiority complex” compared to Black people in other countries around the world and try to model themselves after folks in the U.S. or the U.K. – “But no matter who you are in Africa, you have to admit that Nigerians are the most confident Africans on the planet. So I think it’s almost fitting that Nigerians are like, no, no, no, our music is going to take over the world, the world won’t take over our music.”
o One of Davido’s songs became a surprising anthem during the End SARS protests against police brutality in Nigeria – “It’s amazing how I saw my voice be an instrument for people.”
Wednesday, September 29
· Headlines – Amazon’s new “Astro” robot, 23 new species declared extinct, man wrangles alligator into trash can
o I smiled at Trevor’s reaction to Amazon’s dog-like Astro robot – “I will never spend $1000 on a designer robot! Especially not when there are thousands of adorable robots in shelters looking for a home. Adopt, don’t shop!”
o In light of recently-declared extinct species, Trevor hoped we might at least lose some loathsome species, “like mosquitoes or f**kboys.”
o In the viral video of a man catching an alligator with a trash can, Trevor zeroed in on the guy’s sandals – “Thank god he captured that alligator, because let’s be real: my man did not have on the proper footwear for this situation. This is not what you wear to catch an alligator. This is what you wear to a Waffle House at 2:30 a.m. And yes, both are extremely dangerous situations, but only one requires running away from a little dinosaur that wants to eat you.”
· Main Story – Congressional drama over spending and infrastructure
o This piece was done in the style of a bitchy talk show, featuring Trevor as the gossipy host. It didn’t add much entertainment value for me, but I suppose Trevor feels like he’s already told this story, on partisan in-fighting and the Democratic agenda being held up by a pair of moderates, in every possible variation the “regular” way, so why not do something different?
o On Mitch McConnell blocking a resolution to raise the debt ceiling, even though he did it multiple times when he was Senate Majority Leader – “Does he have any reason to block this bill? No. Is he doing it anyway? Uh, hell yeah! It’s like sending back his steak at a restaurant even though it was cooked perfectly, because Mitch knows that sometimes, eating out isn’t about the meal, it’s about fighting with that sexy chef.”
o I enjoyed this line – “The progressives are not backing down right now. They may be against the 1%, but they’ve got 99% of the balls.”
o This was a pretty good analogy for the progressives, who are always the ones expected to compromise on their bills – “You can only be the designated driver so many times before you say, ‘Hey! When is this bitch gonna get a drink?’”
o On Joe Manchin, who’s against the Build Back Better reconciliation bill but still hasn’t said specifically what he’d want the bill to look like – “He reminds me of that one friend at brunch who hates everything on the menu but can’t figure out what he likes.”
· Correspondent Piece (Roy & Dulcé) – Disproportionate media coverage of missing women
o This was framed just as a conversation between Roy and Dulcé. Roy led into the topic with this – “I know it’s tragic in every case, but the way the media covers it, you would think only white women go missing.”
o Dulcé summed up the situation very accurately, and heartbreakingly – “If a white woman’s in danger, then, ‘Well, how did the system fail her?’ But somebody snatches me? They’re gonna go, ‘She was probably in proximity to criminals anyway.’”
o Also heartbreaking? Roy and Dulcé spitballing ways to trick the police into looking for a missing Black woman – “If your Black daughter goes missing, you have to connect your daughter to whiteness. She was leaving gymnastics practice, she was leaving soccer practice. You can’t say that she was on the drill team!”
· Interview – Activist/Author Derecka Purnell
o In discussing her new book on police abolition, Purnell laid out the issue like this – “Police abolition or prison abolition is not merely the absence of police, right? It is eliminating the root causes of harm, and it’s eliminating the kind of society that could rely on police to solve that harm. Because you know, police can’t solve it.”
o Trevor pressed her on why she believes in abolition rather than defunding, asking why she wouldn’t prefer to have a limited police presence focused on major crimes like murder and rape – She steered the conversation again to root causes, saying, “We should ask questions like, why do people kill people, or why do people commit sexual violence? Because sending police to go and arrest someone who is a murderer, it doesn’t prevent the murder, right?”
o Purnell pointed out that the factors that make successful communities are the same ones that make safe communities – “If you’re disrupting communities by taking away jobs, by decimating education, by putting people in prison – so then when they come out, they’re in a much more precarious situation than the first place – you’re essentially creating the conditions for more violence, and that doesn’t keep anybody safe.”
o She used an analogy wherein the root causes of harm were a leak in a roof, crime was the dripping water, and the police were the buckets used to collect the water – “We don’t want your house to flood; we want your roof to stop leaking. And it’s going to take much more to stop that roof from leaking than it is just to keep replacing buckets, buying buckets, getting different colors of buckets. There’s only so much you can do with that because buckets aren’t intended to stop leaks, right? That takes a different kind of skill, a different kind of imagination, and a different kind of commitment.”
Thursday, September 30
· Headlines – Employee vaccine mandates, Britney Spears’s new third-party conservatorship, U.K. fuel shortage
o Look at what vaccine mandates can do – After announcing a mandate, the vaccination rate at Tyson Foods went from 50 to 80%, and employees still have a month to go before the deadline!
o I smiled at this line – “I think it’s funny because so many antivaxxers were like, ‘I’m never taking vaccines! It’s the principle of the thing!’ But then it turns out there’s one principle that’s even more important, and that’s the principle of not being a broke-ass bitch.”
o Trevor was glad that vaccination rates among nursing-home staff are increasing but disturbed that they still need to increase – “Hearing that only 92% of nursing home staff is vaccinated is like finding out only 92% of sky-diving instructors believe in parachutes.”
o Trevor could think of a few billionaires in greater need of a conservatorship than Britney Spears – “Name one thing Britney has done that’s more mindless and wasteful than going to space in a giant penis!”
o Oh the schadenfreude, with Britain in a severe fuel shortage after Brexit changed visa requirements and forced a lot of truck drivers out of the country – “Which really shows you how everyone hates the idea of immigrants way more than the actual immigrants or what the immigrants do.”
· Main Story – Predicted holiday shopping delays
o The delays are expected to be caused by all kinds of things, like a major shortage of computer chips – “Nearly everything has a computer chip in it! Our computers, our exercise equipment, our Facebook CEOs….”
o International shipping is also an issue, with companies like Walmart and Home Depot resorting to setting up their own ships to bring in products from overseas – I loved the bit of the Captain Phillips pirates attacking the Home Depot ship and then not finding anyone aboard to say, “I’m the captain now,” to.
o Despite all this, Trevor acknowledge that “it’s only annoying because we’ve gotten spoiled by getting stuff from Asia every week” – “Imagine telling Marco Polo that you’re mad because your Pelaton isn’t getting to you until next Thursday. He would be pissed! It took him four years to travel to China to get his Pelaton!”
o A final source of delays? The USPS, which is anticipating another slowdown beginning this fall. I definitely related to Trevor here – “Wait, wait. Louis DeJoy is still in charge of the postal service? Am I the only-? Like, I assumed Biden fired that guy on day one! This is like finding out Mike Pence is still vice president.”
· Correspondent Piece (Roy & Michael) – Sports news
o On a record-breaking 66-yard field goal – “I’m gonna put that in perspective. That’s like kicking a football one yard 66 times!”
o A big part of the segment was vaccine hesitancy among a few high-profile NBA players amid new mandates. This joke was well-crafted, even if I don’t understand the particular reference – “Damn! I haven’t seen an NBA player this afraid to take a shot since Ben Simmons in the play-offs.”
o Michael had an answer for one vaccine-hesitant player trotting out the old “if vaccines are effective, why are vaccinated people still getting COVID?” chestnut – “Think of the vaccine as like shin guards. They won’t totally prevent injury to my shins, but they do give me protection.”
· Interview – Actor Jake Gyllenhaal
o Gyllenhaal’s new film, a near one-man thriller in which he plays a 911 operator, sounds interesting, and I’m always a fan of productions that innovate to make movies during the pandemic in a way that’s a lot less risky for the cast and crew.
o Trevor asked Gyllenhaal about the flawed heroes he likes to play – He replied, “I’m more interested in the moral idea of a human being and that we all make mistakes, you know? I think that’s an important idea. And I think that if there’s a safe place to communicate really complicated feelings, it’s in front of a camera.”
o Gyllenhaal shared director Antoine Fuqua’s take on the film – “It’s about showing how broken the system is and what we assume other people to be when we can only hear them, we can’t see them.”
o He enjoyed the challenge of filming a movie set entirely at one man’s dispatch cubicle, telling the story over the interplay between him and the caller on the phone – “Part of the thrill of telling this was thinking, ‘Can we capture an audience’s imagination?’ And if we can, then we’ve succeeded.”
* * *
Shang-Chi is coming out digitally on November 12th and on disc on November 30th! I’ve been moving toward opting to own stuff digitally more so than on disc, but I’ll have to check on special features availability before I pull the trigger, because I definitely want to see featurettes/deleted scenes with Tony Leung Chiu-wai and listen to the director/writer commentary (also, is he on the gag reel?! This is something I need to discover.) I think that kind of stuff is typically available on Disney+, but I’ll need to make sure first.
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