The “Woke” Smithsonian, South Park’s Latest Dig at Trump, and Co-Host Wesley Morris

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Speaker 4 Wait, there's a Claude?

Speaker 3 Claude, yes, Anthropic. Who's Claude?

Speaker 3 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher, and August rolls on. Welcome back to

Speaker 4 Scott Free August.

Speaker 3 Do you like that? Do you like our sting?

Speaker 3 Okay, Scott is still before I introduce you. Yes, Scott is still away, and I know he misses me terribly.

Speaker 3 He's been posting a lot, pretending he's still on the show, but pretty much he's gone and he's sitting on the beach wishing because there's so much news.

Speaker 3 But in his place, once again, I have yet another amazing co-host. He's a critic at large for the New York Times and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, which Scott will never win.

Speaker 3 And the host of the Times's brand new podcast, Cannonball. It's Wesley Morris.

Speaker 4 I can't believe this is happening to Scott again.

Speaker 3 I mean, week,

Speaker 3 day after day, it's another fantastic person who is so more well qualified to be my partner than other people. So I'm thrilled that you are here.
Let me just explain what your podcast is all about.

Speaker 3 Now, you had a very popular podcast. Obviously, the New York Times is glowing up the whole podcast division with videos and this and that.

Speaker 3 So, talk about where the name Cannonball came from and talk a little bit about your podcasting history because it's been terrific, actually.

Speaker 4 Uh, thank you. Um, well, you know, Jay Wortham and I had this show called Still Processing.

Speaker 4 Um,

Speaker 4 it was, you know, one of the happiest things I've ever been involved with. Uh, and now I'm doing this other culture show, and I mean, mostly it's

Speaker 4 me sort sort of thinking through,

Speaker 4 you know, art, TV shows, movies, books, sports. I mean, anything that I'm kind of curious about and trying to make these connections between

Speaker 4 one thing to another thing. Usually, you know, so far, it's been me talking to other people about like what's coming up for them as I'm trying to work out my stuff with the other person.

Speaker 4 And the name, you know, I wanted to call this show some other things.

Speaker 3 Tell me, tell me the name you wanted. I know how the New York Times is about names.
I shoved mine through so hard.

Speaker 4 Did you have to fight to get Sway called Sway?

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. Really? You know what? I didn't care.
I refused to do it without the name. But what was the name you wanted? Tell me the name.

Speaker 4 I wanted to call it Prolando.

Speaker 3 Prolando? Parlando. Parlando.
I love that.

Speaker 4 Which, you know, for our musicologist friends, you know,

Speaker 3 explain that. It is.

Speaker 4 It's essentially,

Speaker 4 it's an opera term, and it essentially means to sing in a manner that is recognizable as speech, essentially. But there's also, there's a great tradition of Parlando and pop music.

Speaker 4 We just don't really call it that. But, you know, some of your favorite singers are Parlando.

Speaker 3 I don't know, Kara.

Speaker 4 I don't want to, I don't want to like, I don't want to accuse you of being a learner. They

Speaker 3 don't know what they talk. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Or a Grace Jones fan. Yeah.
But I wanted to call the show that because I can't sing,

Speaker 4 but I can talk.

Speaker 3 You can parlando. It's been a verb.

Speaker 4 But you know what's great about cannonball is that I have discovered that I have been using it at people when they come on,

Speaker 4 both

Speaker 4 as a verb, like we cannonballed, or

Speaker 4 the back and forth to get them to come on the show. Like, I can't wait to cannonball with them.

Speaker 3 So good. So you're going to make it into something.

Speaker 4 I mean, it already is a verb, right?

Speaker 3 That is how we're using it. It's almost going to happen.
Yeah. I mean, like, there's, you're in a pool and you do a cannonball.
Dingity ding. There's a song.
Yeah. There's a song Cannonball.

Speaker 3 Do you play that on the show? That's a terrible song, I believe.

Speaker 4 No, I think that probably costs $500,000. I would love to give Kim Deal that money, but I don't think the Niero.
I mean, we have a great theme song. I love our theme song.

Speaker 4 A guy named Justin Ellington did it. It's wonderful.
It is so not Cannonball, like by the breeders, but it's something, it's something as good as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 4 You don't like Cannonball the song? I didn't want to let that sit down.

Speaker 3 I don't love the cannonball. I don't know.
I just, it reminds me of my youth i guess i don't know i gotta listen to it again i don't know whenever i hear i'm like oh

Speaker 3 there's like it's not the song it's not the song it's the it's something that happened during the song i don't know

Speaker 4 we've got to recover this memory this is 1993 i want to say last splash is like 93 94 94 yeah yeah i'm gonna lean on my i'm gonna lean on my arm for this one and just um i want to recover the memory though because it really, you know, there are these cultural artifacts that are

Speaker 4 you can't quite, you don't, there are things where like you know exactly why you feel the way you feel about it, but then there are these other things that they're not, they're not proustian.

Speaker 4 Like, I don't, well, I can't say if in your case, if this is, is or is not a Proustian experience, but not one of the high ones.

Speaker 3 I mean, landslide, forget it. That's the gay, that landslide.
That one I listen to and weep.

Speaker 3 But do you know why?

Speaker 3 I had a crush on a friend of mine, and I was gay, and I was, I listened to it a lot. I just,

Speaker 3 I can't believe I'm telling you this. That's what happened.

Speaker 4 I think that that's an important one, but you can identify why Landslide is a song you love. Cannonball being a song you don't like.

Speaker 3 Let's see, 94. What was I doing in 1994? God, it was so long.

Speaker 4 If you can't remember what was going on then, that's another.

Speaker 3 You're in D.C.

Speaker 4 I was, I thought I was going to ask if you were in D.C.

Speaker 3 That's I was I was at the Washington Post. I was I was I just become a reporter.
You know, I was in the business section.

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 3 I don't know. Maybe a it's got to be a relationship.
I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 3 They're all relationships. Were you going to bars? Were you going out? No, I'm not a bar person.
I'm not. That's the whole thing.
You know, you know, my wife, Amanda, she loves a bar. Yeah.

Speaker 3 She cares about her.

Speaker 4 I mean, you know, Amanda.

Speaker 3 She loves to dance. I don't like to dance.
I know. Wait, you're not a dancer? I'm not.
It's just like my son and Amanda always joke. One of my sons and Amanda always joke that I don't like swimming.

Speaker 3 I don't like dancing. I don't like bars.

Speaker 3 Well, were you missing out in D.C.?

Speaker 4 Because D.C. strikes me as having like some great, like having had anyway, some great gay bars.

Speaker 3 Yes, it did. It did.
It did. There still are a couple there, except now, like, it's populated by the government.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I was going to say, they really, can we talk about that? Why are they hanging out at the gay bars? I mean, because they're, I mean, listen, Kara.

Speaker 3 It's always been an issue. Anyway, all right, we're going to get to a lot of things.
Anyway, Cannonball. So when you talk to,

Speaker 3 who's the last person you talked to in Cannonball?

Speaker 4 That the public can hear. It's probably Vincent Cunningham.
He and I talked about the new Spike Lee movie, Highest to Lowest.

Speaker 4 That happened this week. And then next week is going to be a conversation with me and Sam Anderson talking about

Speaker 4 old summer movies.

Speaker 4 I, well, you know, I had this feeling that this summer was going to be really dry.

Speaker 4 And it was, in fact, dry. And, you know, it was the usual thing that happens now with our summers.
You get a lot of sequels, a lot of, you know, eighth editions of something.

Speaker 4 But, you know, my favorite movie from this summer is Weapons. I don't know if you've seen this movie yet.

Speaker 3 I can't see it. It's scary.
I don't care.

Speaker 4 You got to just like.

Speaker 3 That's another thing I can't do. Really? I can't.
I know. I know it's like Sinners.
I finally went to Sinners. I did.
I thought it was scary and then it was fantastic.

Speaker 4 This is scarier than Sinners to me.

Speaker 3 I know, exactly.

Speaker 3 And the kid,

Speaker 3 this guy is a very gifted filmmaker. filmmaker, it's very clear.
It's incredible. Um, but the arms with the kids, yeah, I mean,

Speaker 3 I just don't like that. I don't know why that upset me, and I don't want to see it, and I don't want it.
I could, I've seen it in this posters, and I don't want to see it in my head.

Speaker 3 Like, I was just in my town, I was driving through, it was on Long Island, doing something, which the New York Post has reported about.

Speaker 3 Um, but um, really, they were filming the Devil Wears Prada 2 out there. I won't say more.
Um, and so

Speaker 3 it has just been sold.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 3 So various minor situations. So

Speaker 3 I grew up there and there was a movie theater that used to be there in Roslyn Harbor and Roslyn Village. And I saw

Speaker 3 Tales from the Crypt there when I was a kid with my brother. He dragged me on a rainy day.

Speaker 3 I had a turkey sandwich in my pocket, which, by the way, stayed there for too long later.

Speaker 3 But it was from the Clock Tower restaurant. And that I did not like seeing that movie.
That upset me. There was a Santa that was evil in it, etc.

Speaker 3 Remember that movie? And I was with my brother in an old movie theater, and I'll never forgive him for taking me to that movie. So I don't see horror movies very much.

Speaker 3 This one?

Speaker 3 Since then. I saw Halloween once and I did not, I did not appreciate it, even though I very much like Jamie Lee Curtis.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, Halloween's a, that's a no-brainer. In terms of just like a really visceral movie going experience, you had a bad experience.

Speaker 3 Well, a guy grabbed my legs during the scary scene behind me because he had seen it before. And I have a bad experience as holiday.
So this one looks beautifully done horror movies.

Speaker 3 That's why I imagine it would stick with me. It's very good.

Speaker 4 Anyway, the point of bringing that up is weapons. Weapons is the only, like it's the only thing.
It's one of the few things this summer based on an original screenplay.

Speaker 3 And I so when sinners sort of bled into summer, right?

Speaker 4 The conversation around it did. And

Speaker 4 I think, you know, part of the reason Sam and I wanted to talk about old movies is because we didn't think we were going to get any good new ones this summer. Turns out that is basically true.

Speaker 4 I mean, we got weapons and like some residual sinners conversation because it arrived, I don't know, onto one of these streaming platforms, probably HBO, HBO Max,

Speaker 4 which I just, I'm just saying HBO.

Speaker 3 I don't know what we're doing here. Whatever you want because they'll change it next week.
What was your favorite old movie? Old movie?

Speaker 4 I mean, well, I mean, the thing that Sam Anderson and I talk about is Ghost, but in Total Recall.

Speaker 3 Those are our two movies. Oh, love that movie.

Speaker 4 That's a great. That's the summer of 1990.

Speaker 3 Yeah. You know what the Swishers watch every year here on the summer vacation? I'm on a phone is

Speaker 3 Patrick Swayze and Roadhouse. Oh, wow.
It was so good. Well,

Speaker 4 why? Why that?

Speaker 3 That kind of venison.

Speaker 3 Because we love it because there's so many great lines in it. Go watch it, Wesley.
I mean, I've seen it. Your life will be changed.

Speaker 4 My life has already been changed.

Speaker 3 By Patrick Swayze. I mean, many times.

Speaker 3 Well, Ghost was amazing.

Speaker 3 I just love Patrick Swayze. I really do.
I don't know why,

Speaker 3 you know, the dancing movie. He's a dirty dancing, yeah, dirty dancing.

Speaker 4 He's a strange movie star that we'll never get again because you know, he's not sweet, really good at anything, no, but he's a good dancer.

Speaker 3 That's not true, he's a beautiful dancer.

Speaker 4 That's true. Well, I mean, he's good enough, he's good enough for the movies.

Speaker 4 Um, good dance, but what I would say is, like, the thing that's great about Patrick Swayze as a person on camera is he's got all the intangible things, right?

Speaker 4 I mean, handsomeness, but also a little swagger, but like a real vulnerability or an access.

Speaker 3 He's feminine. He's got a femininity to him.

Speaker 4 And I think that there's that, that

Speaker 4 conflation of

Speaker 4 several different

Speaker 4 like his gender spectrum is bright and

Speaker 4 functioning simultaneously with every performance.

Speaker 3 He's just a sweetheart. I just think he's a great person.

Speaker 4 And he seems like a kind person. Yes.

Speaker 3 He does. And he's always Greg.
We're going to be nice until it's time not to be nice.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Point Break.

Speaker 3 No, that was that. That was Roadhouse.
Point Break was another one he was amazing. I mean,

Speaker 4 I forgot. I can't quote Roadhouse the way you do.

Speaker 3 I can quote Roadhouse. That's correct.
And we sit around and we insult the Jake Gyllenhaal version.

Speaker 4 I feel bad for the remade Roadhouse. I don't know why they did it.

Speaker 4 I'm a big Jake Gyllenhaal person.

Speaker 4 I don't like him doing movie star karaoke. Like the idea of him doing Patrick Swayze and

Speaker 4 Harrison Ford in the same year, essentially.

Speaker 4 I didn't like it, but I mean, because he's his own thing, right? Like, I don't think that he needs to.

Speaker 3 I love that he was doing that movie this summer that Taylor Swift had her enormous tour because it was like, Yeah, here he was in his sad little roadhouse, and she was billionaires selling out stadiums.

Speaker 4 I mean, I don't want to skip ahead or anything, but I did find that part of that podcast conversation that she had with the Kelsey brothers

Speaker 4 to be

Speaker 4 really fascinating when she's like, my favorite part of that entire

Speaker 4 re-recording Odyssey was getting to do her 10-minute version of All Too Well,

Speaker 4 which allegedly, you know, is about the person we were just discussing.

Speaker 3 Of course it is. We're going to get to her too.
All right. Look, look, we got to Kelsey.
I'm not trying to rush us. Okay, you're rushed us.
You're rushing us. You're not rushing us.

Speaker 3 We've got lots of things to talk about.

Speaker 3 We've been talking, talk just a little bit.

Speaker 3 This week, you're talking about Spike Lee's latest movie. Last week, you were talking about the series finale and just like that.

Speaker 4 Listen, did you watch that show?

Speaker 3 Hello? I love Sarah Jessica Parker. I know, I know, I'm not of the haters.
I mean, I can see why people hate watch it, but I love it. It was so fuck you.
I love a fuck you. Yeah.
Like everybody. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I love it. The poop.
Like, oh my God. They really did that.
And then her last thing was like, fuck you. I'm going to dance away in my thing.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Did you like it or not? You probably hate watched it.

Speaker 4 No, I love the show.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 4 I love the show. I really think it's one of the great projects about friendship that we've ever had.

Speaker 4 I mean, I don't care if we're talking about books, movies, TV. I mean, it's one of the great works of friendship

Speaker 4 and all the

Speaker 4 vicissitudes of being close to people

Speaker 4 for a long time.

Speaker 3 Well, we have to forgive them for Che. Che was a bad character.
Of course, of course, of course. But that's okay.
It's okay.

Speaker 3 Can I give you a premise? You remember when they got into troll for not being diverse enough?

Speaker 3 There's lots of shows of dudes, white dudes, black dudes, all kinds of dudes kind of thing, where there's never diversity among them, right?

Speaker 3 This show got slapped for it in a way that other shows don't. And I thought it was really interesting as I watched it.
I was trying to think of a popular show that didn't really try very hard.

Speaker 3 That was a long

Speaker 3 thing is it was on forever, I guess. That's because it was so long.

Speaker 4 98 to, you know, now more or less, right?

Speaker 3 As much as I hate to say, this is probably what a lot of, if the people they're depicting, their lives would have been like this.

Speaker 3 They were kind of depicting the lives. They wouldn't have had a lot of diverse friends necessarily, unless, you know, just unless they sort of, you know, Venn diagrammed into fashion, I guess, right?

Speaker 3 Which is great.

Speaker 4 But no,

Speaker 4 I agree with you. I mean, that's, I don't want, if this is the, if,

Speaker 4 I live in New York City.

Speaker 4 I go to restaurants all the time. And you know what I see a lot of the time when I go out is four white ladies

Speaker 4 just yucking it up. Yucking it up.
And I think I didn't need that. to be the case if that wasn't the case from the beginning.
Right.

Speaker 4 But I think the amazing, sort of one of the cool things about the, and just like that project was

Speaker 4 it was going to take a different risk, right? It was going to absorb the criticism of the show not being, quote, diverse enough,

Speaker 4 which nobody, I mean, did anybody say Tony Soprano needs a black friend?

Speaker 3 That's what I was thinking of. I was like, there were no black people on.
Well, no, no, never. I mean, it just,

Speaker 4 I mean, there were, there were some, but they, they weren't, they weren't major characters.

Speaker 4 I mean, they were like ancillary, you'd get an episode where Christopher, Christopher was hanging out with some Negroes, right?

Speaker 3 That's what would happen.

Speaker 4 But I think that, you know, the idea that these women would come back, you know, minus Samantha and be put into a post-George Floyd United States.

Speaker 4 What would it then mean for them to be able to stay on HBO for one thing and during this period? But also, what would be realistic?

Speaker 4 What would be a realistic experience for them as women who were realizing that the world had changed and that they

Speaker 4 they were part of the problem in some way without actually saying hey we're part of the problem right like charlotte goes on like charlotte carrie and miranda go on these respective crusades to

Speaker 4 find

Speaker 4 some non-white people

Speaker 3 so the ones that you have were would made sense would have maybe happened right

Speaker 3 yes it didn't feel forced to me

Speaker 3 Yes, it didn't feel this when they got past Che, it didn't feel forced because I thought the woman who played the real estate agent was amazing. And then the Sarita Chowdhury? Amazing.
She's amazing.

Speaker 4 That is one of the best performances on a show

Speaker 4 that I can think of. I mean, I, with all due respect to, you know, I bow down, Kim Cattrall, but this is just like a deeper version of the same character to me.

Speaker 3 And I believe I've met that person. I've met

Speaker 3 that person. Permanent real estate lady is like a killer.
Yes. And the same thing with,

Speaker 3 I'm totally Lisa Nicole Ari Parker. Yeah.
Yeah. Amazed.
I've met that woman. Yes.
I've met that woman. I know her.

Speaker 3 And she would have hung out with them. Anyway, I love that show.
And let me just say, I love Sarah Jessica Parker. I know her a little bit.
And

Speaker 3 she's actually a fan of Pitt, but you may be listening to this. I think she has delivered more entertainment.
I always think of like, who delivers more entertainment?

Speaker 3 in their lifetime and she certainly has in lots of roles.

Speaker 4 But I actually think that what you're identifying is something interesting about her, which is that, you know, we haven't really,

Speaker 4 I don't know, I have not experienced like a useful or

Speaker 4 enlightening appreciation of what it is that she did both as Carrie and what she, what kind of entertainer she's been all this time.

Speaker 4 I think that there's something that one of the things I loved and sometimes cringed at, but like loved the nerve of

Speaker 4 in her work as as carrie is that

Speaker 4 you know carrie bradshaw was somebody who was very present to the moment in the late 90s and early 2000s right she kind of had a really great bee girl white b-girl energy

Speaker 4 and she

Speaker 4 there was like a little hip-hop dimension to her glamour

Speaker 4 and the way that she would both incorporate like black slang and like borscht belt

Speaker 4 comedy um into her like throwaway line deliveries. I always thought that was great.

Speaker 4 The way she could screw her face up was, you know, that's like 1930s, 1940s screwball.

Speaker 4 I just think that that performance is very, very good.

Speaker 4 And it got to the end. And it got better.

Speaker 3 It got even better.

Speaker 3 Four episodes were amazing.

Speaker 4 Yes, I agree.

Speaker 3 I agree. I think she's great.
I would give her kudos. She was also in a movie, it was about a family where she was sort of the girlfriend that nobody liked.

Speaker 4 Oh, was that the

Speaker 4 that was home? Was it not home for the holidays?

Speaker 3 Uh, it was like that.

Speaker 4 Oh, Family Stone, the knockoff home for the holidays, yeah.

Speaker 3 Yes, but I love that movie because I loved her performance in it because she was sort of this difficult woman and she didn't hide it and her difficulty, and then she falls in love with the other brother, etc.

Speaker 3 But I loved her in that movie.

Speaker 4 I that's I appreciated her as part of that great stretch that she had in the movies because of the show, right?

Speaker 4 I mean, if you can remember this, Kara, her like early 90s version of her, the early 90s version of herself.

Speaker 4 I don't know if you remember this, but there was this movie with Bruce Willis as some kind of like

Speaker 3 river cop, like Coastal Guard

Speaker 4 called Striking Distance. And Sarah Jessica Parker is his partner in that movie.

Speaker 3 His cop partner, I believe.

Speaker 4 Wore a uniform and everything. Yeah.

Speaker 3 That's like when Meryl Streep drove a boat. Remember?

Speaker 4 The River Wild. Who could forget?

Speaker 3 May I say she's the classiest dame I've ever met? I won't say how. Anyway, President Trump is,

Speaker 3 we're moving on. President Trump is accused of the state of the world.

Speaker 4 We can't go from Meryl Streep to President Trump.

Speaker 3 We are. Because listen, because historically speaking,

Speaker 3 she's been in many history movies, that's why. President Trump is accusing Smithsonian of focusing too much on, quote, how bad slavery was and not enough on the brightness of America.

Speaker 3 Trump sent a post on true socials. He's directed his attorneys to go through the museums and start the same process done with universities across the country.

Speaker 3 He also noted the country cannot be woke because woke is broke. The comments come a week after the White House announced a sweeping review of the Smithsonian.

Speaker 3 Museums were given 120 days to change content that Trump administration finds problematic in tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals. I mean,

Speaker 3 please just go on. Please just pontificate on what is happening here.

Speaker 3 How bad slavery was.

Speaker 4 Kirk, can I I start here?

Speaker 4 I want to take you back to February 24th, sorry, February 21st, 2017.

Speaker 4 This is like a month after the inauguration.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I mean, because this is what I've been thinking about.

Speaker 4 This man, a month after the inauguration, gets a tour of the relatively still new Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, which

Speaker 4 we at my house call the Blacksonian.

Speaker 4 The president

Speaker 4 gets a tour of this museum from Lonnie Bunch, the man who is now in charge of the whole Smithsonian system and is under fire to

Speaker 4 gladden it up.

Speaker 4 President Trump gives this speech. I have the entire speech.
I'm not going to read all of it. But Kara,

Speaker 4 I'm going to just like read some of it because I don't recognize this person.

Speaker 4 this person is a different person.

Speaker 4 I am very proud of Lonnie Bunch. The work and the love that he has done in his heart and for what he's done is, I always need to talk.
He's like, this is not a written speech.

Speaker 4 I always need to talk to you. I always need to talk about your, you need enthusiasm.
You need really, you need, really love for anything. You, you do it successfully.
And Lonnie, where are you?

Speaker 4 Come on, Lonnie. I'll skip ahead.
They need to thanks, David Rubenstein, who he just fired from the Kennedy Center.

Speaker 4 It's a privilege to be here today. This museum is a beautiful tribute to so many American heroes.
Heroes like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Booker T.

Speaker 4 Washington, Rosa Parks, the Greensboro students, the students who had a sin in a at a Woolworth in Greenborough, North Carolina,

Speaker 4 the African-American Medal of Honor recipients, among so many other really incredible heroes. It's amazing to see.
I went to M Dash.

Speaker 4 We did a pretty comprehensive tour, but not comprehensive enough, Kara. Not comprehensive enough.
So Lonnie, I'll be back. I told you that because I could stay here for a lot longer.

Speaker 4 Believe me, it's really incredible. I am deeply proud.
I am deeply proud that we now have a museum.

Speaker 4 that honors the millions of African American men and women who built our national heritage, especially when it comes to faith, culture, and the unbreakable American spirit.

Speaker 4 My wife was here last week and took a tour, and it was something that she still is talking about. Ivanka is here right now.
Hi, Ivanka. And it is really very special.

Speaker 4 It's something that, frankly, if you want to know the truth, it's doing so well that everybody's talking about it.

Speaker 3 Incredible. Well, he wasn't.

Speaker 4 You tell me what's happening.

Speaker 3 Because he had people around him who were like, this is a good thing. And, you know, look, I'm sorry.
I've seen Donald Trump's been a racist since.

Speaker 3 I mean, who are we talking about? Forever, like never not been a racist. And so, this is what's happened between age, power, and not being stopped by someone, not dying with government.

Speaker 3 Yes, yes. He now is showing you exactly who he is.
Like, slavery is like, like, how bad, why is it too much on how bad slavery was? There is not a number of how bad it was, right?

Speaker 3 There is not a number high enough to do it. But I think he just was told what to do there.
And he had, I hate to say it, he had a vonka there.

Speaker 4 You mean mean on the, on the, on the first, February 21st, February 17th, 2020,

Speaker 3 he had people who were like,

Speaker 3 slavery was bad. Let's stick with slavery was bad on this one.
Terrible, the worst thing ever. And, you know, the original sin, whatever.
There's no, there's several original sins, but

Speaker 3 well, he wants them all gone. So all gone.
So what do you, how do you, what do you think about these attempts?

Speaker 3 And do you think they're, you know, he just will not give up on this woke thing, which is nuts.

Speaker 3 And they had, there was a bunch of of interviews in front of the museum and they showed people what he said like all kinds of people not just like what you'd imagine be angry about it but they were like what what what like talk about this and what they're trying to do here from a cultural point of view um they're trying to purify they're trying to create some idea of a of a of a thing that you know has been being attempted for 400 years, right?

Speaker 3 Like a like a new thing.

Speaker 4 A racially purified, well, it's just never been achieved, right? There's never been, there's, I mean, not even Woodrow Wilson has gone as far as Trump is trying to go.

Speaker 4 And Wilson was, was, you know, all but a KKK member.

Speaker 4 I think that

Speaker 4 this is propaganda at its, at its,

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 4 most blatant, right?

Speaker 4 This is the beginning of something, right? I mean, if you look at the prongs that are, that are laid out on this table, essentially, holding it up.

Speaker 4 You've got the National Guard down the street, probably around the museums right now, right?

Speaker 3 Exactly.

Speaker 3 You know,

Speaker 3 those black people act up a lot. Like, that's where they would put the National Guard, like idiots, like where no crime is taking place, but we'll get into that.
Right.

Speaker 4 But where, like, in a city where, you know, if you ask the average D.C. resident, like,

Speaker 4 could things be a little better from the standpoint of public safety? They would would say yes. But do I think the solution to that is the National Guard? No, it's housing.

Speaker 4 You know, it's get, let people go to sleep. I mean, this is my number one thing about like what we call crime and mental health situations.

Speaker 4 I think a lot of this stuff is just, I think, I think stress and not having a place to actually reset your brain every night contributes to what we don't, we probably wouldn't even qualify

Speaker 4 certain aspects of urban crime as mental illness because we've been culturally conditioned to think of it as gang warfare.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 4 the people suck, but no, it's the systemic conditions that have led people to behave this way. Now, I'm not trying to, whatever.

Speaker 4 This is a whole other, this is a whole other aspect of this conversation.

Speaker 3 Including sea slavery. Right, go ahead.
Right.

Speaker 4 But I think that the point here is that

Speaker 4 something is something is being gotten underway essentially right

Speaker 4 and i think

Speaker 4 purifying the story of american history is part of it i think creating an environment in which they can use washington t dc as a test case for how this might go once you start rolling it out in detroit chicago philadelphia i mean he's describing cities as blood soak and cesspools no they're not i have raised children in DC and San Francisco.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 4 you know, Kara, I'm actually curious about this because I think it only takes one

Speaker 4 upset white woman

Speaker 4 to have an experience that she didn't like and for that to reach somebody on the staff of this administration or

Speaker 3 to reach him, right? Well, it was in this case, it was Big Balls, right? Big Balls got beat up on 14th Street, which is not as, you know, it's crazy on Saturday night.

Speaker 3 It is, I lived over there and I lived a block away. And

Speaker 3 it's a city. Like, I don't know what to say.
It's a city. Like all cities have their issues and you don't want to minimize crime, but the idea of maximizing it and

Speaker 3 it's almost pornographic in the way they're maximizing it, like bloodbaths, ongoing this. It's like just not true.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it does not correspond with the reality that

Speaker 4 most people are living. But I will say that, I mean, I can't speak to its effectiveness.

Speaker 4 I think what you're telling me about when people are like like man on the streeting responses to the news that he wants to like remove slavery from a museum that you know is telling the story from slavery to like the glorious things that african americans have contributed to this country um

Speaker 3 and how you can't if you you remove slavery and we're not america anymore right right like who are you will they will be removing the glorious things just so you know it's not just it's not just slavery was bad but white people did the most things i mean i think that's what's really what's happening here i mean although talk a a little bit about the Kenny Center honors, because it goes there too, speaking of cultural impacts, it includes Kiss, Sylvester Stallone, and Gloria Gaynor.

Speaker 3 The country music star they picked. George Straight.
Good country music star. I'm sorry.
I mean, I know. I mean, also Stallone.

Speaker 3 I'm not against Stallone, even though I think he's kind of heinous in many ways. I think he's culturally relevant in some fashion.

Speaker 3 Talk a little bit about these honors. What do they say?

Speaker 4 Well, it's funny. I'm going to do an episode about

Speaker 4 these five people and uh this particular situation kiss so astroson gloria gaynor george straight michael crawford is

Speaker 3 again important

Speaker 3 broadway star no question

Speaker 3 not getting like under ordinary circumstances is michael crawford like can i give you a list of people who are who have not been kennedy centered yes i get it you you start with has founder mcdonald gotten one yet i mean no she is not

Speaker 3 has madonna

Speaker 3 i mean

Speaker 4 you know i mean i just there's so many people like the list the Democrats aren't giving it to Madonna either.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 4 but somebody on the board at some point would just be like, listen, I think it's kind of cool that Madonna hasn't gotten it because it's kind of, it's sort of a badge of honor.

Speaker 4 But the idea that Julia Roberts is inducting George Clooney X number of years ago and she hasn't been Kennedy Center.

Speaker 3 She is.

Speaker 4 You know, I mean, Glenn Close. I mean, there's just like a long list of people who have not been, who have not gotten it.

Speaker 4 But here we are, right? But I actually think that, you know, Sylvester Stallone and George Strait, those are no-brainers to me. Yeah.

Speaker 3 That's like, that's easy.

Speaker 4 That's, that's not hard. Gloria Gaynor, I don't know what that is.
That, I mean, listen, there's a part of me.

Speaker 4 There's a part of me that's like, I don't know, still a little DEI left in this administration.

Speaker 3 They needed to find some, a person of color who would say yes. I mean,

Speaker 4 but even they still feel a kind of pressure

Speaker 4 to acknowledge that even though they're letting all these Afrikaners in the country under victimization statutes of some kind.

Speaker 3 We got to find one. We got to find one.
Are you going to go?

Speaker 3 I used to cover the Kennedy Center honors for the Washington Post, just so you know, when I was a younger, speaking of my time, that was my job, one of the jobs in the style section.

Speaker 3 I have to say it was a ball because it was, it was

Speaker 4 fun. I've been.

Speaker 3 Trump's hosting, which could be fun.

Speaker 4 I mean, his host is hosting for now. I don't know how that's going to go.
Can you imagine?

Speaker 3 Like, what are the rehearsals?

Speaker 3 Terry. Who are they going going to get? Who are they going to get? Wait, stop for one second.
What? I'm sorry. This man is going to have to go to rehearsals.
I know. I know.
But he loves that.

Speaker 3 He doesn't want to rehearse. He's just going to extemporaneously talk about how slavery wasn't that bad.

Speaker 4 Not, I mean, and broadcast it live on CBS, which is also what they want to do.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I mean, typically, for anybody who doesn't know, I mean,

Speaker 4 this is a ceremony that happens a month before anybody in the public gets to see it. That's right.
They have a month to, like, make a television show out of this live event. Right.

Speaker 3 Right. That's right.
You can't broadcast.

Speaker 4 I mean, you could broadcast it live if everybody's on their P's and Q's. It's key.

Speaker 3 It will be broadcast live. Stop it.
You know, I mean, in today's,

Speaker 3 whatever CBS does and their and their behaviors, it doesn't matter. Are you going to go? You need to go.

Speaker 4 Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 Are you assigning me?

Speaker 3 I'm assigning you to go and do a show about it. You need to go.

Speaker 4 I am going to do an episode about the nominees and like the

Speaker 4 rightness and wrongness of having the president choose them. But I guess, I don't know, I could try.
That's like,

Speaker 4 I'm going to think about that because you're right. Maybe it would be worth it.

Speaker 3 But he's trying to culturally take over this old, old aging.

Speaker 4 He's going to rename it after him. He's going to rename the center after him.
He's already on his way to naming the opera House After Melania.

Speaker 3 The Trump Center.

Speaker 4 No, that's not going to work. I've been listening to you talk about this man for years.

Speaker 4 You are one of the smartest people on this person.

Speaker 4 I think that you understand

Speaker 4 what I think you understand him. You're one of the people who understands him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 That's because my mother is drunk. But go ahead.

Speaker 4 I know. I mean, I think that that, I think the people who have the biggest insights into him understand him as a family member, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 3 For sure.

Speaker 4 But I also feel like, you know, it's funny because I feel lucky because I felt like, you know,

Speaker 4 you know, at my house, it was pictures of John Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.

Speaker 4 That was who, that was who, you know, my grandmother and her sisters had around the house.

Speaker 3 My mother liked Jackie's outfits.

Speaker 4 But I think that there is,

Speaker 4 I just am curious about,

Speaker 4 you know,

Speaker 4 he's like a stopped clock in some ways.

Speaker 4 So that when he says like things at the Kennedy, like there aren't good shows at the Kennedy Center, it's not true, but they would, I mean, some of the things didn't work. Right.

Speaker 4 Not everything was great that went on there. I mean, in terms of like the quality of the thing, not morally bad.

Speaker 3 There had been. There had been.
Years ago, I saw when Audrey McDonald, her first first show, Masterclass, was in Baldwin. You saw the original Masterclass.
I saw it six times. She was amazing.

Speaker 3 And I saw Spalding Gray there doing his show. It was amazing there, one of his shows.
And so there used to be a lot more

Speaker 3 interesting things there. And then it just became like.

Speaker 4 But the fact of the matter is, the point is like the

Speaker 4 great people who made that place an exciting place to go do anything

Speaker 4 have gone. Like Ben Folds split, one of my favorite like like performers, Ben Folds.
I love him.

Speaker 4 He's out. Yeah.
Renee Fleming hit the road.

Speaker 4 And now he's taking over the board. I don't, I don't know.
I truly.

Speaker 3 I don't know if you're David Rubenstein.

Speaker 4 Well, you know, the telling thing about this whole Kennedy Center thing is, I don't know if you caught this, but when he gave that press conference talking about like how bad it was

Speaker 4 and talking about how he was going to take over, like he was going to host the show, he said,

Speaker 4 I want one of these. I wanted one of these.

Speaker 3 I wanted. He wanted an honor.
He does. He wants everything.
He wants a Nobel Prize.

Speaker 4 I waited and waited and waited. And I said, the hell with it.
I'll become chairman. I'll give myself an honor.
Maybe next year we'll honor Trump.

Speaker 3 Yep. That's what he said.
We probably will have to, although I would enjoy that. Fuck.

Speaker 3 I say yes because I just want to see the whole horrible thing. All right.
Well, we have to go on a quick break. When we come back, the White House joins TikTok.

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Speaker 3 Wesley, we're back. TikTok just got a new user, the White House.

Speaker 3 The Trump administration launched an official account this week, despite the fact that a federal law requires TikTok to be sold or banned, though Trump keeps extending the deadline illegally, by the way.

Speaker 3 The new White House account posted several videos, including one in which Trump says, I am your voice. Posts were quickly flooded with spam and negative comments, many referencing the Epstein files.

Speaker 3 Trump is reportedly still working on a deal for U.S. investors to buy TikTok from its parent company, ByteDance.
Probably Larry Ellison will be involved in that.

Speaker 3 The latest deadline for the ban expires in mid-September. Talk about him using TikTok.

Speaker 3 And years ago, just so people don't know, he called TikTok a national security threat in 2020 and tried to ban it back then.

Speaker 3 Then he shifted when one of his biggest donors, he realized, was one of a, was one of the biggest investors in it, Jeff Yass.

Speaker 3 So any thoughts on them doing this?

Speaker 4 You know, I got to be honest. Well, first of all,

Speaker 4 I would have just assumed that the White House had already had a TikTok account before

Speaker 4 this guy got back into office. Not that Biden would have been all over it or anything, but there would have been some, like,

Speaker 4 there would have been some like

Speaker 4 young person in the Biden administration who's like, hey, Uncle Joe.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. There's some shaking together.

Speaker 3 They had a pretty good social media group there. Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 4 so I'm surprised by that. But I also, I mean, I, this, as a story, I know that I'm supposed to be disturbed and upset by the idea of simultaneously the national security threat being addressed.

Speaker 4 Like, you know, legitimately, you got to find somebody else to do this. Can't let the Chinese government involved in, you know, our private business.
I think the ship has sailed.

Speaker 4 I don't know about you.

Speaker 4 If you were on it, they got it. I think it's a wrap.
It's how many, like every American, like, are they, are there new TikTok users besides the White House?

Speaker 3 Yeah. No, I agree.
TikTok's, that's what I always thought was

Speaker 3 decline. They don't need anything else.
They don't.

Speaker 3 I just think, like most of these media things, they'll go up and down. And TikTok's not on the ascension necessarily.
I don't know what the new thing will be. Probably YouTube in many ways.

Speaker 4 How do youtube knew how? Like in terms of growth?

Speaker 3 People growth. Yeah.
When you look at the growth, I think they've been, they're fine. They're sort of baked in.
Threads is actually growing bigger than X right now, which is really interesting.

Speaker 3 They're reaching the same daily users. I think Blue Sky is doing fine well.

Speaker 3 I think what's happened is everything's gotten dissipated in terms of social media. And then

Speaker 4 there are more options.

Speaker 3 Right. Yeah.
Depending on what, or people not using it as much. My kids use Reddit.
That's it. YouTube and Medicare.
Interesting. That's the whole thing.
Interesting.

Speaker 3 That's the entire, their entire, they don't participate. I've noticed I don't use social media as much.

Speaker 4 I am having a love affair with Reddit.

Speaker 3 Reddit is great.

Speaker 4 Actually, I, I, you know, I now, I'd sort of been led to, well, you know, what's interesting is that Google sort of is giving me more Reddit threads in my searches than I'd ever been getting.

Speaker 3 Interesting. Are you still using Google for search?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm not a, I'm in a relationship relationship with a chat.

Speaker 4 I'm not even going to take that as shade, Kara.

Speaker 3 You're in Chat GPT. I don't know.
I bet you do. No, I'm not.

Speaker 4 I bet you don't. But, you know, I'm probably going to get there because I'm in a relationship with a man who is, you know, I love a man who loves some chat GPT.

Speaker 3 Oh, well, some people do.

Speaker 4 But he is really good at it. And I'm learning that you can't treat ChatGPT like some any old Google search.

Speaker 3 You can't. It's not.
You can't. It's a relationship.

Speaker 4 You can't get cheap with Chat GPT. You got to whine and die in ChatGPT.

Speaker 3 The prompt. Yes.

Speaker 3 You got to talk to it. You got to make love to ChatGPT.

Speaker 4 You know, you've got to really give it what it wants.

Speaker 4 It's like, you know, what ain't nothing going on with the rent. You know, use what you got to get what you want.
I just, you got to

Speaker 3 give ChatGPT what it needs.

Speaker 4 You know?

Speaker 3 Yeah. Do you

Speaker 3 step out with any other?

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 4 he's tried everything.

Speaker 3 He's over to Claude. He's over to Claude.
Wait, there's a Claude? Claude, yes.

Speaker 3 Claude. Anthropics.

Speaker 3 Oh, no. Carol.

Speaker 4 My man is secretly out with Claude pretending to love chat GPT with me.

Speaker 3 There's a lot.

Speaker 3 Claude is pretty good, actually.

Speaker 3 Everyone is a different one. But I think Google, Gemini.

Speaker 4 I just think my point is

Speaker 4 when I'm using boring ass, basic ass Google.

Speaker 3 Well, Google is now Gemini, really. The answers come in AI, by the way.
You've noticed that.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have noticed that, and I don't like it.
You know, a lot of the time it's wrong. I don't like it.

Speaker 3 Even though it's not right, it's like right-ish.

Speaker 3 It'll get right. Okay.
It'll get right. It'll get it.

Speaker 4 But Reddit is the thing that Google is now pushing me. Like, it's near the top of a lot of my searches when I'm looking for information.
So I've become a Reddit person.

Speaker 4 Like, I'll just go to Reddit now.

Speaker 3 There used to be a lot of heinous stuff on there, but the people who are running.

Speaker 4 That's what kept me away. Something changed.
Something changed.

Speaker 3 You know what it is? It's a consumption. I think Reddit is like YouTube.

Speaker 3 It's consumptive, where you don't have to necessarily participate, but it brings you all kinds of interesting information if you curate it properly.

Speaker 4 And I know people have talked about it this way, which is like, it does remind me of the past. It seems somehow innocent.
And at the same time, you know, a lot of the people there take it.

Speaker 4 It is like the information is good. Like I have, I have traveled based, I made travel decisions based on Reddit threads.

Speaker 3 And you've gotten good results.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I've gotten good results.

Speaker 3 My sons use it completely. Good system.
Let me ask you about another cultural thing because this is all over Reddit and all over social media. South Park has done it again.

Speaker 3 I have to say, whatever is in these people's drinks is working for them.

Speaker 3 The third episode of the show, Current Season, continued to mock the Trump administration, an episode focused on federal takeover in D.C.

Speaker 3 In the episode, the president is mocked for accepting bribes from big tech CEOs. Sort of real to life.
Once again, is in bed with Satan and yes, still has a micro penis.

Speaker 3 Let's listen to a clip of Trump receiving gifts from a line of suckups, including Tim Cook.

Speaker 5 Mr. President, you have so many great ideas.
Your leadership is truly beyond anything we have ever had in this country. And you do not have a small penis.

Speaker 3 Ah, thank you.

Speaker 5 On behalf of the state of Florida, I'd like to give you this gift, a silver-plated space shuttle.

Speaker 4 Next?

Speaker 6 Mr.

Speaker 4 President, your ideas for the tech industry are so innovative, and you definitely do not have a small penis.

Speaker 3 Ah, thank you.

Speaker 4 Please accept this gift on behalf of Apple.

Speaker 3 So tell me what you think of,

Speaker 3 it also did take this latest episode, also took some shots at Chat GPT, by the way.

Speaker 3 But talk about this show right now. Something is something's in there, Weedies or whatever.

Speaker 4 I think that the timing is really good.

Speaker 4 I think there's something about the brute force of the South Park

Speaker 4 comedy ideology.

Speaker 4 I think the show didn't have to change to

Speaker 4 for us to come back to it.

Speaker 3 What do you mean the brute force of the comedy ideology? I'll have to explain that.

Speaker 4 Their approach is really to just name the thing, right? To just say the thing that it that

Speaker 4 to make the subtextual textual.

Speaker 4 There's no line to, you don't need to be literate to watch the show, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 Like, you don't need to be visually literate, and you don't need to really have a great sort of sense of cultural literacy. You just have to basically know, like, have a gist of what's happening,

Speaker 4 especially now. But I mean, these guys, their genius is for,

Speaker 4 I think that's part of their genius to sort of be declarative in as comedians,

Speaker 4 to not need to have

Speaker 4 it's like the Easter egg

Speaker 4 is an omelette on that show.

Speaker 4 You just see it, they just say it's just the thing that you they've cracked it open, you don't have to look for it.

Speaker 3 You might not agree, like the trans stuff, people complain about that. I just think they go after everybody.

Speaker 4 I think that, well, that's the thing that like always sort of scared me about those guys. I mean, I'm doing it, I'm doing an episode with somebody about my relationship with this show,

Speaker 4 and a lot of

Speaker 4 what I'm a lot of where we're starting in this conversation is me sort of thinking through

Speaker 4 how much the show scared me because it was forcing me to think differently about things that, you know, as a young person, I thought I understood.

Speaker 4 And here were people who were basically my age who were making fun of things that I didn't think you could make fun of.

Speaker 3 Give me an example.

Speaker 4 Jesus.

Speaker 3 yeah, they do make fun of me.

Speaker 4 I mean, I'm not a, you know, I wasn't an extremely religious person, but I didn't have time.

Speaker 4 I wasn't thinking, I mean, you know, and I had lived, this was, I mean, I would consider South Park part of the culture war era of this, of the country, right?

Speaker 4 Um, the beginning of the show was happening at the end of the so-called culture wars. Um, and you know, I'm familiar with Andre Serrano's Christ piss and Chris Opheli's work and Madonna.

Speaker 4 Um, and yet there was something about about the subversiveness of

Speaker 4 doing that dismantling and undermining in the form of

Speaker 4 like crude children's animation, right? It was actually the animation is so crude that it isn't, it isn't for children because all the lines are sharp, right?

Speaker 4 All the lines on those drawings are sharp.

Speaker 3 Yeah. One of the things that's interesting about it is, you know, that they can, not that they continue to push against Trump.
They will push against anybody, I think.

Speaker 3 And obviously the tech leaders are perfect for that. I mean, they don't even have to mock them.

Speaker 3 That's exactly what Tim Cook said, you know, when he was handing him the golden statue, essentially, or whatever, the gold and whatever the fuck he handed him.

Speaker 3 It's just, I think, one of the things they do is, as you said, they are brutal. They're just, they don't even have to make satire here, right? Because everything is so ridiculous.
Yes. On some level.

Speaker 4 Well, I mean, I think that the one thing that they have changed is the calibration. Because, you know, when

Speaker 4 South Park, Bigger, Longer, and Uncut,

Speaker 4 the great, truly great movie musical they made 26 years ago came out.

Speaker 4 There was a degree of

Speaker 4 subtlety happening there because, you know, they were taking the satire of the sitcom and essentially overlaying it. They were stretching it to fit a musical movie musical format.

Speaker 4 And so the movie is a legitimate musical while also functioning as social and political satire. It's just that in 1999,

Speaker 4 the culture was different. And so the thing that

Speaker 4 people were upset about was the way in which it depicted Satan and homosexuals and

Speaker 4 was having a good time with these conflations. And I found that

Speaker 4 naughtiness to be really liberating in a way.

Speaker 3 I did too.

Speaker 3 I was not offended. Interesting.

Speaker 4 No, I was. I mean, and I should have been an offended party as a gay Negro,

Speaker 4 but I wasn't because I kind of understood the place that the comedy was coming from.

Speaker 4 And I think that in these, in the lifespan of this show, we've seen our relationship to comedy change like 10 times. Yes.

Speaker 3 Well, you think about the Book of Mormon, too, though, right? Yeah. I mean, I loved that show so much.
And oddly enough, I was there. I saw it several times.

Speaker 3 And there's a lot of offensive gay things in that, you know, and it's fun, but it's funny. It's funny.
But it's really really funny. And I know it's like, don't pick on the gays.

Speaker 3 I'm like, it's okay a little bit to pick on.

Speaker 4 I mean, the gays pick on the gays.

Speaker 3 The gays pick on the gays.

Speaker 4 Let's begin.

Speaker 3 In our meetings. In our meetings, when you're not there.

Speaker 3 But the Book of Mormon to me, I was recommending someone see it even now because it's so

Speaker 3 I actually may go back and see it again.

Speaker 4 I'm going to go back actually because I think, you know, for the purposes of this thing that I'm doing, I'm going to go back and see it.

Speaker 3 But one of the things is I was there once. Still on Broadway.
Still on Broadway with a bunch bunch of Mormons went because they thought it was funny. Certain Mormons think it's funny too.

Speaker 3 And it's so insulting to Mormons. So, but it's it's it's interesting that I don't think the Trump administration thinks this is funny because they have no sense of humor, right?

Speaker 3 This group of people are not going to, if they continue at it, they may, especially the micropenis part, which is very funny, which is what everybody thinks of Donald Trump. He has a micropenis.

Speaker 3 That's what is, you know.

Speaker 4 I mean, Kara, I can see the tie.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's correct.

Speaker 4 And, you know, the thing that like I find scary, I found scary about Trey Parker and Matt Stone

Speaker 4 as a kid was that they didn't seem to have any allegiance to anything other than like their comedic version of the truth and the joke. Is the joke funny?

Speaker 4 And after that, we don't care.

Speaker 3 This is why I like them. You know, sometimes I had a real issue with Dave Chappelle because I didn't mind his making jokes.
I was like, do you need to make an hour of them? And some aren't funny.

Speaker 3 Like, make it funny. Like, the other in at Easter in San Francisco, near my house, they have Hot Jesus.
Have you ever been to the Hot Jesus contest? I mean, podcast jokes. Hello.

Speaker 3 But it was like, someone's like, oh, it's sacrilege. I'm like, no, it's funny.
It's like, if it's not funny, then why do it? And that's what I like. But the hot Jesus, come on.

Speaker 4 I mean, but again, like, I think that the return of this show has been really useful to remind us.

Speaker 4 I mean, because we've had more fights about whether comedy can be comedy in the last, I mean, this has been going on since 9-11, honestly.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 4 Like, what can be funny? What, what are we allowed to laugh at? When can we laugh?

Speaker 4 What now is comedy is really about like who the comedian is.

Speaker 4 And the thing about having South Park back is nobody's changed. It's not like in just like that where Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte are now no longer 28 to 34.

Speaker 4 They're in their mid-50s, they're like mid to late 50s, and

Speaker 4 figuring out how the world works. The world has changed, but the people in South Park have not.

Speaker 3 Have not. That's exactly right.
And it's still funny.

Speaker 4 And it's still funny.

Speaker 3 It's still funny. All right, let's go on a quick break.
When we come back, we'll talk about the latest to join the podcast game, Taylor Swift.

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Speaker 3 Wesley, we're back with more news. Last week, Taylor Swift went on her boyfriend Travis Kelsey's podcast to announce her newest album.
As usual, she broke the internet.

Speaker 3 The episode had 1.3 million live viewers, which is almost double the audience that tuned in to see Donald Trump on Joe Rogan.

Speaker 3 At the time of the taping, the episode has 20 million YouTube views in total.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, Spotify reported the episode has become one of the past year's highest performing within just one day of release, increased female viewership of the shows by 600%. Not a surprise.

Speaker 3 600%?

Speaker 3 600%.

Speaker 3 God damn it. I know.
I know. I guess the dudes are watching that.

Speaker 3 Talk about

Speaker 3 that.

Speaker 3 She can do it whenever it wants. I mean, of course, Donald Trump is saying she's not hot anymore.
She's still hot. She still remains.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 Can we pause for a moment? What did he mean? She's not hot anymore.

Speaker 3 I don't know because she is hot. She looks beautiful on that show.

Speaker 4 Did he mean it like that? Or is she not like.

Speaker 3 No, she's no longer the thing. She's not.

Speaker 3 What is he looking? She's not talking about. Exactly.

Speaker 4 This man, I mean, I can't talk about big tie energy. I just can't do it.

Speaker 3 I just won't do it. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 Big, like long tie energy. Is that what it is?

Speaker 4 First of all, I found it interesting that

Speaker 4 she basically was using it to, she was using this appearance to announce an album, essentially, right?

Speaker 3 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 4 It wasn't as though this show needed, you know, there are shows that would love to have Taylor Swift come on for the numbers. This, this didn't feel like a numbers play to me.

Speaker 4 It felt like she was trying something out. I mean, she kind of said it herself on the, in the, on the episode.

Speaker 4 But I think that, you know, I mean, this is a show that has Adam Sandler come on. Brad Pitt's been on it.
Like, it's not, it's not like they, it's not a desert for celebrity guests. Um,

Speaker 4 so having her come on, it felt kind of sweet. And, and to the extent that like adorable, a thing that turns into an album

Speaker 4 announce an album release announcement can be, can be sweet pure and innocent this felt a lot like that um you know the thing that i

Speaker 4 that sort of listening to the show the two of them you know the brothers travis and jason kelsey you know who have these like they have like very different um

Speaker 4 off the show lives and to bring their different personalities and energies into the show is is often fun it really does feel like two brothers i think they have a nice relationship they did have a good relationship but it's it was interesting watching jason try to drive this particular episode oh because because it was all tailor right yes right um and the brother's famous girlfriend oh well but also the way that that travis kelsey is just hype manning her pretty much the entire conversation um that was it was just interesting seeing the show dynamics change around this the arrival of this person.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 3 That must be like that outside, right? She's got to suck up all the energy.

Speaker 4 I've heard that that happens.

Speaker 3 I've heard that. Even if she doesn't try, she can't help it, right? Because one of the things I thought about the show is, again, like Sarah Jessica Barger, different.

Speaker 3 But pound for pound, she's really entertaining. Like she's really like you want, you can't stop watching her.
And I don't know why that is, right?

Speaker 3 And so wherever she appears and she even sings about it, right? You know, my daughter was dancing to Auntie Hero the other day.

Speaker 3 I don't know why she's so attractive to people, which is especially women.

Speaker 3 That it that it was a completely pleasurable experience watching it in a way that was very satisfying. I thought,

Speaker 3 I don't know, maybe not.

Speaker 4 No, I listened to it, but I didn't watch it. I watched it like a tiny little bit, but I listened to it.

Speaker 3 But you gotta watch it because she leans into it.

Speaker 4 Anyway, oh, no, I, I, I mean, I, I can, I was allowed to imagine it, right?

Speaker 4 Um, I find uh,

Speaker 4 I don't know, it, she,

Speaker 4 It's interesting. She's an interesting physical presence.

Speaker 4 And I kind of like her better in my imagination, if that makes sense.

Speaker 4 You know, I like one of the, I have a real, it was interesting listening to her talk about,

Speaker 4 listening to the three of them talk about the Aeros Tour in their different ways. And,

Speaker 4 you know, the way that that, I mean, I had forgotten the entire story of the relationship, right? Like, I mean, he was at the show and was like, I got to know who this person is.

Speaker 4 I mean, you know, he's the luckiest fan in the world. We all know this.

Speaker 4 He gets to go home with the thing that he went to the show to see. And she seems happy with that.

Speaker 4 I think that she,

Speaker 4 the way she talked about that show

Speaker 4 was interesting to me in that I have a lot of wonder about what these tours are like for the artists.

Speaker 4 And,

Speaker 4 you know, unlike the Beyoncé concert documentary of her Renaissance tour, the era's tour film didn't have a lot of backstage stuff. It didn't.
You're right.

Speaker 4 She wanted to sort of preserve the magic of the live experience, whereas the Beyoncé film to me was fascinating because she wanted to kind of enhance the mythology of the achievement of the live experience by humanizing the the person who becomes someone else on stage.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 4 And so it was great listening to her talk. I mean, you know, it was enlightening hearing Taylor Swift talk about toe spacers.

Speaker 3 But she does that. I would encourage you to go back and watch Miss Americana again.
Absolutely. Because that gives you enormous insight into her.
Yes.

Speaker 3 Watch it now when she's famous because at the time she was on a downswing, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was when it was around the time that reputation was being rebuffed.

Speaker 3 Or there's another show where she's in someone's house where they're singing all country songs

Speaker 3 she's with two of her and they're just talking about the songs i mean i think she's quite accessible and yet unknowable in a lot of ways and i felt like this was you know but she's very you do know a lot about her in a weird way and i think she may be just like this right i always say does the does a drunk agree with the sober is an expression you know people are drunk they're different when they're sober yes yes um i think sometimes you meet certain people who are exactly the way they are in private and public.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 then there's some that are quite different, you know, like a Johnny Carson would be the perfect example, like shy and kind of oh, yeah, you would be disappointed to meet him in person.

Speaker 3 Yes, because you're not getting tonight showing pretty much like this. I think she's lived in fame for so long.
So this is what she is.

Speaker 4 I would agree with that. I also, but

Speaker 4 there's something about,

Speaker 4 yes, I mean, I think that the thing that I loved about this conversation was

Speaker 4 how seriously she was taking it in some way. Like, she wasn't there to do all the joshing that the brothers were trying to do.
Right.

Speaker 4 And so, like, there'd be Jason would ask a question and she'd be in the middle of answering it. Travis, Kelsey would kind of interrupt and then they would start doing their brother thing.

Speaker 4 And she would not even acknowledge that that was happening. And she would continue giving her answer.
And that was, to me,

Speaker 4 I just felt like she was happy to have this opportunity to just

Speaker 4 think through herself

Speaker 4 in a safe space in a place where she wasn't going to be asked a follow-up question, basically.

Speaker 3 Right, right, exactly. I listen, all the results are the results.
People are still thrilled with her, which is really interesting. We'll see how this album does, but it's going to do still.

Speaker 3 We'll see how this album does.

Speaker 4 What do you think is going to happen to this album, Carol? It's going to be huge. Like, nobody's going to, nobody's going to care.

Speaker 3 No, everyone's going to care. But I'm saying, like, yeah, but how can can you top yourself if you're this woman? That's the difficulty of being Taylor Swift.

Speaker 4 I will never forget my night at the Arrows tour. I truly will never forget it.
Me neither. It was one of the most special

Speaker 4 communal experiences I've had. I've had a lot of special communal experiences.
This is definitely in my top 50.

Speaker 4 And I think one of the things that was special about it was one of the things that she kind of wanted to unpack a little bit, which is like the toll that it took on her body.

Speaker 4 And you can really, you know, after two and a half hours, Kara, I watched this show.

Speaker 4 Well, I was fine, but I was, it's, I was watching it with a friend in front of three,

Speaker 4 I don't know, 13 to 15 year old girls. And for the first hour of this show, which really annoyed me because Lover is the opening album and I, I'm a, I'm mostly a lover person.

Speaker 4 I, it's not my favorite Taylor Swift album, but I do really, there's some great songs on that album. And these girls were screaming for like an hour, just screaming, just screaming.

Speaker 4 It didn't matter what. They just screamed the entire first hour of that show.

Speaker 4 And I, I just turned, I couldn't, but, and also like the part of me that is like, like wanted to turn around and give them like the dirtiest look I possibly could.

Speaker 3 I was like, damn, don't do that.

Speaker 4 You're not supposed to be here, Wesley. These people, this show is for them.
It's not for you. Don't you old man them.
Just stand there and take it.

Speaker 3 But Kara, at like hour 107,

Speaker 4 I'm sorry, hour 107, at minute 107,

Speaker 4 when Taylor's still going strong, guess who is passed out on the seats behind me? The kids are out. They don't have the stamina of this 35-year-old woman.

Speaker 3 Nope, nope.

Speaker 3 She is the one who's crazy.

Speaker 4 She wiped these girls out.

Speaker 3 Yep. And she did it night after night.
She did the same thing with podcasting. She did the same thing.

Speaker 4 But she made that look easy.

Speaker 4 But I think what I'm saying about the limitations are, the only limitation to me is

Speaker 4 that I think it keeps her from doing something that I think is really critical for

Speaker 4 like artistic growth in some way, which is to like be reinterpreting yourself.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 But she doesn't want to.

Speaker 4 I mean, I mean, just the act of re-recording those songs, she basically does it. I mean, I think the original recordings are the important artistic document.

Speaker 4 The important historical and political document are the re-recordings.

Speaker 3 Re-recordings. 100%.

Speaker 4 Like one of the greatest things a pop star has ever done is re-record the old material.

Speaker 3 That's great. It's not artistically, it's good.

Speaker 4 To me, she thinks it's better in some ways. Her singing is better, but I didn't, that's not what I'm showing up for.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I agree. But let me just tell you, Taylor Swift does as you damn well pleases.
That's all I understand.

Speaker 3 News and news flash. News flash, and she's going to continue to do so.

Speaker 3 All right, Wesley, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

Speaker 1 What are you hoping for today in the Founders? Scrappy, traction-oriented grinders and hustlers who will blow through every brick wall in this building to get to where they need to be?

Speaker 1 Welcome to the pitch season 14, where startup founders raise millions and listeners can invest. On this season of the show, 10 VCs, seven startups with one shot to build the company of their dreams.

Speaker 7 Oh my God, we built the entirely wrong product.

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Speaker 8 Hollywood is struggling, and I want to give Sidney Sweeney an opportunity to talk about that specifically.

Speaker 2 I think that when I

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Speaker 2 I might be a low-born wolf,

Speaker 2 but I am still Alpha Ash's mate.

Speaker 3 Okay, Wesley, let's hear a prediction.

Speaker 3 Anything you want. Anything you want.

Speaker 4 Another thing I want to, I'm going to do an Adam Sandler episode.

Speaker 3 Okay. I love Adam Sandler.
I'm sorry. I'm not, I'm not against this.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I am just obsessed with these directors trying to win this man an Oscar.

Speaker 3 Oh, because they're trying to have the serious one.

Speaker 4 Everybody wants to try to win. Like the murderer's row of people who have tried to win this man an Academy Award is just, y'all need to stop it.

Speaker 3 Just stop.

Speaker 4 Because when you stop trying, it will happen.

Speaker 4 I mean, I don't know. I just, so there's this Noah Bombach movie coming out

Speaker 4 toward the end of the year that he is in. And, you know, I really enjoy Noah Bombach.
I enjoy Adam Sandler.

Speaker 4 This isn't even my favorite Adam Sandler mode. I can't, I won't even get into it here.
But like, I think, I believe.

Speaker 4 For a lot of reasons,

Speaker 4 the stars will align for Adam Sandler to at least go to the Academy Awards with his name on a list.

Speaker 4 That's a prediction I'm going to.

Speaker 3 That's what you predict. And he still had a lot of certain.
I mean, remember Spanglish in 2000?

Speaker 4 I just watched the sandwich scene from that movie.

Speaker 3 So it's such a good movie. It Pas Vegas amazing.
I loved it.

Speaker 4 The lighting in that movie, the reason I can't really go back and keep watching it is it's some of the worst lighting I've ever seen in a movie. I don't see that anymore.
Just truly bizarre.

Speaker 4 Like it's all lit from above with fluorescence. Nobody looks good in the indoors.

Speaker 3 Taleone always looks good in Casvega.

Speaker 4 She's mostly outside. You'll notice Taleone is mostly outside in this movie.
She's got like three indoor scenes. Everybody else is inside.

Speaker 3 Okay. Anyway, I think he's probably, he's not a bad thing because he is actually, every now and then you see very good acting, even though he does say, well,

Speaker 3 you know, a little like Jerry Lewis. Can you do that again?

Speaker 3 There's a really good SNL skit where he visits his relatives and they're like, I think you're taking my character. And they're all his cousins.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 it's really great actually um but he's um i think he's he's like jerry lewis to me and jerry lewis i think was a fascinating actor yes he's a he's more interesting to me than well no that's not true i mean jerry lewis at peak at his peak they're comparable jerry lewis has more cocaine in in him

Speaker 4 um and adam sandler is more weed

Speaker 4 um

Speaker 4 or beer i don't know i mean but they're if there's a drug if there's a drug that if, if, like, what is their drug or what is the drug that personifies them? Jerry Lewis is hands down cocaine.

Speaker 3 What's a speedball? Speedball.

Speaker 3 Cannonball.

Speaker 4 Well, I mean, like, if the speedball, maybe it's a speedball that's Jerry Lewis.

Speaker 3 Yeah, speedball. That's true.
Who knows? Or a drink or a martini. Just a lot.
No, that would be Dean. That's Dean.
That's Dean. That's Dean.
You're right. Rodeo Dodo.

Speaker 3 Anyway, so you predict he's going to get an Oscar.

Speaker 4 You predict. Nomination.
Let's not go crazy, Carol.

Speaker 3 Okay. All right.
Because who's going to like hip check him? What does he have to do? Because he's been in some serious movies.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but that's not enough. You really, I mean, like, truly, do I think he should have been, I mean, it just hasn't happened because it doesn't need it to happen.

Speaker 3 You know why? Because he does Happy Gilmore 2. That's why, even if it's highly successful.

Speaker 4 But I think the thing that makes him great is that he doesn't want it. Like, the thing that makes him great is that he's doing Happy Gilmore 2.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he is.

Speaker 4 This is a person who really enjoys himself.

Speaker 4 I miss weird Adam Sandler, and that's, I won't get it. Like, that's the thing I really was going to try to get in, but I'm not going to do it.
You will have to come back for the Adam Sandler episode.

Speaker 3 Okay, I can't.

Speaker 4 That'll mostly be about

Speaker 4 none of the things we are talking about, but this other mode of Adam Sandler that I really can't wait to.

Speaker 3 Well, this has been great. Um, we want to hear from you.
Send us your questions about Fizzentech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/slash pivot.

Speaker 3 Doesn't have a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

Speaker 3 Okay, that's the show wesley you're wonderful i think you're wonderful i can't believe i got to like spend 75 minutes talking to you yeah oh come on you can hang out with me in real life i know i know people can listen to cannonball or parlando whatever you want to call it cannonball it's not called parlando you got to be real clear about that parlando i'm good in my head i'm going to think parlando well fine but it's it's cannonball

Speaker 3 um you're and you're on youtube as well even though you don't like it you got a nice shine up. You look great.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 You look really good. All the times when some of them less, I'm not going to say anything about Ross Duhat at all.

Speaker 3 I think you just said it. I just did say it.
There's no shining possible for that man.

Speaker 4 He's got other attributes. I don't know.

Speaker 3 Okay, sure. Why not?

Speaker 3 Okay. I'm not going to, don't make me insult him.
I have a name for him and everything else. Anyway, I do.
I'm not going to tell it to you on the show. I'm not going to do it.

Speaker 3 But ask Amanda. She knows.
She knows. She's named him.
Okay. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Also, we'll be back next week.

Speaker 3 And please listen to Cannonball. It's a great show.
Thank you, Cannonball. Leslie is a very prescient person on all things culture.
You always make me think. And I really appreciate that

Speaker 3 in lots of ways and ways I didn't think I would think about. Back at you.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Anyway, I will read us out.
Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Enderdott engineered this episode.
Jim Mackle edited this video.

Speaker 3 Nishat Kura is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.
Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

Speaker 3 You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.
The days to Scott are ticking away.

Speaker 3 But Wes, I really appreciate you being here.

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