.jpg)
Sunday, November 13
· Recap of the Week – Midterms
o John was happy to see several states voting to protect abortion rights during the midterms, but he also found it bittersweet – “While it is ridiculous that we’re having to fight state by state for rights people had earlier this year, I guess here we are.”
o I loved this response to some flailing on Fox News over why Democrats performed better than many expected – “Okay, we just don’t have enough time to go into all the ways they were telling on themselves there, from being appalled that young people were voting to admitting they have zero actionable policies, but adding, ‘Oh, and climate change,’ as a complete afterthought is a pretty fun way to end that. A nice little cherry on top of a ‘what the fuck have we done?’ sundae.”
· And Now This – Steve Kornacki on election night
o Not one of their best, mostly just a montage of MSNBC anchors referring to Kornacki at “the big board.”
o A couple made me smile – I liked, “Steve Kornacki will be at his natural habitat, the big board,” and, “I don’t think they ever let him leave the big board. I think he just lives there now.”
· Main Story – The British monarchy
o Great line – “Our main story tonight concerns the British monarchy, the best thing to happen to white actors since literally everything else.”
o While of course many in the U.K. greatly mourned the queen’s passing, others took a decidedly different tack – John showed us footage from a Scottish football match where, far from observing a moment of silence, the crowd chanted, “Lizzie’s in a box.”
o I loved this description of a stone-faced picture of Elizabeth II with Donald Trump – “Here she is with former President Trump, just two people delighted to be there. You don’t usually see a pair so unhappy while wearing fancy costumes, outside of cats on Halloween.”
o This was a good explanation for the “role” of the modern British royals – “Basically, think of the royals as Mickey and Minnie at Disneyland. They’re not running the rides, but they’re a mascot for the whole operation and people kind of like having their pictures taken with them.”
o One justification for the royal family receiving £100 million annually from the British government is that they bring in five times that amount in tourism, so it’s taxpayer money well spent – “The claim that they bring in £500 million a year is heavily disputed, and it is not like that goes away if the royal family does. You can still visit a palace if nobody lives inside it. Nobody shows up to Versailles and says, ‘Wait, no one lives here?? It’s a hard pass from me.’”
o This made me laugh – “The royal family’s wealth, unlike their gene pool, is massive.”
o Great bit – “As for being ‘a British thing’, that’s not a great justification either. You know what else is a British thing? Mushy peas! If you’ve never had the pleasure, imagine emotionally unavailable guacamole. They’re like if mashed potatoes killed themselves.”
o I liked this response to the fact that Britain rarely talks about its part in the slave trade without mentioning that it was an “early” western nation to outlaw it – “You can’t have it both ways. You don’t get to take the credit for abolition without taking the blame for what let up to it.”
o As John pointed out, Britain’s atrocities aren’t limited to the distant past, citing Britain’s brutal quelling of an uprising in Kenya during Elizabeth’s reign. He admitted that we don’t know how much she was told at the time about what British soldiers did there, but he argued she should be held to answer for it regardless – “That’s the thing: if you are the symbol of a country, you represent what it does.”
o Good line – “Look, you don’t have to hate the royal family personally. I mean, Google ‘Prince Philip racism’ or ‘Prince Andrew everything’ and see where you land, but you don’t have to hate them.”
Monday, November 14
· Headlines – Democrats maintain control of the Senate, Republicans look to 2024, crypto exchange FTX files for bankruptcy
o Good opening blurb – “Some news from the world of philanthropy, Jeff Bezos announced that he will be giving Dolly Parton $100 million to celebrate her good deeds in the world. Yeah, and that’s how rich Jeff Bezos is. Imagine being so rich that you think it’s charity when you give money to millionaires.”
o I loved Trevor’s impression of Bezos talking to Parton – “Oh, you poor thing, you don’t even have a spaceship, do you?”
o Sigh – “Remember, if Republicans take control of the House, then every dream the Democrats have of codifying Roe v. Wade, or taxing the rich, or turning Pete Buttigieg into a real boy, they can’t do it. I mean, they probably weren’t going to do it anyway, but now they have someone to blame. Those pesky Republicans!”
o Trevor was a little flabbergasted of a Trump Truth Social post slamming Virginia governor (and possible 2024) rival Glenn Youngkin, especially when Trump separated his name into “Young Kin” and noted that it “sounds Chinese” – “First of all, how are you so racist that you can make an anti-Asian remark about a white guy?”
o However, Trevor was puzzled that Trump wrote, “That’s an interesting take,” in response to the “Young Kin” thing, all in his own post – “The only explanation that makes sense in my head is that he typed the guy’s name in, and then it autocorrected to ‘Young Kin.’ And now Trump is having a conversation with his autocorrect like, ‘Wow, I never thought of it that way, keyboard. You should be my running mate. So smart, so strong, so clever.’”
o Ha! – “One of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges has filed for bankruptcy, going from being worth $30 billion to being $8 billion in the hole. And do you know how hard it is to lose that much money overnight without buying Twitter? This wasn’t easy.”
o I liked this analogy – “It is crazy that a crypto collapse can take so much real money with it. Think about it. It’s fake money, but people lost real savings. It’s like finding out someone’s imaginary friend died by driving your car off a cliff. You’re like, ‘How?!? Your friend wasn’t real.’ ‘They were real to me!’”
· Correspondent Piece (Desi) – Twitter PR
o A quick semi stream-of-consciousness bit of Desi playing Twitter’s PR person, breathlessly trying to keep up with the rapidly changing situation over there – “Okay, comedy is mostly legal on Twitter. If you have any questions, contact customer support. …Nope, they were fired.”
o I laughed at this line – “Okay, Chevrolet is not coming out with a car called the Hitlermobile.”
o Nice going, Elon – “If you see a verified account, please assume that it’s fake.”
· CP Time (Roy) – History of Black superheroes
o The first Black superhero, Speed Jaxon, was created in 1936 in a comic strip – “Jaxon used his abilities to fight against fascists during the war and right the wrongs of a racist society, which is tough. Because superpowers don’t help when you’re fighting systemic racism. Doesn’t matter if you have the strength of ten men if none of those men can get a mortgage.”
o When it comes to comic books, the first Black hero created by a Black writer/artist was Lion Man in 1947 – “Despite how it looks today, Lion Man was still groundbreaking as an all-Black written and illustrated comic, even if now the cover looks like Tucker Carlson tried to draw Africa.”
o Roy also looked about Black characters who’ve taken up legacy mantles, from Riri Williams to Sam Wilson to Miles Morales – “No Black Bruce Wayne, though. That requires too much generational wealth.”
· Interview – Rapper Nas
o I liked this remark from Trevor about Nas’s new album, King’s Disease III – “I think what I love about this album is how it feels like you almost reminiscing whilst also writing a piece of the future.”
o As someone who’s been in hip hop for decades, Nas responded to Trevor’s observations about how mainstream the genre has become, coming a long way from the days when white people thought it was “dangerous” – “I think people can realize that you don’t have to be scared of it.”
o This was a nice point – “Hip hop’s a multi-sound genre. So, like, in rock, you don’t have, you don’t compare KISS to the Rolling Stones, you know? But in hip hop for some reason, we’re fighting it for the same thing and you feel like you have to be the number one guy all the time.”
o I liked what Nas said about branching into the world of documentary filmmaking – “There’s so many stories to uncover all over the world. And here’s my world. I want to talk about it.”
Tuesday, November 15
· Headlines – Continuing midterm results, Katie Hobbs beats Kari Lake in Arizona governor’s race, Mike Pence speaks about January 6th, world population passes 8 billion
o Great opening blurb line – “Ticketmaster did Taylor Swift so wrong, she’s already put out three albums about them.”
o We also got an opening blurb about Russian missiles targeting Ukraine hitting Poland instead, prompting NATO to consider its response – “Honestly, why do these world wars always gotta start in Poland? It’s like the Waffle House parking lot of Europe.”
o Trevor summed up the situation of a likely split Congress going into 2023 – “Which means that in order for America to succeed, Democrats and Republicans will have to work together. So America will not succeed.”
o Kari Lake has been stoking election denial over her loss, tweeting, “Arizonans know BS when they see it” – Trevor cheerfully exclaimed, “Yep, apparently they do!”
o Loved this bit – “This is a lot for Kari Lake. So, please, please, let’s give her some space as she goes through the five stages of Republican grief—denial, denial, denial, pooping in Nancy Pelosi’s office, and denial.”
o Sigh. After a whole interview about Trump’s actions on January 6th, Mike Pence still couldn’t disavow Trump as a potential 2024 candidate – “But I know why he’s doing this, right? I know why he’s doing it. He doesn’t want to go too hard against Trump because he’s still hoping to win over Trump voters if he runs for president, which is so delusional! Trump’s people were the ones who wanted to kill him. The only reason they would elect him president is so that they know for sure where he lived.”
o This was a good bit, about the population reaching 8 billion – “I kind of wish that the UN didn’t even announce this because it feels like bragging, you know? Yeah, like, I feel like COVID is going to see that we hit a new population milestone and be like, ‘Well, I saw them hit 8 billion, and I took that personal. I saw that. I was like, I might come back.’”
· Correspondent Piece (Lewis) – Young people “acting old”
o This was an amusing piece, about young people jumping onto stereotypically “old” trends, like dining early – “Are you shitting me? Young people stealing all the early bird reservations? Seniors need those spots. They have to be in bed by 7:30 or else all their organs slide into their ankles.”
o Gen Zers are also surprisingly susceptible to online scams, which Lewis sympathized with – “If I had TikTok in my youth, my brain would also be a gullible bowl of horny porridge.”
· Interview – Actress Danai Gurira
o Gurira was, of course, there to talk about Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – “It has been an amazing journey and a tremendous one and a painful one and an intense one, starting from the beginning when we tragically lost our brother and our king, our leader, Chadwick. So really, coming back was all about honoring him.”
o Trevor brought up Talokan (obliquely, to avoid spoilers,) and Gurira gushed about the film’s exploration of the Africa diaspora hand in hand with the experiences of people in South and Central America – “The beauty of it is like that aspect of that shared conversation that Africa could have with that part of the world, which is, we were both—we both went through a lot of imperialism. We both went through colonization. We both lost—indigenous cultures lost a lot through that very wretched process.”
o Gurira also discussed training for the action sequences – “It’s a lot of work. There’s no way around the work. But to me, that’s actually how you become the character. You can’t become Okoye outside of how she knows how to fight.”
Wednesday, November 16
· Main Story – Trump announces run for reelection
o I loved Trevor’s impression of Trump calling himself “the victim” in his campaign announcement speech – “That’s right, folks, I’m the biggest victim of all. Every time I do something illegal, they come after me!”
o Also great – “This is what Trump does. He’s always the victim! The poor billionaire who only owns 15 golf courses and got to run the world’s most powerful country for four years. Oh, woe is me!”
o This line made me laugh – “That’s right, Trump is getting the old team back together for one more run at the White House. And of course, I say that metaphorically, since most of the old team is in jail.”
o Awesome – “No one suffered more from the Trump presidency than the Trump family. Yeah, while the rest of you were living in up in your border cages and enjoying an endless buffet of COVID, Eric Trump was being asked to answer some questions. What a hard life.”
o Trump complained that Eric had been served more subpoenas than Billy the Kid and Jesse James, which naturally led to a fun bit where Trevor was inserted into footage of a standoff in an old western, nervously trying to serve papers to “Mr. Ugly.”
o Trump’s was so rambling and went on for so long that people in the crowd at Mar-a-Lago tried to leave, but security blocked the doors – “For real, though, you know a club is shitty when you need a bouncer to keep people in. That’s when you know things are not going well.”
o Trevor was shaking his head at congressional Democrats and pundits who think a Trump candidacy is the best bet for a Democratic victory in 2024, eerily repeating 2016 – “You’re probably like, ‘Yeah, but this year, all of Trump’s MAGA election deniers lost.’ Yeah, but they lost by like 1%, 1%. Those are not f**k-around-and-find-out margins, people. Those are the kind of margins where if anything is a little bit different next time, Trump could win those states.”
· Correspondent Piece (Desi) – History of Black Friday
o Though using the day after Thanksgiving to kick off holiday shopping began earlier, it wasn’t called Black Friday until the 1960s – “It was actually coined by the Philadelphia Police Department, because the day brought tons of traffic and chaos. And for shopping to cause chaos in Philadelphia, it has to really be chaos. I once set fire to a mannequin at a Zara in Philadelphia, and they didn’t even kick me out of the store. They just threw it in the burnt mannequin pile.”
o Desi noted that retailers have been starting Black Friday earlier and earlier, such that many stores now open on the evening of Thanksgiving itself – “They called the new holiday Gray Thursday as a tribute to the moral gray area of abandoning your family on Thanksgiving to choke out a stranger for an Instapot.”
· Interview – Actor Jonathan Majors
o Majors brought Trevor flowers, in honor of his upcoming departure, which was very sweet – Trevor was flattered and surprised, and Majors explained that it was, “For the culture!”
o He was there to promote his new film Devotion, about the life of the first Black U.S. naval pilot Jesse Brown – When asked what drew him to the film, Majors said, “I thought, okay, we got stories about King and Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman. But we don’t have a story about this guy.”
o This was a lovely perspective on acting – “I feel quite fortunate that this is my purpose. I look at somebody, and I go, ‘Okay, tell me where it hurts. What’s going on?’ I go, ‘Okay, cool, where is that hurt on me?’”
o Trevor took the pictures of Majors’s newly ripped body for Creed III personally, asking, “Why are you doing this to us?” – He lamented, “You realize there are normal men out there. We’re living our lives, eating bread….”
Thursday, November 17
· Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That – NASA announces plans to return to the moon, leadership changes in the House, Herschel Walker rally
o The headlines were short today, thanks to a certain someone Trevor was eager to interview – “We’re being joined by one of my favorite Black American presidents. Barack Obama’s joining us, everybody!”
o I laughed at Trevor calling the moon “Ashy Earth.”
o Trevor took issue with so many NASA rockets being named after figures from Greek mythology – “Why doesn’t NASA update things, you know? Name rockets after today’s mythical heroes. ‘Everyone, we’re sending Artemis to the moon.’ Boring! ‘Everyone, we’re sending John Wick to the moon.’ Oh, yeah! Shit’s about to go down!”
o This was great – “If we had more time, we could talk about whether humans should be going anywhere in the universe given the fact that we can’t even get COVID under control down here. Because if we’re not careful, we might turn into the conquistadors of the solar system, right? Just be like, ‘Is there life on Mars?’ ‘Uh, there was.’”
o Good line – “Republicans have officially won control of the House. And this time they did it without shitting on the floor. That’s growth.”
o I loved Trevor’s reaction to the clip of a Herschel Walker rally where he went off on a bizarre tangent describing the plot to Fright Night – “Step aside, Gettysburg Address. America has the new greatest speech of all time. Because you tell me the last time you heard a speech about vampires, werewolves, faith, politics, and garlic, huh?”
· Interview – Former president Barack Obama
o Obama and Trevor had some enjoyable banter – When Trevor commented about how odd it must feel to always be called “Mr. President,” Obama replied, “You know, my best friends call me Barack. …You should call me Mr. President.”
o Obama didn’t want to take too much credit for the Democrats’ performance in the midterms – “We recruited some excellent candidates. […] They are committed, passionate, down to earth, they connect with people. And so I come in mainly to shine a spotlight on them.”
o I liked his take on the importance of the young adult vote, even if they still voter in lower numbers compared to older demographics – “In such a polarized environment, 1, 2, 3%, if they’re turning out at 21% instead of 18%--that can make an enormous difference.”
o This was a good discussion – “Not just here in the United States but around the world, the fundamental precepts of democracy are being challenged. We’re not having arguments about policy, but we’re having arguments about the rules of the game, which previously we all agreed to, right?”
o Obama emphasized, “Like I said, it’s not unique to the United States, but when it happens in the United States, it sends a signal all around the world that weakens democracy. And that’s why I think us getting our house in order is so important.”
o He talked about the differences between his state senate campaign Illinois and the landscape today – Back then, even in rural areas of the state where a lot of people didn’t agree with him, “There wasn’t the filter that had been created by Fox News or the media infrastructure, the sort of right-wing conspiracy theory folks. And so they came at me with an open mind. And I could listen to them, and they could listen to me. And at the end of the day, they might say, ‘Well, he’s a little liberal for our taste, but we have something in common.’”
o Obama went on to say, “If you go into those same communities now, we have so many preconceptions about what somebody like me believes, cares about, etc., that it’s very hard to penetrate.”
o This was a good question from Trevor – “If democracy and freedom are things that everybody wishes to have, why does it seem like the world moving away from that?”
o Obama talked about the economic disruption that comes with globalization, as well as the way modernity can challenge traditional norms – He continued, “What we’ve seen happen in a whole bunch of places is essentially a pushback, a backlash to change that is happening too fast for their comfort. And when people are pushing back against change, then they’re vulnerable to politicians who say, ‘You know what? I can make things just like it was back then, when you were feeling more important. You had higher status. You didn’t have people who don’t look like you suggesting somehow that you’d doing something wrong, that somehow your traditions are flawed.’ And that appeal usually also involves saying the problems you’re feeling are somebody else’s fault. It’s those folks there. It’s immigrants. It’s gays. It’s Hindus. It’s Muslims. It’s—so forth and so on.”
o Valid – “Democracy requires, by definition, getting along with people who don’t agree with you.”
o I liked this observation – “Look, for most of human history, democracy is a relatively recent vintage. It’s a blip, yeah. Tribe, nation-state, race, sect—that’s typically been how we’ve organized things. And it’s always easy to say us versus them. That’s the easy politics. What democracy demands is always a little bit more difficult.”
o Obama and Trevor discussed “inclusive capitalism” and what that looks like, which Obama argued calls for a combination of both capitalist and socialist structures – “We’re gonna have a blend of some sort. We want some collective decision making about the social good. And we want something that’s efficient and dynamic and allows us to exercise our innovation and freedom. And we don’t need to worry so much about the labels as we do about being practical and thinking about what’s working and what isn’t.”
o Trevor talked about Obama’s post-president life and used that to segue into musing on his own post-Daily Show career – “I wondered if maybe you have any tips for me as—you know? Because, I mean, you and I, like, we’re basically the same.”
o Unfortunately, Obama’s advice demonstrated that they weren’t quite in the same boat – “I think you’re gonna really have to focus on relearning things, like driving, pressing your own elevator buttons.”
No comments:
Post a Comment