Welcome, everybody to a brand new programme on the pod Show
Network, which could be titled A number of things. We chose no
agenda. But it could be the show with no imaging. No, no. No
content yet. The only thing it is two guys with an idea of
putting together a, what we call a John A agenda list show agenda
show. Exactly. John C. Dvorak in California, Adam curry here in
London, something we cooked up. Was it in like a four minute
phone call? Hey, we should do a show together. Okay. Let's call
it no agenda. Okay. And here we are.
Well, of course, the basis for a show like this. And I think
everybody out there who who's ever had a car or who has kinds
of conversations with friends, they occasionally especially
when the conversations go on and on stage, you know, that would
have been an interesting thing for other people to listen to.
True. True. And, and I think basically, and I've actually
thought about doing a show with my wife, because sometimes she
does a news analysis over the phone. Sometimes it's pretty,
pretty astonishing. But
have you ever had the shows I do with Patricia with my wife?
Yeah, same kind of thing. It's great. Right. And we like to
have a conversation. Yeah. Right. And I think, you know, to
some extent, Don, and drew and so almost everybody who, you
know, like to chat pretty much provides this kind of
entertainment. So this week, we're having we were starting up
we do we're running on Skype for anybody out there. So and Adam
being in London is going to probably get it we're going to
step on each other once in a while. But this week, Adam did a
thing. An interview with the senator or there's a guest he's
a congressman. Yeah. Where's he from?
Texas.
The Texas Congressman Ron Paul,
Republican Texas, Congressman Ron Paul. Yeah.
Yeah, so what did you think?
Well first of all, it was kind of interesting that I got this
thing together and like a week and I didn't really have to do
anything I just said on the show, I want to talk to this guy
and that happened that would that to me was a big, big Oh,
wow. And I don't know what it means says about him his
campaign or where my show or podcasting or whatever,
alternative media general, but I thought that that was cool, just
as it is. But talk on Skype. No, he was on a on a landline. I did
it on Skype, though. Okay. Did you not like the quality?
No, I was I was I was thinking he was on Skype, and I'm going
to myself or thinking to myself, hmm, that's pretty weird. If a
guy's on Skype, and he's, you know, I don't see Congressman as
being that savvy about anything.
Yeah. And I asked him a couple questions, you know about net
neutrality and some other internet related things. And
it's kind of hard to gauge how savvy he is. First of all, he's
a very smart guy in general. I mean, and very very he's a good
communicator knows how to how to be an interviewee I loved it
when he when he, you know, you could hear his, his aide, it was
probably Jesse, you know, whispering something in his ear,
which actually wasn't a whisper, because I heard it quite
clearly. And then, you know, and Paul goes, Ron Paul goes, let me
just suggest something else to you. I have a couple more
minutes. Like Oh, fuck. All right. Let me get this folder
scrunched in there real quick.
Well, that's a shame that people have to do that all the time
now. So anyway, I made notes on the I listened to the the
interview, and I made a bunch of notes. Okay, and I want to go
over a few of them with you. Cool. One is your your you
insisted on calling him Dr. Ron has though he's like a disc
jockey. That was highly funny.
Well, I'm glad you liked that. Because I like giving people
names. You know, because we've got comic strip blogger. We've
got prolific programmer, and Dr. Ron, in fact, all medical
doctors who I who I meet I called Dr. Ron or Dr. At least
if they're not if they're Pete, I call him Dr. Pete, but I'm
glad you liked that he didn't seem to mind.
Well, you know, he told you to call him Ron, but you said I'm
gonna call your doctor on. And he said, whatever.
But doesn't that sound much better? You know, Dr. Ron, it
has, it's a German thing, actually. If you are a
professor, or you're a doctor, and
that and so why want to dip since people are going to if
they're going to start listening to this show, they might as well
realise a couple of things here. One of them is that that I'm an
American and Adam is technically an American, but he is a
European and so one of the reasons we want to do this show
is so we can kind of bring some cultural togetherness
I'm a world citizen, John, not just a European you're what a
world citizen
Yeah, world says that's what that's what yards like you'd
like to call yourself. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Gotta go to China NS
and use that. See how funny okay. So when they when they
arrest you that is so anyway, so I was I got the biggest kick out
of this doctor on you and you ran it through the whole show
you always you know when you brought his name is always
doctor right. Well, yeah, but
but that's logical because I need you know, because if and I
watched a lot of interviews and a lot of things he's done and
and people are always addressing you know, everyone has a way to
address someone in the media landscape. Right. And so with
him it's like Dr. Ron Paul, Congressman Paul, you know, the
whole Ron Paul, like two first names is kind of weird to start
with. So I just felt it'd be easier if I just call them Dr.
Ron, because then I knew I wouldn't, you know, be stumbling
over. Congressman Ron Paul, you know,
right, right, right. Yeah, the two first names thing, it's like
a Hollywood name from the 30s. So anyway, then the other thing
I wrote down on this little notepad of mine was people
should go back there and listen to this interview. Again,
because, Adam, I think he spends about four and a half hours
kissing the guy's ass and chatting before he even lets
Paul speak one word.
Yeah, you know, people mentioned that to me. And, and they did.
But you know, it's like, here's what I didn't do. I didn't
interrupt the guy continuously. All I wanted was to just hear
what he had to say we had agreed that, you know, I would just,
and that's what I wanted, you know, it's like, okay, I want to
throw something that you talk about it until you stop talking.
So I figured I'd get all my talking up front. I was very
sincere, by the way about about what I said at the beginning. So
and yeah, I meant that. And also, this guy. And it was very
clear at the end, he doesn't know what my show was about. It
doesn't know who I am. You know. So I gotta give the guy a little
bit of background, right? Because you just can't count on
anyone else to do that. That's why I did it.
Okay, well, here's what I limited. I'm going to read from
my notepad if you want to know what what I wrote down as this
was going on. All right. long ass kissing moment. And then the
next line is, when does Paul actually talk?
It was only two minutes.
Well, two minutes, you know is can be
Well, I'm sorry, I could have gotten your question in.
So anyway, you by the way, you got my questions in now. Now the
thing that I admire about this interview, and I and I, you're
probably not aware of the fact that this was an amazing thing
that you did, only because nobody ever does it. And it's
kind of on the one hand is like, you know, kind of a grammar
school question. And the other hand is like a question is never
asked enough. And it's interesting to have somebody
from his position, explain it. And that's when you you ask the
question. Like, what, insofar as Paul's concerned or what is he?
Or you had Paul explain what's the difference between a
democracy and a republic? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I thought
that was a an educational moment. I didn't like the
way he explained it, actually. Did you think he did a good job
on that? He was correct. But I was really looking for an even
simpler answer. Quite honestly, or a short. I don't know. To me,
it's like okay, yeah, you explained it, but people who
don't understand even the fact that America is a republic, I
don't think it hit the mark entirely. But that is exactly
what I tended to do. John, if I wanted to bait the guy I mean,
that's easy. I can debate the guy all day long. I think that
is you know what people are saying oh, well it was a good
interview you know, I learned a lot but wasn't really explosive
you know, that's exactly what mainstream media tries to do is
tries to pull someone out you know, catch him on his words get
him to say something stupid and then you know make it a headline
I just wanted to hear the guy talk.
Yeah, no, I actually thought that was a great a great move
and it was something I've never seen anybody do so that was
good. Thank No there was a bring back troops thing there was a
cache as clay and oh no the armed militia this was
interesting to me because it brought it to cash this clay
thing is my notes there was a Paul was talking about how you
know we're Americans by right are supposed to be armed to the
teeth right? For whatever reason, and I'm reminded
reminded me of an anecdote that was interesting. When because
when people bring up gun control and things like that, and I'm
not a gun control advocate or non advocate, I have to say I do
like shooting guns and I like I have a lot of friends that have
collections we will go out to a range and shoot Yeah, man turn
John doesn't Ajaan no doesn't actually doesn't turn me on but
it's a lot of fun. Okay, anyway, so no, like an arsonist. Anyway.
So I visited The the mansion or the former mansion of the
antebellum or the Civil War, I guess he was a state officer
Cassius Clay, who was a Henry Clay's? I think his brother,
okay. And cashes Clay had this place out and outside. I think
it's outside of Lexington, Kentucky. People are going to
start writing Do you don't know anything. But I think it's
Lexington. So I went in there and caches clays is very famous
senator. And he one time a cannon, apparently. And he was
an abolitionist, which was not popular in the area. And so they
tried to like fuck with him. And the locals. And so then the
including the sheriff and and the local police, and he had a
cannon in front of his house that he filled with shrapnel.
And when they came to, you know what, either get him or arrest
him or harass him or whatever they're going to do. He shooted
Adam,
which was his second amendment rights being exercised.
Exactly. And, you know, eventually they stopped coming
over. And he needed to do that. Otherwise, you know, bad things
were gonna happen to him. No, thanks to the local authorities.
And I've always thought that was like, you know, people moan and
groan about it, assault weapons hold arrest. Skye has like a
cannon that he's shooting. And so so I'm always thinking back
on that, like, what would have happened if he didn't have the
cannon?
So I think there's lots of modern day analogies to that
story.
None that I can think of, but yeah, they probably are. Now, by
the way, that the funny story about the about the caches, Clay
house, you know, in caches clay, of course, is who Muhammad Ali.
Yeah, named himself after right? No, no, he named himself
Muhammad Ali. He was born calves born Cassius Clay, okay. Because
most of the lot of real you know, a lot of famous blacks are
named after famous whites, or I mean, I'm sorry, a lot of black
slaves were named after famous whites and became a tradition in
the black community to name people after famous people.
Okay, and so cashes Clay was named after this guy. Now the
kicker and anybody who happens to be in the area of Lexington
should go check out this. This is actually a very interesting
place. Because for one thing, there's a bunch of little, like
busts that showed for example, his sister's clothes and the
some of these people during that era, in the 1850s. Were, if they
were forced seven, it was a miracle, especially the women
that weren't getting a lot of vitamin B. And his his, his wife
was obviously a she was a nice wife, I'm sorry, I think was a
sister. This has been years ago when I was over there. His
sister was and I should obviously read something before
I do these interviews or these this show with you.
Why ruin the spontaneity? Yeah, right. Um, so I'm waiting for
the ETA on this point you're about to make.
I'm getting there. So anyway, the so long road anyway, so his
his sister was a woman, you know, activist. When you start
to see the pictures of her and all her friends, you could tell
she was kind of she was a lesbian. It's kind of amusing.
But anyway, the story I'm trying to get to, but she was like four
foot two or something. They had like a thing of, you know, like,
what the clothes she wore. She couldn't have been bigger than a
12 year old.
I bet she had a huge as cannon
that she might have. Anyway, so I'm looking around this house.
And there's an there is a newspaper article about a famous
African who came to visit Kentucky and he visited the
house and he met with caches clay, and his name was Muhammad
Ali. Wow. Yeah, that's what I thought. And so I was like, wow,
that's cool. And I'm now I'm thinking that like Cassius Clay
himself, the boxer may, you know,
because he eat heard the story, and he named himself Muhammad
Ali.
He may have actually visited this museum. And so that that's
a cool name. Because there's a weird connection there that I
there's never been explained to me. That's the story.
Oh, John, I'm so happy. You told me that story. Well, the
funny thing about that, anyway, your interview triggered my
thoughts on that story.
Okay. So that was the second amendment question, which I
actually felt he answered really well. And responded, kind of the
way I had expected when I said, Well, you know, do we have to
defend ourselves from internal dangers yet? And he's like,
Well, that's what I'm trying to avoid.
Yeah, I noticed that. Yeah, he's, he's, he's like an inch
away from thinking it might be something weird to think about,
but we don't have cannons. anymore.
No, they've been taken away. And by the way, I have stuff that's
pretty, pretty powerful Mojo.
Yeah, yeah.
I got a Japanese machine gun. I have no I've no, no bullets, but
I got to make bullets was bayonet on it
a machine gun with a band net? Yeah, it's really weird. It's
not just a stationary machine. And it's like the one you carry
around like, yeah,
yeah, you have a tight tripod. It kind of folds out. The
there's a tripod on the front. And then there's like a stick
thing in the back. And it's a belt fed system. My grandfather
took out a machine nest in the South Pacific and brought it
home in pieces.
Huh, yeah. So anyway, he went in. That was fascinating. So
the, then you got him into the thoughtful pregnancy story. Wow.
Yeah. That was interesting. I like that, that that was quite
good.
Well, the so my takeaway from that was that yes, so with right
comes responsibility, I guess is what he's saying. And even the
unborn foetus has a right to life. So you have no right to
remove that even though you have the remote the right to put into
or remove anything you want from your body, but not if you kill,
and what he's saying is another human being, therefore, you need
to respect your responsibility for having sex, which I thought
was okay, that you've some kind of point is made there. But then
he kind of gave an out, which I thought was interesting by
saying, Well, you know, if you can't prove a crime was
committed, ie, if you terminate a pregnancy, I really I don't
know, like first yesterday or whatever, you if you can't prove
it, then you can't prove it. So that was kind of his out, which
was was weird. It seemed to me like he was talking a lot about
late term pregnancy. And you know, and I'm sure this goes
deep into the whole Roe versus Wade, my head hurts just
thinking about I don't know if we can actually resolve this.
Well, you know, I thought it was interesting, because he didn't
take it from a religious perspective,
even though he is very religious. Yeah, well, I
mean, he's obviously we re engineered his thinking, but,
but I've never heard anyone. Actually, I don't know why.
Maybe I'm not listening, which is possible. I don't know anyone
who's actually D took it from a constitutional perspective, that
this person which exists at some point, has constitutional
rights. It's got nothing to do with religion. And if we're
going to, you know, be strict constitutionalist. We have to
give them their rights, even though they're inside some
woman.
Right. Well, that's that was what I asked him to do, of
course, you know, talk about each issue and take it down to
the Constitution, which is what he's running on. As far as you
know, that's it's like he he just every and you know, John, I
don't see anyone. I look, I look at these debates. I don't see
anyone challenging him what he said. He says some pretty
radical and opposing things to the GOP debate. But no one no
one ever calls him on it. He just says these amazing things
and draws it right down to the Constitution. Everyone's like,
Okay, I might as well shut up because you can argue it.
Yeah, I think they've all doing their best to marginalise the
guy. They don't yet. Yeah,
that's exactly what's happening. I agree.
Now, the other one that was interesting, which we talked
about before you had the interview, which was the Ralph
Nader,
that was your idea. You heard I got it in there. Right? Yeah.
And he voided it, claiming that it had nothing to do with it.
Well, he said, No, he said, I wrote it down. I don't know.
It's for personal reasons, is what he said. And then he said,
you know, it would just be too much too much energy. I've tried
it before. It won't work. You know, he says, if I'm not
running Republican, then I can't even get into these types of
debates that it sounded. And I even said, like, you know, this
is a 72 year old guy, you know, he knows that running as an
independent, unless you have, I don't think he actually locked
it out. But unless you have some kind of incredible groundswell,
which is just unbelievable. You know, I'm sure he could be
convinced. If it was very clear that he actually had a shot at
winning as an independent.
Yeah, he, he's done. He's done. The homework. He knows that, you
know, that in the past, the closest thing was ever, ever
come is Teddy Roosevelt ran under the Bull Moose Party, not
really a great name for a party. And then, of course, we had
Ralph Nader more recently, and then Ross Perot had a shot when
Ross kind of drove himself out of the election because he felt
that, you know, somebody, he claims that somebody came up,
knocked on his door and showed them photos or something. And he
has his weird story that he's never really
remember that. Yeah, I do. Remember he was like, you know,
I got to protect my family and my privacy. And wasn't that it,
didn't you? So there
was some somebody knocked on the door. Yeah. And it sounds like a
government agency that said, Look, get out of this thing,
because here's what's going to happen if you don't know that.
threatened him. Yeah, somebody which, you know, may or may not
be true, it's possible it could have been a bluff could have
been any number of things. But
Well, either way, he didn't deserve to be president because
if you're gonna pull it out because of that, then I'm sorry.
You know, that's, that's the job that you, you know you, you can
be killed. If you have that job, no doubt about it, you got to
know that going in. So and if he copped out and if he copped out
by actually, I was gonna ask him that I fucking I didn't get to
it. I wanted to ask him if he feared for his life. You know,
because he has such opposing and sometimes viewed as, you know,
radical viewpoints or people see that as radical or, you know,
and if you actually catch the worst thing, of course, is, you
know, the shits working. So, I was gonna ask him if he was
worried about his own personal safety, as you know, he's
basically gaining traction and you know, could obscure other
people from, from all the attention.
That would have been a good question. Yeah. Sorry. I think
everybody out there should. Once okay. I don't think he's got
that much traction. I think people out there should, if you
want to read something interesting, especially the
European audience, read Confessions of an economic
hitman. A kind of an interesting tale. We don't know whether how
much of it's true or not, but it has a lot of so many elements of
truth. That is a very interesting book, to say the
least. It's also available on tape. Anyway, but yeah, overall,
I thought you did a great job. It was it was a fascinating
interview. And I'd never heard anyone do a really long
interview with the guy like that. Well, you
never do. And, and, or you'll hear, I mean, man, have you ever
listened to like Newsweek online, or there's so many of
these, these are radio news programmes and your NPR type
stuff, and what I hear all the time, and it really bugs the
hell out of me, because it you know, once you tune into it, and
you know, your unconditioned your mind, what you hear is they
did a really, you know, a producer did a really long
interview with someone, and then they'll chop it into bits, and
then they'll have the host asked questions, you know, no sound
like, well, let me ask you about the Second Amendment. Dr. Ron
Paul, what is your viewpoint on this? And then you can clearly
hear the answer from a conversation being cut in you
know, the, the never step on each other. And, you know,
sometimes you can almost hear the edits. And I despise that
because, you know, you can look, it's like reality television,
you could build a story and, and put in answers any way you want.
So, this was completely unedited from beginning to get into the
end. And I yeah, I'm glad you liked it. Because if only we
could get this type of conversation or information or
just impression from all of the candidates, that would be really
nice. But the media, in general just doesn't make it that way
anymore.
You know, another thing you mentioned, when you talk about
that kind of thing is the is the pre interview, which is what a
lot of people like to do i And you and I know, I know, you
don't like him, I don't like him. I've always thought that
they were a bad idea, which is another word you get the person
on. And you you interview them before they actually do the
show. And they talk themselves out. Yeah,
exactly. Exactly. And particularly, and this is what I
hate the most is if you have a funny moment in the pre
interview, and you're laughing, and then you try to recreate
that by asking the same question. And it's just not
funny. The timing is blown. Yeah, it never works. It never
ever. In fact, before we started this, you called me on Skype,
and you want us and you said, hey, you know what? And I said,
No, don't tell me. I don't want to hear it. What was it? By the
way, you want to tell me that forgot?
By the way, and if I told you, you know, I would have thought
see the problem with that people don't get out there when they
you know, immediate people. And you when I when you do a lot of
interviews with other hosts and people you have there are the
two schools of thought. In fact, there's, Larry King has one of
the more interesting schools of thought, although you know, now
he's basically a celebrity interviewer. But when I used to
do his radio show I did three or four times. And the first time
he'd come on his show, and I always kind of, you know, I kind
of admired some of his techniques, even though some
people would say, well, that's just being lazy. And maybe, to
some extent, but one of the things is when the if the first
time you do a Larry King Show, at least used to be in the
radio, Larry and want to meet Yeah, he didn't want to talk to
you. He didn't want to read your book. And the reason and the
reason was for not wanting to read the book, or even seeing a
copy was he figured nobody out there in the audience read the
book. So why so let's start talking about it as though
you're some guy who just met on the street. Yeah. So let's start
from square zero. Yeah. And I always thought that was actually
a pretty interesting technique and the idea and then the other
thing with with I've been on shows where they want to pre
interview and they ask every question they're going to ask
half the time, it never ends up on the show anyway. And then
when you've asked it, there's a real problem. People don't
realise is that when you've just talked about something And, and
you're you're in a complicated interview situation. You're not
absolutely sure that you just told the guy that you don't want
to repeat yourself. Yeah. Example during the pre
interview.
Yeah. You see that on the Tonight Show all the time.
Jalen. Oh, man, that guy, you know, he forgets. If you ever
get stuck in, in an interview process, say, Now wasn't there,
like a really interesting story about your dog or something that
I heard about? And I was like, fuck you that was written on
your piece of paper. And the, the producer said, Hey, she's
got a really cool story about a dog. You got to ask it.
Ya know, it's really lame. Yeah. I mean, I know that they would
they have to pre interview. Both Letterman and Leno have to do a
lot of pre interviews with the guests, because they have a lot
of actors and people on the shows that really are have no
personalities. And in the many times they don't know whether
they're going to be good or not on the show. So they do, they
usually beat him up in the pre interview. And then they
unfortunately, when the real interview comes out, unless the
person has got a lot of personality, they they're tucked
out already. And they come. I mean, do you see numerous people
that you've never seen before? I've always wanted to see him
you realise why they never get on talk shows is because they
haven't got anything to say.
Yeah, well, when I set when this interview got set up, and I
spoke to the communications director, I said, you know,
please, you really have gotten to let you know, Dr. Ron, listen
to my show, at least some of it just so you understand. You
know, it's gonna be really different. I want them to know,
I don't want them to be unprepared. And particularly,
because, you know, there's a lot of fuck us. And they're like,
that'd be funny. And, and he said, Yeah, no, no, I'll be on
the plane with him. And I'll put it on my iPod. And I'll put the
headphones on, so he can listen to and it's okay. Look, there's
only one thing I guarantee you, I'm going to ask. And I really,
it would be it's cool. You know, this is part of part of the
culture of my show. And my audience is this scrunch or
folder thing? And I set it up and said, Oh, yeah, that's
funny. I'll certainly tell them about it. We clearly hadn't told
the guy. And I was like, come on. And he's like, no, no, like,
maybe I can get some information out of you know, as a medical
doctor, can you tell me Is it better to fold or scrunch. Mr.
constitutionalist, comes back with, you know, it's your body.
Do whatever you want with it. All right.
That's an answer. That's what I'm going to use for
announcements. Somebody brings it up. I'm
sure he's just cruncher. I know it. I know it for sure. He can
just see you. You see it in his face. You have anything more on
the Ron Paul thing? Because I got one thing for you.
Okay, go. I'm done. Yeah. Okay, good.
I read something on your blog. Hold on, let me just find it. It
was about thought crimes.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that unbelievable.
You just kind of you just got to tell that story. Because that
blew me away. When I read that. Well, there's
a bill. I think it's hr 1955. That was just been passed with
the exception. I think only three Democrats and three
Republicans voted against it. So the early for me, I just got up.
I'm sorry. Anyway, so they've actually passed this bill, HR
1955. You can look it up and go to the blog and check it out to
varric.org/blog. There it is. And read it. Your Thank you. And
it's an actress if you read between the lines. This is it's
a thought crimes. Bill. It's a bill that doesn't want you to
have any, you know, philosophy.
Let's put it this way. If right now, you and I ever met. If you
and I were talking and we and we say hey, you know, man, we had
the right to bear arms. You know, we should we should go
back and blow the government away. You know, that the bad
guys just that conversation? Particularly I think the
internet has even mentioned specifically in the bill doing
that I think might even be illegal.
Yeah. That's fun. I think Ron Paul actually voted against it.
I checked it he voted against it. Well, he voted against it
but he was in the interview with you I think he came within a
hair of actually violating that law if it was actually a law
right now it's
just a bill but so that means it's passed Congress
it's passed the other house so the Senate has to have you know,
either approve it or do their version and then the President
has to sign off on it but with with the kind of majority of
both parties saying this is a great idea that
way I mean, did these guys read this fucking bill? Or did that
someone just say this is what it's about man he's just vote
yes on this. How does that work? I don't understand that.
I don't I think they're spending too much time with the the you
know, parties with lobbyists you know, collecting money I don't
know what what what they're thinking they won't do the six
people which I should probably put in a blog posting who voted
against this seems to be the only people either read it or
maybe there's other guys think it's a good idea which I really
can't believe
that that would really be frightening. You got I mean, I
It's funny because I went I saw it come through on what Google
Reader and So I went to the blog because you know, of course you
don't get you don't get full articles from your RSS feed.
And you want me to tell you why No.
So I went over, you know, so of course, I click on the link, I
go over, then I gotta click again, because I get your ad.
And I finally get to the story. And, but, you know, there was a
very thoughtful link there to, to the bill. And I guess there
was another story about it that it linked to and from there, you
could you could, by state see which each representative who
had voted Yes. Yay. Or, or no. And I like you know, I'm gonna
remember some of these names. Man, that's messed up.
It's pretty, pretty pathetic. But you know, that's the way
things are right now. So, yeah, well, that's a good call. Let me
give you one. You know, one of the things I've noticed over the
past few days is that people, especially in Europe, or you
know, this, oh, you're in California, how the fires. Yeah.
And the fires are terrible. But the fires are nowhere around
here. They people don't realise that California is around 600
plus miles from one end to the other, maybe more. And it's 450
miles from where I am to the fires because San Francisco and
Los Angeles areas pretty long ways. It's from I don't know,
what's the distance from Wales to London?
Last couple 100 miles, maybe
like that, you know, it's like going to Scotland I guess.
Yeah, yeah. Probably like that. Well, you know, hear hear when
when shit was happening of North people in London Didn't Know
About people were drowning that their homes were floating away.
And it was Neil only up north. And they didn't know I mean, so
imagine if you're in San Francisco versus San Diego. San
Diego is what a good hour's flight on a on a on a commercial
flight. That hour. 15.
Yeah, so
that's about 400 miles.
That's about five almost 500 to San Diego. It's a long way away.
But people you know, they don't understand that. Why should
they? Nobody in the world seems to have a sense of geography.
But the fires are, you know, this is something that I don't
think a lot of people realise either. They got a lot of
publicity, I know in England for sure. And much of Europe, but
they haven't every year. They just this is just the worst it's
ever been but every year, a good portion of Southern California
and sometimes the Northern California or Northern
California too, not as much but we get we get fires up here and
then you just happen that you get the mudslides
I'm sorry, they after that you get the mudslides.
Right. It's a combination. So these happen every year, there's
you know, we have lots of acreage to burn and they burn
them. And they get put them as best they can. And then they
these, these areas turn into mud. And then they write we have
mudslides after that. And they that becomes news. But much of
it's localised, but when they have such a fiasco, like what's
going on, or what's finishing up, we have so many fires all
over the place and the whole areas and you had to evacuate I
think they had to evacuate close to a half
a million people they're saying over here.
Yeah, it's like a half a million.
They're saying a million here. Well,
it could be a million, but I you know, I'm finding it hard to
believe they even evacuated 500,000. Because where did these
people go? Yeah, I don't know. And at that joke, dived into
traffic down. There's already you can't drive in normal
circumstances.
That's what a point there.
I mean, I don't know what was it must have been just a nightmare.
Okay, it's just I wanted to
we, I want to maybe like five more minutes. And then we'll be
at 40 minutes. Let me just ask you. One question. Your your
take on the now approved by the Writers Guild of America strike.
I don't hear anyone talking about this. But I think it
actually will be a pretty big deal. You know about this, John?
A little bit. They're always, you know, they go on strike
every few years, actually,
well, but this is the big one, right?
This is the big this is the group that counts. Yeah, this is
the big one. And
it's about residuals for internet usage. And clearly
stuff is, you know, almost impossible to figure out in any
timeframe, I'm sure.
Yeah, you know, the Writers Guild of all of the different
writers unions have been kind of on the wrong side of the
argument for a lot of this stuff. But at the same time, you
know, they're thinking, Well, you know, when TV first started,
we had a lot of writers doing a lot of work. And there were no
residuals of any sort. And then these things went into some sort
of syndication that was like pre syndication era, and then that
everyone was making money, but the people who actually did the
shows, and then they came up with, you know, some residual
concept after the fact, because there's still a lot of shows
that did get passed around in syndicates that nobody's getting
any money out of as opposed to something like law and order or
some of the newer things that are covered, right. And so they
so I think it's a defensive end a little free Big data about the
internet because you know, IPTV may have some impact on how the
money is distributed and the ideas they don't want these
producers or the companies that own, you know, the rights to
distribute this stuff, finding new ways to distribute without
paying these guys. And so they take a very conservative look at
the internet. And, you know, they just resumed saying no to
everything, because they're just worried sick about getting
screwed again.
And from what I understand, the producers and the networks are
all like, you know, we got a pretty shitty season anyway. So
no, these guys are gonna strike you know, why don't we just let
them strike? And we'll just do we'll get six more episodes out
of everyone and then fuck them, you know, then we'll then we'll
do reruns and make them the bad guy.
Yeah, I guess or maybe they get scabs too, right. I'm not sure
what they're going to do. But that would be funny. strike,
strike, you know, sold online. I mean, you couldn't even find it.
Actually, the strikers could actually be working on the
scabs. Absolutely. You bet they will. Right. I
mean, you Dan riders with, ya know, with the, with the
internet and all you could do a lot of work without ever having
to go in anywhere. Yeah, just like Wikipedia.
There you go. Just sit at home and write it.
So I don't know what's so you know, I don't know what's gonna
happen with it with that thing. I mean, a lot of this stuff's
already in the can there's a you know, it's it's, it's a strange
business. That's for sure.
Damn straight. All right, John. This was the first of what I
hope will be many chats. In our have no agenda. No agenda. Yeah,
three, four topics sounds about about right. Maybe if we do it
once a week might work, I think.
Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I don't think we I don't
think we can sustain this length. Because sometimes I
mean, the the, the interview you had with Dr. Ron was worth
discussing for a while. Yeah,
true. Okay. So what we'll see, but this I would say I agree.
This is maybe a little bit on the long side, but just under 40
minutes is pretty much the max, I think. Yeah, I agree. All
right, my friend. I'll see you. Well, maybe we'll do it in
person next week in California. I think I'm out Thursday or
Friday.
That'd be good. I cool. All right.
Don't hang up. Let me end the show. Yeah, okay. No agenda dot
pod show.com. Oh, crap. I fucked it up already. Here we go by
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