Monday, January 31
· Headlines – Trump rally, investigation report into Boris Johnson’s lockdown parties
o Such a valid description – “Trump is basically the ex that America kicked out for throwing an open house party at the Capitol. And like many exes, he really wants a second chance. But instead of promising to do better next time, he’s threatening to do even worse.”
o I enjoyed Trevor puzzling over Trump’s characterization of the “racist prosecutors” who are investigating him – “Who are they racist to? Who is racist in this thing to Donald Trump, huh?”
o Great point – “You got to admit, Trump leans on his supporters really hard. I mean, first, they had to storm the Capitol because he lost the election. Then their donations went to his legal fees because he’s always getting sued. Now they have to protest if he gets charged?”
o This was a funny bit on Boris Johnson – “I love how he’s like, ‘I identify the problem. I know what the--’ Yeah, you made the problem. Of course you know what the problem is. ‘Well guys, I’ve solved it. Because I did it.’”
· Main Story – Canadian trucker protests
o Trevor admitted that truck drivers might have understandable reasons for thinking they didn’t need to get vaccinated – “I mean, think about it—they spend all day, every day alone in their trucks. The only person they would give COVID to are the hitchhikers that they’ll murder or get murdered by.”
o Ugh, so true – “And these COVID protests in Canada are nothing new, by the way. Right? Actually, they’re not new anywhere in the world. Like, you can walk around outside basically any day and you will see people yelling about how they’re not allowed to go outside to do exactly what they’re doing.”
o This made me laugh – “Truckers make very effective protesters. Like, they can make a lot of noise, they’re used to being away from home, and police are afraid to confront them, because any one of those trucks could just turn into a transformer. That shit is too risky!”
o I liked this point about some of the protesters waving Nazi flags, peeing on war memorials, and yelling racial slurs as they tried to take food from homeless shelters – “I do feel kind of bad for the vast majority of the protesters who aren’t Nazis, though, because, like-- I mean, people, let’s admit it. Once a Nazi flag shows up at a rally, the whole thing has just turned into a Nazi rally.”
o What began with Neil Young pulling his music from Spotify due to their amplifying Joe Rogan’s COVID misinformation has now spread, with Joni Mitchell removing her music and Brené Brown removing her podcast – “That’s huge! Because Brené Brown is like Oprah’s therapist. And I mean, think about it. That’s huge because Oprah is our therapist.”
o Good line – “And then on top of that, Harry and Meghan came out, and they were like, ‘We have concerns.’ And that seems calm, but for British people, ‘We have concerns,’ basically means, ‘Oh, hell, no!’”
o Trevor tried to look at as many sides of the issue as possible, and he credited Rogan for actually issuing an apology, even if Spotify forced him to do it – “Nobody admits to making mistakes anymore, you know? I was half expecting Joe Rogan to come out and be like, ‘Uh, guys, my podcast was hacked. That wasn’t me.’”
o Trevor took great issue with Rogan, and others, using new information to back up old misinformation, like taking the news that cloth masks are largely ineffective and saying, “See? We told you masks were useless!” – As an analogy, Trevor said, “What we’ve realized is knitted condoms don’t work. Condoms still work. You can’t be like, ‘I told you condoms don’t work!’ No, no, no. Knitted condoms. Let’s be specific about which ones we’re talking about.”
o This was an excellent point – “He is right. It is just a conversation. But conversations change with context. Do you know what I mean? You can say—anyone—you can say the election was stolen. Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing. But when you’re the president of the United States and you say the election was stolen, the context changes. You can’t be like, ‘I was just having a conversation. You know, just me and my people, shooting the shit.’ It changes a lot.”
· Interview – Rep. Barbara Lee
o In talking about a new documentary on her life and career, Lee said, “I believe that so much of what I have been through really has been reflective of what so many others have gone through in this country, especially young African American women. Women, and Black people in general. It’s not for myself that I’ve done what I have done and tried to break down barriers and, you know, move forward, but it’s for others.”
o This was a simple statement, but it was powerful – “Everyone deserves the quality of life that this country provides for everyone else.”
o Lee described her early work with the Black Panthers thusly – “It was really about providing for the basics in terms of just survival so that we could move forward to change the conditions that give rise to all of these very unbelievable injustices in the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world.”
o She talked about the importance of looking at how every issue “intersects with race and income inequality – “And so we’re trying to really look at legislation and funding priorities in the context of what will lift people out of poverty.”
o Trevor also asked about Lee being the only representative to vote against the Iraq War back in 2001 – Lee explained, “When the authorization came—three days, mind you, after those terrible events—60 words… it was a blank check and all it said, basically, was any president can go to war any time he or she wants to.”
Tuesday, February 1
· Headlines – Tom Brady announced retirement, the New York Times buys Wordle, Golden Corral brawl
o This made me chuckle – “Brady has appeared in every Super Bowl dating back to 1902. …I don’t know if that stat is right. Might be 1920.”
o Trevor was confused by Tom Brady’s retirement statement – “‘Other things that require my attention’? That’s a weird reason to retire. It sounds like he’s got, like, household chores. ‘I’ve loved playing in the NFL, but I’ve got 20 years of laundry piling up, so it’s time to call it quits, guys.’”
o While it’s generally accepted that Josh Wardle’s creation of Wordle for his partner was sweet/thoughtful, Trevor pointed out that it could just be “a really subtle way to tell her that she doesn’t know how to spell” – “I need you to brush up on your five-letter words. You’re really embarrassing me at parties!”
o Trevor nicely summed up the response to the New York Times buying Wordle – “Does this mean that Wordle loses its purity? You know? Like, now are we gonna have to pay to play, or is the website gonna start tracking me? Am I gonna start getting targeted ads for the letter F?”
o Great summation of the Golden Corral brawl – “This is how you know COVID is over for people. Americans are ready to go indoors again and fistfight over food! We’re back, baby! We’re back! We’re back! Give me some of that lettuce, bitch.”
o With the news that the brawl allegedly started over the buffet running out of steak, Trevor said, “And I know Golden Corral was probably embarrassed by this, but think about what a huge compliment this actually is to the cooks in your kitchen. Your steak is riot-worthy.”
· Main Story – Sustainable Burials
o This comment, about a headstone depicting a cross and a man playing golf, cracked me up – “Before we move on, can I just say for a second, I love a gravestone that shows someone’s priorities. You know, like, most of the time, it’s like ‘loving father,’ ‘devoted husband,’ but then this dude was just like, ‘Screw you, family. I’ll be playing golf with Jesus.’”
o Due to severe space shortages in urban cemeteries, Vancouver allows up to three people to be buried in the same grave – “Okay, okay. Getting buried with two other people? I mean, that raises a few questions from my side. Like… like, what is the body arrangement? You know? Are we stacking them like pancakes or are we dropping them in vertical like crayons? Or are they spooning?”
o I liked Trevor’s response to hearing about the environmental impacts of traditional burials and cremations – “By the way, I don’t know about you, but this really makes me look differently at the Mafia. You know, all this time I thought throwing bodies into the river was just a way to cover up their crimes, but it turns out, they just really care about the environment.”
· Interview – CNN correspondent/author Bakari Sellers
o When asked why he didn’t continue in politics after a stretch in his state legislature, Sellers pointed out, “Trevor, would you want to go to Congress and serve, and have less seniority than Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gaetz or Madison Cawthorn? Like, this is not an appetizing thing when you think about the American political system we have today.”
o Sellers was there promoting his new children’s book, Who Are Your People? – “I think when young Black and brown kids read it, they’ll get a sense of pride. When white kids read it, they’ll get a sense of empathy.”
o I liked Sellers’s remarks about what Black History Month means for him, especially in the current backlash over “critical race theory” – “We’re talking about pain, but we’re also talking about the triumph of overcoming. And so there’s a lot to be proud of, but if people don’t recognize that pain, then they can never understand the struggle of what it is to be Black in America.”
o This was a lovely statement – “I fundamentally don’t think there’s anything irredeemable about this county. I fundamentally believe we have to reimagine what she looks like to be a more inclusive America that includes all of us.”
Wednesday, February 2
· Headlines – Head of CNN resigns, Whoopi Goldberg suspended from The View, Groundhog Day
o This made me smile – “Man, this must’ve been a really weird day for CNN. On the one hand, it’s bad that your boss is resigning under a cloud of scandal. On the other hand, you got the scoop!”
o I loved Trevor’s observation that Jeff Zucker’s scandal came to light as a result of the investigation into Andrew Cuomo, which in turn led to Chris Cuomo and a deeper investigation at CNN – “So Andrew Cuomo was such a creep that he took down himself, his brother Chris, and the president of CNN. He’s like Ronan Farrow but by accident.”
o Trevor wasn’t here for Whoopi Goldberg’s comments that the Holocaust “wasn’t about race” – “Like, when you think about it properly, protecting ‘the master race,’ that was the Nazis’ whole thing. You know, race purity. Like, all these tiki torch bitches that you see running around now, Hitler was the O.G. of that.”
o However, in light of Goldberg’s apology, Trevor didn’t think that a two-week suspension from The View was the answer – “To do what? Reflect and what? Do her own research? I mean, that’s never a good idea, you know? Yeah, these days, you tell someone to go research the Holocaust on their own, and they’ll come back in two weeks like, ‘Did y’all know that the Jews have space lasers?’”
o I always enjoy the show’s Groundhog Day story – never fails to put a smile on my face.
· Main Story – Russia massing along Ukraine border
o I liked the description of Russia as “the former and maybe future Soviet Union.”
o This was a great – “Yes, Putin says that Russia has no plans to invade Ukraine. So I guess those 100,000 troops on the border-- they’re just doing that thing where you stand outside a restaurant and read the menu. ‘No, no, no, we’re not going in right now. Maybe we come back for special occasion.’”
o The UN sketches where Trevor places all the countries are mostly just okay for me, but there were a few good bits in this one – I liked Russia arguing, “Hey, come on, isn’t it annoying to remember the names of all these small nothing countries, huh? Ukraine. Latvia. Poland. Yada-yada. Who can keep track? If they were all Russia it would be so much simpler for everybody.”
o And I loved the bit about the U.S. forcing South Africa to wear a hazmat suit, even though, as South Africa rightly pointed out, there’s now way more Omicron in the U.S.
· Correspondent Piece (Roy) – Proud Puffs cereal
o This was a new segment for Roy highlighting Black entrepreneurs, and in this one, he interviewed a guy who created a cereal marketed for Black kids – “Much respect to you, brother. You are basically the Jackie Robinson of breakfast cereals. Should have called them things 42.”
o Roy decided to assemble a focus group featuring kids of various races to try Proud Puffs. I assume the kids were fed a lot of their lines, but it was worth it for this callback to Roy’s observation that Raisin Bran just seems kinda Black – When Roy asked the kids if they’d ever seen Black people on a cereal box, one kid said, “I only seen that raisin cereal that has the sun on it.” Cue Roy looking into the camera to announce, “See? Told you that shit was Black.”
o “Ally Os”
· Interview – Actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw
o I enjoyed all the discussion about viewers remarking on Mbatha-Raw doing a “great British accent,” not realizing that she actually is British – “When I did Belle, you know, several years ago, I’d been doing an American accent, sort of, for about three years solid in projects. And I genuinely myself thought, ‘Do I know how to act in my own accent anymore?’”
o In talking about her new limited series, The Girl Before, Mbatha-Raw was full of praise for/anecdotes about her costar David Oyelowo.
o One really nice bit was when she talked about choosing Oyelowo to present her with an award, and he had his young daughter present it instead – “It gave me a moment to really ground my work in a way. Because I felt like now I have to choose projects that are sort of good enough for Zoe.”
Thursday, February 3
· Headlines – Rudy Giuliani on The Masked Singer, Tesla to remove rolling-stop feature in self-driving cars, Florida driver shoots at other driver
o Sad but true – “America is truly, truly, truly, truly the greatest country on Earth. Because this is the only place in the world where entertainment trumps everything. ‘Cause I mean a year ago, just a year ago, this guy tried to overthrow America’s democracy, and now he’s a contestant on a reality show?”
o Trevor felt strongly that Tesla needed to keep the rolling-stop feature – “Come on, people, a self-driving car that follows all the rules—that’s gonna be dangerous. ‘Cause that’s the last thing that human drivers expect. Who stops at a stop sign?”
o This made me smile – “I actually like the idea of artificial intelligence not being so uptight and perfect, you know? I don’t know. Like, I want lazy A.I. Yeah. Just want chilled A.I. ‘Cause then there’s less chance of a robot uprising, you know?”
o This was a great analogy – “First of all, guys, the whole point of road rage is to not hurt each other. Right? We just act crazy because we’re safe in our cars. It’s like Twitter, but on the freeway.”
o Since the road-rage shooting incident happened in Florida, where, as Trevor said, “everybody has guns,” he envisioned how one driver shooting at another car could’ve started a snowball effect – I don’t remember the whole bit, but it culminated in, “And then finally the alligators come out of the swamp and they’re like, ‘All right, I guess we’re doing this.’”
· Main Story – NFL accused of discrimination against Black coaches
o The Giants interviewed Brian Flores for a head coaching position after they’d already decided on a white coach to hire, a fact that Flores learned when Bob Belichick mistakenly sent a congratulatory text to him – “For real, though, this was a screw-up by Belichick. And he’s a coach, so he can’t even blame CTE.”
o The Rooney Rule requires the NFL to interview at least one minority candidate for all coaching positions, but that doesn’t help when the teams have no intention of actually hiring a Black coach. Trevor wished the teams would at least let coaches know ahead of time that their interviews were strictly “bullshit,” so the coaches could have fun with it – “‘So what would you say is your biggest weakness?’ ‘Uh, I’m deathly afraid of footballs. And, uh, I also don’t know what a footballs is.’”
o This was a great line – “That’s why proving racism for Black people in 2022 can be so frustrating. Right? Sometimes it feels like, you know, you’re the only person in a horror movie who actually knows what’s going on. ‘You got to believe me, man—there’s a serial killer in this camp.’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous. All these sexy teens are probably stabbing themselves to death. Come on!’”
o Roy came on to discuss the issue too. This cracked me up – “I can’t believe that racism still exists in the NFL! I mean, they had ‘End Racism’ on their helmets. And you telling me that didn’t do anything?”
o Good summation – “The problem with the Rooney Rule is that it underestimates racial bias. The Rooney Rule says: You don’t like Black people? Well, hang out with one and see what happens. But nothing happened. So now it’s even worse, and you’re still hiring the white coach and wasting the Black man’s time.”
· Fake Show – Project: Conspiracy
o Goofy bit of Michael as a conspiracy theorist investigating the “secret network of tunnels” built by “the government—who else?” that connects everything from businesses to schools to our homes – Yep, it’s the sewer system.
o It was amusing to have Michael yelling at his toilet, “I didn’t consent to this! And until I get the truth, I’m not gonna be a part of this system. Did you hear that? You’re not getting anything from me!”
o My favorite part was when Michael turned to “the dark web”—a.k.a. Yahoo—to investigate this supposed conspiracy.
· Interview – Stunt performer Johnny Knoxville
o Promoting the newest Jackass movie, Knoxville refuted Trevor’s supposition that he no longer feels pain – “My pain threshold, I think, is about the same as everyone else’s. It’s my ‘give a damn’ threshold.”
o I enjoyed this bit of Trevor and Knoxville imagining how he downplays his job when talking to his life insurance company – “Eh, I work with animals. I work near the water.” “I work with gravity, and Newton’s third law of motion.”
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