Coming to you from the epicentre of global warming where it is
sub zero temperatures and get mon nation East's from the
United Kingdom still in the curry manner. I'm Adam curry.
I'm John C. Dvorak here in Northern Silicon Valley,
California where it's actually sunny and it probably be about
65 I hate you. It was 65 this global warming
it is the content and is like minus five centigrade it is so
cold and it's just hovering around freezing here.
Well, I spent a week up in Washington where we were snowed
in
that must have been cosy and fun and old fashioned I was okay it
was good I got to throw snowballs you know we have a
hill and our you know, we have actually from the driveway down
so we were you know, all drank a lot and went down the two inner
tubes at midnight and bounced around a lot.
Let me just let me just get a visual okay. I just see your fat
white ass and in a big black enter to just a quick visual.
And so and then if you snowball fights and that was that you
know, it's cold but the thing what was interesting was the
trip up because I took a again Virgin America should be
sponsoring the show heli flight. And once you call Branson up and
Tom, the sponsor of the show,
you know, I met him once in the in the lounge when they were
doing their Chicago inaugural flight. He's a real introverted
guy. I think he's really like the Rockstar figurehead and, you
know, this is all big hedge funds. And this is, you know,
it's most of virgin. Certainly Atlantic is run by I think
Lufthansa and if you go to, well, what they do is pretty
smart. If you take Virgin Atlantic, at least in virgin,
virgin America is yet another operations company. But I think
it's Menzies aviation, I think does all of their ground
handling and their check in work. So they've outsourced all
of it. It's you know, it's
really so the whole thing's virtual, it is kind of Yeah,
although if you know what you're doing in any business, you can
virtualize it. Well, the first clue
came, in fact, almost a year ago exactly to the date. We always
get invited to the flight attendants party, they have a
you know about party and awards. And, you know, you get to know
most of these flight attendants if you fly it a lot, but in
particular, on the long haul flights. And so it's kind of
fun, and every single year, Branson always shows up and does
a nice little spiel for everybody and then hands out an
award and last year, it was via video tape. So you know, that
that's when the culture is kind of disappearing. And it becomes
a GADS a real business. No more fun.
Well, yeah, well, that happens though. Everything Is Everything
is a start up, you know, goes. Gets cheap. After you know, the
bean counters come and say, Hey, you guys can't keep doing this.
Yeah. Well, the you know, my really my my most favourite
airline has got to be EasyJet. I mean, that's the one that has
it. Just everything about it works right down to speedy
boarding. Do they have this on the on the low, low cost
airlines in the States? John, the concept of speedy boarding?
Well, Southwest, you know, the originator of this whole type of
deceleration was right, well, no, actually, it was a company
called PSA. Pacific South Pacific Southwest Airlines. And
they were bought by American or United or somebody and they were
just I think it was, I think they were bought by No, they
were bought by US West, or USA or I'm sorry, but they're bought
by US air and the first thing they had to do with these
aeroplanes that PSA flew, had a smile on them. They had it they
painted a smile on him. And the first thing that US Airways does
is they take the smile off. And then the second thing they did
was
smile, get rid of that.
So that's gone. And then the second thing they did was on
PSA. They used to have these you know these comedy acts. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. What were the weather, like in the unlikely event of a
water landing? You know, besides getting wet? Or some lame Joe
like?
Yeah, if you're, you know, if you're sitting next to a child
or someone acting like a child.
Yeah, put their mask on and put yours on first. And then
there's, I remember once I heard a pilot Doer spiel, have you
ever heard the pilot come on and do a good spiel? No, no, I never
have the one. I like that. And I It wasn't America. I can't
remember I was a kid with my parents. I remember we were
being pushed back from the gate. So just before that happened,
the pilot gets on the intercom and he says, Okay, let's just
put that in reverse easy up on the clutch. There we go. i Yes,
we're backing up. It was very funny. And I've never forgotten
that like that's a good joke.
Well, I can't I can't record her on me usually. And I'm always
waiting to catch it because it most of this is a is a folklore
bit because the same gags get or have all been recycled. And
every once in a while somebody will come on What? They'll do it
on Southwest very rarely. But once in a while, some guy will
come up with the entire, the classic Spiel with all the
jokes, all the jokes in it. And you know, he reads through the
whole thing anyway, so they got rid of that, because you can't
have that because it's probably you know, they don't know why,
but just us here is not the most fun loving company. Anyway, so
then they had this, they took all their routes, and then they
couldn't make any money on him. And then they folded it. And
then apparently the other there was another one Western airlines
and there was a couple other ones that flew out here and they
got all bought up, and then these guys couldn't handle it.
And all that's left now is united Express, which I think
was Western or one of the other companies that they bought. And
then the Southwest cropped up and southwest ago started
Southwest as he modelled the company after PSA and that's why
he named it southwest which is part of the PSA name. But he has
his basic theory and they have speedy boarding you Yeah, he
says that once these airlines these airlines that he's
carriers have to realise that a plane doesn't make any money
sitting on the ground is he wants his planes in the air
almost as much as you know he doesn't want them sitting around
they're flying yep,
that's that's the only it's a spreadsheet business as the
that's absolutely the only way you make money.
Right so he's got those things they land they dumped everybody
out and they load them up.
You know what I like even better is now Amsterdam and London.
Gatwick which has a beautiful new North Terminal it's been
Gatwick always had a real CD kind of connotation but the new
terminal is fantastic. They have their own kind of pier their own
wing if you will for these these short short route short hop
flights. And there's there's there's no jetway, it's all
stairs so boom you know the plane rolls up. They've got the
hold open before the before the plane is before they even have
the chalks in the bags are coming out the new bags are
going on people just are right off the plane. You don't have to
wait for that stupid jetway, they walked down front and back.
Which is is great on a 737 so it empties out real quick and then
everyone walks on in with speedy boarding the only advantage is
for like I think it's 10 or 12 pounds extra you are boarded
first. So you can basically sit wherever you want to I like to
sit down near the front so you can get get off even quicker but
it's fast. What I love about Virgin America which I hope
EasyJet will get is the insert ordering that just rocks so hard
I love that you just sit there and go on a little screen boop
boop I'll have a coke I'll have some pretzels because of course
that's about all there is you know I want a little model
aeroplane. A Virgin America model aeroplane and the swipe
your credit card and the stewardess flight attendant
comes by and hands it to you.
Yeah, well Virgin America is is is the way to go. But anyway, so
I go up to Seattle. And I guess I landed up there and it was the
I guess a hub of of a disaster the Alaskan cancel all as
flight. Northwest cancelled all its flights because especially
Northwest had some issues. I don't know what was wrong with
Alaska. And so the airport was like being in Saigon. And you
know, when the fall of Vietnam took place, there's people
there's they're walking around, they're gay. I guess they have
these in Seattle airport, they have these blue blankies that
they give out to people that are I guess stranded there. So they
don't freeze to death because
that was one of the ones that about big enough to cover half
of your body.
No, actually these are pretty big. And but it was freezing.
Because the you know, it was snowing like it was like a
blizzard outside. And so there's a bunch of these people walking
around these blankets on it. It looked like you know the better
ones or something. I just had a strange feeling to it. And
anyway, it was pretty funny because I was taking the puddle
jumper from there which ended I went down to Boeing Field to get
that and that. That wasn't really too bad there. I don't
know what there was a localised problem, I guess I don't know.
But whatever the case was, I guess there was some people were
stranded in the United States. Because of these this winter
storm for another three or four days in some of these airports
that couldn't get home. They're moaning and groaning on TV. You
know, they want to see their relatives. This the same Damone
with Oman.
So I guess a lot of just finally got out the other day. So I
thought that was kind of interesting
to experience. And then this is all part of the global warming
of course, which has struck America in I mean, is it not so
that there's still ice storms on the in the Northeast, and
there's all kinds of weird weather right, that's still
ongoing since we spoke last week.
Yeah, yeah. It's been going on all week. It looks like and it's
the snowfall we had up in Washington. I mean, getting to
Oh, flying in. You know, I'm flying in looking down on
Seattle. I've never seen Seattle like this. It was just white.
The whole thing. It was just just a massive snow No. Anyway,
so we're for the listeners who are hearing this on the podcast
for the first time. Today we're streaming the show live. Which
was kind of funny because I was also trying to set up the phone
bridge so we could take a call but for what new Skype is, I
mean, this thing is so jerry rigged, it's really held
together with baling wire and some chewing gum. that I just
couldn't get it to work. But I think people enjoyed me trying
to try to configure it. A lot of sway.
So the big news here I come back and watching the watching as I'm
watching the ABC
is still made off of it. No, oh, well, I
mean yeah, but the to me the big news is a new show they're
bringing out
Homeland Security USA.
Yeah, can't believe that. Homeland Security us
a John what what rock have you been up? We're up in Seattle.
This is like three weeks ago. The same
thing? Same? Seattle rock?
No, but this? Didn't we didn't I mentioned this to you three
weeks ago? No. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did. Homeland Security.
What was the timestamp on the mentioned?
It was episode number six, zero and the timestamp. Thanks, Dick.
This is what we always do. It's like, No, I mentioned that. Oh,
yeah. What episode and what? What time code?
Yeah, that's a great thing about doing when you do a show this an
hour and a half? Well, you know, once we can you if you've did it
more, you'll never find anything. It's all this is all
lost to posterity and some, you know, some future date when
somebody takes and transcodes everything into some, you know,
somewhere they could search it.
I wonder about that. Because I do keep a lot of stuff that I
think is relevant. And you know, all of my, my Dutch and American
radio work is all online. Nice guy in Australia, claw
gewog.net. He did that all for me. Now, I always wonder if you
know anyone ever give a shit? Well, it just you know, the
server one day just you know, someone will die and no one will
pay a bill and then it's gone. Right? It's just
Oh, yeah. No, that I think most of will be gone. But but it but
people would give a shit. If they if you know, if we're
talking about 100 years from now somebody's doing research of the
era. And there was some way of accessing some of this old
material just to see what people were thinking, you know, what we
need is this, here's what
we need to get a number of episodes of this show into a
presidential library. It's got to be possible. Before it will
be in
the book, all the episodes should be in a print in a
presidential library
demonstrate, if not the congressional library.
All the episodes would go as mp3. So we go on one DVD, I
mean, what's the big deal? We should probably make a number of
DVDs of all the episodes in mp3 format, and then give them to a
bunch of libraries all over the country.
Yeah, see if they take him was? Yeah. I'm sorry,
you know, I'm saying they might I mean, I would if I'm a
librarian as a dB, you know, I'd say, you know, they have a lot
of these archival libraries, like the Bancroft over here, and
University of California, was just essentially collects all
kinds of weird crap. That's, you know, hundreds of years old, do
you see from family heirlooms? Well, I
I am in the Dutch broadcast, or broadcast history museum.
Because I did all that stuff for public television. So I know
that's been kept and it but it's always, you know, the same five
clips,
right? That's not the same as complete episodic, you know,
6070 100 and you know, how many shows, or you know, I have got,
I've got 1000s of shows.
I have, like all my silicon spin shows on Danna, of course, I've
Durbin a boxes scattered around the basement. And I also have
actually the early stuff I did from CNET. On on big you Maddix
Yeah. And I had, you know, those should probably be transcoded
before the other stuff before those things all blow up. And,
you know, it's all you know, I don't know, I can't mean it.
This is typical of it, any kind of small operation, but they had
ZD TV, which became Tech TV. I went into the office once and
there was a pie. There was a big giant box of all my, you know,
two years of my shows. And I said what is this box, this box
doing here? And they said we're throwing it out.
You know, you've told me this story. Yeah. And
so I grabbed him and I made sure to get to them. As they came
out. I made sure to grab them when they were going to go into
another process of throwing them out. And it reminds me of a
friend of mine who's a New York agent and and book package. are
named Bob McCoy. He used to work at Dell which was bought up by,
I think, one of the other Bantam and then bought by somebody else
and God knows who owns what now. So he's gonna he was apparently
at one of the someplace one of their facilities to get to
really get something out of the archives. And he goes, and he
finds a dumpster, filled to the brim with with original art.
That was cover art for all those old Dell murder mysteries and
all that kind of stuff. Oh, you're kidding me? Oh, that's
horrible.
Yeah. And he says, What's going on here? And the guy says, oh,
yeah, we're Joe got a coworker. You know, the grounds told us we
had to get rid of this stuff. So you know, it's shrink the
office, blah, blah, blah. So he grabbed, you know, whatever, he
could actually I have four pieces that I got. And they're
just really dynamite. They're oil paintings. And so he just
grabbed as much as he couldn't filled his car. And you know,
because they were gonna just burn it. And I'm thinking, you
know, what, a bunch of bonuses, I mean, this could have gone on
a really nice auction. And
I'll tell you, though, because we've just gone through this
exercise, cleaning out storage, really decimating the amount of
crap we have in this house for the move, which starts on
Monday, the Tuesday will be in the new house. And you know,
everyone says, Okay, I'll take this, and I'll, you know, I'll
take this to the auction house. So we have some nice shit that
we just don't want anymore. You know, you just can't just throw
it away, I'd much rather give it away, which is what we're going
to wind up doing. Because no one's buying anything. There's
no auctions of of smaller, lower price items that aren't, you
know, specialty antiques or real collector's items. Even eBay,
it's really tough, people are not buying a lot. And if in
fact, you know, when it comes to furniture, and not talking about
paintings when it comes to furniture, the experience that
these guys have as people would much rather go to Ikea, buy some
flat pack crap, throw it together. Instead of buying
something we have a quality 18 late 1800s couch and two chairs
in the I'm talking big, bombastic Victorian wood with
gold trimmings, we had them completely re upholstered these
things when we bought them probably worth $9,000. Maybe a
little more. couldn't give it away. No one wants it. I'd much
rather Yeah,
well, you know, this was in the 80s when he found this, this
cache of art. But I think there's probably more to it. You
know, there's probably the I think the one element that I you
know, even though I expressed lament, there's probably the
element of rights. You know, artists, they send their stuff
in, and they still own it. And so you can't, you know, they may
have sold it, as you know, the there's probably like, some of
them were probably sold as work for hire. And some of them were
sold, as you know, one time North American rights. And you
know, there's probably a whole bunch of different deals that
were done to get all this art. And it probably if he's put it
on the auction market, you'd get sued by one of these artists who
was seeing you being ripping them off, because they probably
should have the piece back or who knows why. But so they say
screw it, we'll just throw it out. And you know, what, the
worst the worst that can happen? And I don't know. But I think
that goes on a lot I think a lot of stuff is is a lot of history,
and a lot of vinyl, like photographic archives, a lot of
these newspapers is going to end up gone because these newspapers
aren't, you know, they're one company buys another which buys
another which buys another and then they fall. So
check this out the New York Times. Did you know that they
own part of the Red Sox?
Yeah, I know. Isn't that funny? We blogged that.
I mean, how I mean, where's the outrage on that? That's
ridiculous. So they have like a $400 million payment coming due
in February or March. So they need to get some cash. So now, I
don't know if this is public knowledge. But all of a sudden,
I read right there in the papers like, yeah, we're selling our
$200 million stake in the Red Sox. Hmm. In Boston, the rival
the rival towns team.
Well, the New York Times owns the Boston Globe. And I think
that's a connection.
That's true. But still it the headline was really weird. I'm
like, Whoa,
well, yeah. Well, that's why you'd want to play the headline
to make it make it make a laughingstock out in New York,
but in fact, it's Boston Globe. That's, you know, the real is
the real owner. Yeah, true.
So yeah. And so I think, you know, these shows, yeah, these
shows that there's a lot of stuff that you I mean, I was
thinking about this with the general, generally speaking,
because I still have a bunch of, you know, I moved some old CDs.
I had a CD ROM burner, like, you know, version one, when they
first came out, they were 1x
it has to wait, and then it finalises for three hours.
Yeah. And it was really it was I guess it was 1x it was scuzzy.
Oh I love scuzzy. All scuzzy CD ROM burners. The first ones you
get the CD with the blank CDs I think are two or $3 and And it
was like a big deal, and then you'd burn it. And about every
and it was like only one out of two would take that always crap
out, you know, the thing would blow up for some reason would be
ignited sorry, this didn't work. So you'd have to do it again.
And so anyway, but to some of those did, you know you got a
bunch of old ones. And so now some of them are actually losing
data. I mean, they're already they're not even that old, 20
years old, maybe. And there's, you know, already losing data
and so, you have to get find all your old CD ROMs that you burned
and move the data to a DVD or as fast as you can. And luckily, I
have a there was one Plex store model that I got a copy of that
was a considered by experts who who analyse discs that are there
to see how well they burn or whatever. And
the DVD itself.
Yeah, they will, there's a couple companies that look at,
you know, to if you produce a CD ROM burner, or this was first CD
ROM burner, they, they can tell you, you know, how well did by
by looking at it under, you know, electron microscope or
something. And this guy who runs one of these companies, that's a
testing company, he told me about this one particular Plex
store dry, there's a few years ago say the least, that was
considered it was absolutely perfect in every way. And he
would, and it actually I still have it. And it will read discs
that I've got 20 different readers, it will read a disc
that none of these other readers will touch. And but you know,
then I have to get it off that obviously that the disc itself
is is flaky. And then it was a real problem. I think a lot of
data and pictures and everything you know, people have to have to
do you backup the hard drives now? Yeah, yeah. Can't trust me.
And then you have to have a second one just in case. Yeah.
Well,
I find just having a lot of copies everywhere. Usually
that's right.
Do I have to have like 234 Sometimes more copies of the
same thing. It's like clutter. Yeah, there's no reason that you
have to do that in a digital age. But you know, a couple of
bad experiences because this stuff is once it goes you lose
everything.
We're just talking about that that there's a trend amongst the
young the young uns here when they when they go to a party or
some kind of event A lot of them will buy the throw away film
cameras to Kodak, you know, the cartons? The carton cam because
yeah, and then they trade those and they hand them out and
sometimes it's sometimes I'll even make duplicates, but it's
it seems like there's a when someone really wants to make
something they care about that is a difference the the youth
seems to value traditional photographs over the digital
kind.
Well, I don't know that I haven't seen that trend here. I
mean,
this is this is England, man. We're ahead of all trends in the
US are behind. I don't think so. Dude, would you please go look
at the Hollywood box office and tell me how many English people
are involved
Well, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Now as the music comes from here in generally the music the big
influences Yeah, what are you talking about? The Beatles the
Rolling Stones? The Who? The Kings the Beegees do I need to
go on?
Do you need to get any further back in time?
No, no. Well, okay. All right. I'll grant you a New Kids on the
Block.
You know, taking them either, but
take that Robbie Williams
I think you're digging yourself into a hole.
No, I'm not. I'm not all the most of the the the musical pop
trends definitely come from England. So always been that
way. You know? Yes. out please. The musical pop
trends. Yeah, you made a bubble gum music.
Starting with the Beatles. If you call the Beatles low end,
that's where it started. Yeah. Then yes.
All the way to full music.
All the way up to the Spice Girls. Here's a movie if you
have not seen this, John, you have to watch. It's a French
document documentary. called The World According to Monsanto. Oh,
yeah, I've heard about it. You have got to see this. In fact,
let me give a I can give you the link. I think I can. Because of
course it's on Google. Hold on
should just be able to click that what the hell All right you
still with me? I didn't bust you out there.
No I'm here. Okay, good. Yeah, you have to take a look at this
is a
friend it's on Google movies
it's on here on the Google Movie Channel where everything's okay
it's on the it's on the Google where all your movies are can
come from I got a great high quality version of It's a
Wonderful Life actually put that on on media today the little
piece where George Bailey says well, your money's not here it's
it's in your house is in his house. And what do you want to
get and you're gonna foreclose? I thought it was so cool. For 60
years for 60 years this movie has been warning us about about
this very moment about what can actually happen every single
year gets rolled out again although I must say in the past
five years since they actually started to do this to bankrupt
everybody. You don't see that movie around that much.
So that one guy committed suicide
from the made off. I saw them report this live on on CNBC was
fantastic. They went live he they showed him killing himself
now not quite that good. But they showed a reporter a
reporter on the street corner and he's like, it was so funny.
I'm reading this off my Blackberry he was literally
reading like a the ABC News website. I'm reading this off my
Blackberry and that's why I'm on the corner here standing
somewhere I guess near the guys he could have been on any corner
and it says I don't speak French because the guy's name is
Villepin you or something like that. I believe he's
got this real like your your aristocratic gold French name.
Yeah, here I'll I'll look it up from the link that you can just
see last a billion dollars of his clients money. Yeah. And
then he figured he saw before somebody killed him. Yeah,
really.
But he slit his wrists. Which is a an old fashioned old fashioned
very old school. Yeah. Yeah, Renee. Renee tre my gondola
Villa shoot who should you should fuck him? He should be
dead with a name like that. Renee cherry my gondola Villu
che darn Yep. Well, every single day now there's, there's new
what would be the right word to describe it? harshness coming
out about this fun. I mean, the amount of people who were
invested directly or probably worse indirectly through the so
called feeder funds, which were essentially a fund that you
would you know, you'd put your money into a fund and that fund
would do nothing but basically feed the Madoff fund
how lazy can you be Yeah, in fact me schedule just front
there front loading and it was just like you know taking your
money charging you a commission then give it to somebody else
yeah to do it's like I'll sourcing your investment why do
we why cut out the middleman? Yeah, so
yeah, they take a fee even before the money is invested.
They take they were taking a fee the writer of Forrest Gump, he's
suing his broker for investing his money indirectly one of
those feeder funds into into made off and this is what's
crazy, because now there's word that a lot of the fees and
commissions that were taken will have to be paid back. So you've
got no schmucks out there who you know maybe got a 500,000
Maybe a million dollar bonus you know, bought a house a car put
their kids into college and now they got to pay that money back.
Yeah, well, good. Yeah. Hell yeah. It was it was so cool.
Last night they had a movie on here. A true based on a true
story. And it really shows you how wonderful it was. It wasn't
BBC but it really shows you what they're trying to do, how
they're trying to portray government workers, you know,
the people from they work for us.org The a word she was a
There's a famous story, she was a council worker, and her job
was to collect the parking metre money and and then keep the
accounts and you know of what she wound up doing. She wound up
skimming and she was skimming off the top and she was doing
creative book bookkeeping, because she was very lonely, but
she had an Elvis obsession. And in her attic, she'd literally
built a 200,000 pound Elvis Presley collection and shrine of
memorabilia, which he bought at auctions with this, you know,
200,000 pounds, but they but they made it like she was a poor
girl, you know, and she she was a loner and no one had liked her
and no one was nice to her and so it's of course
no lighter because she was a criminal or like
throw though, and I kept saying to Patricia, throw this pitch in
jail now. Even though as an actress, I'm yelling at the
television, but they they really twisted the story into making it
nice. But ya know, she was obsessed and no one loved her
and had an evil stepmom and her mom died a fuck you. I don't
care. Everyone's got it hard.
Well, except for you. So Now, Hey, I forgot to mention this. I
was on the, you know, when I went to Portugal, I watched a
bunch of movies, obviously on the plane, right? coming and
going. So I watched believe it and I watched Mamma Mia.
Wow, that's, I would only watch that if I was certain I was
getting laid.
It was terrible. It was like watching a train wreck
and Meryl Streep who can't sing and admits it is just bad.
And then the only reason I bring this up is because I've been
watching a couple you know, I'm watching some show on TV.
They're raving about this film. And they're, you know, going on
and on about how great it wasn't. She's a great what an
actress blah, blah, blah, the movie and made no sense. It was
stupid. The stories and the singing was dreadful. And it was
awkward. And it was like what were these people thinking when
they did that and Pierce Brosnan
Have you seen the the musical?
No sure to the music goes flying out in the stage. You know if it
was staged, right and you had you know, people who could who
could belt out a tune for a theatre audience. I'm sure it
was acceptable. Now it
right. I think I told you that Patricia was offered to do the
Meryl Streep role in the in the Dutch version. Yoke from the
end. I called her personally. He's one of the Endemol guys,
and she said No, I hate the outfits. The songs we all know
him. Said but her big problem was the outfits. She doesn't
like the bell bottoms. Like why don't wanna wear that.
I was I was being I don't always I ended up watching as much as I
did. I think I saw most of it. Because I just couldn't go it's
just my jaw just drops. You know, go what is what is this
about how bad it was now.
Anyway, so you've seen a good movies lately? Well, the stream
going we got to be a little more topical.
Yeah. Although I'm just trying to figure out why you started.
Are you downloading something you really started to break up a
little bit there?
No, but let me go to No, no. Oh, wait. There's something going on
in my other machine. Let
me turn it off. Okay. Anyway, while you're doing that, here's
if you want to be topical. The CIA is now bribing Afghanistan
war lords. Are you with me? Yeah. Do you know what the you
know what they're bribing them with? Now? Let's see. We have
the choice of cash. That's always a good one. Ah,
we all we have guns. Another good one. But would you believe
Viagra?
Really? Yeah. Wow, we're most creative group of people as an
American CIA.
We really are fantastic. That was
amazing.
Hey, man, you're still breaking out. It's really shitty. What
the hell is that? Why do
you sound good? There's nothing going on.
Okay. All right. Nothing to see here. Just move on. It's just
your ears. People on the streams?
Well, hopefully when you get your new connection next week,
we'll have this resolved. But this is
the thing. I believe I was thinking about it last night
because look, what is this connection is 1212 kilobit. How
am I gonna hunt maybe? Okay, make it 100 100 kilobit per
second up 100 kilobits per second down, right. It can't be
much more than that. In fact, I can measure it right now. Hold
on, I've got a monitor.
And my router is set up to prioritise such thing. Well,
this, this, I believe, is the problem. So right now I'm
sending between 20 Yeah, of course, I'm sending the stream
out. So 20 230 kilobits per second, and coming in, it's only
you know, it's like one Wait a minute. Let's see, that makes no
sense. Oh, that's kilobytes, so about 100 100 kilobits per
second. So that's not the entire pipe so I immediately started
thinking wait a minute, that's got to be the priority routing
and either a I have to change my router to prioritise Skype
packets or perhaps the ISP is is doing nasty things maybe you
know, like after after a while they just get bored of my
packets and they start to mess with them. I don't know
You know, I'm a big fan of one double A football
No, what is one double A football Well, it's
now called division one but issue one double A is the really
is college football at its best because it's not, you know
commercialised guys. It's very creative. There's a lot of, you
know, experimental play calling and they have a tonne We're in a
minute, the end of the year, which everyone wants to the big
boys to do. And so this team, the Richmond Spiders won this
year, and I was rooting functions, they beat the team
that I was rooting for before. I'm a bandwagon jumper, by the
way, the most hated of all sports fans. I'm on the winning.
I mean, you know, there's a study that was done that shows
that the the sports fan has the same visceral response to
winning and losing as the actual people playing the game really,
ever see this research? Yeah. So when you are rooting for the
losing team, and they lose, and you have the same kind of, you
know, does the same kind of body chemistry stuff to you that it
does to the I can't believe it does it as bad but does the same
thing to you as it does to the losing team? And if you win the
same, you know, you feel elated? And it's good for you. So this
is
just as interesting. And why does this take place? And is
there a way to harness that and change it so that people get
those feelings when politicians screw them out of their money?
Yeah, that would be good, wouldn't it be because you know,
when people lose in fact, when people when they go out and they
trashed the streets, they burn cars, they you know, Bluett and
break shops, Windows, but when there's blatant stealing going
on every single day in front of their faces,
like oh, I'll just go walk to one AAA football boat school and
like, boom. So anyway, so the Richmond Spiders one and I. So
now I have to find some way of getting a hoodie.
Oh, yes, of course.
Because it's got the logo. It's got this huge red spider on a
blue black background. It's a really a cool looking logo for
this team. But I'm unlike Appalachian State where there's
a bunch of hippies and people that would listen to this kind
of show. I don't think anybody the University of Richmond has
ever heard of no agenda and I really doubt you know, you're
the twit.
Oh, dude, we totally have a connect somewhere. I guarantee
it.
I guarantee Yeah, I
guarantee you we got like 350 people on the stream right now.
There's people out there if you take 350 People at power of six
or whatever, whatever it is. Maybe someone knows someone
somewhere
let anyway I'll probably get to ever get a hold of one of these
things. Just a big spider school looking so but yeah, so I'm a
bandwagon jumper. And now I always have the you know, in
fact, I have if you like a Super Bowl game where there's two
teams that I don't care much about either one or even if I do
care about one you really should switch sides in the middle of
the game in halftime. I do it oh man, I know. I know it drives
everybody crazy. How can you do that and people saying how can
you do that? How could you be rooted from that now you won't
you don't even won't even talk about him? Just because they
suck you know the 40 Niners are good example. Why should I be
rooting for a team that can't win any games? It doesn't make
any sense. It's called
team spirit. It's called State spirit or city spirit of which
you clearly have none.
I have zero and I don't intend to have any I don't see why they
put up regret. It's like a crappy product. If you know what
I supposed to do, but I go to like you get to say the milk
milk goes sour three days early. I'm supposed to be rooting for
it. I mean, oh, I just I used to like to smoke 10 years ago. I
don't you know, I'm still gonna hope it doesn't go bad. I mean,
it's just
a bit of that's a bit of a stretch as an analogy, but I
understand where you're coming from. You're coming from an
unloyal plus perspective.
No, it's not unloyal list. This is a product. It's not anything
more than that.
Yeah, but we're troubling but we're trained differently as
product evidence to product sucks. I'm not rooting for it.
Right. But it's supposed to be a localised product, and it's just
a marketing Gambit.
I can't fully Uh, can I as hard as I try? I can't suck it into
it. Hey, man, I'm I'm really excited. You know? Mythbusters
I'm sure you've watched that show. Oh, yeah. So Mythbusters
now these the guy whenever I latch on to some kind of
alternate, don't you did? Isn't the English version slightly
differently of different people?
No, it's the same guys. Okay, yeah, they may have a different
chick. No, no, I think it's all the same guys. It certainly was
same Adam and yeah, okay, Adam and yeah, so it's the same ones.
So whenever I lasted like an alternative energy theory or
whatever, you know, then I'm all people always jumping on me say
Well, look, the MythBusters proved it wasn't true. I love
it. Like the MythBusters like these fucking bronies are the
capsules are the absolute scientists of the world and
they've got it all figured out. They make a TV show any way they
have, I'll just read you a piece from the release, the
MythBusters have finally given into the pressure. The producers
have been under for several years now the show asked the
viewers to send their favourites myth and blahdy blahdy blah. So
they're going to do a two hour special about the World Trade
Centre and they are going to prove or debunk that the towers
came down in freefall based upon steel that melted because of jet
fuel. And the way they're doing is they're building a 1/3 scale
replica, which still seems pretty damn big to me. But
no, that doesn't sound right.
It'll cost $7 million. That sounds kind of right. The whole
production should be about $25 million that Boeing has donated
a scale model aeroplane, they're really going to try and do this.
And I'd say say goodbye to Mythbusters as a show forever
once they do that. Because they'll they'll never they'll
never tell the true story. You know that?
Well, let's see what happens when the executive producer
winds up dead alley.
Hell yeah. Who else died Reese? Oh, you know, it was the kid
died, which kind of sucks. And I've gotten into the habit which
is a sure sign of old guy stuff. I read a bitchu Aries, not the
obituary, not the obituary page. But if I'm reading The Financial
Times they have an obituary, a playwright, Britain's Nobel
laureate, early writer died.
Yeah, they always die in three. So he had Eartha Kitt, Harold
Pinter and probably another one coming.
I thought there was a third one
by the way, net three that three things was actually appropriate,
considering random number theory. It was not like so
anyway, that Harold Pinter death who I ran it I didn't, you know,
I've heard of him, but then I read his bio cheese.
You're like, an obit guy to
know, once in a while. I click on one no one I say, well,
that's interesting. So and so died at 90. You know, whatever I
did not used to I think, let me just see if I can 9192 And then
they put up cancer. Well, he didn't have cancer. He's pretty
old. So I mean, I don't think he had that. But no, no, no, no,
no, no,
he didn't. He didn't die of cancer. He died of a heart
attack, heart failure. Earth a kid died of colon cancer.
Okay with that she's the one that Abed doesn't I don't
understand why, you know, some people do
which, by the way, if I die of colon cancer, please don't put
that in the paper. Because then everyone's thinking my ass. I
don't like that. I don't want people thinking of my anal
cavity when I'm dead. Just tell him make it no suicide by
suicide by cop is what I want.
So anyway, you may get it and
friend. So it's right here. I
guess he was just an American basher. He just blamed us for
everything.
Yeah. Like most British people, is that right? Have you ever
seen the Top Gear episode when they go to the United States?
Even my wife was offended? And she's really? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
They it's totally every single stereotype. They go through the
south. And at one point, they even paint a white pickup truck
with pink letters like I'm
remember, yeah, may have seen this one. It was an
A, in fact, they were refused a licence or a permit to do
another documentary ever again, unless they you know, it had
educational quality or value, whatever. But I have to tell
you, it was it was so incredibly biassed. And of course it was
all the stereotypes are there and it's all true. But it was
offensive. It really was most Brits we you know, we they talk
about America, they'll start to laugh for a little bit there. We
were kind of cool because we had Obama and they're on to it here.
They're like, sucks. But, but then when they meet you face to
face, they fall in love with you.
Yeah, well, it's difficult. Yeah.
But people don't understand you know, the way we talk and the
way we we come across as being really dumb. That's just the way
we are. It's nothing wrong with it. Anyway, Pinter I can't still
can't find his his obituary in the paper
somewhere.
Anyway, but Eartha Kitt was. You remember her when she was big
back in the heyday?
Yeah, back in the 1800s. I remember her. She was
born in 1927. Yeah. Hold on a second. Yeah, I'm recording on.
I'm recording. Can I help you? Maybe you're opening the door
she doesn't give a shit.
She needs a foot rub.
She just can't got one the other day.
All right. So I got this letter from some guy gonna, I'm gonna
publish it probably on my, my blog or maybe make a column out
of it's kind of interesting. He says that he was he used to work
at the Cheyenne Wyoming facility, they were building a
Cheyenne Mountain or whatever it's called for the government.
And he was working with for this Colonel that used to be on the
White House.
Didn't you? Didn't you do this last week? Did I do this last
week? Yes.
So I haven't done a thing with this thing. I'm still trying to
figure out what venue it it needs to be repeated and
repeated?
Well repeat it again. Because then because I did like it. And
I like base habits.
Now I have in front of me, I had it last week, I could just tell
you, we're gonna tell the story. So tell the story again. And
then when the story is that, you know, the government decided
they were going to do martial law during that Lyndon Johnson
administration. But the Pentagon kept saying, No, we're not going
to do that. Because it's like, ridiculous, because you're a
wimp. And they tried to get martial law passed three times.
And they finally decided that the real problem in the United
States was that we were getting back in the 60s, we were too
smart. We're getting too smart. We're getting an educated
public. And so they had to pull the plug on it, and they banned
it. And they said, Look, we're not going to be we're not going
to be in the business of educating people anymore. Let's
just dumb them down. So we have like a population that is
docile.
All right. Now, do you remember we went through this whole
thing, and I said, they've got New World Order in the history
books.
But the thing I forgot to put mentioned was a couple other
aspects that you know that to, to calm down the college kids
during this era is when they develop the quarter, as opposed
to semester system? Really? Yeah, because they could keep
the kids busy, or because they had more finals at three,
instead of two final exam periods. And that would keep
them you know, from
is that is that that's a fact. That's fascinating. I didn't
know that.
And then the other thing is, if you go the University of
California, they decided to heck with it, we you know, we're
gonna just raise the rent. And in fact, that's one of the
things they did, though, and I would, that's actually Ronald
Reagan, who, who decided to add tuition to what was a free
school when I went there. You know, it's a state university
paid for by the taxpayers, why am I as a California citizen
paying to go to my school, right? And so they ended that in
around 9069 or 1970. Now that started and then they cranked it
tuition way up. So it's like, really expensive, does almost
like what private schools used to be at State University, at a
university, right, owned by the state. And so that keeps the
riffraff out during you know, smart kids who would you know,
cause trouble? And then they said, Well, let's take the up
the ante one more time. You know, I don't know if it's the
majority, but there's an inordinate number of Chinese
students who are mostly from, you know, from China, and Hong
Kong, there was always a lot of Hong Kong students, even when I
was there, but now they got so many. It's almost like a
completely Asian campus. And it's kept that way. Because
these kids are going to do cause trouble, they're going to get
shipped back because I
tell you something interesting. When I was flying, when I
remember when I flew down to Yosemite to go meet my buddy
Lex. You don't remember?
Yeah, I do. Because this is the guy that you meet every number
of years ago with a new cemetery.
Right? Exactly. So I was flying down in a Cessna 206 and the
radio is filled with students, right? Because you know, there's
just a lot of people flying in California, all of them with
Asian accents. Almost unintelligible when it comes to
their radio traffic what they're talking about, and I was like,
Dude, what is this? This is not they can't they can't learn how
to fly in their hometown was too expensive or whatever. So they
all come over here and throughout the California the
Northern California skies, most radio traffic for general
aviation, Asian outrageous.
Well, that brings up a number of potential jokes. We
will the jokes are made in the air and believe me when you just
listen to people trying to communicate because you can't
it's hard to understand what's happening with pilots just
saying anyway. And yeah,
just reminding reminded of a punch line to the Air China
catch phrase you know, you've seen us drive now watches fly
like that. That's good. Well, you know, the they also I know
that in Hawaii, they a lot of Japanese are learned to fly
there because Hawaii the Japanese think they own it. And
so they came you know, although now that they fly over it, it
really screwed them into real estate. You know, what's the
747 700 or that big? I think there's it's 300 or 400 series
the one that could fly you know, they just have to stop and
Hawaii to get to Asia right now they can just dance right over
it goes for now just pass over the real estate prices collapse
there but they like to come over and take fine lessons and go
shooting. They have or gun ranges, you know, indoor gun
ranges where you can shoot almost anything you want. And if
you look at the Japanese language, pamphlets that are all
over the place, do you just see all the advertisements for all
these guns, shooting places? karaoke bars, escort services
and haina flying stuff?
I think I think we need to do a no agenda road trip. We got to
go to Hawaii.
Yeah, we should
get us some bitches and shoot some guns.
You know, we can shoot guns here. Yeah, but
we want some bitches.
Bitches here, too.
I just wanted to hear you say it. Hey, let me ask your
question, John. Yes, because I'm sure that you, at one point have
been economic adviser to the government. How does this just
happened in in Russia? They devalued the ruble. How do you
devalue the money? How is that done?
You, you use you make an announcement. And
I just sent out a press release on PR market wire.com.
Yeah, then you peg it to a different figure. You know, in
other words, it was like if it was one ruble, or let's say 20
rubles, $1. And you haven't been and it's indexed against the
dollar, you just say okay, now it's 40.
So that's kind of my question is, is that always done against
the dollar? Is Russia doing this against the dollar? Or other
other countries, which
has to be done against the major currencies? Which is the dollar,
the yen and the euro? And then the rest is fall in line?
Well, I think it's interesting that that's happening.
Well, it's a four, you know, isn't it? Yeah, I guess, doesn't
sound like a, you know, it's always a bad thing. When it
happens.
Well, I understand what they say they're doing it because oil
revenues are so much lower. So I guess then if you devalue the
currency, then everything you sell. Now, wait a minute.
I'm gonna let's figure this out. Okay. So they,
instead of the times, literally said they devalue the currency
because oil revenues were so low. So that means they hate
right. So you got st. So you're getting $60 A barrel that say,
yeah, and let's say that $60 Translate, we're just going to
do a one to one thing as to make the $60 translated to 60 rubles,
right. So now you're getting $30 a barrel. And so you want to
still have it translate to 60 rubles. So you, you cut the
currency in half.
Well, they didn't do that since.
Yeah, makes sense. You just index it against because you're
doing the oil deals in dollars.
Right. Okay. Yeah, that's it. It's so that you can buy the via
the peg currency cheaper. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Well, 3% doesn't sound like a half. But I guess it means
the only deal only did 3%.
I think so. Well, that's kind of
silly.
Well, let me see. Maybe that was there was some other country
that that also devalued that made that may have been the one
that did 3%. But this isn't, but they have devalued it like four
times in the past month. Like a one shot deal. You know, it just
keeps on going. I can't find anything in this. Maybe I saw it
in yesterday's paper. Interesting to see that William
Hill, one of the big bookie chains here in the UK, they've
got 1.4 billion pounds worth of debt they're trying to
refinance, a bookie I know debt. Aren't those guys to talk about
a pyramid scheme. Aren't those guys supposed to be like making
money off of this? And then they've got a huge 1.4 billion
pound of debt.
Does that sound right?
Yeah, no, it says it right here.
You will? I'm sure it does. Yeah.
Well, it's the Financial Times you got to believe something at
a certain point. And I get I guess, really the big news,
which is kind of the news that we'll be talking about for for
many years to come. Is of course what's happening and I was in
Australia where they are about to start for they want to put
into law that they're going to filter the internet. Yeah. So
today, the the minute the cult, the minister of culture in the
United Kingdom came out and said we need ratings for websites.
Now you go ratings if it's inappropriate for children, and
you know you there's 1000s of websites that show you how to
make a bomb. Do we have to stop this like do this 1000s of
libraries were closed the libraries burn the books? Fine.
It's out of control and and the news Just by the quality of
minutes you sent me the rating to the website to protect
your minister in Australia.
No, no, this is the cultural Minister of the United Kingdom.
Oh, yeah, no, I'm
saying culture minister.
Well, sorry.
The queen was the culture minister.
Oh man, she's the head reptile. You gotta hold it. Oh, this Oh,
dude, here's one for you. So a big cultural deal in the United
Kingdom on Christmas Day at 3pm. The Queen's speech to the to, to
the country to her what do you call them? Many objects
subjects. That's it. And and we I think we've missed it every
single year because you know, it's not you know, I
saw it it was I was up in Washington. I think I saw it.
They think they broadcast it on Canadian news. I'm sure
they do. Because of course Canada is controlled by the
Queen still. And yeah, and it's more than just set dressing
witness would just happen anyway, that I don't want to get
into that because we'll get all the Canadians pissed off again.
So I'm like ready for this? And so what she does is she starts
off and she says not a not a smile, right? It's just It's
just horrible. It's just really cold and impersonal. And the
Brits are like, Oh, we love watching the Queen's speech. So
okay, well watch the Queen's speech. So we're all ready by
the way Top of the Pops came back for a special hour and a
half show before that which was pretty cool. Anyway, so it comes
on she says well you know what I've learned is that when I work
with people who help others in these trying times that they
they truly are fulfilled that they have fulfilled lives and
they truly are happy and then they switched to these this EMG
footage of her boys you know visiting poor kids and then
there's Charles somewhere with the African kids and and this is
like well see this is my family see how much they do for other
people that's what you should do. Merry Christmas. And that
was it. Like it was it was absolutely I was shocked
I saw that's what I see they had they showed the kids they're
always you know the these people they
have no jobs no kidding it's easy for them to go around doing
good when you have endless tax money to spend and no jobs
and these are just obvious photo ops guys probably blue in there
sat down okay took a couple shots Okay, let me get out of
here and there that will wash up
and I and I've been reading the papers and I please tell me that
some journalist somewhere some editorial writer just said What
the frig was that literally here's my family they're so
great they help everybody up oh that she thought a little bit of
Jesus there too. Yeah, a little bit of God love which is fine.
But did you use I mean, I'm sitting there going to test the
British public actually eat this shit up. I mean, it was
offensive. You should be more like my family. Because then you
will truly be happy. The
way well, what can I say? There's still a lot of
monarchists in that country. Tickets great dabba queen.
I don't know any personally, to be quite honest,
broken into a number of them. Over the years.
I've always liked the idea of, of a monarch but and and it
really disappointed me in the Netherlands when we had a couple
of you know, we had one week before the national general
election, the leading politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated was
shot. And that was the moment when you know, you'd expect the
Queen because the whole country was frozen. It was like, wow,
what just happened? You know, there was like the scale of JFK.
And everyone still knows where they were when PIM got shot. And
the Queen didn't say anything. I was like, this is a part she'd
come out on TV and say all right, you know, whatever. Just
make people feel good. Kind of like a motherly matronly type
thing. No way. Cold, cold as ice as because they don't care. They
don't love us. They don't love their subjects.
Well, they're not supposed to do that under no obligation. No,
you're
right. Their job is to fight wars and grab land. That's all
they've done their entire lives.
How's things going in Belgium, by the way, have not
heard a lot. The last I read is that the king of Belgium, he has
to officially decide if he accepts the part because the
cabinet fell. But he has to still, which is kind of weird.
You know, it's like, okay, the cabinet fell. We don't want to
work together anymore. And he still has to say okay, that
you're allowed. You're allowed to fall. Yeah. So he may I don't
know he may be he has accepted it. But yeah, Belgium is a funny
country. You won't hear anything about it doesn't
exist in Silicon Valley. You know, I mean, it's like Belgian
is a creation is a good crack, you know, did you actually win
Wikipedia even though I don't think it's a great resource for
a lot of stuff has a pretty good breakdown of
it. It's kind of it's kind of a
phoney baloney thing from the get go
it was the French and the Dutch and then they they really didn't
like each other and then they kind of got this middle bit
which is like a border I guess I really why border?
Yeah, so white border whiteboard. And isn't it ironic
that the white border called Belgium is actually now running
the entire EU? Yeah,
Russell's I know, only only half the time though, because we have
to be in Strasbourg because the French wanted their little
little power centre. So the government a lot of people don't
know this, but the European Parliament actually moves
there'll be in Brussels one month and then they go to
Strausberg the next month. I've got duplicate offices. It's a
huge expense.
I would think yeah, all a lot of travel to offices to everything.
You got to move back and forth and back and forth. Yeah,
I mean, that inconvenient. No, that's, that's only reserved for
people like me.
That's ridiculous. Well, you never move. You're just always
in England. You never come over here much. Plus not even true.
I was over there for three weeks.
That was the one big that's not the same as being one month
there. And then month here and then a month there and a month
here and a month there and a month to here like they do with
that crazy EU parliament. But you know what?
If I was trying to really save the country, then I might
consider it. I think you're overdue. Now Oh, man.
Not coming until February. Maybe? I am overdue for a
restaurant. Yeah, I'm overdue for some food. That's for sure.
You gotta come over and hang out with me.
Yeah, it's just getting to the point where I can afford it.
Yeah, it is. It's $1.46. I think now for the panel.
That's perfect. That's what it should be. Yeah, it's,
it's good. It's always been about a buck. 50 And that's your
right. That's what it should be.
Yeah, usually fluctuates between a buck 45 and a buck 55. Usually
that mean, that's what I've always seen and then all of a
sudden it goes to two with the inflation you already have over
there. Cheese.
Yeah, the inflation is pretty bad. But you know, Gordon Brown
the guy who was at the helm when and steered us right into the
credit crisis here in the UK. You know, he's the guy running
the show. He's gonna save us. So he says
so I'm going to go to Amsterdam, hopefully in April and I'm gonna
go at the end of the month where they have this baby called Queen
Queens day.
Yeah, April 30 Is the Queen's Birthday. In the Netherlands,
although it is not actually her birthday anymore. It is still
observed on that day. And the cool thing about it is it's a
national
boy anyway, it's not her birthday anymore that she
changed her birthday. I
think it was her grandmother's birthday. They just kept it on
the same day. It's kind of a good day because 30th of April
it's not really cold you know, everyone can still have hopes
for a sunny day. So so the the 29th Evening before particularly
in Amsterdam is where you really want to be it's just mayhem and
if the weather's nice then it's crazy everyone's just you know,
bar crawling just drunk off just tits up drunk and the next day
everybody can mark out their spot layout their little blanket
and sell anything you want to sell. No tax no sales tax no
nothing, sell whatever you want. It's like one huge flea market
the whole country but Amsterdam is probably the best place to
be. And there's great shit and lots of music and food and a lot
of people choose to set up you know, the be cooking something
and they'll sell that instead of their, you know, their old
radios and you find the weirdest things and usually come home
with just lots of other people's junk. Like a recycling
programme. Yeah, it's a recycling programme. Everyone
passes on some junk to somebody else
might be a good time to you might be I wouldn't be trying to
scrounge all art I would think that Amsterdam has a lot of you
know, art.
I tell you the old art and I have a couple pieces. It's it's
not selling? None of that stuff is selling. Good. Yeah, I mean,
I'm not looking to sell them but I do kind of pay attention from
time to time to see if any category I have gets hot. It's
pretty much like our global warming right now for everything
I have.
But do you have those expensive Rembrandt's that you've
collected?
Now I don't have Rembrandt's but I have a rule A which is French
I have a dad bless which is pretty well known Dutch Jewish
painter. That's significant that's significant because of
the topics that he paints And we have another semi master. And it
just did a nice paintings we did. They're beautiful we like
and we hang them up we look at him.
Show if I go to Amsterdam you're going to come over and be the
celebrity friend of mine. Yes, of course I'm gonna You're like
very but you'd be like swamped with people asking for your
autograph?
No, because I'm I have an attitude and I'm six feet tall.
No one bothers me.
Really? Yeah. They just stare and point yes. And giggle Yeah,
wait giggy Okay, well maybe the hair I don't know what the
giggling about him or anything now but what about what about
Patricia? You want to drag her around? That would be something
No, she won't
go because she's five foot forever and and it's very she
gets very anxious in those situations because a lot of
people you know when she's in a crowd of a lot of people she's
basically you know, staring into their belly buttons and it's not
a not a happy not a happy experience she does not like
that's why we moved away and my wife is so incredibly famous
there particularly with all the shows she's doing you know when
she no matter where she goes if she wants them to shop
everyone's gonna look and watch what she's buying you know it's
not yeah you understand people like Britney Spears and Lindsay
Lohan minus the the shaving of the head stuff but he's really
an I come over Can I come to visit the Abode Darren in London
take a few shots of her and then sell to the tabloids in
Amsterdam pick up some money I'll split it with you
yeah he wouldn't be the first shirt no problem but we gotta we
gotta set up we got to have a story you know I mean I got
those ins no problem. You got to have the right story though. You
got to and then you you know you got to stick the appropriate
picture you got you got to snap the right one so
Oh, you know you shoot a lot
but there's already been stories about our new house in in the
tabloids Oh, yeah, they'll come looking they always do that's
why Patricia gave them a pictures and here's a picture of
the house. Yeah, go public which isn't which is the funniest
thing. She just got a picture off of off of off of the net
somewhere that you know, looks like our house. As you sent it
to the to the she sent it to the journalist and he published it.
Her new house. So funny.
Yeah, well, sure. After they listen to this there will be
like, Whoa, they probably don't know who listens to this show.
Well, yeah, dedicated listeners. But I don't think the journalist
had got the fake pictures one of them.
Now. They never listened. If they actually listened to any of
my shows, man, they could be writing for hours. We got a lot
of people I think listening on iPhones, you always see these
singular dotnet. I know people listen to the streams on on
iPhone. And it's kind of cool. Speaking of paintings, at least
50 paintings from the Government Art Collection, which I don't I
didn't know existed, I presume something like that would would
exist, are missing and unaccounted for?
What Government Art Collection? The one in England? Yes. Well,
it's probably something like the National Gallery in Washington,
they have, you know, they have at least the guy who I was
walking around looking at I looked at it paint a picture
there I was looking at this picture was I can't remember the
artists name, but it was just really fascinating. Never heard
of this guy's kind of a American impressionist or something from
around 1820 or 1920. I mean, and then I asked one of the guys
that stand around to make sure you're not, you know, poking
holes in it. I said, Well, who is this guy? And I asked him
when he says, I don't know, they probably brought that up from
you know, down below, they always move stuff up and down
and up and down. He says, you know, he says only about a
quarter of the collection is actually up here.
Right? They rotate it because someone's gonna have a job.
And so they rotate. I mean, they keep the classics, you know,
that everybody wants to see but then they rotate all this all
this other stuff. But I'm thinking so three quarters of
the paintings are down in the basement, they could you know,
I'm sure stuff could disappear effortlessly. We're talking
1000s and 1000s of paintings and they'd probably only inventory
at once every few years. Well of the 50s a lot. But those oh
those will show up they got all these systems
to listen to listen to this. Listen to this. They just did an
audit 50 are unaccounted for none of them were insured. Some
are known to have been stolen but more than half the total
simply disappeared.
The whole collection worth about 100 million pounds so I'm sure
that there's some nice pieces that have walked out
well you know, they the biggest show they say in the art world
instigators of this sort of thing are the Swiss. Oh, yeah.
LED paintings all end up in the Swiss collections that never go
on the auction block never show up and Gauss is just in
somebody's house. Because the Swiss are less likely. I mean,
they've apparently you know if you know you know you can't
steal a great painting and
Selling what you can sell it sell. You know you're stuck.
Yeah.
So if you want if you still like
it like it's like, you're stuck with that frickin Mona Lisa, I
am gonna slap that bitches smile on her face one of these days.
Well, that was stolen, by the way. I know. I know. Yes. And so
well, I don't mean stuck with it. But if you don't live as a
painting you don't like you're stuck with it. But if it's a
painting, yeah, you can put it up on your walls, you know,
claim it's, you know, I would just had to have a piece like
that. I'd say, Yeah, I had it copied in China. You know, this
is a pretty No, no,
no, what you're supposed to do is when you're sitting around
with all your Illuminati brethren, you sit there and you
pet your white pussy, and you smoke your Cuban cigar, and you
look at your stolen painting, and you enjoy it because you are
sophisticated, much more sophisticated than the weed
people, the sub more
than you, you'd have to I think if you're going to do it that
way, you have to push a button and in
a while revolves right with with perfect lighting, of course, it
goes without saying the Dutch. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I was
gonna I was gonna say that. The Dutch socialist system 20 years
ago, I don't know if they still do it. You know, there were lots
of artists and artists can study art for free in at school,
because it's a socialist system, unlike what we discussed with
the US state government run institutions. But the deal was
all the art they made, you could actually go and on a rotating
basis, you could, you know, pick up three or four paintings,
maybe a sculpture, put it in your house for six months. And
then after six months, you bring it back and you get some other
stuff that some students had made. They put it into
circulation within society, which I always thought was kind
of cool.
Well, you know, the there's a bunch of museums that do that.
Now, the Oakland Museum has a collection that they rotates
around the University of California has a pretty big art
collection that they used to loan out. I think I had to take
insurance out or something. I think that's it. But yeah, and
anyway, so I mean, I don't think it's totally, you know, out of
the out of the ordinary. Now anyway, we're talking about
these very dark collections that we use, and I mentioned it so I
went to this I had this event I went to in Korea, and met the
public relations guy they tell you about this public relations
guy from the Vatican. He's like the Pope's PR guy
rings a bell, but I don't think it was on the show. I mean,
please tell me
so anyway, he says he invited me to go visit the Vatican when I
get a chance. And he'll take me into the bowels of the Vatican
art collection and the Arctic collection of all this crazy
stuff that they put down there. You know, the stuff about the
the Illuminati and all those secrets. So he says he says
don't get not too many people get down there by says it's
really interesting. And he says he was roaming around down there
recently. I just imagined the place, you know, dripping. And
he says he found Marco Polos. Divorce Decree. Excellent. I
guess it was an annulment. Right? But fantastic. I thought
that'd be kind of a one upsmanship thing to do. Oh,
yeah. I have to actually do these things instead of just
sitting here at home.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I dream a lot too. According to
the Swedish trade journal doggone medicina. Nobel media
because we were talking about this last week and I picked the
story of Nobel Webb. Some Nobel affiliated corporations are
accused of taking many millions of dollars from AstraZeneca. Who
of course hold the patents for the HPV that's the cervical
cancer vaccine, Gardasil and Cervarix, in Europe, you may
recall, we talked about the difference in Nobel Prizes. a
Nobel Prize for Medicine was given to the German scientist
Harold to warehouser for the discovery of the so called virus
which is killing children, the vaccine at least. And he got a
Nobel Prize. And so now there's accusations that AstraZeneca who
of course, makes this, you know, basically bought it. Oh, yeah.
That's good. That's good. People should know the truth about
these.
Well, why?
Well, it's good to know. You're right. Just let people sleep on
it. Yes. Then, you know, we don't need that. You know, these
riots in the street?
Yes, we do food riots of food riots when people are hungry
that we're going to need them. Of course, of course we need
that so that they don't tear down the deli. Yeah. Boy, I
would take some precaution. Well, how many people live up
there in Port Angeles? Not a lot.
I think about 20,000 Okay, you could feed everyone maybe 15 You
could feed everyone. Yeah, well, you know, they got the Border
Patrol. You know, this is this Homeland Security USA they got
these guys called Border Patrol now up there and because, you
know, they declared the border to be 100 miles deep. Yeah,
that's the
Constitution free zone, as we call it.
Right. And they're Korean and my wife, she says that, you know,
because she has to drive to another city every couple of
days. Just because these guys are the you know, they're
pulling people over. Yeah. illegal search and seizure.
Yeah, constant constantly. Yeah. And making them open a trunk and
you know, whatever. And they do get nothing gets a no,
there's, there's a guy who has a website, you got to see it,
check. It's a checkpoint usa.org. And he films every
single and it's great to see because he knows the very simple
laws of of the country in the Constitution. And so they stop
him. And he's filming the whole thing. And he keeps saying, Am I
being detained? Of course, they won't say yes or no is and they
say are you in? That's all they're asking is? Are you an
American citizen? And he won't answer the question, because of
course, he doesn't have to. And he says, Am I being detained?
Answer the question, Am I being detained? And it goes on, it
goes on for like 20 minutes, and then pull over to secondary? Am
I being detained? And they won't answer it. And so he just
doesn't do it. He just stands there. And eventually they every
single video they wind up letting them go because he just
knows his rights and just sit there and said, I'm not gonna
take this shit from you. And I think maybe we should do the
same.
She hasn't been pulled over yet. Now she will. Is she American?
She American citizen? Yeah, yeah. As you're gonna tell them
when they ask her.
She's gonna probably I don't know what she's gonna tell him.
She could blow up. That that
would be not good. And, uh, well, I didn't know your wife
was an IED.
She she will give them lip.
Obviously, that's the problem if you try and if you try to do
that, it never works. Well, maybe she won't. Alright, well,
what she should does she show her those videos.
She drives a van. It's like they don't pull people over. Of
course.
Are you kidding me? Because they're expecting, you know,
like, 100 illegal immigrants to be in the back.
We're talking about what is the immigrants coming in from Canada
from? Are these illegal? Canadians? Yes.
Dammit. Someone has to clean my toilets. The Connected Canadians
do it.
Move these guys down to the south. Some believable, there's
some males going on?
Oh, you think John, you think that this is exactly. If you
look at all these, these checkpoints, and you'll see it
on that guys, but I'm just presuming the guy has his data.
Right? The it rings all around the United States. It's 100
miles and it's called the Constitution free zone. And the
entire outline of the 50 States of America now has all these
checkpoints setup? And hell yeah. Can't you see the net
closing in? It's pretty obvious to me.
I think it should keep people from leaving. Of course.
That's exactly what it is. And it's to keep you away from the
border. And to keep you in fear. And pretty soon we'll we'll have
the military at these checkpoints. You know, that's
gonna happen.
Well, you know, they're already you know, there's this
discussion about the military, you know, helping out
it's called training. It's just a training exercise. These guys
and gals were in Iraq, they're hardened they're coming back and
now they need training what how to be compassionate.
Apparently they use these guys for a checkpoint. military guys
for a checkpoint down in Santa Barbara or someplace down there
just as a kind of a, you know, let the military pull some
drunks over. Yeah.
DUI. It's against the law, right? Yes, it's illegal. We
also talked about this last week, but I don't mind repeating
it. Because it's a huge deal. I
know I challenged you to give me the information about the
Southern California I sent me a link but I still haven't seen
this. I said I if I saw personally,
I showed you a video that wasn't good enough. It has to be you
have to actually well once you get in your car, get off your
inner tube. Put your button your car and go find one and tape it
because it's gonna happen. You'll bump it if I find one
I'll tape it. I met a girl in the coffee shop right around the
corner from the new house. For us he's from San Francisco cute
girl and said this What are you doing here says going to school
and then went to work as hard as I can. I don't ever want to go
back. You bitters is gonna be shit in America. I don't want to
be there anymore. That you think it's gonna be an event any
better here, which have also emerged I think it'd be worse
than I agree. And I think it will be and and I'm just seeing
more and more people stop me on the street, begging for money in
London, in San Francisco was jaded and used to it. And I'm
always a good target people always coming up to me. I guess
I don't look threatening enough. They won't ask me for my
autograph, but they'll try and bum a cigarette or a quarter off
for me any day. And I'm seeing more of that in London. So yeah,
I like to I like every especially guys on the freeway
exits, which are all over the place. And you know, these guys
are at every exit
only in America, by the way, you don't see that in in many other
countries.
Yeah, I know. It's weird, but it's actually mostly in the bay
area you don't see in many other cities. But the I always I try
to keep them do I haven't done it much recently. I think only
have a few left. I tried to keep a box of baseball caps in the
car that were taken from Tech TV years ago. That's a big
thinkers.
And you hand that out to people asking you for money.
Yeah. Well, the most of them need a hat. And so I give them a
big thinkers cap and I did something, especially when the
show was still
being aired. Or, John, you're such a humanitarian.
I always found it highly amusing. And I think it was
right in many people's days. To see a guy with a sign begging
for money with a tattoo that says big thinker. That wasn't
cruel, was it?
It pretty much borders on shooting kittens.
Now. The guy's got a nice hat.
The guy wants to eat. He's got a nice hat. It's alright don't
worry about it. A bomb is gonna save him. It's all good.
So anyway, ya know, I also if I have food, I'll give them food.
Please don't carry a lot of money with me. You know, just to
give away to people from my car. How about the hat
about that bag? thoughtful about that bag of quarters you're
always toting around to your car
those quarters because you did a lot of people you know 15 minute
charges average just go let me give you some advice anyone that
thinks you're going to be a tour do not go to San Francisco to
the worst place in the world. Yeah it's a quaint it's got a
cable cars you know it got some workers
but still go to the look at
the cable car you know go up and down the cable car and go look
at the Golden Gate Bridge and drive around for a few minutes
go down to Worlds crookedest street and you know take a trip
to Alcatraz and then get out because it's a horrible place.
Bombs and homeless and criminals everywhere. Yeah, everyone's on
the cell phone talking to somebody bumping into each
other. It's very dangerous. And, and the parking like a metered
parking metre is why I got his bag the quarters it's five
minutes for a quarter. Right?
Five I thought it was 15 It's five
five download into quarters up you got your last your first
five minutes you got to put another quarter in. It's
unbelievable.
No wonder out calls for hookers are so expensive they got to pay
for all that parking.
Anyway it's like you know it's a profit centre those parking
metres are supposed to be institute like they were they
haven't been friends with the blue disc and you put the disc
up there. The parking was always supposed to be monitored to get
keep it moving. You wanted to have a timer that was said You
okay, you've been here that long. So he was there all
panties. They weren't supposed to be profit centres. You know,
did you know just make money off of you. The city is supposed to
encourage people to be there and have a good time and do whatever
they want. But this city of San Francisco discourages people
from coming to it. That's certainly where the vehicle. So
I would say I would say don't go to San Francisco ever.
What a great endorsement. You could be in one of those.
Schwarzenegger come to California ads, you and Maria
and Arnold will be great.
California itself may be a questionable place to visit
well $46 billion in the hole and looks like it's going belly up.
I don't know how that works. When when when a state actually
just goes bankrupt. What happened?
They don't pay anybody anything that they owe them. They're
bankrupt.
Right. So then does that mean the cops stopped functioning?
They just stopped working?
And probably well, you know, they hope that the volunteer,
really it will really come down to that you won't get some kind
of I mean, can't it can't California become a bank holding
company and qualify for some tarp?
Maybe.
In fact, if I will, I know if I were Schwarzenegger, I'd be
trying that. That we're not going to we're going to be a
bank holding company, our state of California and we're gonna
we're gonna need some of that money.
I don't know what they're gonna do. And all I know is that the
state did New York State is also in trouble in the city of New
York is close to being bankrupt.
Well, the city of New York took all the pension money that's
that's how they're solving it is by literally take them they
admitted just they were taking the pension money.
Yeah, that's some solution, isn't it?
You come over here, man, you're not gonna want to go back.
You're gonna want to stay because this is the epicentre
right here
but your house
now this country, it's still the British Empire. That's what's
going on. So I keep my enemies close.
Yeah, well, there's some truth to that and at least
certainly in the in the financial world there is You
bet. Kidding. Oh, you know,
the Brits have always been the, you know, the big shots in every
you know, they really screwed up on this last one have to say,
well, it got out of control and got way too big and everybody
was way too greedy. But I'm still convinced that this the
the bubble bursting is is intended to happen. Yeah, the
way I see it in very simple terms. Blow it up, then steal
the money, trillions of dollars and pounds and euros and
whatever. I went straight to the bankers, they all paid
themselves, they all got their bonuses. And then so we know the
first 100 and 20 billion went straight into bonuses. Take that
money, you know, and then ride the wave of the devaluation and
you know, spread it out. Maybe pounds, Euros, Yen, whatever,
make sure you got something everywhere, and then go and then
leave.
And then you go on a buying spree. Well, next now next to
your next you devalue. I mean, the whole deflation
the banks. Exactly. Then they buy up all of the assets of
going all the companies cheap. Buy all the land cheap. Buy all
the houses cheap. Absolutely. Yeah. So first, I needed to get
the money that just took place. Here this, have you not received
this this thing circulating the internet? I've seen two versions
of it. One is about acorns. The other is about monkeys.
Now I've seen neither one I don't get spam.
It's not spam. My friends send it to me. And let me just read
it to you because it's if I can find it. It's It's essentially a
simple way to understand what happened with the bailout. And,
man, see, this is where we need like a commercial break or
something so I can go and find it. Or you could just say
something?
Well, in August, I was thinking that I had on the blog, a very
funny cartoon from Calvin and Hobbes is apparently 15 years
old, which more or less described the situation I
thought in a cartoon form better than anything I've run into
elsewhere. And can we share this with the listeners?
Well, it's hard to because you can't see the cartoon. But let
me let me I'll tell you what, let me if the blogs running,
which of course you know, we've had nothing but trouble since we
upgraded to 2.7. Turns out
Oh, really? What kind of trouble but this is a WordPress,
which somebody on Twitter said You know, I've had nothing but
trouble since I went to 2.7 and this is what you did? Is it
blogs crashing is like a mess. I mean, right now it's up I'm glad
for that was some really screwy stuff on here. I'll find a
cartoon just within a couple of days. You get it? It's a title.
15 year old cartoon prediction of your starts off with the with
Calvin and this little girl whose name I can't remember. She
goes up to him and he's got a lemonade stand. And she says 15
bucks a glass, which it says and he says That's right. You want
some? And she says how do you justify charging $15? He says
supply and demand. She turns around, there's nobody there.
She says where's the demand? I don't see any demand. He says
there's lots of demand. Yeah, sure. As the sole stockholder in
this enterprise, I demand monstrous profits on my
investment. As President and CEO of the company, I demand an
exorbitant annual salary. And as my own employee, I demand a high
hourly wage and all sorts of company benefits and there's
overhead and actual production costs. She pointed. Laminated
says but it looks like you just threw a lemon in some sludge
water. Well, I have to cut expenses somewhere if I want to
stay competitive. Then she says What if I got sick from that?
And he says Caveat emptor is the motto We stand behind. I'd have
to charge more if we followed health and environmental
regulations. She walks out saying you're out of your mind.
I'm going home to drink something else. And he says,
sure put me out of a job. It's your anti business types who
ruin the economy. sulks goes over to his mom and says I need
to be subsidised. Ah, that's a good one. It is actually quite
funny.
Let me just say So far he is fucking the FAA.
So I guess yeah, all that good went through all that rigmarole
you still can't find it. That's okay. Well, we can do it next
week.
Hold on. Yeah. The problem is, please, oh, don't crash please
don't crash. Safari. Oh, man. Safari crashed. Yeah. And, and
it's like hosing out the entire computer. I'm trying to quit it.
Oh, please.
Safaris, taking down the show. Ah,
okay. I was able to quit it. Oh, thank you, Steve Jobs. You're
fantastic. Okay, so the story is very simple. There was a village
and one day a guy came to the I'm doing this from memory. It's
pretty simple. And one day a guy came to the village and said,
I'll give you $20 For every monkey you can deliver to me. So
the townspeople go out and they start getting some monkeys. They
bring him back, and he pays me 20 bucks bucks for each monkey.
And then they comes back the next day says, hey, you know
what? Monkeys are pretty hot. Now. I'll give you 25 bucks for
every monkey. So townspeople go out, it's a little bit harder,
you know, because they got a shitload of monkeys for 20
bucks. But they find some they bring them back and guys like
pays 25 bucks per monkey. Next day comes back he says, I'm
going to give you 50 bucks for the monkeys are so hot right now
give you 50 bucks for every monkey you can deliver to me.
And the townspeople like as assistant came with him because
he had to leave and go back to the city. So his assistant
stayed there. And the townspeople, you know, they
tried but they couldn't find any monkeys. So the the assistant
says, hey, look, listen, here's what I'll do. I got like, 100
monkeys, I'll sell them to you guys for 35 And then when he
comes back, you sell it to him for 50 and of course he sells a
$35 monkeys to the townspeople and neither of the guys come
back. And that is exactly what the bailout is all about.
That's funny. Yeah.
But I liked that because you know, people can understand a
story like that. That's exactly what's
a con Yes. Thank
you. Con indeed. And not the kind of con that we like in the
south of France.
All right, so anything else but do How was your Christmas by the
way? You never we never talked about it?
It was treeless. Oh, and we had no tree we're in the middle of
boxes. We knew this would
happen. You guys have Boxing Day.
Yeah, I'm not quite sure what Boxing Day actually is other
than a reason for 10,000 Idiots to line up at Selfridges and
stormed down the doors at 7am which is what happened.
But says means you know when I first saw Boxing Day which was
in Canada was their biggest that's the gift exchange day,
isn't it? Yeah, but I never knew that. I thought it was like some
day that was the Boxer Rebellion or there was some match going to
be a boxing match. I had no idea what it meant. And then I feel
somebody told me I was an idiot to box your old gifts up and
take them back.
Oh, really? Well, they are all the stores are going out of
business and retailers in battle at dawn is the headline in the
fenit Financial Times and literally 10,000 people rushing
in to get all these deals before all these companies go out of
business. They expect 15 retail chains to go in the next six
months. Really? Yeah. No, it's really bad. And you know,
Woolworths went out of business. I told you that they're
literally selling the lockers, the employee lockers now, at
some of these low
end. Yeah, true. What I don't know. People will buy it. How
many stores have employee lockers that
Woolworths has been around for a long time? Yeah, they're old
fashioned old school. 27,000 employees out as of January
fifth. But I'm gonna get me a damn cheap set of TVs, that's
for sure.
Oh, yeah, there should be
some good deals or revisions. Oh, fantastic deals.
What do you what's a good deal there because we have right here
in the Costco. We have the 42 inch plasma is going for 679 or
so. And I thought that was a pretty good price. But now I'm
starting to see 50 inches going for like 700
Yeah, I saw a 50 inch plasma and it was marked at 425 pounds
below that's good. So that's probably just a little bit under
that price. Not much but yeah, I've been doing 70% off. It's
been amazing and we buy a bed it was a bit a $2,000 bed 700
pounds. It's a you know there's done
now's the time to spend more money.
Yeah, I want to help the economy. Pump some money in.
Even wind bargains all over the place too, which is kind of
problematic. Why is that problematic? Boy, I've got so
much wind micellar now because of all these deals and no you
don't want you can't you don't have any place to store
anything. I got plenty of places I got a whole basement but I
still like I don't you know, I got a, you know, just too much.
I mean, I have I know how I want my drinking process is and as I
drink a lot of mostly samples to have to decide what to buy, and
I can you know, I can't keep buying stuff that I just got too
much I grew up, you know, you can't drink fast. There's some
people that have these wine cellars with like 10,000
bottles, and I'm like, What are you going to do with this stuff?
You can't get through it. You can't you know, too much of
it'll go bad. You know, because wine doesn't necessarily age and
let's assume some wines do but not all of them. And you know,
what are you doing with the cellar this size? Now it's
really cute.
Do you have a drinking setup in your in your cellar? So you can
actually crack a bottle there and sit down and drink
in my cellar up in Port Angeles? I do.
Oh, that's hot. And it's so humidified and it's got all the
coffee right
drink believe me. Oh, so yeah. Seller up there. I mean, this
one here's a net natural seller the one up there is cold
actually so I think it's probably too cold
so you don't have a constant temperature shouldn't be kept in
stone.
It is a constant temperature. It's constantly holy cool. I
know you know, you know what I'm asking obviously is like
we have all that gear I have a natural set. I don't need it.
You know if I was living in Arizona Yeah, I'd probably have
something like that.
Your own natural you slay me
who I would like to put in a show. You know I think the
coolest thing to do. You know they think about because we have
a funny incline in our property is to get a bulldozer and
bulldoze up a yeah, go get like a Quonset hut and uncover it and
make a che which is the which is a wine cellar that's above
ground. That's very common. And a buddy but it really dirt cool
because it's like above ground. And it's like, because you don't
you really cellars in the Pacific Northwest where we are
is not just a sandy soil and it's just going to have a lot of
seepage. I mean, you guys, it's just not a good idea. And I
mean, you had to have big thick cement walls, it's not worth
doing. But as Shea is really a good concept and you just walk
in, you can set it up with a you know, a little tasting bar in
there and you'd have all your stuff stacked up. It kind of
cool. It'll never happen.
I was just gonna say once you crank up the digger I'll be
right over
on my way. Just need to rent a you know a bulldozer
Alright, interesting. I just got an email from someone. Regular
dropper no agendist here. I'm guessing you move to bleep bleep
by now and thought you might want to know what the night
life's like their guy knows exactly where I'm moving. How
does he know that?
I think he must have mentioned Oh no,
I've never mentioned I've said SW for but he actually has the
street.
Oh, he's probably within my in my shakes. Yeah. And he's
he's given me some some some tips on where to go get
hammered. I did check though. I did a walk around today. Not a
single at least not that I can see not a single CCTV camera in
the square. Which Yeah, it's very nice to know you're not
being spied upon by the government.
Yeah. So yeah, that will last
for a while at least I hope Amen.
Yeah. All right. So you'd be there a hidden they may be
hidden. No, no, no, no, I don't think that they don't bother.
Now. They
don't do that yet. So anyway, so Christmas was in between boxes.
It was it were very low key because we always, you know, and
this has been this way since Christina was a baby and I was
like, every day is Christmas with us. So it's not, you know,
Patricia and I are Patricia mainly will cook a nice meal and
we'll sit down and we have a good time and we'll we'll watch
a movie together. But we generally, you know, there's
there's always a gift exchange. And it's more about the annual I
always ask for books. So my daughter gave me the book
spliffs, two, which is the second volume of the history of
marijuana and hemp. Which is such a nice present is the gift
that keeps on giving.
as it may, is it printed on hemp?
I don't think so. That actually would have been let me just
check that would have been smart. I guess.
I'd been cool. Probably stink up the place though.
See, Tim Pilcher wrote this by
the way now somebody's gonna write in Yeah, doesn't smell I
use him wearing clothes.
Well, there is a first of its kind of cool because it has a
like a burn hole in the cover. Which is intentional, but it is
an actual hole. Which anyone who is a spliff Meister will know
but yeah, it does go in quite a lot of detail. In fact, it It
has some interesting facts in here that in the mid to late
1800s farmers in the United States were obligated by law to
grow hemp. And they were you know, they were paid for it but
they couldn't just grow anything else they had to use a portion
of their farmland for the growth of hemp because it was very
important at the time was a great industrial
thing. Yeah. used in other things.
Well, not just rope and well blue jeans. The original blue
jeans, of course, were were made of hemp, Levi Strauss. Is that
right? Yes. That you didn't know. Yeah. The original, the
original blue jeans from the Levi Strauss company. I just
lost my microphone. There we go. Which is, I think still based in
San Francisco. Yeah. Yeah, the original blue jeans were made
out of hemp. Henry Ford, we talked about that. Last week,
Henry Ford made a a hemp car. Which is a YouTube video of
people actually banging in the car with a crowbar? Not Yeah,
we mentioned that last week. And I get we're even now. Yeah.
But you know, this. I'm just saying there's a mention of it.
And what's cool is they have the top 50 stoners all the people
who were well known smokers and as
who are the top 50 stoners. I mean, give me a couple of the
top five. Well,
I'll give you a couple. How about Bing Crosby?
Really? Well,
according to the book, the king of crude maintains his mellow
demeanour, thanks to a few talks on the herbs. And, you know, I
believe that, you know, musicians I mean, like you'd
have to assume that most people in the music business are you
know,
well so I'll give you a couple more Willie Nelson. Of course we
know about really, Whitney Houston but she smoked a lot
more than marijuana the obvious, you know, Mick Jagger, Paul
McCartney, Louis Armstrong, of course all the jazz guys, they
they sang about it in their songs. Then many different
titles, like if any of you who sing about them are more
surprised names like Crosby. Okay. Queen Victoria,
Queen Victoria,
not an actual stoner as such Old Vic Euston older used to the
neck back bottles of cannabis tincture to help her ease her
savage period pains nicely put her physician Sergej Russell
Reynolds reported in the first issue of the Lancet in 1890,
that he had been prescribing cannabis for 30 years, and he
considered it quote one of the most valuable medicines we
possess. This typical use of marijuana for medicinal purposes
surely had her royal high, royalty high and most amused
Okay, that's cool. William Sherrill
Highness is a funnier gag. Well,
the royalty high is the way he wrote I agree. You should have
edited this book. William Shakespeare, Newt Gingrich.
Well, Norman Mailer, no surprise Allen Ginsberg. Mean Hunter
Thompson Yeah, right. Jay and Silent Bob. Now there's a
shocker. Larry Hagman, Morgan Freeman. Robert Mitchum, Robert
Altman, Jack Nicholson, Jane and Peter Fonda Cary Grant and Diane
cannon. Whoa.
Cary Grant was also a huge LS
acid, right? Yeah. Didn't you used to do acid with Nicholson?
I don't know. Yeah, I wasn't I wasn't there as before my time.
No, it wasn't before your time. You just weren't there.
Carrie Fisher was on the shootout show with Peter Guber,
and Peter bark and she who's and she's actually quite funny. I
didn't realise that she's a she's a she's a script fixer.
Carrie Fisher.
Yeah, the actress apparently. Yeah. Yeah. My real job is she's
a writer. So yeah, it's a huge job. Yeah, no. In fact, like a
Mercer says that this category of writer called the body and
fender people in Hollywood. She then gently showed her could the
credits as she drove on, she fixed a lot of scripts. And she
says, you know, you have to do in the way she described how you
had to do it. And she's always wanted to be a writer. She never
wanted to be an actress. Anyway, Jen, she's kind of shoved out.
But she was very funny. I thought she had a lot of one
liners and she apparently writes humour into the scripts. But she
talked about the fact that her mom, she was, I guess having
problems with drugs or something when she was young and her mom
decided that she could get have her get a lecture from Cary
Grant.
Well, we just have to say her mom, of course says Oh, Debbie
Reynolds is her mom. Of course. Yeah.
Debbie Reynolds is her mom. And so she did. She made Cary Grant.
And apparently Debbie Reynolds didn't know that Cary Grant was,
you know, LSD stoner excellent owner. Yeah, we'll have some
lectures about how great LSD was
fantastic. I bet a bet she did a lot.
Could be sad. No, she didn't say.
Wow. Yeah. Eddie Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. Are
parents.
Yeah. So was he was very amusing this show, which is one of my
favourite shows. And I have just to look it up because I just
watched it the last night before I went to bed. I guess you're
taking it off of AMC, and they're either killing the show
or they're moving it someplace. I've never seen it. It's a great
show. But outside make
sure if you just tell me when it's on, then I can log into the
sling box, my choice Detroit or Hawaii.
It's a am on Sunday mornings. And then they do a repeat
showing some other time during the week, which I don't know.
But you can look it up on the AMC channel guide on online and
it's called shoot out used to be called Sunday morning shoot out
and they change at the shoot out. And it's the you know, they
essentially it's an inside baseball show. They have Barton
goober and the two of them, who are especially goobers is
astonishing in terms of is just the stuff that he knows and all
the stuff that he's done, but they have all these different
people come on that are all these people that you'll that
will never show up on a talk show because they're just too
shy all they want to talk about the business they're in or
they're uncomfortable in most venues. But on this show, you
got the you know, the editor in chief of variety and the
superstar you know, executive producer type who's also a
professor at UCLA, and they're very relaxed with these two
guys. And they and you hear all these interesting, you know,
inside baseball anecdotes about the movie industry and what's
going on and trends and how people you know, losing money or
what they're spending. They had the guy who did transformers
that faint famous director does these big films that came
through his name. The
guy who was was fighting against blu ray. He was the I think I
think it was in the HD DVD camp. Or no, I think it was angry
because his film wasn't coming out on Blu ray that guy Yeah,
that guy
a anyways, I can think of his name in a second org you look it
up for people out there can look it up. He's he was really I
mean, he's got a really terrible reputation. People don't like
him. But he was he was on the show and it was just it was so
enlightening but the most interesting thing he said was
when they tried to get him to do the movie and apparently was
Steven Spielberg that that talked him into because he
didn't want to do it. He says they wanted him to go to Canada
instead of using his own crew and he works everybody to death
you know it makes him he does like to you know to takes and
something like 40 setups a day instead of the normal seven or
eight and he says he goes to Canada and he took one look
around he says there's something wrong here this is a scam he
says I'm going back to Hollywood and shoot this movie you know my
own and it nobody ever followed up on this on this this this
concept that he had the whole thing was the whole Canada deal
which a lot of movies are made up there is some sort of is
rigged or some sort of Something's fishy about it
so it's all it's all just a tax write off and is supposed to be
cheaper. Isn't that the whole deal or is this something
it's a tax write off? It's cheaper and the government's you
know up there support some of it but he didn't like it. Like any
any bit of it. I don't know why he never went into any detail.
It's
probably probably the labour yes to use local labour I
think are some I guess. Yeah, maybe.
It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. It makes sense. Because I think
Leo when he would go up to that, because he doesn't still go up
to Canada for that nobody cable show does he? I don't think so.
Yeah, cuz I know that he would he would have Callie on and they
couldn't pay her or whatever. You know. I mean, I don't know.
It was weird, but it all had to do with with regulations. And
you know, having having to be someone special for there wasn't
a Canadian Callie Louis available. Like that.
Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Which is
originally Louis and which is very French. Now the French have
Yeah, no, that's absolutely the French we got this crazy, you
know, the
crazy, but I'm not against it in general. I like it. I like the
fact that certainly in Canadian broadcast outlets, you know, the
Echo, certainly on the radio and X amount, or X percentage of the
music must be Canadian produced at least. And I think that's a
good thing.
But have they got enough music after they can do that?
Yeah, but you know what I mean?
I think we're done. You looked at the clock. We're we're
running at 150
Holy crap, we shouldn't be doing that. On On. Everything's
crashing today. Play edge Okay. So next week do you want to try
phone calls?
Yeah, sure.
I would the what I was thinking is I can identify where people
are calling fun from. I thought it'd be kind of fun if we're
talking about so we're talking about Canada, you know, I can
just say, Okay.
Michael Bay, that's the director. Right?
I could just say, Hey, listen, are there in Canada come on in
and tell us what the story is? You know? Good. Try it. We've
known to screen the calls, which means that people that
you suck and the guy's gonna hang on that's,
that will be okay. But it's people going Hey, are you doing
or nothing to say or on a Skype? Skype headsets are the worst. It
just is. Not, it doesn't work. If it's just a headset, and
you're calling it it sucks. It's absolutely horrible. Unlike our
connection today. Okay, coming to you from Gitmo nation East in
the United Kingdom. My name is Adam curry.
And I'm a get West here in Northern Silicon Valley, also
known as the San Francisco Bay area.
We'll talk together next week. I started to get my name.
Let me get my name out. Do it again. I'm John C. Dvorak. I
will talk to you again next week right here on no agenda.