Before I get started, RIP to Mike Nesmith. I'll have more thoughts soon.
Monday, December 6
· Headlines – Omicron variant, U.S. announces diplomatic boycott of Beijing Olympics, web startup fires 900 employees over Zoom, NYC opens supervised drug-injection sites
o Sadly-apt description of the omicron variant – “The reason you need to adjust your 2022 mask budget.”
o Early data suggests that omicron may be less deadly than delta, though it still makes people sick – “I know it’s still not great, but it’s better. Imagine if Freddy Krueger started giving teenagers diarrhea instead of killing them. That’s a major improvement and a really weird movie.”
o Roy, the headline correspondent, was impressed with a man who tried to avoid his vaccine by wearing a fake silicone arm – “I gotta say, though, man, I respect the ingenuity. These people are getting more and more creative. These folks have come a long way from drinking bleach. You’ve got to respect that.”
o This made me laugh – “And it’s a real shame that the American officials won’t be at the Olympics, because, you realize, Kamala Harris was about to become to first Black woman to ever watch a hockey game.”
o I enjoyed Trevor’s suggestion that a better punishment for China would be to send unwanted officials like Marjorie Taylor Greene – “The only way a speed skater could move that quickly is with Jewish magnets!” “Okay, we’ll let the Uighers go. Please, just take her back.”
o Trevor was amazed at the mass firing story – “900 people getting fired at once! That’s not a firing, that’s a rapture.”
o So true – “You know, the worst part for me was how the CEO made it all about himself, as well. ‘Oh, this is so tough. I hope I don’t cry again.’ What are the people supposed to do, comfort you for firing them?”
o Roy was also amazed at 900 people being fired at once – “Squid Game was 450 people. This is two Squid Games! Two Squid Games’ worth of disrespect.”
o Trevor didn’t agree with those who believe supervised drug-injection sites in New York will increase drug use – “Because if the city is running this thing, it’s gonna take forever to get high there! Gonna be in line for six hours. Make you fill out all kinds of forms. You know, when you finally get up to the window, the woman behind the counter will be like, ‘’Scuse me, sir, this isn’t the line for doing crack. You need to be in that line, okay? And you need to fill out the blue form, okay?’”
· Correspondent piece (Ronny) – Texas in 2021
o There was a lot of dark stuff in this story, but Ronny made it fun – “I’m here in Texas, the state that grabbed 2021 by the horns and made it its bitch.”
o Ronny’s summation of Gov. Abott – “He banned mask mandates, he banned vaccine mandates, he banned vaccine cards, because the best way to fight COVID is with freedom, and ICU beds, but we ran out because of all the COVID.”
o Great line – “That’s right, you other bitch-ass states. Everything is bigger in Texas, especially the lines to vote in Black communities.”
o I liked this bit, on the power grid failures last winter – “That’s right. Thanks to Texas’s independent power grid, the energy capital of the America had no energy. This past year, Texas was even number one at irony.”
o Too good – “Here in the Wild West, you either die or you ride off into the sunset. And Ted Cruz rode off into the sunset while people in his state died.”
· Interview – Actor Mahershala Ali
o Trevor ran through the various accolades Ali received since he was last on the show, including two Oscars – Ali replied, “Hearing you say it all, it’s just a great reminder to be grateful.”
o I liked Ali’s remarks on whether he felt more pressure on his new film Swan Song because he was also a producer – “I don’t think it added more pressure, because I feel that pressure without the power anyway. So you feel that there’s decisions being made and the film is gonna be impacted, you’re gonna be impacted personally as an actor, however this turns out, without the producer’s title and without the influence of a producer. So at least, when you have the title and you have a seat at the table, there’s an opportunity for you to make that pressure more active.”
o Ali tapped into the quality that I think often makes for some of the best sci-fi stories – “That’s what drew me to the project, was this… the premise and the dilemma. But I think what really kind of locked me in was just how human the story felt.”
o I appreciated his philosophy that he wanted to be as present with his family as he is in his acting – “To me, the real definition of success is to be whole in every aspect of your life.”
Tuesday, December 7
· Headlines – Call between Biden and Putin, Tesla introduces dashboard games, Confederate statue removed in Tennessee
o Trevor worried about Biden and Putin’s Zoom call, since he said Biden speaks like he’s cutting out in real life – I loved his impression of Putin’s reaction to this, culminating in, “You know what? I reboot for you. I have access to White House servers.”
o I too was scratching my head over why Tesla would install games onto its dashboard – “I can’t emphasize this enough: it’s not worth dying in a car crash just to play a video game. I mean, at least not solitaire. You know? I mean, if God of War was on there, then yeah, I’ll drive off a cliff.”
o Trevor has made fun of this weird-looking Confederate statue before, and it was just as fun here – “I’m gonna be honest. You know, this statue here was actually the one Confederate statue that I feel should have been kept up. Because, I mean, look at it. This shit is hilarious. When have you ever seen a statue where the general looks like he’s shooting his way out of a saloon?”
o More shade about the statue – “Who makes a statue in your moment of panic? He looks like he found out, he just found out, what a Barack Obama is.”
· If You Don’t Know, Now You Know – Soaring home prices
o My feelings exactly – “Some people are buying a house just hours after it’s posted online. A house! Hours! Meanwhile, I read reviews for six months before I finally decide which water bottle to buy.”
o As always, part of the problem is Wall Street, which is spending billions of dollars to snatch up single-family homes and rent them out – “Yes, Wall Street is now buying up tons of homes all across America, because what better way to fix your image problem than to become the nation’s biggest landlord, I guess.”
o Another issue? Boomers crowding out millennials as both compete for homes of similar sizes/prices – “That’s right. Boomers are dominating the housing market and there’s an eight-hour Beatles movie on TV. Whoo! They’re living their best lives, what’s left of them.”
· Correspondent Piece (Roy) – K-pop group Aespa in New York
o Roy praised Aespa for their music, dancing, and integration of virtual avatars into their performances – “And if I got to know them, maybe my nieces would stop texting me about how uncool I am while we’re sitting in the same room.”
o The gimmick here was Roy giving Aespa a bus tour of New York city. I liked his description of Times Square – “It looks like if a computer virus took over New York.”
o I smiled at, “That pigeon was in Home Alone 2, I think.”
o Roy’s announcement that they were about to see the “most expensive” side of New York had a good payoff – “This is an American hospital. Don’t stare at it too long, because it costs money to look at an American hospital.”
· Interview – Gov. Gavin Newsom
o Trevor asked Newsom if his experience at the French Laundry restaurant earlier in the pandemic allowed him to have “the same level of compassion” for others who break the rules – I’d have liked to see him answer the question more directly.
o The majority of the interview was about Newsom’s new children’s book inspired by his experiences with dyslexia – I was surprised at the statistic that around 20% of the world population has some kind of learning disability.
o Newsom talked about his desire to destigmatize dyslexia with the book, citing his own childhood as well as his encounters with children with learning disabilities around California – “The number one thing they all have in common-- self-esteem. They feel demoralized. They feel like they’re stupid.”
o I thought this was a really valuable point – “I hate our education system that doesn’t incentivize mistakes. It really is damaging beyond words. What we need is the creative. We need the innovative. You don’t make mistakes, you can’t find a new way of doing things.”
Wednesday, December 8
· Headlines – “Mystery hut” spotted on the moon, Fox News Christmas tree set on fire, Finnish prime minister misses message to quarantine
o Trevor was concerned about the unknown object spied by a Chinese moon rover but confused at how long it’s going to take to get a better look at it – “Did you hear that, where they said it’s gonna take two to three months to reach the mystery hut that’s 260 feet away? What did they send up there, a DoorDash driver? ‘Oh, he’s gotta complete deliveries on other planets first, and then he’ll be right there.’”
o I loved this bit of speculation about the Fox News Christmas tree fire, complete with Trump impression – “Could be Santifa!”
o Good line – “Unfortunately, we can’t ask the tree, because like all Fox employees, it had to sign an NDA.”
o Trevor thought it was unfortunate that Finland’s prime minister missed the text to quarantine because she was out clubbing, but he figured that getting the text at the club would’ve just made it worse – “Oh, shit! I might have COVID!” “What? I can’t hear you! Cup your hands over your mouth and scream directly into my face!”
· Main Story – Rep. Lauren Bobert
o Trevor’s summation of Bobert’s islamaphobic story about Rep. Omar – “So I’m on an elevator with a brown person, and the whole time, I’ve having racist thoughts. The end.”
o Trevor noted that Bobert implied her belief in QAnon before the election then walked it back afterwards – “So she isn’t necessarily insane, just willing to say anything to win the votes of insane people, which, in a way, is much worse.”
o Trevor didn’t buy Bobert’s denunciation of violence after January 6th – “I mean, she was the one telling everyone it was 1776. Which only means one thing. Like, I’m not an expert in American history, but I’m pretty sure that the colonists didn’t overthrow Britain with a Change.org petititon.”
o Given her extreme devotion to guns and gun rights, Trevor described Bobert as “probably the first person ever to try and register an emotional support Glock.”
· Correspondent Piece (Jordan) – Antivaxxers in Southern California
o This piece pointed out that not all antivaxx enclaves are in red states – Jordan found a bevy of holistic wellness/Whole Foods/activated charcoal/yoga types who were against the vaccine in California.
o As always, Jordan had some extraordinary conversations with people who clearly weren’t listening to themselves speak – “Polio has to be [mandated] because we know what it’s done.” “Don’t we know what COVID’s done? I mean, there’s 750,000 peope who have a pretty good idea.”
o Ayiyi – “I don’t think it’s a vaccine. I think it’s snapping the DNA in half.”
o Jordan was incredulous as the various “alternative medicine” methods one man okayed (or at least didn’t rule out) over the vaccine – “Maybe on the coffee enema, definitely a hard no on the COVID vaccine?”
· Interview – Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones
o Hannah-Jones spoke clearly and eloquently on the case for reparations – “Fundamentally, these were systems of economic exploitation. We like to, in America, think of them as racist systems, but the racism is to justify the exploitation and the extraction of wealth from Black Americans.”
o Very well-said – “The system of slavery was holistic. The system of anti-Blackness was holistic. It affected us through policy. It affected us through income, through wealth, through education, through housing. So the fixes have to be holistic as well.”
o This was her answer to the “but I never owned slaves!” argument from people who don’t like the idea of paying for reparations with taxes dollars – “I haven’t caused a single war in this country, and yet I’ve had to pay taxes to pay for those wars.”
o Hannah-Jones explained that there’s a compelling case for reparations without going back to slavery – “We have living Americans right now who were kept from going to the schools they wanted to, from being able to go to college, from being able to move into neighborhoods, from being able to have federally-insured loans, from being able to use the G.I. Bill.”
o This was a nice explanation of what “CRT” fearmongering doesn’t understand about The 1619 Project – “It’s actually antithetical to the belief that individual white people are responsible. It’s actually saying it doesn’t matter if individual white people are racist or not. The system was constructed on anti-Blackness, and so, it functions on its own.”
Thursday, December 9
· Headlines – Revelations about U.K. officials breaking lockdown in 2020, Hillary Clinton shares the victory speech she wrote in 2016
o Very true – “It’s not just Boris, by the way. It feels like every month, we catch another politician breaking their own COVID rules. Gavin Newsom went to that fancy restaurant. The mayor of Austin flew to Cabo. Andrew Cuomo kissed that bat.”
o This, also about the U.K. officials, made me smile – “If they manage a scandal that badly, how do they handle the pandemic? …What? Even worse? Total disaster? Oh, that makes sense.”
o Trevor thought the video of Clinton reading the victory speech she never got to deliver felt like “the world’s most depressing fairytale” – “Once upon a time, an ogre crushed the dreams of a princess, and nobody lived happily ever after. The end.”
· Main Story – Food insecurity in the holiday season
o Great line – “It’s the holiday season again. You know, that time of year when sexual harassment is okay if it happens under a parasitic plant.”
o Relatable – “Nobody, nobody in America should be going to bed hungry. You know, you should be going to bed replaying all the conversations you had all day and overanalyzing if you said anything wrong.”
o Trevor admitted that the term food insecurity “sounds like when a watermelon wears its T-shirt at a swimming pool.”
o Loved this bit – “It makes no sense for a country this rich to have this many hungry people. Then again, it makes no sense for a country this rich to have such poor health care or such poor infrastructure or such… Actually, are you guys sure that America’s rich? I’m just saying, is this like a lie that you said at a bar once and it kind of spun out of control?”
· Interview – Chef José Andrés
o Trevor asked Andrés about finding solutions when about 10% of Americans are going hungry in a country where about 40% of food is wasted – “There’s enough food to feed everybody. We need to make sure that food stops being the problem but food actually becomes the solution of having, you know, a community, a society that keeps looking forward to the future, one plate of food at a time.”
o Andrés touted his organization’s efforts at the start of the pandemic, when World Central Kitchen partnered with shut-down restaurants and allowed them to keep the cooks employed feeding the hungry – “We didn’t only solve the problem. We kept the system working.”
o Lovely sentiment – “Let’s all think about building longer tables, not higher walls, and the world will be a better place.”
· Correspondent Piece (Dulcé) – Biggest exits of 2021
o Dulcé was stunned that, by the time the U.S. left Afghanistan, we’d spent around $2.61 trillion there – “I hope America paid for that on a credit card, because those points will come in handy when we’re booking flights to the next country we invade.”
o Dulcé noted that, for Trump, getting booted off of social media was almost worse than losing the election – “I mean, he even got kicked off of Spotify! I know Trump did a lot of damage as president, but what could he have possibly done on Spotify? Were they scared he’d start a podcast? Because Lord knows, we wouldn’t want anyone on Spotify hyping up middle-aged white men with misinformation.” (Nice shade to Joe Rogan on that last bit!)
o Viral videos of antivaxxers/antimaskers screaming in public were summed up as people “exiting their damn minds” – “What the hell?! When did every American become a mix between Mel Gibson in Braveheart and Mel Gibson after his arrest?”
· Interview – Actress Lou Llobell
o Llobell grew up in South Africa, and she talked about finding inspiration in watching Trevor’s career take off around the world – “No, but it’s true. I think that peope who come from where we come from, a country like South Africa, it kind of can seem a bit like you can’t reach the stars, and you can’t reach everything else. And, you know, I hope to be an inspiration to people as well.”
o Trevor’s description of Llobell’s role on Foundation was interesting to me – “The story is, it’s this world where it’s, like, somebody who is told that they’re in a small world, and small, can go on to become something so big.”
o I liked Llobell’s story about her final round of auditions, where she wound up bonding with the other actresses competing for the part as “six brown girls” in the same small Irish town – “We have a group chat!” she told Trevor.
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